Jeff Miller

December 24, 2025

Want for Christmas?

I Want to Be Like God

Jeff Miller

December 24, 2025

Want for Christmas?

Introduction:

Psalm 115:8 – Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.

Ephesians 5:1 – Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.

Hebrews 10:28 - Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

John 8:1-11

I Want to Be Like God (John 1:14–18)

Grace without TRUTH = Not like Jesus.
Truth without GRACE = Not like Jesus.
GRACE and TRUTH = Like Jesus.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:37-00:39
Turn in your Bibles to John chapter one.
00:41-00:50
And while you're turning there, just gonna ask, we pause for a second, and I would ask that you would please pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's word.
00:51-00:58
And I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what it is God is telling us here tonight, this passage, all right?
00:58-00:58
Let's pray.
01:01-01:02
Father, we thank you for your word.
01:04-01:20
And it's easy tonight to get so caught up in, I guess the decorations and the sentimentality and all of that, but God, this is really no different than what we normally do.
01:21-01:26
We come to worship you, come to know you, come to hear from your word.
01:27-01:32
I just ask, Father, that your spirit be at work with your word today in a profound way.
01:34-01:36
Make us into the people that you've called us to be.
01:37-01:39
We pray in Jesus' name.
01:39-01:43
And all of God's people said, amen.
01:46-01:51
You become like that which you worship.
01:53-01:54
It's a true statement.
01:55-01:57
You become like that which you worship.
01:59-02:02
You know, it's really obvious in children.
02:03-02:19
I mean, just looking back at my life, if you would have found me in the late '70s, early '80s, I would have been walking around with torn pants and a torn shirt because I was the Incredible Hulk.
02:20-02:21
Remember that show, "Leuphorigno"?
02:22-02:22
That was me.
02:23-02:23
(growls)
02:26-02:34
Oh, then you go forward just a couple of years and I would have been running around the house with a sword fighting Skeletor.
02:35-02:39
By the power of Grayskull, I was He-Man, right?
02:40-02:44
And then you go forward a few more years, early '90s.
02:46-02:47
Grunge.
02:49-02:57
Ironically, I once again had ripped pants on and the flannel shirt, the mop hair.
02:59-03:04
And you can laugh and make fun of me all you want, but I know some of you got hammer pants in your closet.
03:07-03:14
Some of you ladies back then had a Debbie Gibson haircut because you become like that what you worship.
03:18-03:20
It wasn't even my idea.
03:20-03:21
Actually, the Bible says this.
03:22-03:30
Psalm 115 verse eight says, regarding idols, says, "Those who make them become like them.
03:31-03:37
So to all who trust in them, you become like that which you worship." And then we come to church.
03:40-03:42
We come to church and the truth is still the same.
03:44-03:56
Because Ephesians 5, one says, "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children." Like, well, how do we imitate God?
04:00-04:01
by worshiping Him.
04:01-04:02
That's how.
04:04-04:05
It starts with worshiping Him.
04:07-04:16
You're like, okay, all right, but how in the world, even worshiping Him, how can I imitate God?
04:18-04:23
And you know, I think that's one of the most awesome things about the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
04:24-04:40
What we're celebrating at Christmas, God became a man, And I think that's one of the most awesome things, one of the most glorious things, is that we get to see what God's holiness and love looks like in a human on this planet interacting with other humans.
04:41-04:44
It's not conceptual, we've seen it.
04:48-04:50
Yeah, the Christmas story, it's a familiar story, right?
04:53-04:57
You know, you got the manger and the shepherds and the light.
05:00-05:03
But that's Matthew and Luke's version.
05:04-05:12
Matthew and Luke in your Bible give the historical version, but we're looking at John this year, and John gives the theological version.
05:14-05:21
That God became something He's never been without ceasing to be what He's always been.
05:24-05:26
It's the miracle of Christmas.
05:26-05:32
God entered the world through childbirth, becoming a real human being while remaining God.
05:36-05:37
So what do you want for Christmas?
05:39-05:45
We started this series, we said, "I want to know God." The only way you can know God is through Jesus.
05:45-05:47
Jesus is the revelation of God.
05:47-05:50
He is the living word of God, right?
05:50-06:00
And on Sunday, Pastor Taylor gave a message, "I wanna belong to God." The only way you belong to God also is through Jesus Christ.
06:01-06:11
It's through Jesus, through his death and his resurrection, that our sins can be forgiven, that we can have the promise of eternal life, that we can be adopted children of God.
06:12-06:18
Tonight, I wanna be like God.
06:20-06:20
What do you want for Christmas?
06:23-06:25
Really, all I want is to be like God.
06:30-06:34
This section we're looking at talks about the glory of Jesus Christ.
06:34-06:39
Those who received him get to know how glorious our God is.
06:41-06:43
And when we worship him, we do become like him.
06:44-06:48
So look at verse 14, John chapter one.
06:49-07:04
It says, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." Mark that, grace and truth, full of grace and truth.
07:04-07:15
Verse 15, "John bore witness about Him and cried out, this was He of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me because He was before me.
07:17-07:28
"From his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace." I love that last phrase, grace upon grace.
07:30-07:34
It's just waves and waves and waves of grace.
07:35-07:35
That's Jesus.
07:36-07:37
He's not stingy with his grace.
07:40-07:45
And he tells us in verse 16 that we've received from his fullness.
07:47-07:49
We've received from the fullness of grace.
07:49-07:50
You know what that means?
07:52-08:01
We're always in, if you belong to Jesus, you're always in the waves and waves of his grace.
08:01-08:06
Meaning, I can't say, well, I came to Christ in 1995.
08:07-08:08
Boy, you should have seen me back then.
08:09-08:11
I really needed his grace back then.
08:13-08:16
I need his grace just as much today as I did then.
08:18-08:25
And if I live tomorrow, I'm going to need His grace just as much tomorrow as I do today and as I did then.
08:29-08:30
But that's the good news.
08:31-08:37
He says, "Grace upon grace upon grace," that if you're in Christ, you're always in it.
08:38-08:39
He just keeps on giving it to us.
08:40-08:41
On your best day, you're in His grace.
08:42-08:43
On your worst day, you're in His grace.
08:46-08:50
Look at verse 17, he says, "For the law was given through Moses.
08:50-08:58
Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." There it is again, grace and truth, grace and truth.
08:58-09:00
But the law though, he mentions the law.
09:02-09:03
The law came through Moses.
09:03-09:07
There was no grace in the law.
09:09-09:12
Like you read your old testaments, there's only judgment.
09:12-09:14
You break the law, you're guilty.
09:14-09:17
In fact, the New Testament talks about that in Hebrews chapter 10.
09:18-09:24
Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy in the evidence of two or three witnesses.
09:27-09:29
There's no mercy, just guilt.
09:30-09:31
That's what the law does.
09:31-09:32
The law kills.
09:33-09:35
The law only shows you that you are a sinner.
09:39-09:45
Yet through Jesus comes, Did you see it again?
09:46-09:46
Grace and truth.
09:48-09:54
He's showing us that there's a stark contrast to the law with what came in Jesus Christ.
09:57-09:59
Verse 18 kind of sums up the whole passage.
10:01-10:03
Really sums up everything that we're celebrating at Christmas.
10:04-10:05
Here it is.
10:05-10:07
No one has ever seen God.
10:09-10:17
The only God who was at the Father's side, "He has made him known." God the Son has made God known.
10:18-10:26
John is saying we saw everything that is God, we saw that in Jesus Christ.
10:31-10:32
So what's he like?
10:35-10:41
What has God shown us of his character in Jesus Christ?
10:42-10:43
I mean, what's he like?
10:45-10:50
Well you notice in this passage, he said it in verse 14 and he said it in verse 17.
10:51-10:57
If you were to say, "All right, describe God in two words," he does.
10:58-11:18
He says, "Here's what God is like, two words, grace and truth." Those two words exemplified who Jesus Christ is, who is the perfect expression of who God is.
11:20-11:21
Grace and truth.
11:23-11:25
I want to talk about grace and truth for a few minutes.
11:27-11:28
What is grace?
11:28-11:31
Well, grace is compassion.
11:31-11:32
It's mercy.
11:34-11:35
Grace is kindness and patience.
11:38-11:39
Grace is forgiveness.
11:41-11:42
Read your Bibles.
11:42-11:48
Jesus always manifests just a tender, loving grace.
11:51-11:54
So He's full of grace, but it also says He's full of truth.
11:55-11:56
Truth.
11:57-11:59
Jesus always spoke the truth.
12:00-12:00
Read your Bibles.
12:01-12:03
Jesus always upheld the authority of God's word.
12:07-12:09
Jesus never told half truths.
12:10-12:12
Jesus never minimized the truth.
12:12-12:15
Jesus never downplayed scripture, contradicted the Old Testament.
12:16-12:18
Jesus never sugarcoated it.
12:18-12:19
He never watered it down.
12:19-12:24
And he never, not once ever did he apologize for what the Bible says.
12:28-12:29
I wanna be like God.
12:31-12:46
And when we look at this character of Jesus, it is astounding, full of grace and truth, simultaneously full.
12:48-12:56
And we could have this temptation to just kind of step back and admire that, like, wow, isn't that awesome?
12:56-12:59
Isn't that an awesome representation of God?
12:59-13:09
But you know, and we should do that, yes, but the Bible doesn't tell us that we should just admire the character of Jesus.
13:11-13:16
The Bible tells us that Jesus' character isn't something just to impress us.
13:19-13:23
Bible says that we should imitate his character.
13:25-13:29
I mean, so many times, right, We are called to imitate Jesus.
13:30-13:35
Matthew 11, Jesus says, "Learn from me." John 13, he was washing the disciples' grimy feet.
13:36-13:54
And Jesus said, "I'm doing this to show you an example that you should do the same." Philippians 2, Paul says, "Have this mind, which is yours in Christ Jesus." 1 Peter 2.21 that Pastor Rich just read says that Jesus is an example and we should follow in his steps.
13:57-14:11
And then we turn to John 1 here, and it says, verse 16, "From his fullness, we have all received." That we don't worship a distant God.
14:13-14:19
We worship a God, according to this, who is to be received.
14:21-14:26
You see, I can stand up here, and I could talk for hours about grace and truth.
14:26-14:28
Don't worry, I know it's Christmas, I'm not going to.
14:28-14:29
But I could.
14:31-14:37
But unless you've received Jesus Christ, this isn't gonna matter.
14:38-14:48
Because the Bible tells us that when we truly receive him, God puts his spirit in us so that we are able to imitate his character.
14:51-14:53
So that we can truly be his image bearers.
14:56-15:07
So Jesus was full of grace and truth, perfectly full of both, a hundred percent grace and a hundred percent truth.
15:08-15:11
And this is the profound thing.
15:11-15:13
Jesus was never one or the other.
15:17-15:20
Never lopsided, never compromising one over the other.
15:20-15:52
one at the expense of another, John makes it clear. He says, "This is what God is like, Jesus Christ." And if there are two words that sum up the kind of God we worship, it's grace and truth. And we have to get that because if we're to worship God and therefore imitate If we're to represent God to the world, we have to imitate grace and truth as displayed by Jesus.
15:54-15:57
So you know what our problem is.
16:00-16:07
Our problem is we are not perfectly full of grace and truth.
16:07-16:15
and the reality is each of us have a tendency to lean more towards one than the other.
16:17-16:23
Some of you are more grace people, and some of you are more truth people.
16:30-16:42
And I just want to show you tonight that you can't be content to lean in one direction because that's not like Jesus at all.
16:45-16:46
Like, well, can you give me an example?
16:46-16:48
Yeah, there is an example I wanna show you.
16:48-16:52
Look at John 8, just turn over in your Bibles a few pages.
16:52-17:07
I want you to see, we're just gonna read this and reference this, but if there's one story from Jesus' life that demonstrates this full of grace and full of truth at the same time character.
17:07-17:11
If there's one story that would show that, it's this one.
17:12-17:21
John 8, it says, "They went each to his own house, "but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
17:22-17:25
"Early in the morning, He came again to the temple.
17:26-17:29
"All the people came to Him, "and He sat down and taught them.
17:29-17:35
"The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman "who had been caught in adultery.
17:36-17:42
"And placing her in the midst, they said to him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught "in the act of adultery.
17:43-17:49
"Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.
17:49-17:57
"What do you say?" This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him.
18:00-18:03
Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
18:06-18:21
And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." And once more, he bent down and wrote on the ground.
18:23-18:26
But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones.
18:26-18:31
And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.
18:31-18:34
Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they?
18:34-18:47
Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, look at this, Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you.
18:49-19:04
Go and from now on, sin no more." So, if you have an outline and you're taking notes, which we always encourage you to do, I want you to jot a couple things down here.
19:05-19:06
I want to be like God.
19:07-19:11
Number one, grace without truth is not like Jesus.
19:12-19:17
Grace without truth, that's not like Jesus.
19:21-19:25
Grace without truth is weak enabling.
19:34-19:35
Never holding people accountable.
19:37-19:39
You ignore the transformation power of the Holy Spirit.
19:39-19:56
You disregard the truth that God says in His Word that we are called to righteousness and holy living, and people who lean more towards grace care more about being liked than they care about what's right and wrong.
19:58-20:04
But I want you to see in this account in John chapter 8, Jesus wasn't just grace.
20:06-20:10
He didn't say to the woman, "I affirm you.
20:12-20:13
You do you, ma'am.
20:13-20:17
"Look, don't worry about what the Bible says.
20:18-20:29
I mean, they're quoting the law of Moses and that was a long time ago and that's not really for us." And I affirm you, ma'am, he didn't say that.
20:30-20:31
He wasn't just grace.
20:32-20:34
You see, Jesus brought truth into it.
20:34-20:40
Jesus says, "Go, and from now on sin no more." What Jesus said was, "Look, adultery dishonors God.
20:40-20:42
Hey, stop living like that, okay?
20:43-20:44
Stop living like that.
20:48-20:59
And church, when we are content to overlook sin, when we're content to avoid the hard conversations, when we're ready to affirm people in their sin, that's not like Jesus.
21:06-21:10
Right now the truth people are like, "Yeah, give it to 'em.
21:10-21:16
"Give it to the grace people." Hang on, truth people, because truth without grace is not like Jesus either.
21:21-21:22
Look, I know the truth people.
21:23-21:25
We've been around some truth people, haven't we, Aaron?
21:26-21:38
Right now the truth people are like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." How in the world could it be?
21:41-21:44
I thought Harvest Bible Chapel, I thought Bible was your middle name.
21:44-21:46
Like truth is all that matters, right?
21:47-21:49
Truth, it's truth that matters.
21:50-21:56
How in the world could you have truth without grace?
21:59-22:01
We realized in John 1:17, he told us.
22:02-22:07
Look at it again, John 1:17, "For the law was given through Moses." Do you know what that is?
22:07-22:08
Do you know what the law is?
22:10-22:12
It's truth without grace.
22:17-22:20
So let me ask you, was the law truth?
22:21-22:25
This is a shouted out verbal reply question.
22:25-22:27
Was the law truth?
22:28-22:29
Yes, it was.
22:29-22:31
It is, not was, it is.
22:32-22:34
The law is truth.
22:34-22:39
100% every letter of God's law in the Old Testament is true.
22:40-22:42
But there was no grace in the law.
22:42-22:43
We referenced this earlier.
22:43-22:45
This is how the law works.
22:46-22:47
Oh, you broke the law, you're guilty.
22:48-22:49
Now it's time for your punishment.
22:49-22:51
Next, that's how the law worked.
22:55-23:04
And truth without grace leads to cold, detached transactions with other people.
23:06-23:08
That's truth without grace.
23:08-23:09
You messed up.
23:09-23:09
You're done.
23:10-23:10
You're done.
23:14-23:15
It leads to harsh judgment.
23:18-23:20
Truth without grace leaves no room for mistakes.
23:22-23:23
There's no second chances.
23:23-23:25
There's no invitation to repent.
23:25-23:28
There's no encouragement to turn it around.
23:28-23:37
Listen, people who lean more towards truth than grace usually care more about their conviction, than they care about actual people.
23:37-23:38
And that is a problem.
23:42-23:49
But you see in this John eight account with the woman caught in adultery, do you notice Jesus wasn't just truth with her?
23:49-23:49
Do you notice that?
23:52-23:55
I mean, Jesus didn't say to the woman, they bring the woman before him.
23:55-24:00
Jesus didn't say, "Hey lady, you know what the law says.
24:00-24:18
You're guilty, there's nothing to discuss." He showed her grace when He says, "Neither do I condemn you, nor will you live differently." That's grace.
24:20-24:30
And church, when we condemn people, when we are one striking you're out, when we refuse to allow people the opportunity to change, that's not like Jesus.
24:34-24:38
So we imperfect people tend to fall on one side or the other.
24:39-24:46
So now that you've heard, I just wanna ask you just for fun, which way do you lean?
24:47-24:52
Show of hands, how many of you would say that you're more grace people?
24:52-24:54
Put your hands up if you're more of a grace person.
24:55-24:55
All right?
24:59-25:54
Now raise your hand if you're more of a truth person. I have a note written from the first service. When I asked you the truth people were they were a lot more bold to put their hands up than the grace people. I think there's something to that. That'll be a sermon for Easter. Anyways, grace people, look, I love you, but you typically care more about the relationship than any sin issue, and that's not good. And truth people, you care more about upholding God's Word than loving someone in the relationship, And that's not complete either.
25:57-26:03
And you know, I've been thinking about this a lot the last couple of weeks, while you do what you do at work, this is what I do at work.
26:04-26:09
I was thinking so much like, what is it that causes people to lean one way or the other?
26:13-26:21
And I was thinking about that like, whether you sit down with a grace person or you sit down with a truth person, either way.
26:21-26:31
But I was just thinking like, if you set them down and said, "What makes you lean in the direction that you lean?" What would they say?
26:35-26:36
And then it hit me.
26:38-26:39
Do you know what it is?
26:39-26:40
And I am sure of this.
26:43-26:44
They think they're being loving.
26:45-26:46
I mean, think about it.
26:47-26:48
You sit down with the grace person.
26:49-26:50
Why do you lean more towards grace?
26:51-26:52
because it's love.
26:52-26:56
I'm loving, that's why my heart is so full of love.
26:56-26:57
I'm so full of love.
26:57-27:03
That's why, and you can't just discard the relationship just because of something the Bible says.
27:04-27:07
I'm just so full of love, deep in my heart of heart of hearts.
27:07-27:08
I'm so full of love.
27:09-27:11
That's why I'm more of a grace person.
27:12-27:19
But then, you know, if you sat down with the truth person and said, "Why do you lean more towards the truth?" Do you know what they'd say?
27:20-27:25
It's love, because what is more loving than giving people the word of our Lord?
27:26-27:31
I mean, come on, Pastor Jeff, you're a pastor, you know this, the most loving thing you can do is tell somebody the truth, right?
27:31-27:32
So that's what I do.
27:33-27:34
I don't mince words, I tell them the truth.
27:34-27:36
That's how I show love, that's how I love them.
27:37-27:38
There's nothing more loving than that.
27:38-27:41
I'm more truth because that's the loving thing to do.
27:50-27:59
There's a huge mistake in that line of thinking, isn't there?
28:00-28:07
It's a mistake to think that grace is love, because it's not.
28:09-28:13
And it's a mistake to think that truth is love, because it's not.
28:14-28:15
You know what is love?
28:18-28:19
God is love.
28:21-28:34
And as a man, Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, showed true love by being full of grace and truth both.
28:39-28:41
Well, that's number three.
28:44-28:45
What do you want for Christmas?
28:45-28:45
I want to be like God.
28:46-28:47
Well, grace and truth is like Jesus.
28:50-28:54
And see, that's the point of the story of the woman caught in adultery.
28:54-28:57
Jesus showed her grace and truth at the same time.
28:58-29:00
Grace, He forgave her.
29:00-29:03
He says, "Neither do I condemn you." That's grace.
29:03-29:04
at the same time.
29:05-29:06
Jesus said, "Your lifestyle is wrong.
29:07-29:10
"Go and sin no more." Jesus gave both.
29:10-29:20
He says, "I forgive you, now let's do better." Church, we need to learn this.
29:25-29:33
We need to be people who represent Jesus accurately, full of grace and truth.
29:33-29:46
I'm not a group of people that enable in the name of love, not a group of people who condemn in the name of upholding the Word.
29:48-29:56
We need to be a people who demonstrate acceptance and accountability at the same time.
29:58-30:12
As John Piper put it, people who say, "I love you, but this is wrong." Parents, you've got to get that with your kids.
30:15-30:19
Some of you parents need to sit down with your kids and say, "Look, I love you.
30:19-30:26
I accept you, and nothing will ever change that, but this habit you have is wrong, and you need to stop this.
30:27-30:30
and I'm going to help you stop this because I love you.
30:30-30:30
Do you see that?
30:30-30:32
That's grace and truth both.
30:34-30:38
Some of you have family or friends that are stuck in a sinful lifestyle.
30:38-30:39
Maybe it's an addiction.
30:40-30:50
Maybe they're in an unbiblical relationship regarding marriage and sexuality, and you need to sit down and say, "Look, I care about you, but what you're doing is dishonoring the Lord.
30:50-30:52
Come on, let's get on a better path here.
30:53-31:01
Let's get on track." And for some of you, maybe it's even in church, maybe it's in your small group.
31:02-31:08
Somebody flagrantly in sin and you're like, "I don't know what to do here, "I don't know how to handle them." Here's how you handle them.
31:08-31:28
You pull them aside and you sit down with them and you say, "Look, what you're doing is wrong, "but I'm going to do everything that I can "to help you get on track because I care about you so much." You see, it's grace that refuses to beat people down, but it's truth that refuses to overlook sin.
31:31-31:32
So what do you want for Christmas?
31:35-31:36
I wanna imitate God.
31:40-31:51
And the only way to imitate God, to demonstrate a love for God's word and a love for God's people, is being like Jesus.
31:54-32:03
according to the Bible is full of grace and truth.
32:05-32:16
Our worship team would make their way back up and our candle lighters would come forward.
32:19-32:28
We're going to close our service By singing to candlelight.
32:30-32:35
Why on Christmas Eve do we sing by candlelight?
32:39-32:41
Because it's pretty, right?
32:42-32:43
It's so pretty.
32:46-32:56
And it's a tradition, but this year, there's another reason that we're doing this.
32:58-33:06
This year, thank you, Ashley, this year, it's also an illustration.
33:09-33:18
In anticipation of this service, you know, I was looking at the order of service and thinking about this moment actually right now.
33:19-33:21
And I was thinking about this flame.
33:24-33:26
I thought, you know, what is that flame?
33:27-33:31
But two things perfectly.
33:33-33:41
The flame is light and heat, right?
33:44-33:46
You can see the light, you'll just have to trust me on the heat.
33:46-33:50
I mean, you can try it out if you like, but it's hot.
33:53-33:57
But you see that flame, it's not one or the other.
33:59-34:00
It's light and heat.
34:01-34:05
And it can't be one or the other.
34:05-34:10
If you're gonna have the flame, you're going to have light and heat both.
34:10-35:02
You could say it is full of both aspects, light and heat. And as we sing, I just want you to look down at that flame and recognize how perfectly full it is of both light and heat. And then as you sing, I want you to think about grace and truth. Because like the flame imitating Jesus, you are to be full both at the same time. We want to thank you for coming out and worshiping our Lord, and it is my prayer that your worship is genuine, because then your imitation of Him will also be genuine.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 1:14-18

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Define “glory” (John 1:14). What did John actually see when he says “we have seen His glory”?
Do you tend to lean more towards “grace” or “truth” when dealing with someone’s sin? Why? What do you need to do to be “full of grace and truth” like Jesus?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Taylor Brown

December 21, 2025

Want for Christmas?

I Want to Belong to God

Taylor Brown

December 21, 2025

Want for Christmas?

Introduction:

I Want to Belong to Jesus… (John 1:4–13)

Because He gives me an UNBEATABLE HOPE. (John 1:4–5)
Because He gives me a MEANINGFUL MISSION. (John 1:6–8)

Isaiah 40:3 – A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

John 3:30 – He must increase, but I must decrease.
Because He gives me a SPOT IN HIS FAMILY THAT I CANNOT EARN. (John 1:9–13)

John 3:19–20 – And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:43-00:50
Well as you turn to John chapter one, I wanna ask you the same exact question that you just heard in the video.
00:51-00:56
I wanna ask you a question that Pastor Jeff brought to your attention last week in his message.
00:56-01:01
It's probably a question that you're tired of hearing and asking this holiday season.
01:02-01:05
What do you want for Christmas?
01:06-01:14
With Christmas being so close, you have asked and heard the answer I've answered that question many times over the past several weeks.
01:15-01:22
And the questions you've, the answers you've heard and the answers you've given include an Awala water bottle.
01:22-01:23
Isn't that popular?
01:23-01:24
Is that still popular?
01:24-01:25
I don't really know.
01:25-01:26
A red light therapy mask.
01:26-01:27
Anybody want that?
01:28-01:29
That's popular on Instagram, isn't it?
01:30-01:32
A massive Lego set.
01:32-01:34
A Nintendo Switch 2.
01:34-01:35
New AirPods.
01:36-01:41
A smart ring, which I guess is kind of like but a ring on your finger, I don't really know.
01:42-01:43
Or fancy golf clubs.
01:44-01:50
But there are many things that you want for Christmas that you cannot write down on a wish list.
01:51-01:56
There are many things you want for Christmas that cannot be bought or wrapped.
01:57-01:58
Maybe you want that big promotion.
02:00-02:04
Maybe you want that bonus this year that you aren't sure is coming.
02:05-02:10
Maybe you want healing in your own body or in the body of a loved one.
02:11-02:11
Here's a big one.
02:12-02:16
Maybe you want to feel like you belong.
02:17-02:20
You want to not be rejected.
02:21-02:25
That is a desire that every single person in this room shares.
02:26-02:32
It's a desire that starts when you're young and it continues on for the rest of your life.
02:33-02:41
As a kid and then a teenager, Every single one of us was desperate to fit in and have a group of friends to belong to.
02:43-02:50
Rejection is painful, and it leaves lasting memories, especially when you're a kid.
02:51-02:56
You know, growing up, my friends and I used to have a sleepover almost every single Friday night.
02:57-03:02
And during 11th grade, there was a month-long stretch where there was no sleepovers.
03:03-03:03
And I was really confused.
03:04-03:06
I didn't know why this routine had been broken.
03:07-03:13
So one day at the lunch table, I said to my friends, hey guys, we haven't had a sleepover in a while, do you guys wanna come to my house this Sunday?
03:14-03:19
And whenever I said that, everyone at the table erupted in uncontrollable laughter.
03:20-03:23
And I was, again, just very, very confused.
03:24-03:27
After they were all done and calmed down, I said, what's so funny?
03:28-03:37
They then proceeded to tell me that they thought it would be hilarious to not invite me to sleepovers for a while, to see how long it would take me to notice and say something.
03:39-03:43
I missed a whole month of sleepovers with my friends.
03:44-03:48
And to be honest, in that moment, externally, I tried to laugh it off.
03:49-03:51
I tried to act like it wasn't a big deal.
03:52-03:54
But internally, I felt rejected.
03:56-03:58
I felt like I didn't belong.
04:00-04:01
You ever felt that way before?
04:04-04:05
A friend stopped talking to you?
04:07-04:11
A family member cut off communication for seemingly no reason?
04:13-04:17
A boyfriend or girlfriend ended the relationship without warning?
04:19-04:24
Your spouse chose to give up on the marriage and leave?
04:26-04:28
You have felt rejected before.
04:29-04:32
You have felt like you don't belong.
04:35-04:36
Do you feel that way right now?
04:37-04:42
Maybe you couldn't care less about what gifts you're gonna get under the Christmas tree this year.
04:43-04:47
Maybe you don't want anything from Amazon or the mall.
04:47-04:51
More than anything this year, you just want to experience that sense of belonging.
04:52-05:00
You want to know that there are people who love you, who care about you, and will never let go of you no matter what you do.
05:03-05:09
I can't guarantee you that sense of belonging with your family and with your friends this Christmas.
05:10-05:11
I wish I could, but I can't.
05:12-05:19
But I can guarantee there is someone infinitely greater who will give you that sense of belonging.
05:19-05:28
I can guarantee there is someone who will not reject you, who will not turn away from you if you truly turn to him, and that person is Jesus Christ.
05:30-05:32
There is no one better to belong to.
05:33-05:36
There is no one better to be loved by.
05:37-05:42
There is no one with a tighter grip in all of existence than him.
05:43-05:58
I want you to walk out of this service this morning if you're a believer with a greater sense of confidence that you were loved by Jesus Christ, that you are safe and secure in his steady hands.
05:58-06:00
There is no better gift than that.
06:02-06:10
And if you're not a Christian this morning, I want you to know that the invitation has been extended to belong to Christ.
06:11-06:13
He commands you to follow him.
06:14-06:21
He invites you to enjoy his acceptance and not fear others' rejection.
06:22-06:29
More than anything, I want all of you in this room to wanna belong to Jesus this Christmas.
06:31-06:34
So before we continue any further, let's go to the Lord and ask for his help.
06:35-06:41
Please pray for me that I will faithfully represent God's word and I will pray for you that you will faithfully receive it.
06:43-06:55
Father, we come to you and we bring all of our pain to you, all of our fears, all of our deepest, darkest worries that we're afraid to admit to other people.
06:58-07:11
Lord, in this room, I'm sure there's many, many stories of rejection, many, many stories of feeling like we don't belong, and I'm sure if we brought everybody up on stage to share how they feel that there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house today.
07:14-07:21
Lord, we ask that you bring the comfort that only you can, that you would challenge us, you would tear us down that you can build us back up again.
07:24-07:27
And Lord, I do ask for myself, Lord, your word is perfect, but I am not.
07:29-07:37
I do not feel up to the task of proclaiming such a glorious passage, but Lord, give me your strength, give me your wisdom.
07:37-07:44
I pray for everyone in this room that you would give them the faith to receive your word today.
07:46-07:49
I pray that you would seek and save the lost.
07:50-07:55
And for the rest of us, Lord, we would walk out of this room with a greater sense of confidence in who we belong to.
07:57-07:59
We ask all this in Jesus' mighty name, amen.
08:01-08:07
Well, as a quick refresher, let's reread the verses that Pastor Jeff covered last week.
08:07-08:11
This will set the table and help us to understand the context of our passage this morning.
08:11-08:14
So John chapter one, verses one through three.
08:14-08:22
"In the beginning was the word, "and the word was with God, and the word was God." He was in the beginning with God.
08:23-08:29
All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
08:30-08:34
These verses are all about who Jesus is.
08:34-08:37
He is the word of God who created all things.
08:38-08:41
Without Jesus, this universe would not exist.
08:41-08:43
This world would not exist.
08:43-08:46
You would not exist.
08:47-08:53
Jesus is the source and sustainer of everything that you can see and everything that you cannot see.
08:55-08:57
Jesus isn't just the word of God.
08:58-09:01
John says that he is God himself.
09:03-09:11
Verses one through three focus on who Jesus is, while verses four through 13 focus on what Jesus gives.
09:13-09:20
If you properly understand who Jesus is and what Jesus gives, you will want to belong to him.
09:21-09:30
You will want to belong to him because no one can compare to who Jesus is and nothing can compare to what Jesus gives.
09:32-09:36
So our outline for this morning, I want to belong to Jesus.
09:37-09:42
I want to belong to Jesus, first reason, because he gives me an unbeatable hope.
09:44-09:47
Because he gives me an unbeatable hope.
09:49-09:51
Let's read chapter one, verse four.
09:51-09:57
In him, in Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men.
09:59-10:04
Life was and is found in Jesus and him alone.
10:05-10:08
As we already discussed, Jesus made all things.
10:08-10:10
He is the source of all life on earth.
10:10-10:12
He is the cause of everything.
10:13-10:17
But He's not just the cause of physical life.
10:17-10:21
He is the only supplier of eternal life as well.
10:22-10:28
There is no other viable option to turn to or to search for besides Jesus.
10:30-10:32
But that doesn't stop us from trying, does it?
10:33-10:38
Billions have tried and billions have failed and trying to find true life apart from Jesus.
10:39-10:44
And you and I have tried our hand at this pointless search as well.
10:45-10:53
Trying to find life in our jobs, in our finances, in our status, our stuff, and even our families.
10:55-10:57
Life cannot be found in your job.
10:57-11:00
You realize that one day you will have to retire.
11:02-11:03
You may get let go from that job.
11:05-11:07
One day that job will belong to someone else.
11:09-11:12
Your life is not found in how much money you have.
11:13-11:14
Let me ask you a question.
11:14-11:18
How much of the money in your various accounts will you be able to take with you when you die?
11:21-11:21
[CAT MEOWS]
11:21-11:22
Do we not know the answer?
11:24-11:26
Not a single dime.
11:27-11:30
Life is not found in your status and popularity.
11:31-11:33
There will always be someone bigger and better than you.
11:35-11:40
In 150 or 200 years, how many people on this planet will be thinking about you?
11:42-11:46
The most likely answer is not a single soul.
11:48-11:50
Life is not even found in your family.
11:51-11:57
As great as your spouse, your kids, your relatives might be, they cannot meet the deepest needs of your soul.
11:58-12:00
Can your spouse forgive you of your sins?
12:01-12:05
Can your kids give you that unbeatable hope that you're looking for?
12:06-12:06
No.
12:07-12:09
Can your family guarantee your eternity?
12:11-12:11
No.
12:12-12:19
All of those needs can only be met by Jesus Christ who is the only source of life.
12:22-12:26
And John goes on to say that this life was the light of men.
12:28-12:29
sounds pretty cool, right?
12:29-12:30
But what does that actually mean?
12:30-12:33
The life was the light of men.
12:34-12:38
I'm no scientist, but let me give you a quick pop quiz in astronomy.
12:38-12:41
What do all the planets in the solar system orbit around?
12:43-12:45
You're all really tired this morning.
12:45-12:46
What is it again?
12:46-12:48
All right, very, very good.
12:48-12:50
Could we survive without the sun?
12:51-12:53
What does the sun do for us?
12:54-13:01
is the major source of life, because it is the major source of light and heat on this planet.
13:02-13:05
Without the sun shining as it does, we would all freeze to death.
13:06-13:10
Without the sun shining as it does, we would not be able to see anything.
13:11-13:13
We would be lost in the darkness.
13:15-13:21
Without the light of Christ shining as it does, we would not be able to see and understand the truth.
13:22-13:27
Without the light of Christ shining as it does, we would not know how to be saved.
13:27-13:31
We would not know how to have a relationship, a friendship with God.
13:31-13:38
Without the light of Christ shining as it does, we would be hopeless and lost in the darkness of our sin.
13:39-13:45
Without the light of Christ shining as it does, none of us would have any spiritual life.
13:48-13:51
Who is the light of the sun offered to?
13:54-14:01
The 8.3 billion people on this planet, who is the light of the Son of God offered to?
14:03-14:07
Same exact answer, the 8.3 billion people on this planet.
14:08-14:16
But as we'll see in a few minutes, many choose to hide from his light, and by doing so, they miss out on the life that he offers.
14:17-14:22
But that does not stop Jesus from shining his light, which we see in verse five, read that with me.
14:23-14:28
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
14:30-14:34
The word overcome in this verse can also be translated as comprehended or understood.
14:35-14:39
And many scholars believe that John picked this word for a very specific reason.
14:39-14:41
He chose this word because it has a double meaning.
14:43-14:47
Each of these words make sense in context and are flip sides of one another.
14:49-14:51
So let's cover one side of the coin first.
14:51-14:55
Let's cover the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.
14:57-15:01
You know, I walk my dog Murdoch almost every single night at 10 p.m. after the family is asleep.
15:02-15:05
And my wife hates this plan because she thinks I'm gonna get pancaked by a car.
15:05-15:10
It hasn't happened yet, so please just pray for me that this trend continues and I'm able to be safe.
15:11-15:15
But there is this one house in my neighborhood that fascinates me.
15:16-15:23
This house has a lamppost in the front yard that shines brightly for about 10 to 20 seconds, then it just shuts off.
15:24-15:27
And it comes back on a few seconds later.
15:28-15:31
And it happens every single night for the past year.
15:32-15:37
And this may sound strange to you, but I think about that lamppost almost every single day.
15:38-15:47
Every single time I exit the house to go take Murdoch on this walk, I wonder is tonight gonna be the night when that light is extinguished.
15:48-15:53
Is tonight the night when darkness will overcome that person's yard?
15:55-15:56
'Cause there's something wrong with that lamppost.
15:56-15:58
There's something wrong with the bulb.
15:58-15:59
There's something wrong with the wiring.
16:00-16:02
It's just a matter of time.
16:03-16:05
I don't have much faith in that lamppost.
16:06-16:11
I don't think you would have much faith in that lamppost if you took a field trip to my neighborhood and drove past it.
16:12-16:16
But do you know who you should have total and complete faith in?
16:16-16:22
Do you know whose light you should never wonder or worry about being extinguished?
16:22-16:23
Jesus Christ.
16:24-16:27
The light of his glory never flickers.
16:28-16:31
The light of his gracious love never turns off.
16:31-16:34
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
16:35-16:44
No matter how dark this world gets, no matter how bleak your life looks, Jesus Christ is shining just as brightly as he always has.
16:46-16:53
Sin, injustice, and evil cannot lower the intensity of who he is and what he has done.
16:53-16:59
Nothing and no one can turn the dimmer switch down on the light of the world.
17:01-17:03
Let's flip over to the other side of the coin.
17:04-17:09
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it.
17:10-17:12
You know, Satan and his demons are crafty.
17:12-17:13
I'll give them that.
17:13-17:14
They are intelligent.
17:15-17:23
But at the same time, these evil forces are complete morons in comparison to the all-knowing, all-wise God of the universe.
17:24-17:32
The devil and his demons are fighting a losing battle because they cannot figure out a way to extinguish the light of Christ.
17:33-17:39
They're like a bunch of roided up bodybuilders trying to push over a mountain with their bare hands.
17:39-17:40
It's just not gonna happen.
17:41-17:46
Their attempts to snuff out the light only fan it into flame even more.
17:48-17:51
The harder they try, the harder they fail.
17:52-17:55
No matter what they do, Jesus keeps forgiving more and more people.
17:56-17:58
No matter what they try, the church keeps getting built up.
17:59-18:04
No matter what scheme they hatch, the kingdom of God keeps advancing.
18:05-18:11
Satan and his workers have already been defeated by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
18:12-18:15
They know that eternal judgment awaits them.
18:16-18:19
Are they gonna go quietly without a fight until Jesus returns?
18:20-18:23
No, they are kicking and screaming like bratty children.
18:25-18:31
And I know that their kicking and screaming causes a lot of pain and hardship to every single person in this room.
18:33-18:36
But they cannot change the ending that God has already written.
18:37-18:42
The light will win because the darkness cannot overcome it or understand it.
18:45-18:46
That is certain.
18:47-18:48
That is a fact.
18:51-18:56
Maybe you've been a believer for months, for years, and maybe even for decades.
18:57-19:00
And you know the truths of verses four and five intellectually.
19:02-19:07
You have a very hard time believing these truths emotionally and experientially.
19:09-19:14
You're in a tough season right now and you feel like the darkness is winning.
19:15-19:18
You feel like the light is losing.
19:19-19:23
You feel like the darkness understands how to overcome the light just fine.
19:24-19:29
You feel like you cannot have victory over that sin pattern in your life.
19:31-19:36
You feel like there is more sin in you There is mercy in Christ.
19:38-19:41
You feel helpless, you feel hopeless.
19:45-19:47
If that's how you feel right now, my heart goes out to you.
19:48-19:49
'Cause I've been there before.
19:50-19:51
And I'm sure I'll be there again.
19:53-19:56
If that's how you feel, I wanna challenge you to stop looking at you.
19:57-20:00
Stop looking at your circumstances.
20:00-20:02
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
20:03-20:06
Focus your attention on what He has given to you.
20:06-20:11
Root your confidence in the new and everlasting life that has been given to you.
20:12-20:19
Ask the Holy Spirit to re-energize you with the light you see when you open up the pages of this book during your daily quiet time.
20:21-20:23
You understand your hope is not found in you.
20:25-20:29
You understand that your hope is not even found in your circumstances changing.
20:30-20:33
Your hope is found in belonging to Christ.
20:35-20:42
When you belong to Christ, you are given an unbeatable hope from an unbeatable savior.
20:45-20:49
I want to belong to Jesus because he gives me an unbeatable hope.
20:49-20:54
I want to belong to Jesus because he gives me a meaningful mission.
20:55-21:00
That's the second reason on your outline, because he gives me a meaningful mission.
21:05-21:08
In verses four through five, John talks about the message of the light.
21:09-21:13
In verses six through eight, John talks about the messenger of the light.
21:13-21:14
Let's read these verses together.
21:15-21:18
There is a man sent from God whose name was John.
21:19-21:24
He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
21:24-21:28
was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
21:30-21:34
So be clear, John is referencing a totally different John here.
21:34-21:34
That's kind of confusing.
21:35-21:36
What John is he talking about?
21:38-21:39
John the Baptist.
21:40-21:41
Why couldn't it have had a different name?
21:41-21:45
Why couldn't it have been like Bill the Baptist or Barron the Baptist or whatever?
21:45-21:46
Why did it have to be John?
21:46-21:47
Well, don't worry, we'll make it work.
21:48-21:49
We'll deal with it.
21:49-21:59
John the Baptist was sent by God as a messenger to prepare the way for the promised Messiah and Savior who is prophesied about all throughout the Old Testament.
22:00-22:03
And John was prophesied of in the Old Testament as well.
22:04-22:08
Isaiah 40, verse three, a voice cries, "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
22:09-22:24
"Make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Malachi 3, 1, "Behold, I send my messenger, "and he will prepare the way before me." John the Baptist came to roll out the red carpet for the coming king.
22:25-22:29
He didn't come so that others would believe in him and believe in his greatness.
22:30-22:34
He came so that others might believe in Christ through him.
22:36-22:42
And John the Baptist's followers once came to him to give him the news that a lot of people were following Jesus.
22:43-22:44
He was getting more popular.
22:45-22:49
And his disciples were even baptizing people, which is kind of like John's main thing.
22:49-22:51
It's his name, right, John the Baptist.
22:51-22:53
Like, John, don't you realize that all this is happening?
22:56-22:57
Jesus is getting more popular than you.
22:59-23:00
Did this frustrate John?
23:02-23:02
Was he jealous?
23:04-23:12
Not at all, he was actually really, really excited because he was successfully carrying out the meaningful mission that God had entrusted to him.
23:13-23:16
Here's the response he gives his disciples.
23:16-23:27
He says, "He, Jesus, must increase, "but I must decrease." That was the slogan of John's life in ministry.
23:28-23:31
That should be the slogan of your life in ministry as well.
23:32-23:36
He must increase, but I must decrease.
23:36-23:38
You realize you're not the point of anything.
23:39-23:40
Jesus is.
23:41-23:43
John the Baptist wasn't the point of anything either.
23:43-24:14
Jesus was his mission was to point everyone to Christ to bear witness to his light And I know what some of you serious students of the Bible may be thinking right now you're internally objecting a bit Hold on a minute pastor Taylor. You're saying that Jesus is the light and John the Baptist wasn't but later on in this gospel didn't Jesus say that John was like a lamp that was shining and And doesn't Jesus tell us that all Christians are the light of the world?
24:15-24:16
How does this all make sense?
24:18-24:22
Well, yeah, Jesus does say that in Matthew 5.14 and in John 5.35.
24:24-24:29
To help answer those great questions, let me slip on my lab coat again and give you another pop quiz in astronomy.
24:31-24:39
When you look up in the night sky and you see the moon shining bright, does that moon actually have any light of its own?
24:40-24:42
Where does its light come from?
24:43-24:48
The sun, the light of the moon is shared and reflected.
24:49-24:52
It's the same for John and it's the same for you and me.
24:52-24:57
We have a shared and reflected light that is given to us by Jesus Christ.
24:58-25:07
All throughout John chapter one, verses four through 13, the Greek word phos is used in reference to Christ and phos is the essence of light.
25:08-25:13
In John 5.35, the Greek word luknos is used to describe John.
25:13-25:15
A luknos is a portable lamp.
25:16-25:21
Jesus is the light, while John is the lamp that displays the light.
25:23-25:24
A candle cannot shine on its own.
25:24-25:26
It needs to be given the light of a flame.
25:28-25:30
A lamp in your house cannot shine on its own.
25:30-25:33
It needs to be given the light of a bulb.
25:35-25:38
Jesus Christ is the sun, and you are the moon.
25:38-25:41
Jesus Christ is the flame, you are the candle.
25:42-25:45
Jesus Christ is the bulb and you are the lamp.
25:46-25:51
You are here on this earth to display his light to everyone.
25:52-25:55
To shine his light in the darkness.
25:55-25:59
To bear witness about his light because you have none of your own.
26:01-26:03
And I know what some of you are thinking at this point.
26:03-26:14
Okay Taylor, I know I need to buckle down, I need to share the gospel, I need to make disciples, I need to shine his light everywhere I go, I'll do that as soon as the holidays are over.
26:15-26:18
Whenever Christmas is in the rear view mirror, I'll get right on that.
26:21-26:21
No you won't.
26:24-26:27
And you're thinking, where's your Christmas cheer, Pastor Taylor, what do you mean no I won't?
26:29-26:29
I mean you won't.
26:31-26:36
If you will not bear witness to the light of Christ today, what makes you think you'll do it tomorrow?
26:37-26:46
If you are unwilling to bear witness to the light of Christ at the end of 2025, what makes you think you'll be willing to do it at the start of 2026?
26:47-26:52
Do you understand that Christmas is the perfect time to bear witness to the light of Christ?
26:53-26:56
This is the time when you're around people you're not usually around.
26:57-27:00
This time of season's all about joy, but most people are miserable.
27:02-27:07
Most people are looking for something that they cannot find because they're looking in the wrong place.
27:09-27:12
Right now is the perfect time to bear witness to the light.
27:13-27:21
Grab a bunch of the Christmas Eve invite cards at the back table and hand them out as if you were given $100 for each one you handed out.
27:22-27:26
I'm not gonna give you $100, but the rewards you get in heaven for that will be infinitely greater.
27:28-27:36
Grab one of those invites, put it in an envelope, put money in that envelope, put a personal note in that envelope and give it to your mailman tomorrow.
27:37-27:45
Take it upon yourself to read scripture at your family get-together this week, and talk about why you're even celebrating Christmas, why Jesus came in the first place.
27:46-27:50
Stop putting off that gospel conversation with that unsaved family member at Christmas.
27:51-27:52
Finally, do it.
27:54-27:58
Invite that unbeliever who has no family in the area to your Christmas dinner.
27:59-28:00
Buy them a Bible.
28:00-28:03
Write a note in that Bible and give it to them.
28:04-28:06
I keep going and going and going.
28:07-28:11
There are so many ways to bear witness to the light of Christ this week.
28:11-28:13
Don't make excuses for why you can't.
28:14-28:17
Don't point to your calendar and say you're too busy.
28:18-28:20
This is the reason why you're here, isn't it?
28:20-28:21
To bear witness to the light.
28:22-28:26
If anything, it's other things get in the way of the most important thing on your calendar.
28:27-28:34
Don't justify your fear and laziness by saying, you don't wanna stir the pot this Christmas, you just wanna have a calm Christmas.
28:37-28:42
Shouldn't you care more about sharing the peace of Christ with your family and friends?
28:44-28:48
When you belong to Christ, you recognize that you've been given a meaningful mission.
28:49-28:54
When you belong to Christ, you value your calling way more than your comfort.
28:55-29:00
When you belong to Christ, you make disciples, you don't make excuses.
29:00-29:06
When you belong to Christ, you bear witness to his light because the darkness is everywhere that you go.
29:09-29:13
I wanna belong to Jesus because he gives me an unbeatable hope.
29:14-29:18
I wanna belong to Jesus because he gives me a meaningful mission.
29:18-29:24
I want to belong to Jesus, final reason, because he gives me a spot in his family that I cannot earn.
29:25-29:28
Because he gives me a spot in his family that I cannot earn.
29:30-29:34
We've talked about the message of the light and the messenger of the light.
29:35-29:40
Now we're gonna wrap up by talking about the two responses to the message of the light.
29:41-29:43
The first response is in verses nine through 11.
29:44-29:49
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
29:49-29:55
He was in the world and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
29:56-30:00
He came to his own and his own people did not receive him.
30:02-30:06
As I said earlier, the light of the Son of God is offered to everyone.
30:07-30:10
Anyone is welcome to step into the light.
30:10-30:16
Anyone is welcome to receive the life of Christ and be forever changed.
30:17-30:21
but most choose to step out of the light rather than into it.
30:21-30:26
Most choose to reject the life of Christ that is offered.
30:27-30:28
And this is proven by verse 11.
30:28-30:32
He came to his own people and his own people did not receive him.
30:33-30:35
And this verse has two different focuses.
30:36-30:39
When you zoom out, John is talking about mankind.
30:41-30:45
Statistically and biblically, there are way more non-Christians than Christians.
30:46-30:50
There are way more people who reject Christ than receive him.
30:50-30:52
Can we all agree on that basic fact of life?
30:53-30:58
But if you zoom in, John is talking about Israel.
30:59-31:05
Many of Jesus' fellow Jews rejected him, hated him, called for his crucifixion.
31:06-31:10
Many of the Jews rejected the message of Christ when it was shared by the apostles.
31:11-31:16
Even to this day, many Jewish people refuse to accept that Jesus is the light.
31:17-31:18
That's not always gonna be the case.
31:18-31:22
Paul does say in Romans that one day all Israel will be saved.
31:22-31:30
Don't have time to talk about that right now as Pastor Jeff often says, buy me some Pantera bread or Chick-fil-A and we'll talk about it across the street sometime.
31:31-31:32
Here's an important question.
31:34-31:37
Why do most people reject Jesus?
31:38-31:42
Why do most people not receive the light of Christ?
31:44-31:47
John gives us a very simple yet sad answer.
31:48-31:54
Later on in this gospel in chapter three, verses 19 through 20, he writes, "And this is the judgment.
31:55-32:02
"The light has come into the world, "and people love the darkness rather than the light, "because their works were evil.
32:03-32:17
"For everyone who does wicked things hates the light "and does not come to the light, "lest his works should be exposed." Have you ever been sleeping or laying in a dark room and suddenly someone turns the lights on?
32:18-32:19
Are you overjoyed by this?
32:19-32:21
Are you really excited by this?
32:22-32:23
What's your natural human response?
32:23-32:24
What do you do?
32:25-32:36
You close your eyes, you cover your face with your hands and your blanket, you yell, "Turn that light out!" That is the natural human response, physically and spiritually.
32:38-32:43
It is far more comfortable to lay in the darkness than be in the light.
32:45-32:49
It's simpler to be oblivious and not see yourself for who you really are.
32:51-32:56
It's effortless to do nothing about your greatest problem, which is your sinful nature.
32:57-33:01
It's easy to lash out at those who try to pull you into the light.
33:02-33:06
That is why most people do not receive Jesus.
33:08-33:09
They'd rather lay in the darkness.
33:10-33:13
They love their sin more than him.
33:14-33:17
That's the first response to the message of the light.
33:17-33:26
John says there's only one other response, and that's in verses 12 to 13, the best part of this entire passage.
33:28-33:43
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
33:45-33:49
The first and wrong way to respond to Jesus is rejection.
33:51-33:56
The second and right way to respond to Jesus is receiving and believing.
33:57-34:03
You reach out to receive the gift of eternal life by believing in the name of Jesus Christ.
34:04-34:09
We say that all the time, but what does it mean to believe in the name of Jesus.
34:10-34:18
Well, a name represents all of who a person is and all that a person does.
34:20-34:26
When you believe in the name of Jesus Christ, you are believing that he is who the Bible says that he is.
34:27-34:31
That he has done all the Bible says he has done.
34:32-34:37
You wholeheartedly believe that he is the word of God who created all things.
34:37-34:39
You have faith that he is the light of the world.
34:39-34:42
He is your only source of hope.
34:42-34:50
You trust that he is the Savior who died on the cross for your sins, who took the punishment that you deserve.
34:50-34:58
You submit to the reality that he is the Lord of your life, who has the divine right to tell you what to think, say, and do.
34:59-35:08
When you receive Jesus and believe in his name, John says that you are given the right to become a child of God.
35:11-35:18
There are only two children in this entire world who have the right to claim that they are my kids.
35:20-35:25
I love all the kids in this church, but I love two of those kids the most.
35:26-35:30
Only two of those kids have a legal right to say that I am their father.
35:31-35:35
Only Samuel and Emmie Brown have that legal right.
35:37-35:38
What's the evidence of this?
35:39-35:45
Well, Kate and I have their birth certificates at home as proof that those kids belong to us.
35:46-35:54
And when you belong to Christ, your spiritual birth certificate is signed and sealed by his own blood.
35:55-36:00
You are given the right to claim God as your father and Jesus as your big brother.
36:01-36:07
You have given the right to declare that you belong to the greatest family imaginable.
36:10-36:11
Can you earn this right?
36:14-36:16
Can you work your way into the family of God?
36:18-36:20
Not according to John at the end of verse 13.
36:21-36:37
He says, "Who were born not of blood, "nor the will of the flesh, "nor the will of man, but of God." You are not given the right to become a child of God because you're a good person who does nice things for other people.
36:37-36:44
You are not given the right to become a child of God because your parents are great Christians and raised you in the church.
36:45-36:50
You are not given the right to become a child of God because you come to church every once in a while.
36:50-36:53
You pray regularly and do community service projects.
36:53-37:00
You are not given the right to become a child of God because of your track record and your good works.
37:00-37:07
You are given the right to become a child of God because of the gracious work of God in Christ.
37:07-37:08
That's it.
37:09-37:11
That's the only source.
37:15-37:16
How do you respond to Jesus?
37:18-37:22
Do you reject him or do you receive him?
37:24-37:34
Do you believe in His name, His work, and His reputation, or do you believe in your name, your works, and your reputation?
37:36-37:42
One response leads to eternal destruction, while the other leads to eternal life.
37:42-37:50
One response leads to everything being taken away from you, and the other leads to everything being given to you.
37:52-37:58
Please don't leave this room without considering who Jesus is and what he is offering you.
38:00-38:03
Everything hinges on your response to him.
38:08-38:09
What do you want for Christmas?
38:11-38:12
Do you wanna belong to the world?
38:14-38:15
Or do you wanna belong to Jesus?
38:18-38:26
Do you wanna settle for the flickering hopes of this sinful culture, or do you want the unbeatable hope of an unbeatable savior?
38:27-38:30
Do you want to lead a meaningless existence?
38:31-38:36
Or do you want to carry out the meaningful mission of pointing others to the point of life?
38:38-38:42
Do you want to be a child of the devil who absolutely hates you?
38:43-38:47
Or do you want to be a child of God who unconditionally loves you?
38:49-38:53
If you have not yet believed and received Jesus, now is your chance.
38:53-38:54
Now is your opportunity.
38:55-38:59
You don't know if you're getting another opportunity past this one, so don't waste it.
39:01-39:05
The life of Christ is being offered to you right now.
39:06-39:07
Don't slap the gift away.
39:09-39:11
The light of Christ is shining in this moment.
39:12-39:15
Do not step back into the darkness once again.
39:17-39:18
Now is your time.
39:19-39:20
Now is your chance.
39:21-39:22
You're alive right now.
39:23-39:24
You're not guaranteed tomorrow.
39:28-39:28
Life is hard.
39:30-39:33
Discouragement and disappointments are all around us.
39:34-39:37
It's so easy to lose track of what's important in the darkness.
39:38-39:46
And we need the light of biblical reminders to let us know what is true, what is real, and what is right.
39:48-39:52
This ring I wear on my left hand is a symbol that I belong to my wife.
39:53-39:59
I'm taken, I'm not looking for anybody else to give me that feeling, right, to belong to.
40:01-40:08
The Lord's Supper is a powerful symbol that you belong to Christ and no one else.
40:08-40:13
You're spoken for by the Son of God and you're not looking for anyone else to give your life meaning.
40:13-40:17
You're not looking to anything else to give your life meaning.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 1:4-13

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Who or what do you often set your hopes on? Why can’t these people and things satisfy you as Jesus can?
What excuses are holding you back from bearing witness to the light? How will you bear witness to the light this week and next?
How does Jesus give us the right to become children of God? Why can’t this right be deserved or earned?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

December 14, 2025

Want for Christmas?

I Want to Know God

Jeff Miller

December 14, 2025

Want for Christmas?

Introduction:

John 17:3 – And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

John 1:18 – No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known.

I Want to Know God (John 1:1–3):

The REALITY: Jesus is GOD.

Colossians 2:9 – For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

Zechariah 12:10 – And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced…

Acts 20:28 – Pay careful attention to yourselves... to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

Hebrews 1:2 – But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
The RESPONSE: FAITH in Jesus.

Hebrews 11:6 – And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

How Can I Grow in Knowing Jesus?
1. CONFESS with your mouth.
  
  Romans 10:9 – If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
2. HEAR the Word.
  
  Romans 10:17 – So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.
3. KEEP His commandments.
  
  John 15:10 – If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:41-00:42
Stegosaurus.
00:45-00:47
Nobody asks, so I'm just going to tell you.
00:49-00:50
Game show host.
00:52-00:52
And gray.
00:54-00:57
Oh, oh, and what I want for Christmas.
01:02-01:04
I just want to know God.
01:09-01:18
Did you ever ask for something like for Christmas or whatever and somebody got you the generic version?
01:18-01:20
Has that ever happened to anybody else?
01:20-01:24
Show of hands, you wanted something and you got the generic version?
01:26-01:27
That happened to me when I was a kid.
01:28-01:33
When I was a kid, they came out with this wacky thing.
01:33-01:34
It was called a pogo ball.
01:35-01:37
How many people, show of hands, remember the pogo balls?
01:38-01:47
Okay, a few of you, one person in the first service did, or about half of the first service's attendants, remembers what a pogo ball was.
01:47-01:52
If you don't know, just imagine like a snowman with the head cut off.
01:52-01:54
It was that kind of shape, right?
01:56-02:05
And it had this hard plastic like ring that went in between these two like balls, right?
02:05-02:07
That were kind of fused together.
02:07-02:14
And you were supposed to like stand on the plastic disc and squeeze your feet on the top ball.
02:15-02:19
And then you would bounce on the pogo ball.
02:19-02:27
And the pogo ball would let you jump almost as high as you could jump if you weren't on a pogo ball.
02:31-02:33
But it was the hot item the one year.
02:34-02:36
And I wanted a pogo ball.
02:37-02:39
You know what my parents got me?
02:41-02:42
The Saturn ball.
02:46-02:51
Pogo balls, generic cousin, the Saturn ball.
02:55-03:03
And not only was it actually not fun to use, but my family was making fun of me when I did use it.
03:03-03:08
When I would jump on it, they'd be like, Here we go on our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball, our Saturn ball.
03:09-03:10
And that really hurt my feelings.
03:11-03:17
So the Saturn ball got thrown into a closet and it's probably still there until today.
03:19-03:28
But look, I know we've had this conversation before, but there's just some things you can't go generic, right?
03:28-03:38
Like ketchup, Pop-Tarts, Oreos, the generic's not the same.
03:41-03:44
Don't try to tell me that it is because you're just lying to yourself.
03:47-03:55
But nothing has been made more generic than God.
03:57-04:03
We live in a culture that is okay with the generic concept of God.
04:05-04:10
But when you get specific, people get squirrely about that.
04:12-04:20
You're like, when people say, "God bless America, "God bless America." Yeah, you can ask, "Well, which God?
04:22-04:42
"Do you mean the God of the Bible, "the one who created us, the one who judges sin, "the one who commands us to repent and believe, "the one who calls us to live our lives "according to his wisdom?" And it's like, "Oh no, not that God." But we're just okay with the generic concept.
04:42-04:48
But you see, the problem with that line of thinking is God isn't a generic concept.
04:50-04:54
In fact, God's not a concept at all.
04:56-04:57
God is a person.
05:00-05:26
God is a specific person. And as we enter into the Christmas season, you know, we know the Christmas story from Matthew and from Luke, right? We know that version of the Christmas story well with the census and Bethlehem and Mary and Joseph and angels and shepherds and mangers and the star and the magi and...
05:26-05:34
Well, Matthew and Luke sort of tell the story of the incarnation like looking over people's shoulders, right?
05:34-05:39
But we're going to be looking at the gospel of John because his Christmas story is a little different.
05:40-05:44
In John's Christmas story, we are looking over God's shoulder.
05:47-05:49
That's really the theme of the whole book of John.
05:51-06:08
We studied this some years back, but the theme of John is this, the God of the universe has revealed Himself by coming into this world as a man to not just save you, but to have a relationship with you.
06:10-06:15
The God wants you to know Him.
06:20-06:23
In fact, this is what Jesus Christ was praying.
06:24-06:43
John 17.3, Jesus said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent." Eternal life.
06:45-06:53
more important than eternal life because you are either going to live forever with God or you're going to die forever apart from God.
06:56-06:57
So what do you want for Christmas?
07:02-07:04
Top of your list should be eternal life.
07:06-07:10
And according to Jesus, that comes from knowing Him, from knowing God.
07:11-07:21
And I do have to remind you that knowing about God is not the same as actually knowing God.
07:21-07:29
You realize those are two completely different concepts, knowing about God and knowing God, not the same.
07:30-07:31
Think of it this way.
07:31-07:46
Imagine a young man comes to church, a single man, and he's been coming here for a while when all of a sudden one day he notices there is a beautiful young single woman.
07:48-07:56
And he's like, "I don't think I met her, but who is that?" But he gets his friend, he's like, "Hey, find out who that girl is." Right?
07:56-08:02
And his friend comes back with the information and he says, "Oh, you asked about that girl.
08:03-08:03
Here's what I know.
08:04-08:06
She loves missions, right?
08:06-08:08
And she loves working with children.
08:09-08:15
She enjoys traveling and get this, she's a big Steelers fan.
08:18-08:20
But she also loves rom-coms.
08:23-08:37
Now, if this friend goes back to the dude and gives this report on what this woman is like, do you think this man would be like, all right, now that I have the information about her, I am satisfied, thank you.
08:38-08:38
That is all.
08:41-08:42
Is that the end of the story?
08:44-08:51
No, you see, now that he knows about her, that makes him all the more want to know her personally.
08:52-08:55
You see, that's how it is with God.
08:55-08:57
That's how it is with Jesus Christ.
08:58-09:05
The more you know about Him, the more you want to know Him personally.
09:08-09:10
The fact should lead you to the relationship.
09:12-09:14
Well, how do I know God personally?
09:14-09:20
Well, John 1:18 tells us that no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the Father's side.
09:21-09:22
He has made him known.
09:23-09:32
And folks, this is a fundamental truth, that the only way that we can know God is he has to make himself known.
09:33-09:42
And that's what we celebrate every Christmas, that God has made Himself known because He did it in the most personal way possible.
09:42-09:45
He showed up and introduced Himself.
09:47-09:53
So look at John 1, picking up in verse 1.
09:53-09:55
We're just gonna look at the first three verses today.
09:55-10:04
And this might feel more like a Bible study than a sermon, but these are important truths that we gotta wrestle down here.
10:05-10:16
John 1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." He was in the beginning with God.
10:19-10:26
All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
10:31-10:39
Notice that John, in introducing our Lord, He's using this word, word, a lot.
10:39-10:42
Why does he use the word, word?
10:44-10:53
Well, he doesn't really explain that, but I promise you that the audience that he wrote to in the first century would have known exactly what he was talking about.
10:54-10:59
'Cause John primarily would have been writing to the Greeks and the Jews.
11:00-11:20
And the word, word in the Greek is logos, and to the Greeks that Logos was like this impersonal force, this impersonal energy source, because the Greek philosophers were like, look, all of this had to come from somewhere.
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You know, the world didn't happen by accident.
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There has to be some force out there that it's behind the structure of the earth and all logic and reason.
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And they had this idea, it was an impersonal force, and they called it the word, the logos.
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And see, so John is writing to the Greeks, and he goes, "Hey, you guys talk about the logos, right?
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"Did you know the logos is a person?
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"It's not a thing, it's a person.
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"It's a person that was with God, "it's a person that was God, "and it's a person," according to John 1:14, that became flesh and dwelt among us." So that's how the Greeks would have heard this.
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You know how the Jews would have heard this?
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I mean, probably you don't have to guess, right?
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When the Jews would have heard the word "word," what would they have thought of?
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They immediately would have thought of the law and the prophets, what we call the Old Testament.
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You see, you go through the Old Testament over and over and over.
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The word of the Lord came to the word of the Lord came to the word of the Lord came to that all of the law and the prophets, it's it's known as the word of God.
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So the Jews would have picked up on this concept immediately.
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Oh, you know what the purpose of words is?
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Words are to communicate something.
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Words are to be deliberately chosen and used to convey information to another person.
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That's what John is saying to the Jews.
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The Word became flesh.
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Jesus Christ is God's communication to man.
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a living, breathing word.
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So, God isn't some impersonal force.
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God's not a generic concept.
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According to God's word, He is a person.
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And He has revealed who exactly He is in Jesus.
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Let's just pause for a second.
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I'm going to ask that you would pray for me as we do this little study together that I would accurately represent God's Word.
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Let me pray for you to have a heart open to receive this absolutely essential truth that God is teaching us today.
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So let's pray.
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Father in heaven, we live in a culture that is fine to think of you in general terms, but to call you a person, a father, the sovereign of the universe, it's tough for some people to grasp.
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And I just pray, Father, today, especially over these next few minutes, that we would really have our hearts and minds open to what it is that Your Word wants to teach us about the way that You've revealed Yourself through Your Son. It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
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Amen.
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So on your outline, I want you to write some things down. I want to know God. Here's where it starts, number one, the reality.
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This is the reality.
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Jesus is God.
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Jesus is God.
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Let's look at these verses here.
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Look at verse one again.
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He says, "In the beginning was the Word, "and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." In the beginning, does that sound familiar at all?
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That phrase, in the beginning, where have we heard that?
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Genesis 1, 1, right?
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That's how the whole Bible starts.
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And John is starting in the same place.
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John is saying, by saying in the beginning, John is saying before anything was created, the Word existed.
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The Word, and notice he says two things about the Word.
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First of all, the Word was with God.
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And secondly, the word was God.
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First of all, let's talk about the word was God.
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This claim is nothing less than Jesus Christ is almighty God.
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This is all through the New Testament, all right?
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If we were to just do a Bible study today, looking at the verses of the New Testament that talk about Jesus being God, we would be here long after the snow melted, okay?
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But the New Testament is so full of this truth.
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Like for example, Colossians 2.9 says, "For in Him, in Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily." Most concise statement of Jesus' deity is probably right here in John 1.14.
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It says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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The Word became flesh and dwelt, dwelt, that word dwelt in the Greek is the word tabernacled.
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The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.
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You heard of the tabernacle?
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In the Old Testament, it was this portable structure that as Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt, God told Moses to build this structure and it had this tent with the holy place and the holy of holies.
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And this was the place where God's unique presence dwelt among his people.
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So when John says the word became flesh and tabernacled among us, if you were in the Old Testament times, if you lived with Old Testament Israel He said, "Hey, can you point to the place "where God's unique presence lives on the earth?" You would point to the building, the tabernacle.
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You would say, "Yeah, God's unique presence "on earth is right there." Fast forward to 2025, right now, if I were to say, "Can you point to the place "where God's unique presence dwells on earth?" Where would you point?
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It's right here, right?
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Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
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temple was just the permanent version of the tabernacle.
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This is where God lives.
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This is God's unique presence here.
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So what John is saying in John 1:14 is for about 33 years of earth's history, when you would ask, "Where is God's unique presence on the earth?" You'd point to a man, and that man's name is Jesus Christ.
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You would point to him and say, "Right there.
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That man is the unique presence of God on the earth.
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This is where he is.
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All right?
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Jesus is not an exalted angel.
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Jesus is not some special enlightened human.
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According to this verse, Jesus is the God.
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And every false religion denies this, by the way.
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And I can just tell you personally, you would be shocked at how many times I've had to have this conversation with people over the course of my ministry, but people who actually say, "Jesus never said He was God." You heard that argument?
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"Jesus never said it." What the argument is this.
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That's something the church kind of came up with.
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You know, we kind of, like some religions like us, we sort of hitched that idea onto Jesus, but Jesus himself, they say, "Oh, if you study the words of Jesus, he never said he was God." Well, do you remember back in Exodus chapter three, God called Moses through the burning bush.
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You know, you're gonna lead my people out of Egypt.
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You're gonna lead them to the promised land.
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And do you remember Moses says to God, "Well, what if Israel asks who sent me?
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What if Israel is like, what is his name?" Do you remember in that moment, God told Moses what his name is.
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You remember?
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God told Moses his name is I Am, who I am.
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That's God's name.
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His name is I Am.
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I love that.
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God didn't say to Moses, "My name is I Was." Like Moses, like, "What's your name?" And God's like, "Moses, I Was.
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"Oh Moses, you should have seen me back in high school.
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"Oh Moses, I was so good looking "and I was such a good athlete.
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"Back in the day Moses, back in the day "I was really something." No, he's not the I was.
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But nor did God tell Moses that he's the I will be.
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Right?
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Like Moses is like, "What's your name?" And God's like, "Well Moses, you tell the Israelites, "I might not be nothing special now, but I'm taking my vitamins and I'm drinking my milk and I'm doing my palates and I'm jumping on my pogo ball and someday, someday I'm going to be something great.
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I will be. God's not the I was and He's not the I will be. God is, He is I am.
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From eternity past, He is infinite, majestic holiness. He is the I am.
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and in eternity future, He will still be infinite, majestic holiness.
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He is the I Am.
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You're like, well, what does that have to do with Jesus?
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Because Jesus repeatedly claimed that He is the I Am.
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It's all through the Gospel of John, what, like seven times.
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I am the bread of life.
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I am the light of the world.
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I am the way and the truth and the life.
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I am the good shepherd.
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I am the door." All through Jesus made this claim.
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John chapter 8, Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am." John chapter 10, Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." And in that moment, the Jews picked up stones, they were going to kill him for saying that.
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And Jesus says, "I did a lot of good works.
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For which of them are you going to stone me?" And they said, "Oh, no.
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You're making yourself out to be God the way you're talking." You see, they knew exactly what He was saying.
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They knew exactly what He meant when He said, "I and the Father are one." Oh, and by the way, not only does the Bible say that Jesus is God, did you know that the The Bible also says that God is Jesus.
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Here's what I mean, look at Zechariah 12, 10.
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This is before the incarnation, the Christmas story.
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This is before the baby in the manger story.
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This is Old Testament.
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Look at what God says.
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God says, "And I will pour out on the house of David "and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, "a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, "so that when they look on me, "On him whom they have pierced." Do you see how God identifies himself?
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He identifies himself as the one who was pierced, and who was the one that was pierced?
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It's Jesus Christ on the cross.
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Do you see that?
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Do a little word study there.
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That's exactly what he's saying.
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They will look on the one whom they've stabbed, right?
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It's also in the New Testament.
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God is Jesus.
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Look at Acts 20, for example.
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Paul says to the Ephesian elders, "Pay careful attention to yourselves to care for the church of God, which He obtained with His own blood." Who bought the church with His blood?
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He says God.
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You're like, "I thought it was Jesus that shed His blood." Paul's saying that as Jesus shed His blood, that was God obtaining the church with His own blood.
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So Jesus is God, yes, and the Bible also says that God is Jesus.
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The Word was God, but the Bible also says here that the Word was with God.
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The Word was with God.
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In case you missed it, in case you didn't quite catch it in verse one, verse two, he just says the exact same thing.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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So somehow Jesus is God, but being with God, somehow he is distinct from the Father.
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Yeah, like if I said to you, Yeah, yesterday I was with my buddy, Nathaniel, and I was my buddy, Nathaniel.
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You would say, were you and Nathaniel smoking something?
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Like what was going on there?
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That doesn't make sense, does it?
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How can you be with somebody and be somebody at the same time?
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But that's exactly what the Bible says about Jesus and his relationship with God.
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He's not only God, but He's also with God.
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And people want that explained all the time.
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We get, Pastor Taylor had that, well, a couple weeks ago, the little children's back there had like a Q&A thing with him.
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And wasn't that one of the questions they were asking about the Trinity?
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And look, do you wanna know about the Trinity?
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Here's the reality.
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Nobody can figure that out.
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That's the truth.
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You can't do it.
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Because from the moment you were born, you've only ever known two things in your life.
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Your whole life, you've only ever known two things.
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And that's time and space.
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You can't fathom an existence outside of time and space.
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This is where we are.
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And now we have a God who lives and exists and rules outside of time and space.
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God is not bound by time and space.
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And somehow we think that we're going to be able to explain everything about Him.
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Here's what I know.
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The Word was with God and the Word was God.
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The Bible says God exists.
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He's one God, but He exists as three persons, Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
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Jesus is eternal, but distinct, and you don't have to explain it to believe it, okay?
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I can't explain to you how my car works, but I believe that it does when I get in and drive it.
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All right, look at verse three.
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He says, "All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Okay, this is just theology 101.
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It's all through the Old Testament.
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God is creator.
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And John here is saying Jesus is God, he's with God, and then John takes another step and says Jesus is creator, he made all things.
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And somehow, again, the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all involved in creation at the same time.
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You're like, can you explain that?
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I just told you I could not explain that.
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But somehow God the Father created through God the Son, and the Genesis tells us that the Spirit of God hovered above the waters.
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All three members of the Trinity were involved.
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And somehow Jesus is the agent of creation.
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The Bible says in Hebrews 1:2 that, "In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world." Through whom he created the world.
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That's all John's saying here in verse 3.
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Every living thing gets life from something else.
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A tree, your dog, a woodpecker, you.
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You got life from something else.
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The only person who has never received life from someone else is God Himself.
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That's what John's saying.
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Since Jesus already existed before creation, and because Jesus didn't get His life from something else, then He must be God.
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Those are the biblical facts about Jesus.
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And listen, even if you're sitting here today or listening to the podcast later or whatever, even if you don't agree with that, can we take an honest look at what the Bible says and stop trying to twist it?
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"Oh, it doesn't really say that." The Bible overwhelmingly says that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.
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That's the truth that you have to reckon with.
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He is God.
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So if you want to know God, number two, the response.
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The response.
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You want to know God?
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The response is faith in Jesus.
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The reality is Jesus is God.
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The response is we have to have faith in Jesus.
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You see, God took the initiative.
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God did His part in revealing Himself as Jesus, so the question is, "What's my part in knowing Him?" It's faith.
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Faith is the only way to know God.
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Oh, and speaking of generic, not only do people use the name of God in a generic sense, but you'll find that people use the concept of faith in a generic sense.
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There is a true biblical sense and definition of faith, but we live in a culture that just throws that word "faith" around all the time and uses it in all kinds of ways.
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Here's what I mean.
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Some people use faith like it means wishful thinking.
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Faith is just wishful thinking.
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Like, "Well, I just kind of have faith "that everything's gonna work out." Like, what does that even mean?
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For some people, they think faith is just the way of the ignorant.
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Like, "Well, you believe in science, "or you believe in faith, rather.
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"I believe in science, and they're condescending.
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You're just some backwoods redneck.
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You're ignorant.
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I believe in science, but you have your little fairy tale faith.
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And still other people look at faith as some kind of ambiguous spirituality.
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You hear people say, "I'm a person of faith." Do you know who else is a person of faith?
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Literally everybody.
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Everybody believes in something.
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What is your faith in?
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Because you can have faith in the wrong thing.
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So listen, my friends, God is not a generic concept, and neither is faith.
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Faith is a specific disposition towards a specific person.
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That's why Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God," that's the knowing God piece, "whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him." It starts with obviously an acknowledgment of His existence, but it doesn't stop there.
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You have to seek Him.
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You have a responsibility.
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took the initiative, he revealed himself in Jesus, what is my responsibility in this relationship?
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Or how can I grow in knowing Jesus? I want you to jot these three things down. How can I grow in knowing Jesus? Letter A, you have to confess with your mouth. Romans 10.9 says, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
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And you are not going to grow in your relationship with Him if you don't have one to begin with.
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So have you made that confession?
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Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins, that He rose from the dead to give you eternal life?
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Do you believe that?
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People have this idea that, "Well, we're all children of God in the creative sense, yes, but not in the adoptive sense." Yes, we do all have a relationship with Jesus.
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The question is, do you have a good relationship with Him or a bad relationship with Him?
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You have to confess with your mouth.
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It has to start there, letter B.
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You have to hear the Word.
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You have to hear the Word.
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Romans 10:17 says, "So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ." The only way your faith grows is through the Word of God.
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Because this is the only truly reliable source of information about Jesus because this is the source of information that was given to us by God.
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You have to be in the Word if you're going to know Jesus.
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Any relationship involves time and communication.
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And some people, they spend no time in His Word, no time praying His Word, and reading and studying and meditating, and they spend no time at all in the Word, and then they wonder why they feel so distant.
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Relationships grow when time is spent together.
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You need to prioritize spending time and praying the Word of God.
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And finally, letter C, "Keep His commandments." Keep His commandments.
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Jesus says in John 15.10, "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." That's how you abide.
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It's through obedience.
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Now listen, if you're a Christian and you're in sin, sin is not going to end your relationship with Jesus, but you're obviously going to feel distant from God if you have unrepentant sin.
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Any area of disobedience in your life that you refuse to deal with, you're gonna feel distant, and that's not on God, that's on you.
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God hasn't gone anywhere.
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You have.
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So what is it in your life right now that you're like, I know, I know that this is what God wants me to stop doing or maybe something God wants you to start doing, but you know exactly what it is.
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You need to turn from that sin.
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You need to obey whatever Jesus is calling you to, and you're going to enjoy the freedom that repentance brings in your walk with Christ.
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This is what keeps people from coming to Christ in the first place, by the way.
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Jesus will take you just as you are, but he won't leave you that way.
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Jesus wants to transform you.
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He wants to change you.
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And some people just don't want to be changed.
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Keep His commandments.
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The Word became flesh.
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God became a man.
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Our worship team will come back up.
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You know, I came to Christ when I was 20.
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And it's an amazing thing to grow up in a church as a kid, and all those days, all those years sitting in the church, how little I really understood.
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But when I was led to Christ, this whole new world, right?
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And I remember I was trying to understand, and I had this Bible that my parents got me.
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You know, some Bibles have the little story inserts, little devotional things, like kind of built into the Bible.
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Well, this Bible had those, and it had this story in it.
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And the story goes something like this.
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There was this farmer and his wife, it was Christmas Eve, and the farmer's wife was going to church.
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And she asked her husband if he wanted to go with her.
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He goes, "No, I don't get that church stuff.
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"It doesn't, that makes no sense to me.
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"I'm not interested at all, but you go have fun." Well, she went to church, and while he was home, he saw that there were birds trying to get into his barn.
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This really bad deep freeze came over, kind of like what happened here.
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And these birds were trying to get in the barn, seeking shelter from the cold.
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The farmer says, "Well, I can help those birds." So he goes, "I'll just go out and open the door and let them in the barn.
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And when he went out there, you know what birds do, right?
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They just kind of scattered everywhere.
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The farmer's like, "Well, that sure didn't help anything." So he thought, "Well, maybe if I just leave breadcrumbs, "I can like guide them in there somehow." Didn't work.
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No matter what the farmer did, he couldn't get the birds into the barn to get shelter.
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And as the story goes, I don't think it's a true story, but as the story goes, he stood and looked out the kitchen window and he saw the birds back flying around the outside of the barn, not able to get in.
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And the farmer thought to himself, "Those birds are going to die.
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And as badly as I want to save them, I don't know how I can get them in the barn." But then the farmer had a thought.
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The farmer thought, "You know, if I could become a bird for like five minutes, I could approach them, they wouldn't be scared of me, I could speak their language, and I could and show them the way that they could be saved.
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And right when he had the thought, the story goes, off in the distance he heard the church's bells ringing.
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And that's when it connected.
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It's a dumb story.
42:12-42:22
Admittedly, what I've got to tell you as a young Christian, When I read that, that's what made everything click for me.
42:23-42:26
Yes, that's the purpose of the incarnation.
42:27-42:35
That God became one of us to save us.
42:38-42:39
So what do you want for Christmas?
42:43-42:44
I wanna know God.
42:46-42:52
Not the generic knockoff, but the real person.
42:55-43:00
Because knowing God is eternal life.
43:02-43:07
We're going to have our elders and members of our prayer team up front here.
43:10-43:17
And in just a moment, Ashley's going to sing a song over you to have a good old-fashioned altar call.
43:18-43:20
You can stay in your seat, you can pray right where you are.
43:22-43:27
But I want you to know there's people that are up here that would love to pray with you and for you.
43:29-43:34
So as Ashley sings over you, we're going to invite you to come.
43:35-43:38
Maybe there's somebody here that today you're like, "You know what?
43:40-43:48
"I don't really know God, I know about Him, but I don't really have a relationship with Him.
43:50-43:50
Today's the day.
43:52-43:58
Today's the day that you can go from knowing about God to knowing God.
44:00-44:01
So please come.
44:05-44:21
Our Father in Heaven, we thank You for the way that You have demonstrated Your holiness and love by taking on flesh and blood.
44:25-44:30
Father, I pray against all of the distractions.
44:30-44:35
It's that time of year that there's more to do than we have time to do.
44:35-44:39
And there's so many things We're just vying for our attention.
44:43-44:52
Father, I pray that we would take a real close examination at the person of Jesus Christ and examine our own hearts.
44:53-44:55
Are we truly walking with Him?
44:55-45:04
Do we truly have a relationship with Him that we're spending time together and knowing and growing?
45:05-45:09
Or are we just churchgoers?
45:13-45:13
Father I thank You.
45:13-45:15
You've revealed Your heart.
45:15-45:16
You want us to know You.
45:18-45:20
You've done everything.
45:22-45:28
And have just simply called us to receive what You have accomplished.
45:32-45:33
Father, thank You.
45:35-45:45
We praise You and ask that You would continue to manifest Your goodness and presence in us by the power of Your Spirit through the wisdom of Your Word.
45:47-45:49
We praise You in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
45:51-45:51
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 1:1-3

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why do you think the deity of Jesus is denied by so many cults? Why is that such a common point of contention?
How would you explain the Trinity to a 7 year old?
Define “faith”. Why do you think faith is the God-ordained way of knowing Him?
What’s your favorite dinosaur?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

December 7, 2025

Get Unified, Unified and Purified

Be Worth Imitating

Jeff Miller

December 7, 2025

Get Unified, Unified and Purified

Introduction:

Are You Worth Imitating? 4 Areas to Evaluate (1 Corinthians 4:14–21)

Your LOVE for PEOPLE: Worth Imitating. (1 Cor 4:14)

2 Corinthians 12:15 – I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.
Your HEART for EVANGELISM: Worth Imitating. (1 Cor 4:15)
Your CONSISTENCY of FAITH: Worth Imitating. (1 Cor 4:17)
Your HANDLING of SINNERS: Worth Imitating. (1 Cor 4:14, 18–21)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:41-00:45
Open up those Bibles to 1 Corinthians 4.
00:48-00:49
What kind of a church is this?
00:51-00:55
We are a church that proclaims the authority of God's word without apology.
00:56-00:58
What kind of a church is this?
00:58-01:02
We are a church that lifts high the name of Jesus in worship.
01:04-01:05
What kind of a church is this?
01:06-01:10
This is a church that believes firmly in the power of prayer.
01:12-01:17
This is a church that shares the good news of Jesus with boldness.
01:19-01:33
So let's bow our heads and I'm going to ask that you would please pray for me to be faithful to communicate God's Word, and I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what it is that the Lord wants to teach us today.
01:34-01:36
Alright? Let's just take a moment and pray.
01:39-01:48
Father in heaven, as we turn to Your Word, we ask that You would speak to us through this.
01:51-01:54
Your Word even calls this the foolishness of preaching.
01:57-02:04
But somehow, Your Spirit is at work with Your Word when it is proclaimed, and we believe that.
02:05-02:11
And that's why we don't shrink away from anything that Your Word says, but we go after it.
02:11-02:18
Father, we want to know You, and You have revealed Your character through Your Word.
02:19-02:22
So Father, I pray for all of us today.
02:25-02:27
This would be a day of self-examination.
02:27-02:34
this would be a day where your spirit grabs us in a fresh way.
02:37-02:39
Thank you ahead of time for everything you're going to do.
02:41-02:42
We pray in Jesus' name.
02:43-02:47
And all of God's people said, "Amen." Amen.
02:48-02:57
We've had at Harvest Bible Chapel over the years, we've had some pretty spectacular guest speakers and other pastors come and preach.
02:57-03:00
And, but by far, this one's my favorite here.
03:01-03:02
This is a Pastor Bob Huber.
03:02-03:17
This is back when we were meeting in Marshall Middle School, actually, but Pastor Bob Huber was my pastor and he is in heaven now, or as he would have said, he graduated and he's having a good day.
03:20-03:23
You know, I moved to Chicago for a while to learn how to plan a church.
03:28-03:30
But it was this man who taught me how to be a pastor.
03:34-03:36
And I had the privilege of working with him for many years.
03:39-03:44
But probably the profoundest lesson I ever learned from him was in year one.
03:47-03:52
I was helping with a day camp up in Slippery Rock at Deep Valley Camp.
03:55-04:03
I'm gonna tell you this story, and I know some of you, it's gonna hit you, and some of you are gonna be like, "What in the world is he talking about?" But that's just the way these things go sometimes.
04:03-04:13
But we were at day camp, and this was year one of like, I just became a Christian, and just started serving Christ, and was learning.
04:14-04:17
And we were walking across the campus, free time for the kids.
04:17-04:18
They were just running around, kind of doing their thing.
04:19-04:20
Second graders, all right?
04:21-04:27
So Pastor Bob and I were walking by and there was this little boy just sitting and just playing in the dirt.
04:29-04:43
And as we walked by, Pastor Bob stopped and he said to the little boy, "Hey, get up, you're getting all dirty." So the little kid got up and kind of brushed himself off and just kind of stood there and Pastor Bob and I kept walking.
04:44-04:48
And all of a sudden, Pastor Bob stopped.
04:51-05:03
And he turned around and he went back to the little boy and he said, "Get back down in the dirt." There was so much I learned from that whole thing.
05:05-05:10
So much that I learned about ministry.
05:12-05:15
And I could spend hours just talking about the lessons I learned from that little thing.
05:16-05:17
Here's the big one.
05:19-05:20
Kids gotta be kids.
05:21-05:21
Right?
05:22-05:29
That's why at Harvest we say it all the time, we don't care if your kids are running around or making messes or making noise.
05:29-05:31
Like, kids are going to be kids.
05:33-05:42
But you know, in that incident at camp, and I saw that attitude from Pastor Bob, I said, you know, that's worth imitating.
05:44-05:46
That attitude towards kids, that's worth imitating.
05:48-05:58
And you know, we're going through 1 Corinthians here, and Paul has used many images to talk about his connection with them.
05:59-06:03
He talked about being a farmer, being a builder, being a servant, being a steward.
06:04-06:09
And in this passage we're looking at today, here's the image on the table.
06:11-06:11
A father.
06:15-06:19
In 1 Corinthians, Paul's addressing Christians who weren't acting like Christians.
06:20-06:23
That's been this whole stretch, the whole first four chapters.
06:24-06:25
There was division.
06:26-06:32
There were little teams being made and there was disdain for people that weren't on your team.
06:32-06:34
Like, "I follow Paul.
06:34-06:35
Oh, you're one of those apologized people?
06:37-06:39
Lame." And there was so much division in the church.
06:41-06:42
Christians who weren't acting like Christians.
06:43-06:46
And Paul was pretty direct with them.
06:47-06:49
I think we saw that especially last week.
06:50-06:53
He was pretty direct in the way that he addressed them.
06:53-07:00
And you know, if you're going to be that direct with someone you better have a good relationship with them.
07:04-07:09
Look at verse, where are we at?
07:09-07:09
14?
07:11-07:12
Yeah, let's pick up in verse 14.
07:12-07:23
Paul says, "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
07:27-07:31
For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.
07:32-07:35
For I have become your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.
07:37-07:54
I urge you then, be imitators of me." That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church.
07:57-08:09
Some are arrogant as though I were not coming to you, but I will come to you soon if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of those arrogant people, but their power.
08:10-08:13
For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.
08:14-08:15
What do you wish?
08:16-08:31
Shall I come to you with rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?" In that chunk of text, did you pick up a dad tone in there?
08:36-08:50
This is why Paul was so stern with them, because he saw himself as their father, their spiritual dad.
08:52-09:02
And parenthood, whether it's having kids of your own or adopting kids or having spiritual children, listen, parenthood is about two things, really.
09:03-09:05
It's about love and it's about responsibility.
09:08-09:19
So this passage here is for everyone who is a spiritual parent.
09:23-09:27
Everyone who leads someone spiritually.
09:27-09:28
Everyone who is making disciples.
09:29-09:45
and whether you're a small group leader, or you're leading the youth group or Harvest Academy, you're teaching precepts, you're involved in our ministry team or serving as an elder, if you're one of our conference speakers, some of you are involved in addiction recovery ministry.
09:45-09:45
This is for you.
09:46-09:48
Some of you are leading Bible studies at work.
09:48-09:49
This is for you.
09:50-09:57
Some of you, your primary discipleship opportunity is the children in your home.
10:00-10:02
That's who this passage is for.
10:03-10:07
Those of you who are making disciples.
10:10-10:14
Look at verse 16 again, because this is the verse that really jumped out to me.
10:19-10:31
Paul says, "I urge you then, be imitators of me." That verse leads me to two questions.
10:32-10:39
And the first question is, have I been faithful to follow my spiritual parent?
10:39-10:41
I mean, I talked about Pastor Bob.
10:41-10:46
I'm not 1% of the pastor that he was, all right?
10:46-10:49
but am I being faithful to follow my spiritual Father?
10:49-10:50
How about you?
10:51-10:58
Are you being faithful to follow your spiritual parent?
11:00-11:06
That's a question that I wrestled with this past week, but not as much as another question.
11:09-11:11
Here's the second question.
11:11-11:12
This is the one that really hit me.
11:16-11:17
Am I worth imitating?
11:20-11:21
What about me?
11:21-11:26
Am I worth imitating?
11:32-11:32
What about you?
11:36-11:39
Do you consider yourself worth imitating?
11:39-11:40
Could you say what Paul said here?
11:41-11:42
Hey, hey, follow my example.
11:43-11:43
Could you say that?
11:48-12:03
If the people that you disciple, if the people that look up to you as their spiritual father, their spiritual parents, if the people that look up to you act like you, would they be effective for the kingdom of Jesus Christ?
12:04-12:10
If the people that looked up to you, imitated you, would they be honoring God and His Word?
12:10-12:16
Would you want people to imitate you?
12:18-12:29
Or would there just be too many areas of your life where you would just end up saying, "Yeah, don't do what I do"?
12:32-12:33
Are you worth imitating?
12:36-12:41
I want you to consider this sustained illustration through the rest of the message.
12:43-12:48
But I want you to imagine that I brought you a brand new Christian, okay?
12:49-12:53
Imagine that this young man came to Christ.
12:53-12:58
He just came to Christ yesterday, and we brought him to church, and he was baptized today.
12:59-13:15
And I brought him to you, and I said, "Okay, this young man is going to live with you for a month so that he can learn what it looks like to follow Jesus Christ." How would that go for the next month?
13:17-13:26
I mean, assuming that you weren't gonna put on a show, assuming that you were just going to be your authentic self for the month, okay?
13:26-13:27
We're assuming that.
13:29-13:29
How's that gonna go?
13:31-13:41
Would you find yourself over the course of the month with this brand new Christian, would you find yourself constantly saying, yeah, don't do that, right?
13:41-13:52
You use some salty non-sermony language, and then you turn to this young man looking at you, and you're like, yeah, don't talk like that.
13:54-14:03
Or you tell some perverted anatomy joke, and you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and you turn to Him and you think, you know what, you shouldn't tell jokes like that.
14:04-14:05
You shouldn't talk like that.
14:05-14:06
You shouldn't think like that.
14:10-14:15
This new Christian that's following you around for the month sees you losing your temper.
14:15-14:21
You're kicking the lamp, you're kicking the dog, and then you turn to Him and you say, yeah, don't do that.
14:21-14:22
You shouldn't lose your temper like that.
14:25-14:26
You're neglecting time in God's Word.
14:26-14:28
You're neglecting time in prayer.
14:28-14:29
And you're like, "Yeah, you know what?
14:30-14:36
"I'm really busy and don't have the time "to spend in God's Word and in prayer, "but you shouldn't be like me.
14:36-14:43
"You really should make time for that." Would it be a rough month for you?
14:48-15:03
Or, after that month, this new Christian comes back to me and says, You know, I am really growing with the Lord following that person's example.
15:04-15:11
This past month has been huge for me watching how the life of Christ is manifest in a person's life throughout the week.
15:11-15:11
Is that what they'd say?
15:15-15:16
So this is the sermon.
15:19-15:21
And we all have to take a hard look at ourselves.
15:24-15:27
I mean, let's be honest with ourselves.
15:31-15:32
Are you worth imitating?
15:40-15:47
There are probably hundreds of categories we could get into.
15:49-15:52
Let's just stick to this particular text here.
15:53-15:54
Four areas to evaluate.
15:54-15:55
Are you worth imitating?
15:56-16:00
Here's four areas to evaluate that we see from the apostle Paul.
16:00-16:01
Number one, write this down.
16:02-16:03
Your love for people.
16:04-16:05
Your love for people.
16:05-16:06
Worth imitating?
16:09-16:10
Look at verse 14 again.
16:11-16:39
He says, "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as," look at this, "My beloved children." "My beloved children." I love that so much because if you've been with us through 1 Corinthians and this journey, you can see that Paul would have a lot of reasons to call them something else.
16:39-16:40
Let's put it that way.
16:42-16:44
But this is how he viewed them.
16:44-16:48
"Your beloved children." You're not commodities to be used.
16:48-16:55
you're not customers to satisfy, you're not annoyances that are draining the life out of me.
16:55-16:59
He says, you're spiritual children that I love.
17:04-17:09
Love, that's what parents are wired to do, is to love.
17:13-17:21
It's meeting needs, yes, it's helping when there's hurt, it's protecting, ultimately, love is sacrifice.
17:24-17:28
You know, you go to 2 Corinthians 12, this is what Paul addresses the same church.
17:29-17:31
I love this verse because this is the heart of a parent.
17:33-17:47
Paul says, "I will most gladly spend "and be spent for your souls." That's the heart of a parent.
17:48-17:50
Parents sacrifice for their children.
17:50-17:52
Parents give of themselves.
17:55-18:01
And when you genuinely love people, you're going to do the same.
18:06-18:10
Easier said than done, because I don't know if you noticed, but some people are hard to love.
18:11-18:12
Have you noticed that?
18:15-18:16
I mean, we already talked about these Corinthians.
18:17-18:19
They had so many problems.
18:23-18:25
You're like, man, how do you love unlikable people?
18:27-18:31
How do I conjure up the love to love unlikable people?
18:32-18:36
And you don't have to turn there, but just jot down John 21.
18:36-18:39
It's one of my favorite scenes in the Bible.
18:43-18:47
But in John chapter 21, we see the resurrected Jesus restoring Peter.
18:48-18:52
Do you remember the question that Jesus asked Peter three times?
18:52-18:52
You remember?
18:53-18:55
He says, "Peter, do you love sheep?
18:57-18:58
Then feed them." Is that what he said?
19:00-19:01
No?
19:02-19:04
Botched that one, didn't I?
19:04-19:05
What did he say?
19:06-19:21
He says, "Do you love me?" Do you love me?" And when Peter answered Jesus, oh, then he talked about the sheep, right?
19:21-19:25
"Feed my sheep." "Do you love me?
19:25-19:27
Feed my sheep." He didn't ask Peter if he loves sheep.
19:28-19:39
He asked Peter, "Peter, do you love me?" Because when you love someone, you love what they love.
19:41-19:41
Right?
19:43-19:50
See, if I put all of my effort into just loving you and not the Lord, it's going to fizzle out.
19:53-19:59
But when the effort is in loving Jesus Christ, He changes my heart to love the things that He loves.
19:59-20:02
I love you because Jesus loves you.
20:04-20:09
You have value to me because you have value to Jesus, you see.
20:11-20:13
Jesus loves the church.
20:13-20:14
You know, he died for you.
20:15-20:18
He's preparing a place in heaven for you.
20:18-20:21
And he does his work on earth through you.
20:21-20:29
And if Jesus so loves you, and he knows you a lot better than I do, how could I not love you?
20:32-20:37
So think of that new believer following you around for a month.
20:40-20:42
Would he see a love for people that's worth imitating?
20:47-20:53
Second area we need to evaluate, your heart for evangelism.
20:54-20:55
Is it worth imitating?
20:56-20:58
Look at verse 15 again.
21:01-21:07
He says, "For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers.
21:07-21:14
"For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel." Countless guides.
21:14-21:16
What's a guide?
21:16-21:19
Well, in the Greek, it's pedagogos.
21:20-21:28
Now wealthy families in those days would have a pedagogos, a guide, a, some translations, tutor.
21:29-21:47
It was a slave whose job it was to take boys back and forth to school and to help them mature, or as the kids would say today, they would help them learn how to adult.
21:49-21:52
That's what a pedagogos did, preparation for adulting.
21:54-21:55
That's what they did.
21:55-22:04
And Paul here says, "You have," literally in the Greek, it's, "You will always constantly have countless people teaching you.
22:05-22:08
And that is more true now than it's ever been.
22:11-22:20
You're constantly going to have countless people giving you information on TV, radio, podcasts.
22:23-22:30
Bible teaching is out there, but there is no one who has the relationship with you like You're like the one who led you to Christ.
22:32-22:33
The one who discipled you.
22:36-22:38
Your spiritual father.
22:38-22:39
Your spiritual parent.
22:39-22:42
Nobody has that relationship like that one.
22:45-22:47
This is a tough sell right here.
22:50-22:52
Because some Christians aren't spiritual parents.
22:55-22:57
Because you've never led anyone to Christ.
22:59-23:01
You've never discipled a new believer.
23:02-23:06
Because if you have, you know that it's a unique relationship.
23:06-23:10
There's a special kind of love and responsibility that comes.
23:12-23:16
And the sad thing is too many people in the church miss out on the blessing.
23:19-23:25
Because honestly, sharing the Gospel is just never a thought share the gospel with anyone.
23:31-23:39
You know, there's a pastor that I listen to, speaking of countless teachers, there's a pastor that I listen to often, Ron Dunn.
23:41-23:45
He used this illustration one time, and I really had to chew on it for a while.
23:47-23:54
But he said, "The gospel of Jesus Christ is a train that runs on two tracks.
23:58-24:05
And one rail of the track is the work of Jesus Christ, His death on the cross and His resurrection.
24:07-24:13
But the other rail of the track is someone to deliver that message.
24:15-24:17
And he used this illustration.
24:17-24:25
He said, "Imagine there's a man on death row about to be executed and the governor pardons him.
24:27-24:35
And the governor has the pardon in paper form and gives it to a courier and says, here's the pardon.
24:35-24:41
I need you to deliver this to the prison where the man is about to be executed.
24:41-24:42
Here, take this pardon.
24:45-24:51
You realize it does that man on death row no good if that courier doesn't deliver the pardon.
24:52-24:53
I mean, could you imagine?
24:54-25:00
Could you imagine the governor saying, "Look, this is going to save this man's life.
25:00-25:08
Make sure the prison gets it and the courier forgets." Or he just doesn't think it's that important.
25:12-25:12
Right?
25:14-25:17
If the courier doesn't deliver, the pardon's not gonna take effect.
25:19-25:23
And do you understand you are God's courier.
25:24-25:32
In Jesus Christ, God has pardoned sin and the people you know who don't know the Lord are on death row.
25:35-25:41
And God has given you the pardon to say, deliver this, tell them that they don't have to die.
25:42-25:45
And so often we're just like, eh, not that important.
25:50-26:05
You're the courier. Are you getting the message out? You see, that's so amazing to me that God has the ability to do whatever He wants to do. And what He wants to do is use you to reach people with the gospel.
26:08-26:12
He wants you to disciple the lost.
26:15-26:20
So how often during the course of your week do you engage people in spiritual conversations?
26:21-26:25
At work, at the barbershop, with your unsaved family?
26:25-26:32
How often do you say to someone, "Hey, can I pray for you?" How often do you invite somebody to church?
26:36-26:40
So think of that new believer that's following you around for a month.
26:41-26:42
What would they see from you?
26:45-26:48
Would they see a heart for evangelism that's worth imitating?
26:52-26:55
Number three, are you worth imitating?
26:56-26:57
How about your love for people?
26:57-26:58
How about your heart for evangelism?
26:58-26:59
Worth imitating?
26:59-27:01
Let's read quickly.
27:02-27:03
What about your consistency of faith?
27:06-27:07
Consistency of faith.
27:07-27:08
Is it worth imitating?
27:11-27:12
Look at verse 17 again.
27:14-27:28
He says, "That is why I sent you, Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, I teach them everywhere in every church.
27:32-27:37
He says, "That is why I sent you Timothy." Like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
27:38-27:39
What is why you sent me Timothy?
27:41-27:46
Verse 16, he said, "You're gonna get the flow here." He goes, "Hey, be imitators of me.
27:47-27:50
"That's why I sent you Timothy." You see his point?
27:51-27:52
You see his point?
27:53-27:55
Timothy is the perfect example of discipleship.
27:56-27:59
Timothy is what you want in a spiritual child.
28:00-28:06
Paul's like, "Hey, him coming is as good as me coming." That's what you want.
28:06-28:15
That's when you know that you have discipled someone, when you can send them and they can perfectly represent you and you have no worries.
28:16-28:17
I have that with Pastor Taylor.
28:18-28:26
Whether it's going somewhere to speak or dealing with a crisis or counseling someone, I know that if he's going, it's just the same as if I go.
28:27-28:28
I know he's gonna handle it.
28:29-28:30
And I know he's gonna honor Jesus doing it.
28:37-28:40
Paul says Tim's gonna represent Tim.
28:40-28:42
I called him Tim, we went to high school together.
28:43-28:46
Tim will represent, he'll do what I do.
28:49-28:50
What do you do, Paul?
28:51-28:54
He says, "Teach the same thing everywhere." Right, you see that?
28:55-28:56
Teach the same thing everywhere.
28:56-28:57
Teach what?
28:59-29:00
My ways in Christ.
29:03-29:04
My ways in Christ.
29:05-29:09
Listen, consistency is not about like the lesson of Bible principles.
29:11-29:12
That's not what he's saying here.
29:13-29:21
Not like I printed out a workbook So we made a million copies and we're passing it out.
29:21-29:24
That's not what he's saying.
29:25-29:29
The consistency is in my ways in Christ.
29:30-29:33
It's the way that I live out these principles.
29:33-29:34
My ways everywhere.
29:35-29:36
Do you see that?
29:38-29:42
What Paul's talking about here is integrity.
29:50-29:56
By the way, men, you want to sign up for the men's conference, Brian Behe gives a message on integrity.
29:57-30:06
We were working through rehearsals and such, and he gave his rehearsal recently, and every man that was in the room was just like crushed.
30:07-30:07
Right, Justin?
30:08-30:09
Like integrity.
30:12-30:13
That's what he's talking about here.
30:16-30:43
Integrity. I'm the same follower of Jesus everywhere. Not just Sunday, not just at church, not just a small group. It's integrity. Because nothing dishonors the Lord or kills your witness like hypocrisy. You have any areas of hypocrisy in your life that you need to repent. Right?
30:44-30:50
If a new believer followed you around, would they see a consistency of faith worth imitating?
30:52-31:00
And then finally, number four, your handling of sinners, worth imitating?
31:03-31:11
I want you to notice the different tones that Paul uses here, because he's addressing really two different groups in this passage.
31:11-31:12
Did you notice that?
31:13-31:15
Look at verse 14 again.
31:16-31:28
He says, "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children." Admonish means to lovingly confront in order to change.
31:31-31:42
There's a gentleness in admonishing because spiritual children are a lot like regular children.
31:45-31:55
They mature slowly. They mess up a lot. They frustrate you like crazy, right?
31:58-32:06
And that's why Paul is... Paul says, "I'm not trying to make you feel bad." Right?
32:07-32:18
All this stuff that we've been talking about, Paul's like, "I'm not just trying to bust your chops. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to kick you when you're down. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. He said, here's my endgame. Do better.
32:20-32:21
That's all I'm saying. Do better.
32:27-32:34
Sometimes, you know, I get a little emotional and fired up, whether it's in preaching or counseling. Why?
32:36-32:41
Because look, my job up here is not to just give you Bible information.
32:43-32:44
Like here, here's what the Bible says.
32:45-32:46
You should do this.
32:48-32:49
If you don't, doesn't matter to me.
32:50-32:53
It matters to me that you embrace this.
32:54-33:00
It matters to me that you are taking God's word and reflecting its truths in your life.
33:00-33:03
It matters to me that you get it.
33:06-33:11
And that's why there's times that we have to admonish our spiritual kids when they sin.
33:12-33:14
We have an obligation to do that, by the way.
33:16-33:17
We have an obligation.
33:19-33:20
That's part of parenting.
33:23-33:24
So that's one group.
33:24-33:25
Look at the other group.
33:25-33:28
Look at verses 18 through 21 again.
33:30-33:33
He says, "Some are arrogant as though they were not coming to you.
33:35-33:41
But I will come to you soon if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power.
33:41-33:44
For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk, but in power.
33:46-33:46
What do you wish?
33:47-33:54
Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?" You notice the change of tone?
33:55-34:00
Some people need a little loving admonishment, like, "Hey, hey, we're going to do better, all right?
34:00-34:08
better. Other people need a rebuke. Like, "Hey, you need to knock down a peg." Okay?
34:12-34:30
He's addressing the arrogant. Do you notice that? Some of you are arrogant. They're like kids when mom and dad aren't there. "I don't care what they say." That's what these arrogant Corinthians, they were like, "I don't care what Paul says, he's not here.
34:31-34:32
What's he going to do about it?
34:32-34:33
Oh, he's going to come?
34:33-34:35
Paul's not going to come, that's why he sent Timothy.
34:36-34:37
He's afraid to come here.
34:37-34:40
Paul ain't going to do nothing." All right?
34:40-34:42
I don't know why you guys are so concerned about Paul.
34:42-34:44
He ain't here and he ain't coming.
34:44-34:45
So arrogant.
34:46-35:00
And I love that Paul's like, "Oh, I'm coming." He says, "If the Lord wills." And Paul says, "Then we'll find out." We'll find out who's all talk and no game.
35:01-35:02
We'll find out when I get there.
35:03-35:04
Put your helmet on.
35:08-35:13
Years ago in prison ministry, we had an elderly man who went in.
35:13-35:13
His name was Joe.
35:16-35:25
Sometimes in prison ministry, you would get guys come to Bible study, not because they wanted to learn the Scriptures, but because they wanted to cause problems.
35:25-35:26
We get that a lot.
35:26-35:28
to come just to pick fights.
35:28-35:38
And this one guy in particular, this one night, everything that was said, it was just like, "Oh, you're telling me that." And he was just like, he was protesting everything.
35:38-35:40
He was mocking everybody.
35:40-35:45
Just, he would not shut up the entire time and just obnoxious.
35:47-35:50
And finally Joe spoke up.
35:51-36:00
And Joe said to the man, he goes, Have you ever seen a semi truck driving down the road?
36:02-36:20
And the guy's like, "Yeah?" And Joe goes, "Well, you know, "it's the empty trucks that make the most noise." Guy didn't say much after that.
36:22-36:24
And that's kind of what Paul's saying here.
36:24-36:39
He goes, "Some of you people are just talk." He goes, "We'll find out when I get there." Because the kingdom of heaven is not just like talking, the kingdom of heaven is the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
36:45-36:47
So Paul says in verse 21, "You make the choice.
36:48-36:49
You make the choice.
36:50-36:54
Do you want me to come with the rod?" They're with gentleness, right?
36:54-36:58
How many parents have said something like that to their kids?
36:59-37:00
I know I have.
37:00-37:04
Like, "Hey, look, this can go one of two ways.
37:08-37:09
Make a better choice.
37:11-37:19
It's up to you." So love disciplines.
37:19-37:50
Look, you're going to deal with sinning people, but even in this one passage here, we see that you can't deal with all sinning people the same way. Because the people in verse 14, they were caught up in the divisiveness and yeah, they needed corrected, but the arrogant, Verse 18, "The arrogant needed knocked down." That's why we see two different tones in the same passage.
37:50-37:53
And parents, you need to get this.
37:54-38:18
Parents, when your kids are sinning, spiritual parents, when those you're discipling are sinning, you have to ask yourself, is this a matter of immaturity or is this a matter of rebellion, because immaturity or rebellion, I need to figure that out because that determines my response to the kids.
38:20-38:22
I've seen this a thousand times.
38:22-38:38
Some parents completely freak out when their kid drops a dish, but then that same kid will be flagrantly disobedient and the parent's just like, "Eh, well, what can you do?" Like, no, no, that's where you gotta lay the hammer down, on the rebellion.
38:40-38:41
Paul got that.
38:42-38:43
That's why you see the different tones.
38:46-38:51
So you gotta model this, you have to address sin, and sin has to be addressed appropriately.
38:51-38:55
Is this a situation where I admonish, or is this a situation where I rebuke?
38:55-38:58
Am I dealing with immaturity, or am I dealing with rebellion?
39:00-39:05
So what about that Christian that's, that baby Christian that's following you around all month?
39:08-39:13
Would they see the way you handle sinners to be worth imitating?
39:19-39:24
I talked about ministry year one, kind of a defining moment.
39:25-39:27
Let me talk about marriage year one.
39:33-39:36
First year of our marriage, I was on the phone.
39:39-39:47
I was on the phone, it wasn't this nice, it was an old school, we've been married a long time, so it was a bigger, clunkier phone, but it was a cell phone.
39:47-39:52
And I was just as technologically stupid then as I am now.
39:53-40:01
But I was on the phone with someone and hung up the phone and set the phone down on the kitchen table when Aaron and I were sitting at the kitchen table.
40:02-40:05
And we started talking and reminiscing.
40:05-40:08
We both went to Shakura Elementary School.
40:09-40:09
Go Gremlins.
40:10-40:16
And we started talking about the music class.
40:16-40:20
The music teacher would come in once a week wheeling in the keyboard on the cart.
40:21-40:23
and we would sing these ridiculous songs.
40:24-40:30
Aaron and I were reminiscing, and we started singing the songs together.
40:31-40:34
I asked her if she would come up today and join me for a duet.
40:37-40:38
She's leaning towards no.
40:41-40:44
But we were like, "Oh, do you remember that song?
40:45-40:49
"The song about, 'This is a story about Sammy.'" You guys remember this one?
40:49-40:53
♪ His father sent him out to buy bread ♪ So Aaron and I are belting it out.
40:53-41:00
♪ But Sammy didn't feel like walking ♪ ♪ He wished he could fly instead ♪ And we're like belting it out and we're laughing.
41:01-41:04
And then it's like, oh, do you remember, do you remember Little Tommy Tinker?
41:07-41:09
Do you remember, no, I didn't go to school with him.
41:09-41:10
That was one of the songs.
41:12-41:13
Anybody remember Little Tommy Tinker?
41:15-41:17
Nobody, nobody at all.
41:17-41:28
Little Tommy Tinker, we were singing it, we were just, "Little Tommy Tinker sat on a clinker and he began to cry, 'Mama, mama,' poor little innocent guy." But it's a round.
41:30-41:36
So when I say, "He began to cry," then you would come in at the beginning, I keep going, and it's a round.
41:37-41:39
And it was a real hoot.
41:40-41:45
So Aaron and I are sitting there like, "Little Tommy Tinker," and we were like, "We did the round," and it was awesome.
41:47-41:53
And I'm like, do you remember, another song that I liked was the Jelly Bean Jump.
41:53-41:55
Jump to the jelly bean, jump, jump, jump.
41:55-41:56
So we started singing that one.
41:56-41:57
Jump to the jelly bean, jump, jump, jump.
42:00-42:04
Folks in Mexico City, big, small, andy-to-bitty, all join in this pretty jitty, jump the merry way.
42:05-42:06
Nobody.
42:08-42:17
Well, Aaron remembered, and we sat there for what, 30, 45 minutes, belting out these songs and laughing hysterically.
42:19-42:31
Well, I, I accidentally did not hang up the phone.
42:32-42:33
(audience laughing)
42:35-42:40
And in a way that I still don't understand, the whole thing got recorded.
42:45-42:53
and it was re-listened to, and we were reminded of it for a very long time.
42:56-42:58
You're like, why did you tell us that horrible story?
43:01-43:07
Well, one reason is I wanted to float those songs as options for coming onto the worship set.
43:10-43:11
But the other one is this.
43:13-43:15
I learned a very valuable lesson that day.
43:16-43:20
Whether you realize it or not, someone's always listening to you.
43:23-43:29
Whether you realize it or not, somebody's watching you.
43:30-43:31
And oh, it's over.
43:32-43:38
Much more serious matters than the songs that we sang in elementary school.
43:40-43:43
Somebody is watching how you follow Jesus Christ.
43:47-43:51
So the question is, are you worth imitating?
43:54-43:54
Let's pray.
43:56-44:13
Our Father in heaven, this is a passage that kind of hits us all between the eyes because we are all well aware of the gap between who we are and who we should be sometimes.
44:15-44:17
Father, we thank you for your grace.
44:19-44:26
Father, we thank you that our salvation isn't performance-based by us, it's based on the performance of Jesus.
44:28-44:33
But at the same time, Father, you have called us to be worth imitating.
44:35-44:49
You've called us to take the doctrine from the pages of your Word and show people what that looks like applied in the life of a dad, of a mom, of a friend, of a worker.
44:51-44:52
We are to be an example.
44:53-45:11
I just pray, Father, by the power of your Spirit, that we can, in a sense, sort of stand beside Paul and encourage others to follow our example in seeking You.
45:13-45:16
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Corinthians 4:14-21

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Who has been a “spiritual father” to you? What do you imitate about them?
Who have you tried to be a “spiritual father” to (led to Christ, discipled)?
What kind of change, specifically, do you think Paul was hoping for from the “arrogant” (1 Cor 4:18-21)?
How do you know when to admonish someone (v14), and when to rebuke them (1 Cor 4:19)?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

Jeff Miller

December 1, 2025

Get Unified, Unified and Purified

See Yourself as a Servant

Jeff Miller

December 1, 2025

Get Unified, Unified and Purified

Introduction:

Humble Yourself: 4 Truths to Help You (1 Corinthians 4:1–13)

Only GOD'S OPINION of me matters. (1 Cor 4:3–5)
I've RECEIVED all that I HAVE. (1 Cor 4:6–8)
God wants to SHOW everyone how I SUFFER. (1 Cor 4:9–13a)

John 15:20 – Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you...

1 Peter 2:21–23 – For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
The WORLD thinks I'm SCUM. (1 Cor 4:13b)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:41-00:42
Good morning.
00:43-00:46
My name is Jeff, and let me tell you a little bit about myself.
00:48-00:49
That's such an interesting thing, isn't it?
00:49-00:51
Like, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
00:52-01:04
Or when you ask somebody, "Hey, tell me about yourself." It's an interesting thing because the first thing that comes out of their mouths is the thing that they want to be known as, right?
01:04-01:05
Or known for.
01:06-01:08
let me tell you a little bit about myself.
01:11-01:16
Do you know where, you see this a lot, game shows, right?
01:16-01:24
Let me tell you a little bit about myself, or if you've ever watched Jeopardy, it is such a cringey moment.
01:25-01:31
You know, they come back from commercial break, and some of us remember Alex Trebek, who's the guy now?
01:32-01:37
Ken Jennings, okay, like, All right, we're gonna meet our contestants and tell me a little bit about yourself.
01:38-01:42
I'm always so fascinated with the way they identify themselves, right?
01:43-01:49
It's so fascinating because, yeah, like some are cool, but some are just really, really weird.
01:49-01:59
And I'm like, you're on TV and this is gonna go to syndication and this is gonna be seen by millions and this is what you came up with.
01:59-02:00
You know what I'm talking about?
02:01-02:04
But like, you know, this is our challenger, Bill.
02:04-02:05
Tell us about yourself.
02:06-02:29
And Bill's like, "Yeah, one time I showed up to work and I had my pants on backwards." "Oh, what'd you do?" "Well, I just kind of stepped into the bathroom and turned them around." I was like, "Okay, all right, let's meet Glenda." And I'm like, "What was that?" Let me tell you a little bit about myself.
02:29-02:31
How do you want to be known?
02:34-03:00
Well, I was thinking about that a lot this past week as we get to 1 Corinthians 4, because if the apostle Paul was on Jeopardy and the host says, "All right, well, tell us a little bit about yourself, Paul." I think we know exactly what he'd say Because it's here in 1 Corinthians 4.
03:03-03:04
Look at the first couple of verses.
03:04-03:18
He says, "This is how one should regard us as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
03:19-03:45
Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy "Tell us a little bit about yourself, Paul." He goes, "Okay, I'm a slave of Jesus Christ." Actually this word for servant in the Greek is the lowest slave, like bottom rank slave.
03:46-03:47
And then he says stewards.
03:47-03:48
What's a steward?
03:48-03:54
Well, in those days, wealthy people would have someone who was like their sort of house manager.
03:55-03:59
in charge of distribution and spending and inventory.
03:59-04:00
And you know who got that job?
04:01-04:04
It was one of the slaves, still a slave.
04:06-04:08
So why is he saying this?
04:10-04:18
Well, we've seen throughout 1 Corinthians, the issue was all of this exalting leaders, right?
04:18-04:23
Putting Paul and Apollos and Cephas up on pedestals and all these factions.
04:24-04:30
And Paul here in 1 Corinthians is saying, "Look, look, look, you're regarding us as world changers.
04:30-04:33
You're regarding us as these elite Christians.
04:33-04:44
You're regarding us as celebrity church planners." And Paul here is like, "Eh, here is how you should regard us." I'm a slave.
04:45-04:46
That's it.
04:47-04:48
I'm a slave.
04:51-04:58
They had this terrible problem exalting the ministers, and it resulted in them exalting themselves.
04:58-04:59
We've seen that.
05:00-05:05
The pride with their alignment, like, "Yeah, I'm one of Paul's guys." "Oh yeah, that's nothing.
05:05-05:22
I'm one of Apollos' guys." And they were proud of their alignment, and they had disdain towards others, like, "Oh, you must be one of those Paul people." And Paul here is saying, "Why are you making so much of us?
05:24-05:25
We're just slaves.
05:26-05:28
All we're trying to do is be trustworthy.
05:28-05:37
That's it." We saw back in chapter, I'm sorry, in verse 18 rather, in chapter 3.
05:40-05:48
Look back there, Paul says, "Let no one deceive himself." We are so self-deceived.
05:48-05:51
And Paul's like, "Oh, Corinthians, you think you're so wise.
05:51-05:52
You think you have it all figured out.
05:53-05:55
You think you're on the right team.
05:56-06:00
You're so full of pride." Again, that's the issue.
06:00-06:02
Look down at verse 21 in chapter 3.
06:02-06:03
Pastor Taylor covered this last week.
06:04-06:10
He says, "So let no one boast in men." That shouldn't be happening.
06:10-06:18
Not Paul, not Apollos, not Jeff, not Taylor, not your favorite podcast or YouTube's preacher.
06:19-06:20
We shouldn't be exalting anyone.
06:22-06:27
And when we get to this section here in chapter 4, here's what we're going to see.
06:28-06:36
Paul is giving a true biblical assessment of himself.
06:40-06:51
And he tells the Corinthians, "Look, you have to take an honest assessment of who we are." And, Corinthians, you have to take an honest assessment of yourselves.
06:56-07:03
So here in this passage, Paul's going to be serving up some humble pie, all right?
07:04-07:05
So strap on your helmet.
07:07-07:14
This isn't going to be a very comfortable message because Paul's like, "Hey, stop with the pride.
07:14-07:16
Stop exalting people.
07:16-07:17
Stop exalting yourselves.
07:17-07:19
Here's a reality check and harvest.
07:20-07:28
We need a reality check." Because it's real easy for us to point to the Corinthians and be like, "Wow, look at all the pride they have.
07:28-07:34
Look at all the problems they have." Pride isn't every one of us' problem, you realize that.
07:35-07:47
Every single human has a problem with pride, has a problem with self-exaltation, and it's real easy to do that in a church identity.
07:48-07:53
it was for the Corinthians, and it's easy for Harvest Bible Chapel to begin to exalt ourselves.
07:57-08:10
We can look at some of the nonsense that's happening around us, and other churches or organizations that call themselves churches, and it'd be real easy for us to say, well, we're the only ones that are faithful.
08:11-08:13
We are more mature than the other Christians.
08:15-08:19
I don't know what their problem is, but I follow this guy or I listen to this guy.
08:19-08:20
That means I'm one of the smart ones.
08:20-08:22
I'm one of the enlightened ones.
08:22-08:27
And it's real easy to go down the path of pride.
08:30-08:32
That's what we're gonna see in this passage.
08:32-08:34
The Bible's telling us to humble ourselves.
08:35-08:37
Like, hey, hey, knock it off.
08:39-08:41
Stop thinking so much of yourself.
08:44-08:45
You gotta humble yourself.
08:47-09:01
You know, so much in God's Word, we see things that the Holy Spirit does in us and through us, yes, but from what I've studied in God's Word, the command to humble yourself, that's on you.
09:03-09:15
And that would be a whole other sermon series, but you and I are commanded, we are commanded to humble ourselves, so we don't get carried away in our pride.
09:19-09:22
Because humility is the number one characteristic that God's looking for in people.
09:22-09:24
You're not going to come to Jesus unless you're humble.
09:25-09:28
You're not going to live a victorious Christian life unless you're humble.
09:29-09:32
You're not going to have a fruitful ministry unless you're humble.
09:32-09:34
If you're going to be humble, it's on you.
09:39-09:41
So on your outline, I want you to jot some things down.
09:43-09:44
Humble yourself.
09:46-09:52
You're like, "Well, how do I do that?" Paul's like, "Well, here's four things "that'll help you do that." All right?
09:55-10:01
So I hope you had a good Thanksgiving and I hope you're not too full because you're about to have four slices of humble pie.
10:03-10:06
And I don't feel bad at all because I've had to eat this all week, all right?
10:08-10:10
So pray for me and I'll pray for you, all right?
10:10-10:13
Just pause for a second, please pray for me as I pray for you.
10:15-10:22
Father in heaven, as we come to your word, let us not be deceiving ourselves.
10:22-10:30
Every single one of us have this drive to put the spotlight on us, to make much of us, to think too much of ourselves.
10:30-10:41
And Father, this passage is certainly going to to give us the attitude that You've called us to have.
10:43-10:58
Father, I pray through the wisdom of Your Word, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, that You would give us the faith to make the choices that we need to make, to humble ourselves so we can see the greatness of Jesus Christ manifest in our lives.
10:59-11:02
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
11:04-11:36
yourself here's four truths that will help you these are four statements that Paul made about himself and that we would commend to you to make about yourself number one only God's opinion of me matters only God's opinion of me matters look at verse 3 Paul says but with me it is a very small thing that I by you or by any human court.
11:37-11:41
In fact, I do not even judge myself.
11:42-11:47
Now quick review, when we talk about judge, that's like everybody's favorite verse in the Bible.
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Don't judge, don't judge.
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It's everybody's favorite because they don't understand it.
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Judging does not mean like, hey, don't call me out on sin or you're judging me.
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That's not what that means.
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Judging doesn't mean that like I can be a jerk and I can't care what other people think of me jerkiness, don't call me out. That's not what judging means at all. Actually, this word for judge in the Greek could be translated cross-examined. He's talking about people judging your walk with Christ. That's what he's talking about. Judging your, as he mentioned in verse 2, judging your trustworthiness. Some Bibles say faithful or faithfulness.
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That's what he's talking about.
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People judging your faithfulness, your trustworthiness.
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And well, what does that mean to you, Paul?
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He says, "Well, that's a very small thing." And in the Greek, do you know what that means?
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That means the smallest.
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Your opinion of my spiritual walk does not matter for bad or for good.
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It doesn't.
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Here's what I mean.
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After service, if I was at guest reception and you walk by and you're like, "Jeff, I think you're a bad pastor." Like, "Well, sorry you feel that way, but your opinion doesn't matter." Right now there's some of you that are like, "Yes, I can get on board with that." Your opinion doesn't matter.
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That's not really my main concern though.
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You know what the bigger danger is?
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Is the guy that walks your guest reception and says, "Jeff, I think you're a great pastor." That's the bigger danger because then that stuff can start going to your head.
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You can start to think, "You know what?
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Yeah, they're right.
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I am pretty awesome.
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They nailed it.
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Come back, tell me more.
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But the reality is for bad or for good, the opinion doesn't matter.
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That's where there's a danger.
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I've been talking about this with our ministry team and our conference speakers, we have conferences coming up.
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Yet, a people's opinion of your trustworthiness, your faithfulness doesn't matter, good or bad.
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Watch out for the compliments because they're much harder to dismiss because they're much easier to go to my head.
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All right, look at verse 4.
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Paul says, "For I'm not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.
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It is the Lord who judges me." See, Paul says, "What other people think of me doesn't really matter, neither does what I even think of myself." Doesn't matter either, right?
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You need to have the funeral.
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I realize I'm probably not as great as my grandma thinks I am.
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And I'm probably not as horrible as my critics think I am.
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Either way, it doesn't matter because a slave only cares about one thing, that's pleasing his master.
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Look at verse 5, he goes on, he goes, "Therefore, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness, and will disclose the purposes of the heart.
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Then each one will receive his commendation from God." Okay, here's what he's driving at.
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At the end of the day, there's only one opinion that matters.
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Whose is it?
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God's, right?
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That's it.
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All that matters is what God thinks of me.
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He's going to make the final judgments on your heart.
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Now listen, this verse should knock every single one of us down a peg.
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Because you see what God's Word is telling us.
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God sees what you do.
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Yes, yes He does, but much deeper than that.
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God sees why you do what you do.
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Your motives, your thoughts, what no one else knows, everything that you do in the dark, God is going to drag it to the light.
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Understand that with God, there are no secrets.
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You might have secrets from your family.
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You might have secrets from your spouse.
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You might have secrets from your boss.
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You might have secrets from your parents, but you do not have any secrets from God.
17:20-17:21
So are you pretending?
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Are you pretending in your walk with Christ?
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You might fool me.
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But it doesn't matter.
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You're an open book to God and He's going to judge.
17:35-17:36
Are you sincere?
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Like, look, I'm not perfect, but I'm sincere.
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I am sincerely seeking to know and honor the Lord.
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Jeff, I really am seeking to know the Lord." That's great because the Bible says someday you're going to receive your commendation.
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But as far as humbling yourself, my friends, you will never humble yourself until you get to the place where only God's opinion of you matters.
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You've got to get there.
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Number two, not only do I need to reckon with only God's opinion, he matters.
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Number two, write this one down.
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I've received all that I have.
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I've received all that I have.
18:29-19:02
6. He says, "I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that "None of you may be puffed up "in favor of one against another." There is a lot going on in that verse, all right?
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Let's break it down here because this is so crucial in so many ways.
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First of all, he says, "I've applied all these things to me "and Apollos for your benefit." You're like, "Applied what things?" "Everything so far that he's been saying "about pride and humility, all of this stuff." He goes, "I'm applying all of this "to Apollos and I for you." In other words, look, all this stuff that he's talking about, this isn't just a preacher thing, and it's not just a church member thing.
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This stuff about pride and humility, this is an all of us thing.
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You get that?
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And he says, Excuse me, we all need to learn not to go beyond what is written.
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What does that mean?
19:59-20:04
Listen, this is a principle that carries over in everything.
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You need to learn that you must not, excuse me, you must not go beyond what the Bible says.
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You must not go beyond what the Bible says.
20:27-20:28
Well, what's he talking about?
20:29-20:29
Here's his point.
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He's telling the Corinthians, and he's telling us Harvest, because they were exalting others and they had disdain for others.
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And Paul's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no." You need to view people only the way the Bible describes people.
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That's what he's saying.
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You need to view people only as the Bible describes.
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That's it.
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How does the Bible describe people?
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Every single one of us were born with a sin nature.
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We inherited that from Adam.
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The Bible says Adam brought sin into the world and he passed it on to his kids, he passed onto his kids and pass it on to us.
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We were born with a sin nature.
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We are rebellious against God by birth and by choice, and we deserve hell.
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That's what the Bible says about people.
21:31-21:34
But Jesus came, God in the flesh came.
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He died on the cross to take away our sins.
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He rose from the dead to give us the promise of eternal life, and he has commanded us to turn from our sin to believe in Him.
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And when we do, the Bible says that you are born again.
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When you do, the Holy Spirit, God's Spirit Himself comes and empowers you to be who God called you to be.
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And every single person who is saved is saved that way.
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Spoiler alert, if you're going to heaven, You're going to hear the same testimony a lot.
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Like, "How'd you get here?" "Jesus." "How'd you get here?" "Jesus." "I'm gonna go ask this lady, how'd you get here?" "Jesus." You're gonna hear that, not a lot.
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You're gonna hear that exclusively.
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Paul's point here is, look, you guys are all messed up about exalting people.
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Look, you need to have a biblical perspective of who we are.
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Don't go beyond that.
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Or, did you see that at the end of the verse?
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If you do, you will start exalting yourself, right?
22:53-23:02
He says, "You may be puffed up in favor of one against another." Go beyond what the Bible says, you're going to start having pride.
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You're going to start to think that you're better than others.
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And then Paul gives them the Dutch uncle.
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Look at verse 7.
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He says, he has three questions.
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Paul says, "For who sees anything different in you?" Like we're all the same.
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The Bible describes this is who man is.
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And he goes, "Who sees anything different in you?" Like what, you're something different?
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You're something special?
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You're a little snowflake?
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Like, oh, you're like, "I know what the Bible says, "but I'm different.
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"I'm special, Grandma thinks I'm special." He said, "Who sees anything different in you?" Like what makes you think you're so special, right?
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Next question, "What do you have that you did not receive?" Get back to that in a second.
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Let that question marinate.
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What is it that you're in possession of that wasn't like given to you?
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All right?
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Then he drives it home with this third question.
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He goes, "If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" Paul's like, "Why are you so full of yourselves?
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Everything and everything about you, you received that.
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I mean, think about that.
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Just think about that for a minute.
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That's true physically, right?
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about you physically, you received that genetically from your parents.
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You know, occasionally I'll meet somebody or whatever and they're like, "How old are you?" I'm like, "Well, I'm 50." And people say, "Well, you look young for your age." And I say, "Have you been to the eye doctor lately?" "No, I don't say that.
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I don't say that." "I just, I smile and say thank you." Or like, "I got good genes from my mom." But you know what I'm thinking when people say that?
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Like, "That's very nice of you to say, "but I contributed nothing to that." Like, "This is what I got.
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"That's just what I got.
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"I received this." You're like, "I'm sorry." Well, I received this.
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This is what I got.
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This is what was given to me.
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You're like, "Well, doesn't that upset you?" It doesn't matter how I feel about it, this is what I got.
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This is the shade of my skin.
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This is as tall as I'm going to get.
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But that's true for you.
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Everything you have was given to you.
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But I don't really think that's Paul's main point here.
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I think mainly he was talking spiritually, right?
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Everything that I have spiritually has been given to me.
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Salvation, that was a gift from God.
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God gave me that.
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What about spiritual giftedness?
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Where did I get that?
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The Holy Spirit, God gave me a spiritual gift.
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He gave you a spiritual gift.
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It was given, that's why it's called a spiritual gift.
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He gave it to you, right?
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Oh, by the way, your talents, you know the Bible says those are given to you by God, your natural, what we call natural talents.
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The Bible says those were given to you by God.
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Look that up, it's in Exodus.
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Everything about you has been given to you from God directly or from God through your parents.
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And you're like, "Not me.
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I work hard." Why?
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Who gave you the ability to work hard?
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You see, why are you acting like you earned anything?
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And then Paul gets sarcastic with them.
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Look at verse eight.
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Obviously dripping with sarcasm here.
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He is, "Already you have all you want.
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Already you become rich without us.
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You would have become kings.
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Would that you did reign so that we might share the rule with you.
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Do you see the sarcasm?
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He's condemning their pride.
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He's like, oh, oh, I'm so sorry.
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I didn't realize that you were these spiritually elite and wise people.
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I didn't realize that you attained a level of spirituality all by yourselves.
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You didn't need us, Madam President.
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Oh, I beg your pardon for thinking different.
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What Paul's doing here is he's pulling them back down to earth.
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He's like, you guys think you're so superior with your pride.
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Knock it off.
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Get off of your high horse.
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Stop it.
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Because everything you have has been given to you.
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How in the world can you boast about that?
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You know, just imagine this scenario.
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Imagine that five of our kids from Harvest Academy, imagine I gave them each a quarter.
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Like, no, don't spend it all in one place.
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But I gave five kids a quarter.
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And as you're walking out church, you see the five of those kids, those five kids are sitting at a table up here by Harvest Academy.
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And you stop and listen for a second and they're all bragging.
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And one kid's like, "I got a quarter.
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"I got a quarter.
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"Look how awesome I am.
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"I have a quarter." And then the little girl beside him is like, "I got a quarter.
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"You think you're great?
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"I got a quarter.
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"I'm awesome, I got a quarter." And then the next kid's like, "I got a quarter." And wouldn't you be like, "What are you guys bragging about?
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"Jeff just gave you all a quarter.
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"How does that, why are you so boastful?" And that's what Paul's saying here to the Corinthians.
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You're like a bunch of kids bragging because somebody gave each a quarter.
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Knock it off, we're all equal in God's eyes.
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And equal does not mean the same, But equal does mean equal.
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You're never gonna humble yourself until you get to the place where you recognize every single thing that you have was given to you.
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All right?
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Humble yourself.
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And here's four truths that'll help you.
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Number three.
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This is a hard truth.
30:44-30:44
All right?
30:49-30:53
Number three is God wants to show everyone how I suffer.
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God wants to show everyone how I suffer.
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Pick up in verse nine.
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Paul says, "For I think that God has exhibited us apostles of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." Paul says, "God put us on display." He says, "We're like the lowest people on the earth." See the picture there?
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Paul says, "You know what we're like? We're like men on death row, being escorted to the electric chair while TV cameras all around recording us for the entire world to turn on the TV and watch us." Like, "Hey, look, there they go, off to be killed. Look at them. Everybody watch." Watch.
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That's how God put us on display.
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You see in v. 10, Paul gets back into some more sarcasm.
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He says, "We are fools for Christ's sake.
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But you are wise in Christ.
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We are weak, but you are strong.
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You are held in honor, we and disrepute." What's he talking about here?
32:39-32:40
It's more sarcasm.
32:41-32:42
See what Paul's saying?
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Paul's like, "We're out here suffering, serving the Lord.
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We're out here actually suffering, and you're sitting in your little pews patting yourselves on the back.
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What's going on?" Like, "Well, suffering how?
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How are you suffering, Paul?
33:02-33:08
Well, he tells us, "To the present hour, we hunger and thirst.
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We are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands." What is there to brag about again?
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Paul's reminding them that following Christ means suffering.
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I don't really care what the health and wealth church down the street says about that, and I don't really care what the prosperity preacher on TV says about that.
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All I care is what the Bible says about that, and do you know what the Bible says?
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The Bible says if you follow Christ, you are going to suffer.
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Jesus himself said this, John 15, 20.
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Jesus said, "Remember the word that I said to you, "'A servant is not greater than his master.'" Jesus said that a bunch.
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"A servant is not greater than his master." What are you saying, Lord?
34:22-34:30
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you." See what Jesus is saying?
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God allowed His only begotten Son to suffer.
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So you think as an adopted child of God that you're exempt from that?
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You think that because you're adopted, that you get a pass on suffering?
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Listen, God doesn't keep you from suffering.
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He puts you on display in suffering.
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You're like, "Why would He do that?
35:14-35:16
Why in the world would God do that?
35:16-35:26
Are you telling me that God is allowing me to suffer so everybody can watch me suffer?" That's what He said.
35:27-35:32
Like, "Why would He do that?" He tells us.
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We continue in verse 12 here.
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He says, "When reviled, we bless.
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When persecuted, we endure.
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When slandered, we entreat." So why in the world would God lead us to suffering?
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So God can show everyone who's watching How? How we suffer.
36:17-36:22
So he talks here about being reviled and persecuted and slandered.
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Have you ever seen worldly people react to those things?
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All the time, right?
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What does the world do when they're reviled or persecuted or slandered?
36:31-36:34
The world reactions, they're on display everywhere.
36:34-36:37
It's retaliation, it's temper tantrums.
36:37-36:39
I'll get even with you, you can't do this to me.
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It's pity parties and oh, woe is me.
36:42-36:45
And that's how the world reacts.
36:46-36:53
Listen, God wants you to walk through the same kinds of suffering so that you can exhibit the life of Christ.
36:53-36:55
Do you realize how awesome this is?
36:56-37:04
That God is going to allow you to suffer so the world can watch, so God can point to you and say, "Look at how my people suffer.
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"Oh, you see how the world suffers "and how they retaliate and how they're bitter "and how they're angry.
37:13-37:14
"And look at my people.
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"When they suffer, "they reflect the character of my son.
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"Look at my people.
37:27-37:32
When they're reviled, they turn around and they look for ways to bless the people that hate them.
37:33-37:34
Do you see my people do that?
37:36-37:38
God says, "Look at my people.
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When they're persecuted, they don't pack it up.
37:42-37:43
They don't boo-hoo.
37:43-37:43
I quit.
37:43-37:44
I can't take it anymore.
37:45-37:46
Look at my people.
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When my people are persecuted, they endure.
37:49-37:56
They are not going to give up." God says, "Look at my people when they're slandered.
37:59-38:00
They don't slander back.
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They don't hate the people that speak negatively about them." God says, "Look at what my people do.
38:05-38:05
They entreat.
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They're trying to reach the people that hate them with the gospel of my Son.
38:12-38:21
Look at my people." This guy sounds familiar, doesn't it?
38:24-38:27
Probably because Peter said something almost identical.
38:29-38:31
Look at 1 Peter 2, verse 21.
38:32-38:33
Look at this.
38:33-38:35
Same thing, exact same truth.
38:37-38:53
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps." Here's the example.
38:53-38:56
Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.
38:58-39:00
When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.
39:00-39:36
When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." You're going to suffer. The only real question is, "How are you going to suffer?" Meaning, what is going to be your attitude during your suffering? You're going to lash because your pride was hurt, you're gonna humble yourself and show them the example that Jesus gave you.
39:40-39:46
But you'll never humble yourself until you understand that you are called to respond to suffering like Jesus.
39:51-39:53
One more slice of humble pie, are you full?
39:56-39:59
You're like, you know what, Pastor Jeff, I think I'm just the right amount of humble.
40:01-40:02
Can we sing and get out of here?
40:03-40:04
There's one more.
40:06-40:12
Number four, something to tell yourself when you start to think that you're so important.
40:13-40:15
Number four, the world thinks I'm scum.
40:20-40:22
Look at the last part of verse 13.
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We have become and are still like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.
40:40-40:41
Yeah, we're scum.
40:42-40:44
We're garbage, you know that.
40:45-40:46
We are garbage people.
40:47-40:51
To the lost, they think our message is foolishness.
40:51-40:52
You realize that?
40:53-41:14
You realize that to the lost, they would come in here and hear what we're doing, see what we're doing, and they would say, literally, "What a bunch of morons." Look, if you're here for a little ego boost, I'd just like to remind you what the Bible says, you're trash.
41:15-41:18
We're all just trash in the world's eyes.
41:23-41:32
You know, when I was a kid, my dad used to say that, he had this little saying that he said all the time, and as a kid, I never understood what it meant.
41:36-42:06
It was this, anytime somebody was acting untowardly, somebody was acting like a hog or insulting you or being cruel towards you or speaking perversely, or anytime somebody was acting like that, my dad would just say, "Oh, you gotta consider the source." I never knew what that meant until I became an adult.
42:06-42:09
Now I'm, oh.
42:12-42:14
I get what he's saying now.
42:17-42:21
And I think that little saying of dad's That certainly applies here.
42:23-42:26
It's like, hey, you know, the world thinks you're scum.
42:28-42:29
Well, consider the source.
42:31-42:35
The brilliant world crucified Jesus Christ.
42:38-42:48
This world, who was giving their opinion of me, took God in the flesh and publicly executed Him most humiliating and painful way.
42:51-42:52
Oh, they think I'm scum, huh?
42:52-42:57
Well, I guess I should just consider the source.
42:58-43:00
Oh, you're never gonna be popular with the world.
43:00-43:05
If you follow Christ, you are never going to be popular with the world, it's not going to happen.
43:06-43:07
They think you're scum.
43:10-43:14
And the truth is I'm actually much worse than they think I am.
43:18-43:19
I am.
43:22-43:28
My sin is so bad it took the blood of the spotless Son of God to wash my sin away.
43:29-43:30
That must mean my sin was pretty bad.
43:34-43:37
So it takes us back to point one, right?
43:38-43:40
God's opinion is really the only one that matters anyways.
43:41-43:53
that you're never going to humble yourself until you're okay with the world regarding you as scum.
43:55-43:55
All right?
43:56-44:07
So if our worship team would make their way back to the platform, just wanna leave you with this.
44:09-44:35
If you're ever a contestant on Jeopardy, not likely for most of us, or you start to think that you're pretty important, which is actually very likely for all of us, I'm I'm gonna give you your speech.
44:38-44:48
When someone says, "So, tell me a little bit about yourself." If you wanna be biblical, here's your speech.
44:48-44:54
Like, "My name is, I'm only here to please God.
44:56-44:58
Everything I have has been given to me.
45:00-45:08
God wants me to suffer so that the world can see Jesus and the world thinks I'm scum.
45:09-45:10
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
45:12-45:12
Let's pray.
45:14-45:22
Father in heaven, I just ask again that you would use your word to humble all of us.
45:25-45:40
Our sin is so self-exalting and we start to think that we have things figured out or we reached a level that other people should aspire to when your word says that we should humble ourselves.
45:43-46:01
Father, remind us of these truths that someday we're gonna stand before you and on that day, We will learn the truth that it is only your opinion that means anything.
46:03-46:05
Increase our faith, Father.
46:07-46:12
Give us the drive to humble ourselves.
46:12-46:15
We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read 1 Corinthians 4:1-13

What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Paul is once again admonishing them on their divisiveness over “who is the best minister”. Why do you think there is so much content on this subject in 1 Corinthians?
How would you define humility? Why does the Bible say that you must “humble yourself”, i.e., that job is on you to do?
In 1 Cor 4:6, Paul tells them not to “go beyond what is written”? What specifically does he mean by that? How does this principle apply to Bible study in general?

Breakout
Pray for one another.

I Want to Be Like God

Introduction:

I Want to Be Like God (John 1:14–18)

I Want to Belong to God

Introduction:

I Want to Belong to Jesus… (John 1:4–13)

I Want to Know God

Introduction:

I Want to Know God (John 1:1–3):

Be Worth Imitating

Introduction:

Are You Worth Imitating? 4 Areas to Evaluate (1 Corinthians 4:14–21)

See Yourself as a Servant

Introduction:

Humble Yourself: 4 Truths to Help You (1 Corinthians 4:1–13)

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

I Want to Be Like God (John 1:14–18)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction:

I Want to Belong to Jesus… (John 1:4–13)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction:

I Want to Know God (John 1:1–3):

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction:

Are You Worth Imitating? 4 Areas to Evaluate (1 Corinthians 4:14–21)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

Introduction:

Humble Yourself: 4 Truths to Help You (1 Corinthians 4:1–13)

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT