WWUTT 878 Jesus is Going Away?

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Jesus said to those who wanted to kill Him, I am going away and you will seek me and you will die in your sin.

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Well, I thought the Bible said that no one seeks for God. Well, He's saying that they're seeking Him to hate

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Him, when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to sound teaching of the

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Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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And don't forget our website, www .wutt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.

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Thank you, Becky. My voice is still on the weak side, but we're pressing on. We'll see.

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Once again, if I'm able to make it all the way through the lesson today, I'm in John chapter 8, starting in verse 21 through verse 30.

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The Apostle John wrote, So Jesus said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

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Where I am going, you cannot come. So the Jews said, Will he kill himself, since he says,

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Where I am going, you cannot come? He said to them, You are from below, I am from above.

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You are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

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So they said to him, Who are you? And Jesus said to them, Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.

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I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what

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I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

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So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the

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Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So this is the

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Pharisees that Jesus is talking to here, and he said to them, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

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I am going away, of course, means that Jesus will die on the cross. He will rise from the grave, and then he will ascend into heaven.

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And where he is going, they cannot come. He says, I am going away, and you will seek me.

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And you might have read that and thought for a moment, wait, doesn't Romans 3 .11 say that no one seeks for God?

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So how is it that they could be seeking him after he goes away? If this is about him ascending into heaven, they're going to seek after him after he goes away, even though it says no one seeks for God?

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Not the same kind of seeking that Jesus is talking about here. Remember, these are unbelievers, and the way that Jesus is speaking to them here, he's saying that they won't believe.

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Now, of course, we have at the end of this paragraph, as he was saying these things, many believed in him, but it wasn't the people that Jesus was talking to.

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It was the other people that were around that overheard this conversation, that were witnessing this exchange between Jesus and the

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Pharisees. And so he's saying to them, I'm going away. You cannot come where I am going.

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You are going to die in your sins. So how is it that they seek after him? They are seeking him to hate him.

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They are looking for the object of their hate, and they will not find him.

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What they will find is his disciples, and they will put the disciples to death.

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Some of the disciples end up getting beaten or martyred because of the

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Pharisees. But Jesus himself, they will not find. He will go away. They won't find his body.

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It will be gone. He will ascend into heaven. They won't be able to find him there because they cannot go to heaven where he is.

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You will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Their hate, they will become so hardened that they will hate

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God for the rest of their lives to the point that they die and fall into judgment.

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This is Jesus saying this of them. And remember, he said earlier that I did not come to judge.

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That is John 8 verse 15, which we read yesterday. He said to them, you judge according to the flesh.

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I judge no one. Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not

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I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. Now, remember, I qualified this yesterday by saying that Jesus is talking about final judgment here.

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He's not talking about, you know, making character judgments because he was making such a judgment just by making that statement.

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And here he's making such a judgment as well. You will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

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That's a judgment. But it's not final judgment. It's not the judgment that's going to be made before the throne of judgment in heaven.

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But it's simply Jesus making a judgment about their character, and he's saying something about their future as well, the kind of judgment that they are going to fall into, the fact that the wrath of God is still upon them.

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This was back in John 3 verse 36. He who has the son has life.

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He who does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

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Remains suggests that we are under that wrath before we come to Christ, before we believe in the gospel.

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The wrath of God is upon us. The wrath of God burning against all unrighteousness of man is talked about in Romans 1 and 2.

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And so this wrath we are under because we are born under the sin of Adam, Adam who is our federal head.

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We are born in judgment, but we are born again into righteousness. It is by the gospel of Christ and believing in the gospel that we come to saving faith in the knowledge of God.

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And here these men are under the wrath of God, these Pharisees, and they won't ever get out from under that.

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They're going to remain in that and they're going to die in their sin is what Jesus is saying. Where I am going, you cannot come.

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I'm going to heaven. You cannot come there. And he explains why here in just a moment. The Jews said, will he kill himself since he says where I am going, you cannot come.

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So again, as I mentioned, he's speaking with the Pharisees. And how do we know that? That was back in verse 13.

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In verse 12, Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

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So the Pharisees said to him, so this is the Pharisees that he is talking with.

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There are others who are there observing this exchange, and it is the Jews who speak up at that particular point in the conversation, verse 22.

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So the Jews said, will he kill himself? Since he says where I am going, you cannot come.

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They don't understand what Jesus is talking about either. And he said to them, verse 23, you are from below.

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I am from above. And I don't think when he says here you are from below that he's referencing hell.

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I don't think that's what that means. He's just saying that you are of this world. You're worldly, which is bad enough.

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He may not be saying you are from hell, but that is where they're going to end up going. If they don't repent and follow

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Christ, he qualifies that here in a moment. You are from below. I am from above. You are of this world.

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I am not of this world. Remember, Jesus had said previously he had come from the father. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

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Unless you believe that I am the son of God. Unless you believe that I am.

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That's Yahweh, right? The Tetragrammaton. As God had introduced himself to Moses, I am.

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I am who I am. I am is the one who sent you. And so Jesus refers to himself that way as well.

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I am. Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

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Unless you believe that I am God. Unless you know that I am the savior. Unless you know that I am the one who was sent by the father.

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So they said to him, who are you? Again, they're not getting it. But of course, the Pharisees understood these references.

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They wanted to kill him for it. So who are you? And Jesus said to them, just what I have been telling you from the beginning.

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I have much to say about you and much to judge. But he who sent me is true.

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And I declare to the world what I have heard from him. The father is true.

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What I am saying from the father is true. I declare what I have learned from the father.

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And they did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the father. So Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he.

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And that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the father taught me.

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So once they lift up Christ, they will see that this is the fulfillment of everything that had been spoken about him in the

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Old Testament. They won't get it until then. And then there are many who are going to believe the Pharisees are even going to recognize this.

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But yet in their hardness of heart, it won't lead them to repentance. They will see his crucifixion.

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They will see the empty tomb. But again, Jesus said to them, you will die in your sins.

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You will seek me. You will look for me to hate me again. Even after I've risen from the grave, you'll still seek to hate me.

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But you're not going to find me. Because when Jesus visited with his disciples during that time, during that 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven, he was actually making constant trips between visiting with his disciples and going to heaven.

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But he did not ascend away from them for a final time. He didn't sleep here on earth in that 40 day period.

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And just to give you an example of that, when Jesus had walked with his disciples on the road to Emmaus to the place where they were going, and then he came in and ate with them.

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Once he broke bread and passed it to them, their eyes were open to see who he was.

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And then he vanished from their sight. He was immediately gone. Where did he go? Where did he come from when he would just suddenly appear to them and he would appear in the room with them?

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Well, he was traveling back and forth between earth and heaven. That's where he had been in the time that he was dead.

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When Jesus died, when he breathed his last on the cross, according to the gospel of Luke, he said to his father into your hands,

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I commit my spirit. So that's where his spirit goes. It goes to be with God. His body went to the tomb.

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His spirit went to be with God, just as it's as it said in Ecclesiastes chapter 12.

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When a man dies, his body goes back to the ground from which it was formed and his spirit goes back to the one who gave it.

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And that is God. So the same is the case with Jesus death on the cross. When he died, his spirit went to be with the father while his body went in the ground.

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But then on the day that it came for him to be resurrected, his spirit was reunited with his body.

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He rose again from the grave and then having the supernatural power that had been given to him by the authority of the father, he was able to travel.

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If that's the word you want to learn, if that's the word you want to use for it, travel between the spiritual realm and the earthly realm.

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And so when he would appear to his disciples, he's appearing from that spiritual place where God and the angels dwell and he would appear to his disciples and then he'd disappear.

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He would vanish again. But the ascension was different. The ascension was showing the disciples that they would see with their own eyes.

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He had ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of the father, that they would see that for themselves.

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So it wasn't just a matter of Jesus appearing and disappearing, but that they would see finally for the last time his ascension to be seated with the father.

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And then he would not be seen again until he would come back the same way. And so that's that's what we're anticipating.

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Now we're looking forward to the return of Christ in his second coming.

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Between what we're reading here in John and that time when Jesus is going to return, the people who hate him will look for him and not be able to find him.

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And in fact, Peter even says in Second Peter, chapter three, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the

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Lord and Savior through your apostles. Knowing this, first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

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They will say, where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation, for they deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluge with water and perished.

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But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

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So even in these days, there are scoffers who are saying, where is this appearance of his coming?

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They are seeking him and not finding him. I can't even tell you the number of accounts that I've heard from people who have said, well,

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I asked the Lord to show himself to me and he didn't. So he doesn't exist.

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They asked with wrong motives. They had no desire to seek after God and love him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.

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They wanted God to meet them on their terms. So instead they seek God to hate him.

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That is the motivation of their heart. That's what's been revealed by the fact that God did not meet their demands as they demanded this of God.

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And so there are many today who do not know the Lord and yet hate him with all their heart.

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This is the atheist movement in the country today or what's commonly referred to as anti -theists.

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It's not just that they don't believe in God. They actively hate

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God. They want to oppress anything that is Christian or has to do with the church or religion.

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Just had an exchange with some folks on Twitter yesterday of people who hate the church.

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They hate any church that will not recognize quote unquote LGBTQ people or would not want to do a same sex marriage or would even tell a person that gay behavior is sin.

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They hate that. They want to end any church that would ever say any such thing.

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These people are looking at looking for God. They are seeking God to hate him.

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That is the kind of seeking that they are after. And Jesus is saying you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.

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You will die in your sins. So anyone that still has breath in their lungs can repent of their sin.

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And this hatred that they have for God and instead of being an enemy of God, they can be made into a friend of God through faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You would die in your sins unless you believe that Jesus is the son of God.

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Unless you believe that he is the one who was prophesied in the Old Testament, who was sent by the father who laid his own life down to shed his blood as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of his people.

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Because God saw him as faithful, as fully obedient, as sinless to death, he raised him up from the grave,

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Jesus conquering death itself so that we would know that through faith in Christ we will not die, but we will likewise receive a life like his.

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And so we who believe in Christ have nothing to fear of the grave, of death, or of judgment that comes after these things, but we are saved by the blood of Christ and we have fellowship with God and we will dwell with him forever in his eternal kingdom.

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That is what we must know and that is the gospel that we must share. By faith in Jesus, you will live.

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The Pharisees continued to press him saying, who are you? And Jesus said to them, just what I have been telling you from the beginning.

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What he's saying here is not anything different than what he has said before. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true.

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And I declare to the world what I have heard from him. They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the father.

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Once again, remembering the words of Christ from Matthew chapter 11, where he says, no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

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We do not know God, the father, unless Christ shows us the father. And as Jesus said back in John six, no one knows

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Jesus, who he is, unless the father draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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All of this speaking to the Trinitarian work that salvation is, we are we are drawn by the father.

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We are elected by the father predestined from before the foundation of the world. Our salvation has been effected by Jesus Christ, by the by his blood and by our relationship with him.

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We see the father. The father calls and Jesus shows the

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Holy Spirit seals. We are sealed for that day of redemption in the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts by Jesus Christ.

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And we who have the spirit of God belong to him, according to Romans eight. So all of this, a

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Trinitarian work that we might be in fellowship, in communion with God through his son, through the

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Holy Spirit. And we know the father. We are adopted into his family as sons and daughters of God.

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Yet these Pharisees did not understand that Jesus was speaking to him about the father. Of course not, because the father had not drawn them and Jesus had not revealed the father.

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So Jesus said to them, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the father taught me.

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And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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And so likewise, we must do this too. We must desire to do the things that are pleasing to God.

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It is not merely enough to say that you believe in Jesus or that one point in your life you prayed a prayer or that you were dunked in a baptismal, that you attended

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VBS, that you used to go to youth group, that your mom and dad were Christians. None of these things save you.

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It takes more than just a conversion story. You must be a follower of Jesus Christ.

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Jesus said, Luke 9, 23, if anyone would be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow after me.

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The cross, an instrument of death, the Roman instrument of death, and people understood exactly the reference that Jesus was making here, that they would have to take up the thing on which they would die, that they would put themselves to dead to death and instead live entirely for God, that we would live for the will of the father.

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And even as Jesus was saying these things, John 8, 30, many believed in him.

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We'll pick up there next week and, uh, and maybe finish up John chapter eight. The heaviest stuff is still to come.

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Let's conclude with prayer. Our wonderful God and father, we thank you for calling us to yourself, that we might believe in Jesus Christ, your son, that we might have your

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Holy Spirit within us and that we might become the children of God. Lord, I pray that that as temples of the

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Holy Spirit, that we would live in such a way that is pleasing unto you, that we would not desecrate this temple, our body, a temple of God, but that we would commit our whole bodies unto you as a spiritual act of worship.

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As Paul said in, uh, in Romans 12, one, so keep us pure today.

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Our eyes fixed upon you help us to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ that we might serve you day by day, moment by moment, committing our whole selves unto you, dying unto ourselves that we might live fully unto

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God. And we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to,

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When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

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New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.