John, pt. 49 | John 8:30-37

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September 3, 2023 Pastor Jeff Rice Tullahoma, TN

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John, pt. 50 | John 8:37-47

John, pt. 50 | John 8:37-47

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If you will, at this time, take your copy of the Scriptures.
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We're in John chapter 8 once again. We will consider verses 30 through 37.
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John chapter 8, verses 30 through 37, and this is our 49th message in this glorious gospel of John.
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Let's pray. Oh God, in the name of Jesus Christ, Lord, by your
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Holy Spirit, please once again speak to your people.
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Lord, I have studied, and as always,
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I don't feel as if I've done enough. Lord, I am 100 % relying upon you, as with every time
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I step in this pulpit, to use me this day. Recall to memory, to mind, the things that I have learned, that I may not have written down.
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In the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ, amen.
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All right, so let's begin with the text, John chapter 8, verses 30 through 37.
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Verse 30, as he was speaking these things, many believed in him.
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So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciple, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
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They answered him, we are Abraham's seed, and we have never been enslaved to anyone.
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How is it that you say you will become free?
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Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin, and the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son does remain forever.
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So if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
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I know that you are Abraham's seed, yet you are seeking to kill me, because my word has no place in you.
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Our theme for this Lord's Day is freedom in Christ, this will be part two, there will not be a part three, we'll end that theme this week, and those who are in Christ are set free from the power of sin.
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You might be saying, hold on, I still sin, as do I, right? But the power of sin does not control you as it does the unbeliever.
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The unbeliever, all they can do is sin. And they cannot please
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God. You as a Christian, you as someone who are in Christ, can now please
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God. You can actually choose not to sin, as for the unbeliever, not so much.
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Like even their righteous deeds are sinful, they're filthy rags before a holy, holy, holy
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God. The only righteousness that can stand in the presence of God is the righteousness of God that's in Jesus Christ.
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And those who are in Christ have a righteousness that is not of their selves. We don't offer to God our good works, we offer to God the work of Christ.
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And therefore, because of what Christ has done in our life, we can choose not to sin.
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We have that ability, but we also still sin.
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Again, those that are in Christ are set free from the power of sin.
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Sin has no power over you. Sin is actually slavery.
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Sin is what we do when we are not abiding in Christ. So the moment you catch yourself slipping into sin, remind yourself you're not abiding in Christ.
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You're letting the cloud move forward while you remain in the previous camp.
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And I know I'm not the only one guilty here. Sin is what we naturally gravitate towards when we are not trusting in Christ.
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Amen? In our outline today, we're going to see Jesus use the sin of the
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Jews to show them their bondage and their sin right here in our text is they were seeking to kill
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Him. We've been seeing this over and over throughout the Gospel of John, how for the most part the religious leaders and the
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Jews were seeking to kill Jesus. So our first point that we're going to look at is the believing unbelievers, believing unbelievers.
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Point number two will be sin is slavery, and point number three is the slave is not a son.
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So point number one, believing unbelievers. Point number two, sin is slavery.
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And point number three, the slave is not the son.
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So as we transition to stay, listen, to stay in the light.
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The Israelites had to follow the cloud by day and the fire by night.
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We've been looking at this over and over. When the cloud was moving, that fire was moving, the
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Israelites had to pack up and move wherever that cloud or that fire went in order to remain in the light.
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Jesus makes the claim to be that very light, but not just for those
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Israelites in the wilderness. Now the light is for the whole world.
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Look at verse 12, then Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the
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Israelites in the wilderness. No, that's not what it says. I am the light of the world.
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He who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
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Those that are in Christ are to follow Christ, and when you follow Christ, you will not walk in darkness.
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I made this analogy a while back, and I've repeated it several times, and I used it yesterday because I don't see anything better than this analogy when it comes to following Christ.
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It's the greyhound race, when that rabbit pops up and it's propelled, and those dogs are looking at that rabbit.
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They're following that rabbit, and if they take their gaze, if they take their eyes off the rabbit, they cause a three -dog pileup.
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They bump into other dogs. It can be a mess, but they don't. They focus on the rabbit, and they press forward.
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You don't see the dogs bumping into each other because their focus is on the rabbit, but unlike a dog race, when you and I take our eyes off of Christ and we stumble and we fall,
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God gives us something. It's called repentance. We're able to stand up, shake off the dust, and focus our gaze once again on Christ.
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How gracious is our God. So point number one, believing unbelievers. We see this in verse 30 to 33.
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Look at verse 30 again. As he was speaking these things, many believed in him.
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So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
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They answered him, we are Abraham's seed, and we have never yet been enslaved to anyone.
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How is it that you can say you will become free?
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This week we are starting where we left off two weeks ago. Two weeks ago we saw that after Jesus had gave the wonderful message in verse 12, him being the light of the world, that many
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Jews believed in him. They believed him. They understood what he was claiming.
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They believed him, but however, their belief was not genuine.
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Genuine faith abides. Genuine faith remains, continues to be in faith.
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This has been the story of all the Gospels and all the letters, and we can look back in the old covenant scriptures and see how that is true.
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To be a follower of Yahweh is someone who always continues to follow
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Yahweh. In the parable of the sowers, Jesus names off four different kinds of faith using soil.
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The first soil was beside the road. You ever been walking down the road?
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You can just walk out this door, and you have on two sides it's concrete, and then you can have a small strip where weeds are coming up among the concrete.
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That's the kind of soil that you see beside the roads. It's not rooted into much, right?
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That's not good soil. You don't go out there in those cracks and plant flowers or try to grow tomatoes.
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It's not going to happen. It's weeds growing up from the roadside. The second soil was on rocky paths, right?
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You ever been walking through an area and there's rocky paths, and in these rocks, it's the same instance.
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You see weeds growing up. The other one is among thorns.
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The third soil is among thorns. Every one of us have seen this, walking through a wooded area and see weeds, grass growing with thorns.
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Then he mentions a fourth, which was good soil, a clear path where fruit can be harvested.
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Now, out of these three soils, out of three of the four, there's only one good soil, one good soil that true faith comes from.
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The seed that falls beside the road has little to no soil. Me and Aaron was talking out there one day, and I just reached down there and said, what do you think will happen if I try to help this little big weed right here grow by pulling on it?
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And so I just gave it a little bit of pressure and it just quickly popped right out of the ground because there was no root.
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It had nothing that it was holding onto, really. You just put a little bit of pressure on it and it pops out.
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But imagine throwing seed out there. How much seed is going to get in those cracks to grow? No seed.
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You're not going to grow anything from it. You might be able to force a seed down in there, but that weed just grows naturally before the concrete has split from previous, from where this used to be nothing but land.
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That's not supposed to be there. There's no soil there for anything to grow.
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And Jesus tells us that this seed was snatched away by the devil.
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So as the sower has stolen the seed, some of it falls beside the road. And Jesus says, that's the seed that as it falls, the devil comes and snatches it.
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The devil is picking up all the seed, all the gospel seed. He's out there picking it up.
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The seed that fell on rocky places had no root. Also, they received the word with joy, but it was only temporarily.
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When afflictions and persecutions come, they fall away. How many times have we seen this in family members or people that we know or people that we've seen come to church when things start to get hard, when
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Jesus is not their fish and bread dispenser, when he's not providing the way that they think that he should provide, and they fall away.
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And the seed that falls among the thorns, the person that this seed is talking about, hears the word, but because of the worries and the deceitfulness of wealth, it chokes the word before it becomes fruitful.
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So none of them three, they have the time to become fruitful. Fruit does not come from them.
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There's too many barriers in the way. Only one type of soil bears good fruit, and that is the good soil.
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There has to be room for the fruit to grow. Now concerning the believing unbelievers in our text,
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I believe they are the soil beside the road, that as Jesus threw these seeds, they believed, and the devil uses what
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Jesus says in our text to snatch up the seed. Whenever he tells them, you will be free indeed.
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Many times throughout the gospel, we have seen people believe in Jesus for the wrong reasons.
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In chapter two and in chapter six, there was believers, even disciples, who followed after him because they saw the signs that he was performing.
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Not because of who Jesus is, but because of what Jesus can do for them.
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They wanted Jesus, but not his theology, right? We looked at it, give us Jesus, keep your theology.
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And I just want to read a portion of this so we don't forget what took place.
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So if you turn to chapter six, we'll begin at verse 54.
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Chapter six, verse 54. Jesus says, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.
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And as we walk through this, we say that this, we come to the conclusion that this was to believe in him.
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He has several different analogies, and they all come up to belief in him.
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And I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
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He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, look at that, abides in me.
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To remain and to stay abides in me.
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As the living father sent me, and I live because of the father. So he who eats me, he also will live because of me.
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This is the bread which came down out of heaven. Not as the fathers ate and died.
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He who eats this bread will live forever. Remember John 3 .16,
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for God's soul of the world and whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
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Belief and eating of his flesh and drinking of his blood are the same thing. These things he said to those, he said in a synagogue as he taught in Capernaum, therefore many, listen, many of his disciples when they heard this, when they heard what he said, they said this is a difficult statement.
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Imagine that they believed in him, then the Satan comes and he snatches that seed.
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This is a difficult statement, who can listen to it? But Jesus knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling at this, said to them, does this cause you to stumble?
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What if you see the son of man ascending to where he was before? The spirit is the one who gives life, the flesh profits nothing.
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The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life, but there are some of you who do not believe.
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So we have followers of Jesus, we have believers, we have disciples who do not believe, believing unbelievers.
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For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him, speaking of Judas, and he was saying, and he was saying, for this reason
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I have come to you, excuse me, and he was saying, for this reason
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I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by the father.
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Verse 66, as a result of this, many of his disciples went away and were not walking with him anymore.
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Jesus kept moving, that light kept moving, they stayed behind, they were not following him anymore.
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So Jesus said to the twelve, do you also want to go? Simon Peter answered, Lord, to whom shall we go?
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You have the words of eternal life, and we believed and we have come to know that you are the holy one of God.
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But in Jesus answered them, did I myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil.
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Now he was speaking of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.
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Remember last week I said we are never more like Judas than when we fall away from following Jesus.
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You want to be a Judas? Let the light keep going, stay where you are, don't abide, that's what happens.
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And there's many of Judas's throughout church history. Look at John chapter 15,
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I know we visited it last week, I'm going to look at it again today, just one verse.
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Verse six, again dealing with the abide. If anyone does not abide, remember to stay, to remain, speaking of the light, if anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
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Jesus says to those who believe in him, if you abide in my word, then, notice the conditional statement, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
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The truth of who Jesus is, he is the Yahweh, he is the light of the world, and if you do not believe in him, there is no sacrifice of sins for you.
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A disciple is someone who sits under a teacher, a disciple is someone who abides, stays or remains under the teacher and his teaching.
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If you are a disciple of Jesus, you will know the truth, his teaching, and the truth, his teaching will make you free.
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And I dare say, that is the difference between a true disciple and a false disciple. How many times have you spoke with someone who claimed to be in Christ, and you get to one of these hard scenes of Christ, and say, hold up now,
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I don't believe that, there's no way that my God, my God who is loving, this teddy bear that I keep on my bed beside my pillow would ever do that.
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My God would never choose someone for salvation and someone else not for salvation.
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Amen? There's the difference.
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A false disciple can hear, think, see that was sown in the soil, and even understand the truth, right?
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But they are not made free by the truth because they hate the theology. They can hear, they can understand, the children hear, they can understand the words that are coming out of my mouth.
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Just because you understand something doesn't make you a follower. You could hate the theology, many
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Christians hate a lot of biblical, historical theology.
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Many disciples, and many disciples fall away. When it says many believed in him, in verse 30, it is speaking about him being the light of the world.
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They knew, they understood what he was saying. And those that do not believe will not have a sacrifice for sins.
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This is something that we've been going over. If you were a Jew who was born in the kingdom, when a sacrifice was made, that sacrifice counted for you.
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Jesus is the once and for all sacrifice. There's no need for any more sacrifices.
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He made the sacrifice, and if you are in him, his sacrifice counts for you.
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But if you are not in him, his sacrifice does not count for you.
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And if you die, not being in Christ, this is what he's telling them, this is how he's going to make them free, he's going to sacrifice himself for them, but if they're not in him, they have no sacrifice, and when they die, they will die in their sins.
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And it says that they believed that, and yet they still are unbelievers.
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Wrap your mind around that. They understand what he's saying, they believed it, and yet they're unbelievers.
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The devil has snatched away the seed. Look back at that verse, verse 33.
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And they answered him, we are Abraham's seed, and we have never yet been enslaved to anyone.
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How is it that you say you will become free?
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Instead of abiding in his word, they question his word.
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And by questioning, and by this question, they show their ignorance of their own history, and they show how they don't understand what it means to be a slave.
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Ladies and gentlemen, every one of us is a slave. We're all slaves.
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Don't get it twisted. Don't get it twisted, we're all slaves. A slave is someone who has a master.
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Christian, is Jesus your master? Slave. Paul writes,
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I, Paul, a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Don't get it twisted. Every one of us. If you're not a slave to Christ, you are a slave to something else.
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Turn with me to Matthew, chapter 6. Chapter 6, verse 24.
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Jesus speaking, no one can serve two masters, for you will either hate the one and love the other, or you will devote yourself to one and despise the other.
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You cannot serve God and wealth.
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You cannot serve God and wealth. According to this verse, you can be a slave to money.
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You can be a slave to money. I spoke about this earlier,
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I mean, not earlier today, but before. I spoke about this earlier, I mean, a few weeks ago, of how generational wealth shows the hearts of people, right?
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You're stacking up money so that your kids can be spoiled brats, and their kids, and then their kids, and then their kids, right?
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I heard yesterday that the Rock has $800 million of generational wealth.
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$800 million. In a place where it can mow and get rot and corrupted, right?
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Our wealth is supposed to be in heaven. I'm not saying that the
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Rock doesn't do good things, or I don't even know if he's a believer. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just trying to use him as an example, because I heard how much money he has.
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None of his family and his descendants are going to have to work, they're not going to know what it's like to have to work and earn a paycheck because of generational wealth.
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The church, I mean, Hans was talking about this. Think of how much poverty is in our nation, and you want to know why it is?
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It's because of denominationalism. Same thing as racism. I hate to divide skin color by saying the word race, but I don't know of another word to add the ism to, right?
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Every one of us can have a color of skin, or be of a different race, if that's the word you want to use.
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I don't really like that word, but you can have a different shade of skin color, a different amount of melanin in you, and you can be racist to someone else that don't look like you.
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We see this in denominations. We are Reformed Baptists, right? There's Reformed Presbyterians, there's
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Assemblies of God, there's all different kinds of denominations. But when you're denominationalism, that means that you are against the other denominations.
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When we first started planting this church here, I reached out to several different churches to try to partner with something that they're doing, and when they hear that we are
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Reformed, they want nothing to do with us because of denominationalism. And just think about how much good we could do if the churches got together, despite what the name is on the church building.
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And if we put our money together, we're able to do more things in this world.
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Like there should not be a welfare system the church should be providing for the poor.
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But because there's denominationalism, not just denominations, but denominationalisms, we don't put our money and our effort together to take care of the poor.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to be judged for this. Jesus said, you will know my people by their love for one another, and we don't love each other.
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Yes, we love those that are in our community, our building here, but do we love the Nazarene churches right down the street and their people?
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We're going to be judged for stuff like that. We are under a different kind of racism, denominationalism.
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And it's sinful, and the church needs to repent. We have to come together.
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We're hogging the wealth that we bring in, and not saying we,
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I'm just speaking of church Catholics, we're hogging the wealth that we bring in and trying to do the little bit that we can.
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And if we just come together, there wouldn't be any, the poor would not have to rely on the government.
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Money, as much as we all work hard for it, is one of the roots of all evil.
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And sadly, a lot of people have bent the knee to wealth. It's their
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God. They, the Jews, have gotten done, just gotten done celebrating the
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Feast of Booths. And we remember that the Feast of Booths was a way to remember their ancestors and the time in the wilderness.
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And after they were set free from being slaves by God, as he brought them out by day, a cloud, and by night, a fire that led the
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Jews out of Egypt. So they just told Jesus, we have never been enslaved to anyone.
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A day after, they just got done celebrating how their ancestors were free from Egypt by God who led them, a cloud by day and a fire by night.
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They just got done celebrating freedom from being enslaved. And they said to Jesus, we have never been enslaved.
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Not to mention they were enslaved by Babylon, Syria. And at this very moment, they were enslaved by Rome.
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And yet they said to Jesus, we are Abraham's seed and we have never yet been enslaved to anyone.
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Do you see the ridiculousness, is that a word, that we see in the text?
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Point number two, sin is slavery. Now this is something that a lot of people are not going to want to hear.
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I didn't enjoy studying it. Sin is slavery. Look at verse 34,
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Jesus answered them, truly, truly,
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I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.
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There's no other way to put it. That's what it says. Now let's try to break it down. The words here for commit is the
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Greek word, Pelio. Pelio, which can be translated also as who practices.
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Notice it says who commits, not who committed, it's who commits, who practices.
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Now this right here gives us a little breathing room, right? I can breathe now. Now Pelio is an ongoing act.
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Notice it doesn't say again, he who committed a sin is a slave to sin or he who does a sin is a slave to sin.
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Pelio is the ongoing present tense. I continue to do the same thing over and over.
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Everyone who Pelio commits sin, practices sin, is a slave to sin.
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To practice something is to aim to become good at that something, right?
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If you want to be good at piano, you have to learn how to play the piano and then you have to practice playing the piano in order to be good at the piano.
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You can translate that to whatever it is that you want to do. Jesus is using this word with sin in mind.
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He who is becoming good at sinning, good at lying, good at stealing, good at gossip, good at hearing about Jesus and turning a deaf ear, right?
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You've had plenty of practice. You do this daily. That's Pelio.
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You're a slave to it. You who are good at practicing sin are a slave to sin and the reason why you cannot abide in Christ, the reason why
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Christ keeps moving and you stay where you are is because you cannot serve two masters. You cannot do it.
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You cannot serve two masters. You cannot serve both God and your sin that you continue to practice.
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You know that it's wrong, whether it's lying, whether it's stealing, whether it's gossip or turning the deaf ear,
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I could keep going. You know it's wrong and you continue to practice it. I heard the gospel today.
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I'll hear it next week. One day I'll give my life to it. No. No. You're hardening your heart.
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The Jews in our text believe the claims Jesus made, but they did not trust him.
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They believed it, but they did not put their faith in him. Truly.
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Now, if I were to call some of you out and I'm not, but if I were to, right, and ask you if you believe the claims of Jesus, every one of you would say yes.
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All of our kids would say yes. My kids would definitely say yes.
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But if I was to point out that ongoing sin that you practice, that paleo, if you have a paleo,
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I'm not saying that you do, but if there's something in your life that you're practicing that's a sin, that would say something different.
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It would say something different. We all use the words that say an action speaks louder than words, right?
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You can say you believe in Christ, but are you following him? Are you living for him?
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Is he your only hope in life and death? The person that doesn't serve
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Christ, that person who is paleo, who is living a life of sin, that person cannot serve, does not serve
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Christ because they cannot, you cannot again serve both
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God and money, gossip, lust, name it. You cannot serve both
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God and anything else. You can only have one master. So here's the question.
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How does a Christian practice righteousness? Notice I said practice here, commits righteousness, practices righteousness.
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If you can practice sin, you can practice righteousness. How does a
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Christian practice righteousness? Look with me at Romans chapter 13.
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Here's how you defeat sin and practice righteousness.
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We'll begin in verse 10, Romans 13, verse 10. Love does not work evil against a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
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We're called to love. Verse 11, do this, speaking of love, knowing that the time is already the hour for you to awake from sleep.
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For now, salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.
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The night is almost gone and the day is at hand, therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness, right here, look, and put on the armor of light.
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Who's the light? Who's the light? Jesus. Look at verse 13, let us walk properly in the day, not in coercing,
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I can't say the word, carousing, there it goes, and drunkenness, not in sexual,
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I can't say the word, promiscuously, that's something like that, that's what you get for having an ex -banger up here, sensuality, not in strife or in jealousy, right here, verse 14, but put on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in regards to lust.
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We are to love. How do we do that? We put on the armor of light. What is that?
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You do it by putting on the Lord Jesus. Every one of us, when we woke up this morning, we put on an outfit,
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I hope you didn't sleep in the outfit you came, right? If you did, that's fine, I get it, right, I get it, but every one of us put on an outfit this morning.
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Paul is telling us to put on Jesus, put on Jesus. This is how you practice righteousness.
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Every day you have to put Jesus on, put him on, put on the armor of light, put on Jesus.
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Let this be the first start of your day. Also, look at chapter 6 of Romans, Romans chapter 6, beginning in verse 16.
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Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourself to someone as a slave for obedience, you are a slave to the one whom you obey?
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Either sin leading to death or obedience leading to righteousness.
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Now I would add here, this obedience is speaking about faith. This is how you put
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Christ on, in faith. But thanks be to God through, though you were a slave of sin, every one of us, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you become slaves of righteousness.
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How do we do this? You put Christ on. Well, how? In faith. Every day we are to put
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Christ on, to believe the promises of God. It's nothing weird here, right?
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He's not telling you to drop down and give him 20 pushups every day. You are to trust in what he has done for you.
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That's why preaching the gospel to yourself is so important, knowing that you've broken
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God's law, but God has paid your fine. This was a scary one.
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First John chapter 3. First John chapter 3.
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Look at verse 4. We're going to walk through what sin is here.
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Everyone who does sin does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
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And you know that he was manifested in order to take away sin, and in him there is no sin.
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No one who abides in him sins, don't you notice that ongoing, sins.
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And no one who sins has seen him or has come to know him.
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Some little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does, notice the does, does righteousness, practices righteousness, is righteous, just as he is righteous.
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And the one who does sin is of the devil.
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This verse is going to be really made clear in the next few weeks, is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning.
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The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
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Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because the seed abides in him.
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That seed was planted, it stayed, it bears fruits, is what this is saying, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.
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By this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested. Everyone who does not do righteousness, believing in Christ, putting them on, is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.
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Strong words. This right here introduces us to that saint and sinner reality, right?
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You and I right now are perfectly, positionally righteous before God if our faith is in Jesus Christ.
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You're perfectly, positionally righteous before God because of what
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God's Son done for us and our faith in him, that obedience that we're called to believe.
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And we believe and we receive the Holy Spirit. We are perfectly righteous within him.
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But right now, you can think of your own life. You can think of yesterday, a week ago, this morning, and find fault in your life.
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What this is telling us is not to practice those things. Don't get good at it.
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Sin should just occur. It should never be something that you're aiming to do. It says to put on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and to make no provision to satisfy the flesh. When you're making provision to satisfy the flesh, you are practicing, you are committing sins.
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Don't do that. Now, I'm not asking you, again,
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I'm not asking you if you sin. My question is this, do you practice sin?
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Is there something that you're aiming to be good at? And we'll enter into the next point with that question.
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This one should go a little quicker. Look at verse 35, 35 through 37.
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And the slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son makes you free, you are free indeed.
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I know that you are Abraham's seed, and yet you are seeking to kill me because my word has no place in you.
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Notice my word has no place in you. And when you look up here, it says, if you are truly my disciple, or what does it say?
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Then you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.
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If you abide in my word, then you will know the truth and the truth, excuse me, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciple.
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And down here he's saying that you're not his disciple because his word has no place in you.
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Here in our last point, we're going to look at the son versus the slave. Jesus responds to the
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Jews who claim to believe in Abraham, use in Abraham. Remember they said we are sons of Abraham.
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We've never been enslaved to anyone. And now he's in turn in verse 37 saying to them,
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I know that you are sons of Abraham because Abraham has two sons, Isaac and Ishmael.
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Isaac is the promised son. This will carry out the covenant, the new covenant promise.
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A lot of reformed people call it the covenant of grace. Isaac falls in this line and he's spoken about as a promise.
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Jesus is spoken about as the promise. And then he has
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Ishmael. They could not wait for the promise, so they took Hagar, which was
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Sarah's madam's maidservant, and gave her to Abraham. And Abraham had a son by Hagar.
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Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. And real quick, we'll read what took place, a small portion of what took place.
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And it says in chapter 21, verse 8, and the child grew, speaking of Isaac, and was weaned.
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And Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned.
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And Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, whom she had brought to Abraham, laughing in jests.
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And right here, we're going to see that this was the persecution. Laughing in jests, therefore, she said to Abraham, drive out the madam's servant.
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Now, this is what the New Testament would say, slave, drive out the madam's servant and her son.
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The son of the madam's servant shall not be heirs with my son, with Isaac.
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And the matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son. So God said to Abraham, do not be distressed because of the boy and your madam's servant.
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And whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice. And through Isaac, speaking of the promise, your seed shall be named.
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Now, real quick, let's go to Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 gives us commentary of what just took place there.
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Galatians 4, beginning in verse 21, Paul writes, tell me, you who want to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?
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For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the servant woman and the other by the free woman.
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But the son of the servant woman had been born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman through the promise.
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The promise here, speaking of Christ, if you go to Galatians 3 .16, it tells you that. This is spoken with an allegory for these two women, right here, listen, are two covenants.
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One from Mount Sinai, bearing children into slavery, she is Hagar. Now Hagar is
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Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to present day
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Jerusalem. Paul is saying that you Jews are really slaves and sons of Hagar.
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Imagine those fighting words back in those days. For she is in slavery with her children, speaking of the
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Jews, but the Jerusalem above is free and she is our mother.
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For it is written, rejoice, barren women who do not give birth, break forth and shout, while you who are not in labor, for more numerous are the children of the desolate one than the one who has a husband.
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And you brothers in accordance with Isaac are children of promise, speaking of Christ.
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But at the present time, he who was born according to the flesh was persecuting, talking about that laughing, laughing in jest, persecuting him who was born according to the spirit.
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So it is now. What does the scripture say? Cast out the servant woman and her son, for the son of the servant woman shall not be heirs with the son of the free.
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So then brothers, we are not children of the servant woman, but of the free woman.
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It's the idea of who are you under? You under Sarah or Hagar? Hagar is
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O covenant Mount Sinai, the law, which is the mother to those in bondage under the law, speaking of the
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Jews in our text. Sarah is the new covenant Mount Zion, New Jerusalem, which is the mother of those who are free in Christ, speaking of Christians.
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Look back at our text again, verse 35. And the slave does not remain in the house forever.
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This is telling us that the old covenant is ending. It's ending. The old covenant is ending.
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It does not remain forever. The son does remain forever.
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And if the son makes you free, you will be free indeed. The Jews at this time were under oath or under Hagar O covenant
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Mount Sinai. The law, Jesus, the son of God, the one who came to make them free, came to free them from the law.
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Their freedom from sin is then being free from the bondage of Hagar O covenant
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Mount Sinai, the law. So how was Christ going to free them? He's going to free them from being under Hagar O covenant
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Mount Sinai, the law. Christ does this as the analogy says through Sarah, new covenant
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Mount Zion, Jerusalem. Why?
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Because the Mosaic law will not reign in the New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ reigns in the
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New Jerusalem. Jesus Christ is the one who frees us from the curse of sin and death.
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And I know I don't have time, but I'm going to do it anyways. Please forgive me. Second Corinthians chapter three, you have to hear these words.
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This is what Paul is writing about. The same thing that Jesus has been speaking about in our gospel. Verse seven, but the ministry of death in letters have been engraved on stone, came with glory.
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Talking about the 10 commandments, the law, the Mosaic law, it came with glory so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face, which was being brought to an end.
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Do you hear that? That old covenant system is being brought to an end. How will the ministry of the spirit not be even more glory?
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If the ministry of condemnation, speaking of the Mosaic old covenant, has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory.
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For indeed it had been glorious in the case of the, in the case has no, excuse me, in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpassed it.
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Meaning it had glory, but now it has no glory because a new glory has come. For if that which was being brought to an end was glory, much more that which remains is glory.
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Therefore having such hope, we use great boldness and are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over their face so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the consequences of what was being brought to an end.
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But their minds were hardened for until this day at the reading of the old covenant, a veil remains unlifted because it has been brought to an end in Christ.
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But to this day, whoever, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart.
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But whenever a person turns to the Lord, it is taken away. Now the
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Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Christ was born under Hagar, old covenant,
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Mount Sinai, the law, and he kept it fully thereby granting righteousness to those who believe in him.
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That is the saint and sinner reality. You're still a sinner, but you're perfectly positionally righteous before God because Christ fulfilled the law.
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He fulfilled that which we break and our faith in him, we are counted as righteousness.
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This is how he frees us from sin because the reminder of sin is the law.
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Again, what is sin? First John chapter three, verse four, lawlessness. It's breaking
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God's law. Therefore, since that is true in Christ, you who were, you who are in Christ are in Sarah new covenant,
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Mount Zion, the new Jerusalem, the kingdom of which you cannot see unless you're born again, unless that veil, the law is removed from your face.
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You can not see the new covenant. You can not see the kingdom of God.
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Jesus recognizes the Jews were the part of, were Abraham's seed.
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They were just the wrong seed. They were the seed of Ishmael.
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They were not the correct seed, which is Isaac, the son that stays and abides. They were the slave that could not remain in the house of covenant.
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Listen, there's no other way to exegete this. I've been trying for a long time to get someone to walk through these texts with me.
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But what we have here is believing unbelievers, Ishmael's and not Isaac's. And we know that Jesus has just laid the cards on the table.
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In verse 34, he says, 37, he says, you are trying to kill me. Their sin is that they are trying to kill him, the one who came to set them free.
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They were seeking to kill him, and they actually will in six months. And that's where the gospel comes in. And Jesus tells us that he has paid our fine.
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This is what me and Has was preaching yesterday. We broke God's law, but God has paid our fine.
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Yes, we're still sinners, but we are perfectly positionally righteous before God, if you're a
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Christian. And as Christians, we should follow the light, abide in the light as spiritual sons of Abraham through the free woman.
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Now, ask yourself, are you in the kingdom of God or is a veil over your face?
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Is the law your God? Is self -righteousness what you seek?
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Have you been born again? Have you received the sign of the covenant or are you a believing unbeliever?
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Has the devil come and snatched away the seed of the gospel week after week after week after week after week when we plant the seed in this church?
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The call is to come to Jesus. And listen to me, kids, grownups, don't let what someone else thinks keep you from heaven and send you to hell.
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We are available to anyone who wants to talk. Let's pray.
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Our God and Father, Lord, Lord, we thank you for your word.
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Lord, I thank you that even in what was read today in this text and how difficult it can be to understand and the strong words that are used against our sin in the scriptures, that I have hope because I did not see those words and run and think, my
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God would never ask this of me. And Lord, I pray today that your people here feels the same way, that we know that this life is hard and we know that our only hope is in Christ.
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And Lord, fill in us that very thing, we pray. And Lord, right now, as we prepare to partake in the supper,
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Lord, we pray that you bless it. And if there's any sin in us, Lord, that you will reveal it to us, that we may confess before we partake.