John 8b, What Can You Be Confident In, 约翰福音 8:31-59, 你当依赖的是什么?

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John 8:31-59, 约翰福音 8:31-59 What Are You Confident In? 你当依赖的是什么?

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John chapter 8, starting in verse 31, hear the word of the Lord. So Jesus said to the
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Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
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They answered him, we are offspring of Abraham, and have never been enslaved to anyone. 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 a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever.
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The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
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I know that you are offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.
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I speak of what I have seen with my father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him,
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Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works
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Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.
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This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works of your father. You were doing the works your father did.
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They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God, and I am here.
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I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say?
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It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.
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He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with truth, because there is no truth in him.
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When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.
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Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?
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Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.
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The Jews answered him, are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered,
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I do not have a demon, but I honor my father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory.
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There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.
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The Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets.
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Yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father
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Abraham, who died, and the prophets who died? Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.
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It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say, he is our God. But you have not known him.
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I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you.
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But I do know him, and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.
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He saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old, and have you seen
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Abraham? Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was,
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I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, I'd just started seminary in Southern California and was lying on my bed reading a book.
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An eager student up and already studying at 742 in the morning on October 1st, 1987.
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When the house I was in began to vibrate, at the bed first, and then
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I realized the walls were too. At first I thought maybe perhaps a large truck was passing by, and then it became more than just vibrations, but a thorough shaking.
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I couldn't figure out what was happening. How can this whole house be shaking? And then
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I remembered where I was and realized, you know, this is California. This wasn't just the house shaking.
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This was an earthquake, and it was almost over before I figured out what was going on and decided wrongly to run out of the house.
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And I got outside and I remember the electrical wires swaying between the poles. Never seen that before.
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Over the next several days, there were several aftershocks, little reminders that the earth is unstable.
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Now that first earthquake had happened so suddenly and it took me so long to realize what it was, there was really no fear involved at that one.
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But of the aftershocks, the biggest one struck a couple days later, early in the morning while I was still asleep, waking me up out of a sound sleep, terrifying me, because now
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I knew I couldn't even trust the ground. So I ran to the closet, huddling, hoping the house didn't collapse.
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What else shouldn't I trust? Well, people become confused or disoriented, maybe they panic, maybe become angry, maybe very angry, when what they used to be confident in is shaken.
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They want to trust in a family, maybe they want to trust in a relationship they are sure will last until the stars grow cold.
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They want to be confident in that. That's why marriage will never be wiped out.
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Try as hard as some people may to wipe it out, it will never be. Even if everyone in their family is divorced, all the marriages they know have fallen apart.
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And I have a second cousin like this. If the right person comes along, they'll want to get married.
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Not really for any moral reason that I know of, but because they want the promise or at least the hope of something they can be confident in, something that's solid and reliable.
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That's why I don't believe the protest. You know, usually by men to some live -in girlfriend, you know, oh, honey,
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I don't want to get married because I've seen too many bad marriages. Yeah, a lot of people have seen too many bad marriages, but still yearn for a good one.
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It's kind of like saying, you know, hey, I've been in too many earthquakes, so I don't want solid ground. Okay, it's just nonsense.
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Now, these guys don't want to get married, of course, because they just don't love the woman. It's just not complicated.
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They don't mind the instability because they don't want to be tied down to that particular woman.
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Maybe they'll want stability somewhere else, maybe in another woman that comes along or maybe in a job.
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You know, some people will take less pay like working for the government. If it gives them a job, they can be confident they won't lose.
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People yearn for something to be confident in. Of course, we tell people, you know, here we are in church, right?
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Be confident in God. Now, that sounds easy. The problem with being confident in God is how do you know?
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How do you know you are in a relationship with God, kind of like marriage or family, that you can be confident in?
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How can you get a guarantee from Him? That's what people want. They want a guarantee from Him.
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You know, like a big product may come with a written guarantee that it will last a certain time. How do you get that from God?
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Can you buy Him off? Can you get Him under contract? Well, the biblical word for that, for a relationship with God that you can be confident in is a covenant.
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Now, how do you know you are in a covenant with God so that you can be confident, you know, that maybe
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He won't disown you? He might not abandon you. And this is where religion comes in.
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Religion will sell people the promise of the stability they long for. If you do this or you do that, you come forward at the right time, you say the right prayer, you espouse the right doctrine, you get baptized or ritualized somehow, then you can be sure.
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You can have the rock solid confidence that you are okay with God.
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Assurance, they call it. And so assurance is dangled out there as the reward.
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If you do what they want you to do, kind of like a worm on a hook, do this, we'll give you the assurance.
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And it's a great reward. The assurance that now, and this is the way many people sell it, you won't have to worry about how you and God are getting along anymore.
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Just the relationship can be stable if you do the right thing. Now sure, and this is the way some people sell it today, you may displease him if you live your life, you know, the rest of your life chasing women and getting drunk on the weekends and never bothering again with prayer and the
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Bible and church. Yeah, you might make him a little ticked off at you, but you're family now.
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And so he might wag his finger at you and call you a knucklehead, but you can be confident, many say, that your relationship with God is unshakeable.
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And see what happens when you take Scripture and you use it to shake that house of cards.
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Here, that is what Jesus does. He takes the truth and shakes the confidence of people and people, many modern
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Christians would celebrate as converts, as believers. He shakes their faith and then let us see how they act.
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And we see that here in four parts. First, the descendants, then the devil and the dispute, and finally the declaration.
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Is that good, Noah? Noah loves alliteration and it's his birthday, I gotta give it to him. Yeah, good.
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Well, first there's the descendants. Now Jesus turns to those, they would heard this, you remember he had this, he's been speaking to the
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Pharisees in the first part of chapter eight, and there was this other group of people kind of listening to him. And he heard this back and forth with the
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Pharisees in the temple, after he had said, I am the light of the world. Now, unlike the
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Pharisees, this group of people liked something about Jesus.
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Maybe they liked his power, the way he exuded authority, or the courage that he had to stand up to the religious leaders right there in their own temple.
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You know, they thought they knew what he meant by son of man, being lifted up.
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Oh yes, they thought. The Messiah, he's gonna be exalted, he's gonna be powerful, he's gonna ascend to the throne.
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And they wanted a piece of that. They liked that, they liked the sound of that. And so they, it says they believed in him, in a way.
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Between him and the Pharisees at that moment, they say they side with Jesus.
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It says many put their faith in him, at the end of verse 30. And it is to those, in verse 31, that he now turns.
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Now, by the standards of today, these would be called believers, right?
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They would be given assurance, they'd ask to be filled out a card, and you know, here's Peter here, he will register you and see
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Judas about your faith pledge offering later on. You know, you are assured, you're a believer, never doubt it.
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They would probably be made church members and ushered quickly into baptism. After all, all you have to do to be saved, we're told, is believe.
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And belief is just belief. Kind of like the way I, you know, I believe there is Australia. Doesn't impact my life, but I believe it's there.
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It's just agreeing, it's just saying so. And so if you say you believe, now unless you're like purposely lying, hiding the fact that you're not really a believer, you're an atheist, but you wanna say, but you know, it's up for that case.
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If you say you believe, well, that's all there is to it. You believe. It's done.
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Now, often it is a verse from this same gospel, John, that is used to present this view of salvation and assurance.
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John, the famous, John 3 .16. Whoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
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Now, that verse is commonly taken and used to offer people the promise that they can have unshakable confidence that they will never be condemned as long as they believe.
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And put like that, that is true. But we have to be very careful here.
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Here in the second half of John 8, we're dealing with a group of people who we are twice told believed.
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So what's going on? Is the Bible contradicting itself in the same book as John forgot what he wrote?
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You know, by chapter eight in chapter three? No. Notice first the verb tenses, okay?
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In John 3 .16, it says that whoever believes is the one who is a continuing believer.
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That's who he is. He's someone who keeps on believing, present, ongoing.
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He believes today when it's easy at church, and he believes tomorrow when it's hard, when he's tempted or discouraged.
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He'll believe even if the earth quakes, if relationships fall apart, everything else lets him down.
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He'll keep on believing in Jesus. That's John 3 .16. Here in John chapter eight, verse 30 and 31, twice they believed past tense.
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At that moment, they put their faith in him, for now.
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If you had asked him there in the temple, whether, you know, show of hands, are you with Jesus or with the Pharisees?
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They raised their hand, we're with Jesus. But look where they are by the end of chapter eight.
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You know, their faith doesn't even make it to the end of this chapter. And this is the first thing the
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Lord Jesus challenges them with. He says, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.
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Now, abide just simply means to remain, to stay, to hold onto.
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It's not a decision you once made, but decisions you make every day, to continue today, tomorrow, the day after, throughout 2015, to stay in the word of the
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Lord Jesus. You will listen to him and you will follow him. If someone doesn't do that, they may have said a prayer and an invitation, but if they don't bother with what
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Jesus says, they don't read the Bible, they don't listen to sermons or from his word, or if they do, they don't seek to obey it.
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They blow it off, they don't care. They are not interested. They're like the local lady we visited with around here who had her name on a church membership roll, but who was not interested in attending church or getting sermons on tape or CD.
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We offered to bring them to her. And I doubt she read the word for herself, but she was apparently sure.
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She had assurance of her salvation. She shouldn't be, because she was not abiding in Jesus's word.
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Here we see that assurance of salvation is not based on a decision once made that doesn't change your life, but on a whole life of decisions to listen to Jesus, who speaks from all of the
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Bible and do what he says. Now, will you fail sometimes? Yes, I didn't say it's based on perfectly following.
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Okay, it's based on continuing to follow him, sometimes getting up after you've fallen.
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As our statement of faith, it borrowed from the New Hampshire Baptist Confession, wonderfully puts it, such only are real believers as endured unto the end, that their persevering attachment to Christ is the grand mark, which distinguishes them from superficial professors.
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Wonderful statement. Now think on those phrases though, endure to the end from Matthew 24, where Jesus says, the one who endures to the end will be saved.
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Their persevering attachment to Christ. In other words, they stay connected to him.
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They keep listening to his word and connected to the body of Christ, the church. It's not a fad or just an interest they have for a while.
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Like maybe you used to like playing baseball or going bowling or reading
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Gresham novels or whatever it is, but now that's past, no more. No, it's not like that.
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You persevere in your attachment to Jesus, which means, perseverance means it's gonna be tested.
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It might be tried by temptations to sin. Sexual immorality might try to draw you away.
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You might even slip into it sometimes, but you get up and you go back to Jesus.
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You might be tempted to spend your life making money, getting rich, building a career. So you'll be tempted to say, you don't have time for church or the
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Bible or prayer right now. And you spend your life just working to make money.
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If you are truly his disciple, you will endure through those temptations.
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You'll put them down and stay after Jesus. That, it says, is the grand mark.
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Now, there may be other marks. Maybe a time of emotional zeal, of fervency and a passion.
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You wanna read all the Bible that you can. You have time for TV or video games. You wanna read the word.
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Maybe you wanna listen to every good sermon that you can. You wanna sing songs of praise all the time.
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Maybe you consider going into missions. Maybe you wanna give all your money away. But people can have things like that, times of their life like that.
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Probably like Judas, I would suspect for a while, he was like that. And then they can fade away. The grand mark is abiding in Jesus's word, staying, hanging in there.
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And that mark, more than any other, separates real continuous believers from superficial professors.
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Those are the opposite of those who are truly and really Jesus's disciples, implying some are phony.
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Now, because of the shallow understanding of what real faith is today, there is now almost no understanding among many
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Christians that there are such people as superficial professors, people with a fickle faith, shallow faith, who have a false assurance.
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If you think faith is just professing, that's all there is to it is to profess, then what's it matter if your profession is superficial?
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Is it that good enough? No, it's not, as we see here. Jesus says, if you continue in my word, then you are truly my disciples.
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Not one of the phony ones. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. The truth sets you free if you continue in his word.
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If you don't, it doesn't. Now, the grand mark of whether you have really believed in him is whether you keep doing so.
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But remember, the grand mark isn't the grand cause.
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Your persevering attachment to Jesus is how we know that you really believe. Now, that you stay is not what keeps you.
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I'm gonna make that clear. My teaching works, you got to stay to be saved.
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That you stay is not what keeps you. That you stay is the sign that you are being kept.
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So make no mistake, we don't save ourselves by holding on, you know, with white knuckles, clinging to our faith with all our effort, even when sin is pulling us elsewhere.
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If someone doesn't make it, that's just too bad. They didn't have the strength that I did. Sure, we cling to Christ, but we do so because he's clinging to us.
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Jesus grips us. In just two chapters from here, Jesus will promise the grand promise that we will not perish.
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We believe and we don't perish and have eternal life, not because of the strength that we have managed to muster up to hold on barely, but he says, no one will snatch you, snatch them, snatch us out of my hand.
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We persevere because we are preserved. Superficial professors with fickle faith, they trust in their religion, they trust in their one -time decision, in their prayer, maybe their baptism, maybe their church membership.
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Jesus' disciples trust in his hand to hold them. Depend on that.
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Now, what happens when you challenge people who have been given a false assurance, that, you know, but you challenge them that that may be false, that they may not be truly free?
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Well, we see that right here in this chapter. Remember, these people have believed, past tense, in Jesus, and Jesus turns to them and says, you will be free if you continue in my word.
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And they are offended by the implication. The implication is that they are not now free.
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They have been assured that they are. Yes, they know that outwardly they are under the thumb of Rome.
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Surely they know that. But they believe that in a higher kind of spiritual sense, they are children of Abraham, that they are
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God's people. And so ultimately they think they're spiritually free. They are descendants of God's friend,
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Abraham. And so they're like family to God. God's not going to abandon his family, is he? We are offspring of Abraham.
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Jesus had touched them knowingly, intentionally, on a sore spot.
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We're descendants of the one God made a covenant with. So we are covenant children, they insist.
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God is under contract to us. They are adamant. So how dare you say you will become free?
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Now, these are the type, probably like that local lady I told you about on a church membership list, because of a decision made once long ago, that doesn't care now about abiding in the word, who doesn't want to go to church, but who would probably become very angry and suddenly show up at a church business meeting if they were going to take her name off the membership roll.
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How dare you say I have to continue to follow Jesus? Here, Jesus answers their claim to be descendants of Abraham in verse 34.
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Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. In other words, you are not free.
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You are slaves of sin. And we can tell you are slaves of sin because you've sinned.
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People in their fallen nature are slaves of sin. They are not free. All the arguments, theological arguments that people want to make that begin with the assumption that people have a, quote, free will, they miss this fact.
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People are not free. They are slaves of sin and they do what their master's sin tells them to do.
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That's why they will live in sexual immorality or be consumed by greed, working, working, working to make more and more money.
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That's how sin is telling them to live. Now, here as slaves of sin, they will not...
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Jesus says they will not remain in God's house among God's people forever. They may look like they belong for a time.
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You know, the slaves get to come in the house, but eventually their nature as slaves will have them ushered out of God's house.
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Sin will make them live in sexual immorality or to chase the dollar. And so they'll leave.
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The son, Jesus, and those he has set free and made adopted sons and daughters of God, they get to stay in God's house forever.
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Now, they say they are descendants, you know, they are descendants. They have a right as descendants.
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Like some today say that they have inherited a relationship with God because they were born into a Christian family.
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Mom and dad were Christian, so I must be. You know, they were whatever, raised in church.
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It's not so. This is why we do not baptize babies.
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Here, you know, they are indeed, Jesus admits in verse 36. Notice, because he'll go back and forth with this idea.
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They're descendants of Abraham physically, but they don't have his faith. So they are not part of his covenant.
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No one is in a covenant with God because who he is a descendant of.
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OK, Jesus says that these people are descendants of Abraham. But then he says, my word finds no place in you.
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My word, he says, comes from the father. But you do in verse 38, you do what you have heard from the one you are.
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You are really descendants from. The devil.
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They protest. Abraham is our father. Their confidence was in their ancestry and their race and their nation.
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And Jesus has already said that. Yes, literally, they are Abraham's children. And now he says they're not.
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They're not his children in the way that matters, in the way that one can have confidence in. And so Jesus answers if.
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And that's got to be the word that hurts the most. If is though they can't depend on it.
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If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing present continuous the works
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Abraham did. Instead, they seek to kill Jesus. Oh, but that's earlier in chapter eight.
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You know, let bygones be chapter five. Let bygones be bygones. Now they believed in him, right?
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They said they believed. But by the end of this chapter, they'll be seeking to kill him again. They do that because Jesus is telling them the truth from God.
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And that truth is that they are not really right with God. People who have a false assurance hate to be told that their confidence is on shaky ground.
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So Jesus again mentions their father in verse 41. You are doing the works your father did.
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Now he said that Abraham is not their father, not spiritually, not really. Instead, they are doing their father's works.
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And now they start to get nasty. People who have a false assurance will often get nasty when you question it.
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At the end of verse 41, we were not born of sexual immorality, kind of implying like you, probably hinting that they've heard rumors that Jesus was, and they up their boasting.
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They're not just descendants of Abraham, but of God. God is our father, they say. So Jesus pokes at that.
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If, oh, they hate that, God were your father, you would love me.
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It's the same today. If God is your father, you love Jesus. He came from God, and the way you treat
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Jesus is the way you treat God. But they don't understand. Why don't they understand?
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Not because of their brains, but because of their hearts. Jesus says in verse 43, it is because you cannot bear to hear my word.
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Literally, it simply says, because you cannot hear my word. Now, they could hear the sounds with their ears,
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I suppose. But they lack the ability to really hear him. Hearing and believing
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Jesus isn't just, you know, in agreeing with facts. It's not something that naturally a fallen person can do.
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Because in verse 44, you are of your father, the devil.
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And your will is to do your father's desires. Martin Luther said that the will is like a horse.
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And he didn't mean like a wild horse, you know, free and roaming wherever it wants to go. The will goes wherever whoever is riding it wants it to go.
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If the devil is riding it, it goes where the devil says. If God is riding it, it goes where he says. Twice Jesus has mentioned their father.
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And now he says it plainly. Your father is the devil. The devil is a murderer and a liar.
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That's why the one who has the devil as his father will not stay in Jesus' word, you know, in the light.
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Because he hates the truth. He prefers darkness. Notice verse 45. It's not, verse 45 does not say,
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I tell you the truth, but you still don't believe me. No, it's precisely because he tells them the truth that they don't believe.
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People of the lie, lovers of darkness, do not believe in Jesus as a direct result of him telling them the truth.
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And then he challenges them, look at that, to convict, convict me of sin, prove with evidence that I have ever sinned.
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Now imagine that in public, you know, right before people, you are ticking off at that very moment, challenging them, show me where I've ever sinned.
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Who speaks like that? You know, if I tried that, most of you here who know me would have some evidence to present.
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So I'm not doing that. Jesus can do that. But they can't show him. They can't show that anything he has said is false.
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People who are really of God, like they've claimed to be, would believe.
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But at the end of verse 47, the reason why you do not hear, present, continuous, keep on hearing, the reason why you do not keep on hearing the word of God is that you are not of God.
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Now it's not, notice carefully, he doesn't say you're not of, you know, it's not that they're not of God.
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Let me say this right. It's not that they are not of God because they don't hear. That's the way many people think.
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If you would only hear, you could make yourself of God. No, it's not that they're not of God because they, because they don't hear.
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It's that they don't hear because they're not of God. Understand the difference?
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That, you're the devil, you can't hear, sparks the dispute from verse 48.
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They really start to get nasty now. I mean, they're just mad now. You're a
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Samaritan. That's just a racial slur. You know, that's all it is.
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It's just an empty insult. And you have a demon. Jesus answers that, I do not have a demon.
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You know, the evidence? Because I honor my Father. Glorifying God is the grand mark of being of God.
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The devil never wants to do that. You dishonor me. Jesus says, they're implying, that they are the ones acting like Satan, the accuser of the brethren.
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I do not seek my own glory. He seeks to glorify the Father, and the Father seeks to glorify the
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Son. Now, that would be idolatry, the
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Father idolizing the Son, if either the Father or the Son were not
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God. But both are God, and so both seek to glorify the other, and the Holy Spirit glorifies both, without ever idolatrously glorifying anyone other than God.
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He is the judge, Jesus says. And so will judge you. Then verse 51.
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Truly, truly, introducing a statement that you can be confident in.
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If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. Those true disciples who continue to believe, who have a persevering attachment to Christ, they will not perish, but have eternal life.
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Now, these past tense believers, superficial professors, fickle faith, well, they get nastier.
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We know that you have a demon. After all, the great Abraham died, the prophets died.
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Are you greater than them? Who do you think you are? Jesus responds in verse 54.
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I'm not glorifying myself, but it is the Father who glorifies me. They claim that he is their
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God, but Jesus says, despite all your assurances, you don't know him.
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I know him. He says in verse 55, if I denied that, I would be a liar, like you, like the devil, your father.
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Ouch. He is now shaking the very foundation of their confidence.
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He is attacking the very thing that they were sure could not be questioned, that they were in a covenant with God, that they were children of Abraham.
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And so had God under contract, and their responses are emotional, irrational, heated, because that disturbs them to the core.
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Do you know how you can tell that Jesus knows the Father? The same way you can tell that you really believe.
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Keep his word. Jesus kept God's word. Well, that's the dispute.
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Who do you think you are, Jesus? And Jesus answers with the declaration, starting in verse 56.
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Your literal father, Abraham, rejoiced that he would see my day.
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That God's covenant with Abraham, with him, would be fulfilled. He rejoiced, it made him happy when he realized that God's word would really be fulfilled.
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He saw Jesus' day, that promise to Abraham is going to be fulfilled. Either Jesus means that God, maybe
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Abraham saw it in the provision of Isaac when he was on earth, or maybe Abraham saw it in heaven when Jesus was on earth.
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Abraham was glad, he says. Now that sets him off. What? Incredible!
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You're not even 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham? Actually, Jesus said that Abraham saw him, so they get that wrong, but never mind, that's not important.
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They were questioning whether this young man, Jesus is a young man, existed when Abraham was alive.
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It's probably a smart, I like, comment. You know, like, you know, be serious. Abraham lived almost 1 ,500 years ago.
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You're not even 50. Ah, but Jesus has guided this dispute perfectly, every step, and now has them where he wants them.
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He has said it twice already, as we saw last week to the Pharisees, but they didn't pick up on it, and now he says it so plainly, so forcefully, it's without a doubt what he means.
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Truly, truly. Announcing again a statement you can be confident in.
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Before Abraham was, I am. His words probably echoed, and they probably stood stunned for a few seconds.
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You see, he didn't just say that he existed before Abraham. That was the implication that they were first scoffing at, but he went far beyond that.
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If he had only wanted to say, you know, maybe that he was created first, like the Jehovah's Witnesses say, and so he lived before Abraham was born, if that's all he wanted to say, he could simply have said, before Abraham was,
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I was. But that's not what he said. He said, I am.
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He is not merely claiming preexistence, but actually to be the one who exists eternally.
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Who said to Moses at the burning bush, I am that I am.
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To be Yahweh, the Lord. That's the declaration.
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He's not just a prophet or a messiah. He is saying things that only
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God can say. And they knew it. That's why these so -called, past tense believers, pick up stones.
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They intended on stoning him to death. The penalty for blasphemy is death. And they believed he had committed blasphemy.
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Their reaction is proof that he is claiming to be God. But he slips away. As man,
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Jesus flees from the stones. But woe to those whose hearts are stone. God flees.
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So God leaves his temple. The light hides himself from those who love darkness.
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C .S. Lewis said it best. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or he is the
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Lord. Nothing in between. Nothing. Here we have a Jesus who demands that we decide radically, finally, who he is.
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You cannot finish this chapter and think Jesus can be a minor character in your life.
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Maybe a savior who gets you off the penalty of sin. Maybe a teacher. Interesting, maybe, but not that important.
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That you can make a decision about him once and then go about your own way.
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No. He doesn't leave that option open to us.
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He is either who he says he is. God. The one to be glorified and listened to and followed with all of your life.
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Every day. He's either that or he's a liar. Claiming to be the
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I am before Abraham when he's actually just a con man from Galilee trying to hit it big in the religion business.
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Or he's a lunatic. Or in the terms of this chapter, a demon possessed man glorifying himself like the devil does out of his mind, demented.
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Those are your only three choices. Don't try anything in between. Either hate him as a fraud, feel sorry for him as a victim of mental illness or demons, or worship him with your whole life.
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The grand mark that you've done the last worship
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Jesus is that you keep doing it. You know he speaks the truth and that truth sets you free.
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You were a slave of sin. You could not hear his word. You were not able.
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And then suddenly you can hear him. You are of God and you want to stay in his word.
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It's not that you made yourself of God by hearing, by saying. It's that he made you of God, one of his adopted sons or daughters.
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So you do God's will. And so you cling to him because he clings to you.