WWUTT 901 Life More Abundantly?

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Jesus said in John 10 .10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

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I come that they may have life and have it abundantly. That's not just talking about our heavenly future, that's life now, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back again to our study of the gospel of John chapter 10, and I'll begin reading in verse seven, we'll go through verse 18.

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The apostle John wrote, "'So Jesus again said to them, "'Truly, truly,

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I say to you, "'I am the door of the sheep. "'All who came before me are thieves and robbers, "'but the sheep did not listen to them.

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"'I am the door. "'If anyone enters by me, he will be saved "'and will go in and out and find pasture.

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"'The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. "'I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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"'I am the good shepherd. "'The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. "'He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd "'who does not own the sheep, "'sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep "'and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

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"'He flees because he is a hired hand "'and cares nothing for the sheep. "'I am the good shepherd.

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"'I know my own and my own know me. "'Just as the father knows me and I know the father "'and

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I lay my life down for the sheep. "'And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

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"'I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. "'So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

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"'For this reason, the father loves me "'because I lay down my life "'that I may take it back up again.

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"'No one takes it from me, "'but I lay it down of my own accord. "'I have authority to lay it down "'and

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I have authority to take it up again. "'This charge I have received from my father.'"

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So where we were last week was in verses seven and eight. Jesus said to them, "'Truly, truly,

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I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. "'All who came before me are thieves and robbers, "'but the sheep did not listen to them.'"

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And this was in reference back to what we read in Ezekiel and through the prophet Jeremiah about those who had been entrusted to be the shepherds of Israel.

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And yet they fed themselves rather than feeding the sheep. And so through these prophets,

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God said that his judgment was gonna come upon these false teachers. James said in James 3 .1,

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"'Not many of you should desire to be teachers, my brothers, "'for you know that teachers will be judged "'with greater strictness.'"

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Also the way that Jesus says here, "'All who came before me are thieves and robbers.'"

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This may also be in reference to those who claim to be messianic figures, but they didn't actually lead

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Israel into any sort of salvation, but probably had led them into some sort of armed military conflict or slavery or sin, false teaching.

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Any of these other than Christ, they were merely thieves and robbers. Christ is the true

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Messiah. He is the fulfillment of all those prophecies that were made about a savior who had come to Israel in the

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Old Testament. All else who tried to claim to be a deliverer of Israel, they were a thief or they were a robber.

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And again, the difference between the two would be that the thief is kind of covert, kind of sneaks in there.

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The robber is the guy who's smash and grab, a little bit more blatant, but he is forceful and there's no way to resist him.

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So you're gonna have those teachers that will kind of weasel their way in. And you won't even be aware of what it is that they're doing until it's too late.

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They're just really sneaky about the way that they do it. And then you got those guys, more blatant in their approach, but so strong and so manipulative in the way that they do it.

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It's like you can't do anything to stop it. So all who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

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You think of 2 Timothy 3, where the apostle Paul says that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

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Avoid such people. So those who are the sheep of God, they will avoid such people.

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They will not follow after the false teachers, but they know the voice of the good shepherd. They will not be taken in by the thieves and robbers.

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For Paul goes on in verse six to say, for among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

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Whenever I read that, I'm thinking about those who creep into households and capture weak women, thieves and robbers.

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Boy, I just think of the feminist movement today in the United States of America, pretty much all of the

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Western English speaking world, the way that the feminist movement is telling women that you can be empowered.

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All you have to do is sacrifice your child and you can have everything. And abortion has just taken control of the

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Western world by storm to the death of over 3 ,000 children per day.

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And that's just in the United States alone. But Paul will go on to say that these liars and deceivers will receive judgment.

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Just as Janice and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also opposed the truth.

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Men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith, but they will not get very far for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

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We're not just talking about people who are men who manipulate women. We're also talking about women who manipulate women and they will fall into judgment.

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They must repent. They must hear the gospel that a day of judgment is coming. And unless they repent and believe in Jesus Christ, they will fall under the judgment of God.

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The apostle Paul goes on to encourage Timothy to follow the good teaching. Everything that has been given to him according to the word of God.

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And he says in verse 12, indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters, think thieves and robbers, will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

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But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, having been acquainted with the sacred writings from childhood.

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Solomon said in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, remember God in the days of your youth for the days of trouble are coming.

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How much more difficult is it to believe in and trust in God in those days of trouble, which is why we need to hold fast in days of our youth that our minds and our hearts would be conformed to Christ early at a young age.

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And how much easier is it with us to cope with the day of trouble when that day comes? Paul will go on to warn

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Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter four, verse one, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

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Be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and they will turn away from listening to the truth and they will wander off into myths.

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These are the ones who are the thieves and robbers. And those who are the sheep of God will not listen to them.

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Notice once again, those who have itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

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So false teachers are a judgment that those who love the passions of the flesh rather than loving

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God would be led away by a strong delusion. That's the way Paul puts it in 2

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Thessalonians 2. So that they may follow after what is false since they didn't love the truth and they reveled in their unrighteousness and will therefore fall into judgment.

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This is what happens to those who love the pleasure of sin rather than the truth of God and Jesus Christ, his son.

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They accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. The sheep of God are not led astray by these.

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So remember, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go from bad to worse deceiving and being deceived.

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If you desire a godly life in Christ Jesus you are among his sheep and you must know the voice of the shepherd and not be taken by these thieves and robbers the manipulations of Satan himself.

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The sheep do not listen to them. Jesus goes on in verse nine, I am the door.

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If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

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So if we're coming into the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ, who is the door how are we then going in and out?

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Do we go in and out of the kingdom of God? No, Jesus is making reference to himself as being the door of the sheep, remember.

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So Jesus is the door, the way into the people of God. So you become part of the people of God among the sheep, the fold being called by the shepherd.

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You hear his voice, you follow his voice. He brings you into the fold where there is safety.

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And that is what the church is for the church. The church is a safety.

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It is a pillar and a buttress of the truth the way that Paul puts it with Timothy.

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In Ephesians chapter four, beginning in verse 11, we read this, that God gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and the teachers, shepherd being a pastor.

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That's where the word pastor comes from. The shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, thieves and robbers.

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Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

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Notice that being a part of the church, being brought together by the word of God to the people of God, that we are no longer children but we are growing into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we won't be tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

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The church is a protection. When we are part of the church, we are protected from the false teachers, from the thieves and the robbers, from the one who wants to steal and kill and destroy.

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We are instead as those who are to teach and admonish one another.

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The way that Paul gives the assignment to the church in Colossians 3, verse 16, that we teach and admonish one another.

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In so doing, we keep one another in the truth, walking in a path of righteousness and are helping to warn one another, protecting each other from being led astray by every shifting wind of doctrine, by human cunning and craftiness and deceitful schemes.

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So the church serves as a protection in that manner. While we are in this world, the church is our protection, our encourager.

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We are encouraged by one another. We're gonna get beat up in the world because again, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

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And don't let anybody tell you that ridicule isn't persecution. That is persecution. It may not be as severe as being persecuted in the body, like being beaten or having your life threatened for the gospel that you proclaim, but it's still a form of persecution.

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Paul makes that clear in 2 Corinthians 12 and other places. That ridicule and being made fun of for your faith, people would slander you because of what it is that you believe.

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Boy, David wrote Psalms about that. The fact that he couldn't turn anywhere without there being some lie spoken about him and how it grieved him in his heart and he brings this before the

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Lord. So there's certainly to be ridiculed in such a way when they malign you, as Peter puts it, 1

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Peter 4, I believe. The worldly people will malign you because you will not join them in their flood of debauchery.

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So it is a form of persecution. There are certainly worse ways to be persecuted, but it's still persecution.

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So there are gonna be people who are gonna hate us simply because we wanna live a godly life in Christ Jesus, a life in Christ Jesus, understand that.

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There are people, very worldly people in this world who are not gonna hate you because you say that you follow

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Jesus. They probably don't have a problem with that. They probably say they're followers of Jesus, worldliest people you've ever seen, but they will say, yeah,

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I believe in Jesus. That's not the thing that offends people. What offends people is that it would actually change your life and that you live your life a certain way because Jesus commands you to.

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They wanna believe in a Jesus that will allow them to do anything that they want. Once you are living your life in such a way as Jesus commands it according to your word, that's when people start hating you.

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I remember talking to a man who was a former Muslim and he said, you know, if you tell your family, hey,

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I've become a Christian and I'm a follower of Jesus, in the Muslim world, they're not gonna hate you for that because the

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Quran mentions Jesus. But if you come to your family and you say, I've been to a church and I've been baptized and I'm a follower of Jesus, that's when it might cost you your life.

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That's when you're at risk of somebody in your Muslim family might actually try to kill you because you have left the way of the prophet

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Muhammad and you're now following after the Jesus of the Bible to such a degree that you've now been baptized.

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You're now taking action to become a follower of Jesus and not just somebody who is claiming to be in faith in name only.

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This is Jesus in Luke chapter nine saying that if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow after me.

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For whoever would try to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses it for my sake will save it.

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And whenever we're baptized, that very act out of obedience, according to the command of Christ is to show that we've been buried with Christ in our sins, dead with Christ in our sins and have been risen again to new life.

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There is a new life for the person who is a follower of Jesus. They're no longer walking in the old way and they don't walk in the pattern of this world, but they are being shaped into the image of Christ, according to Romans 8, 29.

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And in Ephesians chapter one, verse four, he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

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It is not merely that Christ has predestined us for justification, he has also predestined us for sanctification, that we might walk in newness of life, being made holy and blameless in Christ Jesus as we walk in obedience and faith.

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So once again, Christ says, I am the door. We enter into the people of God through Christ.

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If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and he will go in and out and find pasture.

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You will be out into the world. You will still have jobs in this world. You will still be interacting with worldly people, but you are able to come into the church and then go out into the world by the door.

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Who is Christ? And he will guide us and lead us and protect us.

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Whether we are within the church, within that number in the church, worshiping with the church or we've gone out into the world to fulfill the duty and obligation that Christ has called us to there.

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So Jesus now says, verse 10, and this is probably the most famous verse in John 10.

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It's John 10, 10. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

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I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. Now, certainly this means that having abundant life implies that we will inherit the kingdom of God with Christ.

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Certainly that applies, but this is not just talking about what we receive in the afterlife. It's also talking about what we receive in this life now.

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We have abundant life now. There is meaning and purpose in life because of what

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Christ gives us now. I think of the song from the Gaithers, Because He Lives.

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You probably have it in your hymnal at church if you attend a church with hymnals. But anyway, this song,

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Because He Lives, Bill Gaither wrote, "'Life is worth the living all because he lives.

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"'Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. "'Because he lives, all fear is gone.

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"'I know he holds the future "'and life is worth the living all because he lives.'"

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That song's fresh on my mind today because we just sang it in church yesterday, but that's what we get in the abundant life.

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We have purpose and meaning to life and there's no fear of tomorrow for not even death is going to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

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It's in Christ who has died for us and conquered death that we know when the body dies, we will be with him forever in glory and we are saved from judgment.

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We have nothing to fear of the judgment or the wrath of God. Life is worth the living now all because he lives.

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And we know that we live in this body while we are here. We live in this flesh, not for ourselves, but for the glory of the

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God who saves us. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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Now, the false teachers, the prosperity teachers will take this passage and use it to mean that God is promising you abundant life like stuff, right?

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You're going to have a full bank account. You're going to have a big house. You're going to drive a nice car.

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You're not going to have any debt. You are going to be able to write a check for whatever amount and it will clear, you know, that this is what the prosperity preachers teach.

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Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Ken Copeland. In fact, Ken Copeland has said, if you don't have a million dollars in your bank account, then you're sinning.

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You're doing something disobedient because what's in your bank account is the measure of the blessing of God upon your life.

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And all of that's absurd, absolutely. But this is what the false teachers are saying. And they will twist a verse like this to lead people to believe that God intends for you to have more stuff.

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When the reality is this verse is warning you against people like that.

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Our abundant living is not in anything that is in this world for the Bible is clear. All this stuff is transient and passing away.

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We should be placing our trust in what is eternal. Filling ourselves up, not with wine that leads to debauchery as Paul said to the

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Ephesians, but being filled with the Holy Spirit of God because the wine is temporary.

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The drunken effects lead to sin and plus are not going to last. It's just going to leave you wanting more.

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But being filled up with the Holy Spirit of God means that we have something that is eternal within us.

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And it's not just something that brings us a temporary satisfaction. But again, we come to understand that life is worth the living all because he lives.

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And God has called us to this life of holiness in Christ Jesus. And we rejoice to walk in it and follow it and obey him.

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It is our delight to obey God. Jesus said, truly

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I say to you, this is Mark 10 verse 29. I'm going to close with this. Mark 10 29 through 31.

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Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.

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But many who are first will be last and the last will be first. What is Jesus talking about here?

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What kinds of houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands have we received the church?

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You may have given up much for the sake of the gospel, but though you have given up much, you have received much.

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You've received houses, the church, brothers and sisters, mothers, children, lands, those within the church, land, the promised land, the eternal land of the heavenly kingdom that we have been promised.

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But Jesus does say, he points out Mark 10 30, that we receive these things with persecutions.

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The world will hate us, but we cling to Christ because we know the world is passing away and falling into judgment.

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Christ delivers us and gives us eternal life. The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.

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I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly, amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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.com and click on the give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our