Are You In Good Hands? - [John 10:22-30]

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If I asked you how your week was, what would you say? I think maybe the most common answer to that is, same old, same old.
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That's a warehouse worker mentality. And I happen to know that because I worked in a warehouse. First job out of high school, $2 .85
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an hour, not trying to brag. And I got to pay union dues.
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Good times. Week in and week out, it was the same. Go back into the hot warehouse, climb up those pallets of boxes, taking my life into my own hands, grab those boxes, trying not to break everything in them as we lower them to the ground, and move them out to shipping.
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Same old, same old. Boxes come in, boxes go out.
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But you know what? As I get older, I don't think of life that way anymore. I see my grandkids getting older day by day.
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You know what I think? I wanna slow things down. It's going too fast. It's not the same old, same old.
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It's like, what happened to that? And as a pastor, even before as a police officer, daily reports of people being sick or seriously injured or dying.
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And you realize, no, life is not same old, same old.
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Life is precious. Every moment is precious. And we will one day all die.
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And as we've seen even, I mean, we should always keep this in mind, but even over the last few weeks, not one of us knows that day.
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Not one of us knows the hour. And this morning's message ought to be heard in light of that truth.
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There's nothing mundane, routine about it. If you leave this morning and you say, same old, same old, please don't see me at the door because I'm gonna be very disappointed.
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I want you to open your Bibles to John chapter 10. John chapter 10.
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And I'm going to begin reading in verse 22. At that time, the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem.
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It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.
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So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?
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If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them,
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I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.
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My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish.
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And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
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I and the father are one. And we know the purpose of the book of John, which he wrote about 90
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AD as he's on the island of Patmos was to show unbelievers and even us that Jesus was the
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Christ, the son of God. And that eternal life comes only by believing in him.
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And over and over again, that theme is going to run through the book and guess what? It's in our passages this morning.
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Why? Because it's central to this book. And guess what? It's central to gaining eternal life.
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It's worth repeating. It's worth hearing over. It's worth telling yourself and telling your neighbors over and over and over again.
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In the beginning of this passage, we saw that the feast of dedication or what we call,
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I mean, it would be odd if we were on TV and they said, happy feast of dedication. We don't call it that.
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We call it Hanukkah. Same thing, the festival of lights. So we know that we're in December.
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We're a few months after the interchange that took place between Jesus and the
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Pharisees. Remember after he healed the man born blind and all the things that went on there.
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And then he starts talking to the man born blind and he's overheard by some Pharisees.
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And he starts talking to them about shepherds and sheep and in a not too subtle way, he lets them know that they're not his sheep.
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In fact, he said that here, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. This is a few months after that, but he continues the same theme.
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John kind of took two different dissertations about the good shepherd and sheep and he puts them together here.
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But look at verse 24. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?
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If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. He had told them plainly and he says,
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I've told you. But they're after something that they can use against him.
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More evidence as it were, that he's making claims that no mortal ought to make.
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He says, you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. They were clearly not believers and they denied that.
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We talked last time about the issue of unbelief, how unbelievers suppress the truth.
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They deny the truth, they ignore the truth. They lie about the truth and they even mock the truth.
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And they do this of their own volition. They choose to do this. Is it in their nature?
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Yes. Is it the spiritual condition? Yes. But they freely choose to reject
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Jesus because that's what they wanna do.
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Children of wrath naturally want wrath. It's almost impossible to really believe, to wrap our arms around the hardness of hearts of these
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Pharisees. How's it possible for them to hear Jesus again and again and again and not believe?
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And it's not just that they don't believe, it's not just that they're unimpressed, but they hate him.
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They wanna kill him. It's amazing. Now this morning, we will look at five, now listen to this, credible creeds, which is a bit of a blessed redundancy.
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I might as well say believable beliefs, but I just like credible creeds. Five credible creeds drawn from the text.
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And I think you'll be encouraged by the work of the sovereign of the universe on your behalf.
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And let me just go over that again. This is not, what we're talking about this morning is not a to -do list.
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This is not, if you love Jesus, these are the things that you need to do to show that you love Jesus.
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He's describing his sheep. He's just giving a description again. He's describing them.
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He's going over, this is how my sheep are. You know, it's as if I were to describe my dog.
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My dog doesn't listen and go, oh, that's how I need to act. Jesus is describing, not that I'm comparing us to dogs.
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I'm just saying, Jesus is describing his sheep. He's saying, this is how sheep act.
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Our first credible creed, believers love
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Jesus. It's pretty basic, isn't it? Believers love
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Jesus. Look at verse 27. My sheep hear my voice and they just go, well, I don't get it.
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How does that mean? Well, let's see. Those who don't believe don't hear him, right?
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They ignore him. They're angry with him. They hate him. Those who hear his voice, those who respond to it like sheep do, they are lovers of Jesus.
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Now, first notice that the sheep are Jesus' own. He says it right there, my sheep.
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They're no one else's. Why is that important? Because out of all the possible flocks that there could be, this is his unique flock and they hear his voice.
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If you look back at verse five, a stranger they will not follow, talking about his sheep, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers, but they hear his voice.
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He's the good shepherd. He's the one they respond to. They hear the call of a stranger or of another sheep.
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They hear the call of a shepherd, not of their flock, and they do not heed it. They do not listen to it.
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They do not respond to it. Verse eight, all who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
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Believers don't listen to these other shepherds. In contrast, they always heed the call of their master.
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They always hear their shepherd and respond. It's a reflex. That's what they do. What does that tell us about self -professing
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Christians who persistently excuse themselves from obeying? In fact, there's been a lot of talk, even at the
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Shepherds Conference this year, about evangelicalism, about Christianity writ large.
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I mean, Christianity today, I think Mike and I were talking about it this week. I think he doesn't even subscribe to it anymore.
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But evangelicalism, I was thinking about it, and what's the heart of that word? The heart of it is evangel.
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And I dare say, if you go around evangelicalism and you ask them, what's the evangel? They'd look at you and go, like you guys are looking at me right now.
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The evangel is the good news. It's the gospel. I mean, we could call evangelicalism good newsism, right?
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But if you listen to evangelicalism these days, you really don't get much gospel. You get a lot of excuse making.
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I was reading this week about a woman who said, and I guess she's supposed to be one of the reliable voices among female evangelicals.
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She said that the church needs to be more welcoming to, let me see if I can get it right without looking,
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LGBTQ community. Did I get it right? You guys know too much about that. We need to be more welcoming.
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And I'm like, you know what? What should we do? Put a sign out front. We welcome
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LG, that would change the church. Listen, if a lesbian, a gay, bisexual, transgender, queer person comes here,
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I'm lowering my voice right now. We're going to welcome them. We're going to welcome them in the same way we're going to welcome drug addicts, alcoholics, people involved in all manner of sin.
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We're going to say, hey, it's great to have you here. You're welcome to listen. Afterwards, we'd love to talk to you about how you can be saved from your sin.
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I don't care if the sin is adultery. I don't care what it is. People need to be saved from their sin.
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And these things are sin. We don't sit there and just say, you know what? We want to welcome you. We want you to feel at home.
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I don't want anyone who's not saved to feel at home. If you're not saved and you start twisting in your seat,
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I say, welcome to PBC. That's how things should be.
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When you get to a place where you're comfortable, one of two things is going on. Either we stop preaching the gospel or you believe the gospel.
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Those are the only two possible results. You should either hate me or you should be thankful for what
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I'm saying. Even if you don't particularly like everything that I do, it's okay.
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Welcoming to LGBTQ. I just get lost in that alphabet soup sometimes.
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But again, consider this picture. Jesus, sovereign Lord of the universe, head of the church, shepherd of his sheep, leader of his flock says to them, sheep, forgive one another.
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The sheep say, no, not going to do that. We're going to hold on to our anger.
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We're going to hold on to our grudges. We're going to keep murmuring and complaining. It's not how sheep respond to their shepherd.
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Master of the church says, sheep, do not fornicate. The sheep say, no.
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You don't know how things are out here, Jesus. Culture's changed. Is that how sheep respond to their shepherd?
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No. Jesus says, sheep, gather together and worship me on my day.
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Sheep say, well, other priorities. Got NFL, it's my only day of the week to sleep in.
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If you had a late afternoon service, I might be able to squeeze it in. Sheep just instinctively, reflexively follow their shepherd.
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They do what the shepherd commands. Someone might be saying, you might be thinking to yourself, well, wait a minute.
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Jesus didn't command some of those things. Well, okay, then we have to figure out what he means by my sheep hear my voice.
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What is the voice of Jesus? Well, if you listen to maybe somebody like the woman who wrote
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Jesus Calling, that means we're supposed to wait until we hear him talk. We're reading our Bible and then we go, oh, I hear
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Jesus. That's not his voice.
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Think about it. It cannot be his physical voice. Think about the setting that we're in. Solomon's portico,
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Solomon's colonnade, whatever you wanna call it. We're in that covered area of the temple built by Solomon.
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The Pharisees hear his physical voice. They're not a sheep. They don't believe.
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They don't respond in faith. Today we have a group of people called or who call themselves red letter
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Christians. They seek to differentiate between the Old Testament, the
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Gospels and the New Testament. They kind of pick and choose what they like. They like what Jesus says and they don't like so much, some of the other things that are in the
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Bible. Listen, Jesus said, what about the
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Old Testament? He said, it spoke of him. Paul wrote that all scripture is
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God breathed. It's inspired. Peter said that scripture is sufficient for all of our needs.
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He also referred to Paul's writings as scripture. Friends, those who wanna pick and choose, who kind of just take the cafeteria approach to what they're going to believe out of the
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Bible as if that is heeding the voice of Jesus have a deficient view of scripture.
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They have a deficient view of divine authorship. The Holy Spirit wrote it all.
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And the Holy Spirit, by the way, and Jesus are not in conflict. Holy Spirit didn't command one thing.
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And then Jesus said, well, you know what? Nevermind him. He's just the mean part of the
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Trinity. Consistency, the
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Trinity working together. No part of the Bible is more inspired or less inspired than any other.
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And ultimately it is all the voice of Jesus. It is all the voice of God. To deny that truth, again, is to put the
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Trinity at odds, to have them bickering with one another. So that's our first credible creed.
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Our second credible creed. Believers are beloved by Jesus. The first one, they love him.
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Second one is they are beloved by Jesus. Look again at your text. And I know them.
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Now we might expect to see after they hear my voice, they know me, but it's not that, it's the opposite.
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And I know them. Emphasis changes from the sheep to the shepherd.
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The emphasis is on his intimate knowing of them. So when did he get to know us?
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When was that? Was it the moment you were born again?
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Again, I think if we look at the doctrine of the Trinity, we're gonna realize that Jesus knew us, that he set his affection upon us before we were even born.
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If you can imagine God the Father, as it says in Ephesians one, choosing us when?
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Before the foundations of the world, before anything existed. He set his affection upon us then in love,
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Paul wrote. So then what? Jesus set his affection upon us sometime later?
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Again, the Trinity coheres. The Trinity cooperates. The Trinity works together.
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There's no conflict, there's no difference of opinion. If you look there in the
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English, it may not be obvious, but the personal pronoun I is in the
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Greek and a lot of times it's not there. It's just left out because it's assumed. It's in the verb form, you don't need to include it.
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When it's put there, it's put there for emphasis. And he says,
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I, me personally, I know them. Ongoing, present tense, before we were born.
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And he loves us in the same sense as the Father loves us. He loved us even when we were unlovable, even when we were his enemies.
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Imagine what a disaster knowing would be that verb knowing if it did not equate with loving.
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If Jesus knew us and he didn't love us, we're in trouble because there's nothing about us that's going to change his mind into loving us.
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Knowing us isn't enough. That knowing has to be an intimate love.
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Well, I mean, we've gotten so used to just knowing people casually. I mean, I don't even know how many friends
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I have on Facebook. I think I lost one the other day. Well, these things happen in life. Hundreds of people on Facebook.
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I probably know close to most of them. We know people that we don't even know.
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Jesus is not like that. He's not casually acquainted with us. He knows us intimately.
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He knows his flock intimately, and he cares for us deeply. The ultimate picture of that, of course, is at the cross.
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Knowing that what he was going to suffer, he went to the cross anyway. He took upon him our sins.
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While we were helpless, he died for us. He bore the penalty due for us.
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Well, that was due for us. Jesus loves us.
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Our first credible creed, believers love Jesus. Second, believers are beloved by Jesus.
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Our third credible creed, believers obey Jesus. Sort of similar.
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Isn't this similar to hearing his voice? Well, yeah. Lenski wrote this.
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He said, one cannot hear without following, nor follow except to hear.
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And here in our text, it says, and they follow me. They hear my voice.
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I know them. They follow me. Again, just think of the picture.
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Shepherd, sheep, this is what we do. We hear his voice. He knows us. He calls us.
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We follow him. There's no hesitation in it. In this text here,
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Jesus says it in very matter of fact, just kind of saying it off the top of his head.
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But look, or don't turn there. Just listen to a familiar passage in Luke chapter nine, verses 23 and 24.
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Similar, but note the difference. And he, Jesus, said to all, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
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For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
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It's really kind of very much different in his approach to it, right? I mean, this is explaining the high cost of following him.
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Why is the difference? Why the big difference? Well, in that context in Luke nine, he's talking to primarily his disciples, his followers.
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And here in John 10, he's talking to the Pharisees. He's describing the sheep in John 10.
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In Luke nine, he's talking to the sheep and he says, listen, this is what following me is going to cost you.
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Following Jesus is costly indeed. Now, I often suggest a simple way to present the gospel.
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In fact, if you ask me, I had somebody ask me on a Sunday morning, came in real quick, had to go to the hospital.
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How do I preach the gospel to my friend who's in the hospital and maybe dying? And I say, and I will say, and I do this at funerals.
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Start with Psalm 23 because everybody knows it. It's hard for anybody to say, no,
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I don't want to hear Psalm 23 because they already know it. It's acceptable. It's like saying, you know, do you mind if I say the
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Pledge of Allegiance? Well, some people, actually probably more people would object to the Pledge of Allegiance than Psalm 23.
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And then you shift gears and you go to John 10 and you explain who that shepherd is.
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Now, this morning, I'm going to reverse that. I'm going to go from John 10 to Psalm 23. So turn over to Psalm 23 for a moment.
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I want us to see because there's potentially a high cost for following Jesus.
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We do that, we obey him, we follow him because we're sheep and that's what we do. So let's look at the promises of God to those who do follow, those who are his sheep.
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Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
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He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
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Now, the first few images there are very tranquil, very comforting. Verse three may not be so comforting.
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Paths of righteousness for their comfort's sake or for my comfort's sake.
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No, for his name's sake, for his glory, we might say. But the promise of God is to restore you.
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In times of difficulty, in times of exhaustion, when you've just burned yourself out for his glory, he will restore you.
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Talk about times of danger, trial, suffering. Look at verse four.
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Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.
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Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Throughout the
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OT and the New Testament, Old Testament, New Testament, I'm just kind of OT, new
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T. Throughout scripture, even in church history, we see people go through amazing things, being tortured, burned alive, all manner of difficulty.
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Church history's filled with people being crucified and just persecuted in many different ways.
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When you think about Psalm 23, even though you're walking through the very dangerous life -threatening situation, why should you fear that?
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When you know what lies in front of you and you know who your shepherd is, you know you're one of his sheep and you just say, you know what, whatever happens to me in this situation,
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I know where I'm going. I have complete trust in this God who's always provided for me, who's always cared for me.
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He says I'm going to heaven and I believe him. What can evil, what can any person do to me?
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Look at verse five. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil.
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My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the
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Lord forever. Now this doesn't mean ease and comfort. He's already talked about for his name's sake, for the sake of righteousness.
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He's already talked about walking through the valley of the shadow of death. I mean, who wants to do that? But it's the end that counts.
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This life is a moment. It is, as I said in the beginning, fleeting. The call in Luke nine and Psalm 23 is to keep our eyes on eternity, on heaven.
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To look beyond the trials, the difficulties, the drama, the dangers of life, no matter how painful they may be and to trust our shepherd, to lean on him, to obey him, to follow him.
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It's like incredible creed number four. Believers have eternal life. Believers have eternal life.
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Verse 28, I give them eternal life and they will never perish. Seems kind of a little mundane, first glance.
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But the truth is, this is an amazing statement. Again, think who he's talking to. He's talking to the Pharisees and he says,
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I, me, this guy right in front of you, I give eternal life to my sheep.
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How are they gonna respond to that? You give eternal life to your sheep.
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They're not very pleased. In their eyes, no mere mortal could give eternal life.
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That's the province of God alone. Let's talk just a moment about what eternal life is.
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It's not just about living forever. If that were the case, then we know what? That everyone is going to live forever.
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The question is, is it gonna be in the presence of Christ forever in his glory in heaven with no more tears, no more suffering, worshiping him forever?
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Or is it going to be in hell facing the wrath of God? So everyone's going to live forever.
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It's not about, that's not what eternal life means. It's talking about a quality of life.
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It's talking about heaven. But it's also talking about the right now. You have eternal life from the moment you're born again.
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What does that mean to say I possess eternal life?
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Well, again, it means I have a shepherd who is with me at all times, who will lead me through every danger, every problem, and will get me where I need to go.
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He will take me to heaven. But for these Jews who are listening to him, this is just so much boasting from Jesus.
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They hate him in every word he says. Why is that?
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I mean, they should listen and just go, I want that, I want that eternal life. They are not his sheep.
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They don't accept what he says. His words find no place in them.
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Now this idea of never perishing, it's really the flip side of the same coin. If eternal life is the promise of heaven, never perishing is your promise of never going to hell.
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Jesus says his sheep will have eternal life and will not face the wrath of God.
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Look back in verses 14 and 15. Jesus says, 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.
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And I lay down my life for the sheep. Now if all this meant was that Jesus was willing to protect the sheep, that he was out there with his staff, willing to fight off the bad guys and the wolves and all that, that would be wonderful.
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But we know that when he says, I laid down my life for the sheep, it's not that.
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It's much more than that. This is in a very non -technical sense.
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This is 2 Corinthians 5 21. He who knew no sin being made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
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He is dying for the sins of the sheep. He is dying in their place. He is taking the wrath of God.
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Why? So that they will never perish. None of his sheep will ever face the wrath of God because he bore it in their place.
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That's why he laid down his life. His sheep will never know the place where the worm does not die, where the fire is not quenched.
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So we've seen incredible creed. Number one, believers love Jesus. Number two, believers are beloved by Jesus.
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Number three, believers obey Jesus. They follow him. Number four, believers have eternal life.
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Incredible creed number five, believers have eternal security and fasten your seatbelts because this is great.
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I think it's great. Verse 28, the second half of it. I'll just read the whole thing here.
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I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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Verse 29, my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
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I and the father are one. We're gonna leave scripture there.
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We're gonna explain that now. But I've said that the sheep are believers. His flock are believers.
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And there really is no other way to understand that. One cannot be in Christ's flock without believing all the scripture says about him.
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And that word snatch there, the verb snatch in verse 28 means to remove with force, to seize.
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No one is ever going to have the power to overcome Jesus and to take his sheep out of his hand.
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They don't have the strength to do it. No one can. He forever stands guard over his sheep.
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He protects them. He is the perfect attentive shepherd. In verse 29, really we have a reference to election and I wanna draw your attention to it.
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We're gonna get back to verse 28 here in a minute, but verse 29, my father who has given them to me.
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The father has given the sheep to Jesus. That's what he says right there. Well, this is very much like John chapter six.
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And I'm gonna read verses 37 to 40. Listen and see if you can't see the parallel. All that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes,
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I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.
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And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
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For this is the will of my father that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
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Who are those who look on the son and believe in him? The sheep. And guess what?
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He's going to raise them up on the last day. They're going to have eternal life. But again, my father who has given them to me, all that the father gives me will come.
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Well, who are they? Trinity. All that the first person of the Trinity gives to the second person of the
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Trinity will come to the second person of the Trinity without fail. We would expect that, right?
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God the father tries to give some to the son and what? They don't all get given.
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Again, the Trinity does not fail to do what it designs to do. God the father gives to God the son.
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And Jesus says, this is the will of the father that he lose none of those the father gave him.
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That'd be something the father gives them and says, I want you to return these on the last day.
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I want you to bring them back to me. I want you to raise them up into heaven. And Jesus says, you know,
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I did my best, but I couldn't. It's impossible.
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He came here to do the will of him who sent me, of him. He's not going to fail.
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As he says in John chapter 10, he knows and he gives eternal life to all of his sheep who are the ones the father has given him.
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Friends, God's sovereign choice in salvation is it's tough to kind of wrap our arms around, but it's here in scripture.
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It's hot in many places. In the old Testament, we see it.
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People who maybe we wouldn't think should be chosen get chosen. We wouldn't think Israel should get chosen.
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Israel gets chosen, not because they're the best or the mightiest, but so that God might be glorified over and over again.
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If you look through the book of judges, the people that we just think, why would you use that guy or that woman?
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Why would you use this person or that person? Because God has glorified him. Why did he choose you?
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Because he gets glory. God's sovereign choice is taught throughout the scriptures and his sheep hear his voice.
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His sheep follow. His sheep, in other words, believe.
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Even if it's hard, eventually you have to bow the knee to scripture. Now the rest of this morning's text is just so theologically rich.
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Jesus goes on, he says, my father who has given them to me, listen, is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
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I and the father are one. And I said, we'd go back to 28. Just think about this. Jesus said what?
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That no one could snatch, no one could by force remove the sheep from his hand, from Jesus' hand.
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And look what he says in verse 29. No one is able to snatch. No one is able to use force to remove them from the father's hand.
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The parallel there couldn't be more obvious. What is he saying? I and the father are one.
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The same truth, true about both of them. You can't take them out of the son's hand.
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You can't take them out of the father's hands. They are one. They have the same power.
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That is to say, they are God. God, the father is
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God. God, the son is God. The father is divine. The son is divine. There is no power greater in the universe than that of God.
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That's why he says, no one can take them out of my hand. No one can take them out of the father's hand. He is
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God in the flesh. The father, note, is his father, which necessarily means he is uniquely the son of God.
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He's claiming deity. He's claiming equality with the father. Now, why is that important?
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How's it practical? Well, first of all, you'll have some really nicely dressed folks that will come to your door and they'll say, they wanna talk to you about Awake Magazine or The Watchtower, or they'll wanna explain to you
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Joseph Smith and how he restored the truth. They're gonna deny this.
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They're gonna deny this truth. They're gonna deny that the father and the son are equal in essence.
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They're gonna say, well, they have the same purpose, but Jesus is lesser.
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That's not what he says. He says, I have the same power that my father has.
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Nobody can take him out of my hand. Nobody can take him out of the father's hand. The idea that Jesus is less than fully divine is damnable heresy.
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And by the way, while I'm here, let me just also say, we were talking about this in FOF class, modalism is damnable heresy.
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And that's the idea. It's not Christianity. It's the idea that God is one person that exists in three sort of modes, three personages.
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But note well that he's either the father or the son or the
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Holy Spirit. He's never all three. And that's just wrong. And you don't have to take my word for it.
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You have the word of our Lord. He equates himself to the father. He wouldn't have to do that if modalism was correct.
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He wouldn't do it. And in context, this is important for another reason.
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Jesus is explaining that his sheep are secure because both he and the father are protecting them.
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Friends, you can rest. If you are in Christ, if you are saved, if you are one of his sheep, nothing and no one can change that.
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Your eternal destiny is secured by the power of the triune God, father, son, and spirit.
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The spirit's not mentioned here, but it is mentioned. He is mentioned. Excuse me. In Ephesians chapter one,
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Jesus himself says, no one can seize you from his grasp or that of the father.
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Now, one man said, I read this week, one man said that, well, it's true. Nobody can take you out of the son's hand.
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Nobody can take you out of the father's hand, but you can, of your own volition, remove yourself.
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So no one can, except for you yourself, that you have the power to override the sovereign
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Lord of the universe. No. No one means no one, not no one except for you, asterisk.
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This is a doctrine that we commonly call eternal security. It's often called the perseverance of the saints.
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They persevered to the end, they run the race, and that's true, but the truth that's taught here is really the preservation of the saints.
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They're kept safe in the hand of the son. They're kept safe in the hand of the father.
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Nothing, no one can remove them. Now, our security is not based on our performance, for which
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I can only say, thank you, Lord. You know, if Jesus said, as long as you remain faithful, as long as you obey me perfectly, you will remain in my hand.
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Would that be assurance? It wouldn't be for me. That would leave me with assurance for what?
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Maybe 10, 15 minutes, maybe. Then I would have no assurance at all.
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This is not performance -based. Now, maybe you're here this morning, you're thinking, you know what,
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I'm not one of Christ's sheep. There's no hope for me. Or maybe you know an unsaved person, and you've wondered if they are elect, if they're one of Christ's sheep, would it be wrong to preach the gospel to one of the people that really aren't in the flock of Christ?
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Well, I don't know, but Jesus did it over and over again, so I think it's okay. Well, what if they already know the gospel?
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Sheep are not offended by the voice of Christ. They rejoice when they hear the gospel.
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They love to hear the gospel. Life can seem mundane.
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The word of God is never mundane. These truths are not mundane. This is not ho -hum stuff.
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When you think about this truth, that nothing, I belong to Jesus, and nothing can change that, that's powerful.
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If you've lost somebody in your life, if you've lost a job, whatever the situation is, you just think, that's hard.
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But I know Jesus has me securely in his hand, and I know what that means. That means
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I'm going to heaven. I'm going to heaven. And by the grace of God, I want to preach the gospel.
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I want to preach the good news to as many as I can, because I want them to go with me.
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I want them to join me safe and secure in the hands of Christ. I want them to believe in the
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Jesus of the Bible, the one who is sinless, spotless, takes away the sin of the world, was raised on the third day.
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It's by believing in him, by following him, and if you believe, you will follow, and I know that you can have that security.
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, Lord, we just rejoice.
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We are not worthy, you are worthy. And yet in the person of your son, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, you condescended to us. You sent him on a rescue mission to save those you chose to be your sheep.
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Not because of anything good you saw in us, but because there was nothing good to see. Father, you gave us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts that are renewed by your spirit, a desire to follow you.
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What a great testament to a great God. Father, for anyone here who does not know you this morning,
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I pray that you would cause them, not only to see their sin, to know that they don't deserve any of these things.
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Don't wonder why they don't hear your voice. But Father, I pray that you would so quicken them, so transform them, that they would hear, believe, and follow, even today.