Fifth Sunday of Lent Service

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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I would like to welcome you all to Kongsvinger Lutheran Church. Today is the fifth Sunday of Lent.

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You can almost make the claim that it's like the last Sunday of Lent because next Sunday is Palm Sunday, we enter Holy Week. Just a little bit of a note, this will be the last week where we have midweek services.

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During Holy Week, we have Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Vigil on Saturday. It's going to be a week.

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So just, you know, there's lots on the docket, but this week we'll still have our normal midweek service. Today we're following the order of divine service setting to the psalm tone today that we'll be using for the intro, it is

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G as in Gilderoy, G as in Gilderoy. And if you are physically present here at Kongsvinger, please rise for the opening hymn.

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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Let us then confess our sins to God our Father. Most merciful God, we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean.

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We have sinned against you, indeed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone.

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We have not loved you with our whole heart, not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

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We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment for the sake of your

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Son, Jesus Christ. Have mercy on us, forgive us, renew us, and lead us so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your holy name.

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Amen. Almighty God in his mercy has given his

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Son to die for you and for his sake he forgives you all of your sins. As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by his authority,

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I therefore forgive you all of your sins. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

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Amen. Vindicate me,

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O God, from the deceitful and the unjust, man, deliver me.

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Send out your light and your truth, let them lead me.

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Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy.

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Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?

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Vindicate me, O God, from the deceitful and the unjust, man, deliver me.

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In peace let us pray to the Lord. For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the

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Lord. For the peace of the whole world, for the well -being of the church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the

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Lord. For this holy house and for all who offer here their worship and praise, let us pray to the

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Lord. Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord.

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The Lord be with you. And also with you. Let us pray. Almighty God, by your great goodness, mercifully look upon your people, that we may be governed and preserved evermore in body and soul, through Jesus Christ, your

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Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

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Amen. You may be seated. The Old Testament reading for this, the fifth

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Sunday in Lent, is taken from the book of Genesis chapter 22. After these things,

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God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. He said,

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Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

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I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son

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Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which

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God had told him. On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

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Then Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.

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And Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took in his hand the fire and the knife.

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So they went, both of them, together. And Isaac said to his father Abraham, My father, and he said,

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Here I am, my son. He said, Behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? Abraham said,

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God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. So they went, both of them, together.

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And when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order, and bound

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Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

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But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said to him, Abraham, Abraham. And he said,

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Here I am. He said, Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now

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I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.

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And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns.

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And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of that place the

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Lord will provide. As it is said to this day on the mountain of the Lord, it shall be provided.

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This is the word of the Lord. We'll speak the gradual together.

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Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord. You delivered me from my enemies.

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Our epistle is taken from Hebrews chapter 9. When Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is, not of this creation, he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

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For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with ashes of heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living

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God? Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since the death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

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This is the word of the Lord. The Holy Gospel according to Saint John, the eighth chapter.

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Jesus said, which one 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, there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.

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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 you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets, and yet you say if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.

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Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died?

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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. But I do know him and I keep his word.

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Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.

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So the Jews said to him, you are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, truly, truly,

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I say to you, before Abraham was, 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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This is the gospel of the Lord. He may be seated.

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In the name of Jesus. Amen. Conflict. Boy, I tell you, a lot of folks are conflict adverse.

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I can tell you this, I don't enjoy it one bit. But my attitude regarding conflict is this, if it's gonna rear its ugly head and you're gonna get me involved in it, expect my contribution to be notable, you know, significant.

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That's the way. You wanna fight? Let's fight. But I'm not looking for it. But if you're gonna push me, then we're gonna fight and we're gonna make sure that this is decisive.

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Think of it this way. In our text today, we're going to hear Jesus in outright verbal conflict with none other than the sons of the devil.

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And during this conflict, certain promises are going to drop out of Jesus's mouth that we should be paying attention to and we should be holding on to as his children, as those who have been redeemed by God.

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But you're gonna note, this is a pattern that we actually see in scripture, one that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

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If you think in the Garden of Eden, there's the Lord handing out punishments for the temptation that came, that resulted in our fall into sin, and the serpent is first on deck to receive from God punishments and curses.

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And so the Lord said to the serpent, because you've done this curse to you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field, on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

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And then listen to this, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is called the Proto -Evangelion, the very first gospel.

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And note, it wasn't spoken comfortingly to Adam and Eve, who had just transgressed

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God's command. Instead, it was spoken against Satan, this promise of the one who would crush the head of the serpent, was spoken against the serpent when

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God was handing out curses. And Adam and Eve, hearing that Proto -Evangelion, had something to hang on to, but note, they weren't being addressed, right?

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Similarly, in our gospel text today, Jesus is in a verbal match.

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And boy, I gotta tell you, after kind of considering all of this, I don't think that there is a more intense section of scripture than chapter 8 of the

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Gospel of John. When you consider what's going on here and the intensity of the argument, and you're gonna note, any argument that looks like it's about to spiral out of control, and this one does, you'll note that at least one participant in the argument is constantly escalating things.

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Pushing, pushing, pushing, and pushing things up to the point where there's going to be a volcanic eruption. Christ is not going to be the one that's going to cause the volcanic eruption.

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In fact, you're gonna note that Jesus is staying right with them as they're escalating up, but it's them who are gonna ultimately blow.

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But we need to pay attention to what's going on. So let me back up just a little bit in this passage to verse 31 so we can grab our context.

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So Jesus said, in verse 31, to the Jews who had believed in him, note, this is first addressed to Jews who believe in him, but Jesus is speaking to a mixed group.

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Some Jews believe in him, some Jews do not. Just like some Americans believe in Jesus, some do not.

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Some rightly believe in Jesus, some wrongly believe in Jesus, you get the idea. Have any of you ever noticed that when you bring up what the

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Bible really says to people in your families who do not believe what the scriptures rightly say, that as soon as you bring up those things, kaboom, right?

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There's explosions. This is how this goes. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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Hmm, I would then exegetically note that I think, and call me crazy here, but abiding in Christ's words seem like an important aspect of being a disciple of Jesus.

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I mean, after all, a disciple is a learner. You could even call them students if you wanted to.

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You are truly my students. It still works. It's not the best translation, but that's kind of the point.

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Disciples are learners, they're students. And when do you graduate from being a disciple of Jesus?

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I would say probably never. One has to wonder if in the new earth we're still going to be disciples, ever learning more and more about Christ.

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But you'll note, in order for that to happen, like any good classroom where you have a teacher and you have students, that somebody's wanting to study under such and such a person, you need a curriculum, right?

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We just don't wander through fields looking up at the sun and the clouds going, ooh, that's pretty.

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That's not how disciples of Jesus behave. What do they do? The curriculum is Christ's words.

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Now the question that we have to ask is where do we find said words? You'll note that I'm famous for Prophecy Bingo.

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I would note that every prophecy we cover on Prophecy Bingo, none of them are God's words or Christ's words.

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All of them are to be rejected and, well, mocked as just complete, utter nonsense and blasphemy.

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I can only think of one place where I can go to hear Christ's words, and it's the

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Scriptures. It's, you'll know, this isn't rocket surgery. And I believe this so much,

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I would challenge you all, if you want to go back, re -listen to the sermons from Kongsvigar. How much time are we spending in the

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Word? We seem to spend a lot of time in the Word. And then after we're done at the divine service hearing the

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Word of the Lord, we go to Bible study where we hear more Word, right? We're all about Word stuff because Christ says, if you abide in my words, you are truly my disciples, which means if you don't abide in Christ's words, you're not his disciples.

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If you're annoyed by Jesus's words and really think that they are an impediment to evangelism,

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I want you to think about this for a second. The whole purpose -driven movement is built off of a premise, and the premise is this, the

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Word of God is an impediment to evangelism. That's its core teaching. I know that Rick Warren wouldn't say it that way, but it's true, because what do you need to get rid of in order to grow a large church?

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God's Word. You've got to get rid of that. What do we replace it with? Weekly TED Talks done poorly with just a scant little smattering of biblical verses out of context, right?

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That's not what it means to abide in God's Word. It means to abide in God's Word is to read it, to meditate on it, to think on it, to really apply yourself to learning it, to making sure that you understand it.

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I'm still blown away by the fact that at Kongsvinger, we have a bunch of people who wanted to learn Greek, and so we've learned

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Greek, and now we're translating entire texts. You know what text we translated this week?

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The Gospel text for this week, right? And it was a wonderful class that we had, and I still can't, marveling at the fact that we have people at Kongsvinger who want to know

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God's Word so well and abide in it, that they want to know the nuances of the original languages, and we're now having discussions along those lines.

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It's wonderful. If you'd like to catch up, email secretary at kongsvingerchurch .org. She'll send you the link to the

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Greek class, all right? You get the idea. Now at this point, hearing

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Jesus say, you will know the truth through his Word, and the truth will what? Set you free.

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The unbelieving Jews now chime in, and they are incensed, okay?

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And so they answered him, we're offspring of Abraham. We've never been enslaved to anyone.

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How is it that you say you'll become free? Is Jesus lying at this point?

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You'll note they're taking offense, and if this sounds similar to the way people today take offense to where they want to cancel people, oh, that's exactly what's gonna happen.

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They're gonna cancel them so much, they're gonna nail them to a tree and make them die. Talk about cancel culture.

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That goes way back. That's not just a thing regarding the woke left today. That's a human sinful thing.

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So Jesus answered them, amen, amen, legohumen. I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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The slave does not remain in the house forever. 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

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Word finds no place in you. I speak of what I've seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your

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Father. Oh wow, this is going to escalate quickly, isn't it?

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So note here, Jesus then is referring to the slavery that we are all born into.

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You and I were born slaves. We were born under the dominion of darkness.

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We were born enslaved to sin. In fact, you'll note that some people are so good at sinning, it shows that they've spent hours and hours mastering it and becoming really good at it and practicing it.

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That's what happens. You think about it. Right now, the Champions Tour is going on on the

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PGA, TPC Sawgrass. If you've never played it, I've only played it virtually. It's a tough course.

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It'll eat your lunch because it has all these weird little curves and a heck of a lot of water, and there's alligators.

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And so when you watch these guys on the PGA Tour and they're taking their shots and they're able to land a golf ball from 180 yards out, two feet next to a hole on a putting surface that might as well be a bathtub, you know that that takes some skill, and the only way they got there was by practice.

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Right? But have you noticed here, Christ is saying those who are practicing their sin to get better at it, they're slaves to sin.

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And if you're not sure how that works, I would read like Romans 7, right? The things

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I don't want to do, I keep on doing. The things I want to do, I don't do. Right?

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So note, Christ is here talking about the enslaving power of sin, and that we as baptized children of God, see

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Romans 6, are not to offer the members of our body as slaves to sin.

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Instead, we have to recognize that our lives are not our own. Our bodies have been purchased by the blood of Christ, and we are slaves of righteousness.

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So we are not to offer our bodies to slaves, to be slaves as sin, and we need to continue to repent of such things.

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But if the Son sets you free, and indeed that's what Christ has come to do, you will be free indeed.

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And now Jesus ups everything, noting that although they are genetically the offspring of Abraham, they are seeking to kill

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Jesus. Why? He gives the answer very clearly, because my word finds no place in you.

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Again, I come back to the question, are you annoyed by God's word? Are you sick and tired of God's word constantly convicting you of your sin, and showing you that you don't measure up?

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Are you sick and tired of hearing about Jesus, who's bled and died for your sins, and always

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Him being the hero, and you not being the hero? Are you sick and tired? Would you like to get something a little bit more practical here at church?

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Maybe we can stop preaching about Jesus, and we can talk about ways in which you can enhance your skills at underwater basket weaving.

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Right? If God's word finds no place in you, and you'll know in our sinful nature that's the case, we need to repent.

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Jesus says, I speak of what I've seen with my father, and you do what you've heard from your father. And they catch up, they catch very quickly what

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Jesus is dropping down, they pick it up. So they answered him, listen, Abraham's our father. Jesus quickly responds, if you were

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Abraham's children, you'd be doing the works that Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who's told you the truth that I heard from God.

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This isn't what Abraham did. You're doing the works your father did. Are you saying that we're born of sexual immorality?

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There's a word for that, but we should not utter that word in church, right? They said to him, we're not born of sexual immorality.

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We have one father, God. Jesus said to them, and you can just see the eye roll, right?

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If God were your father, you'd love me, for I came from God, and I'm here.

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I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what

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I say? It's because you cannot bear to hear my word.

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And this then begins to bring up, well, reminds me of what

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Paul writes in 2 Timothy, prophesying of what it would be like near the end of the world, right before the return of Christ.

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He says to young pastor Timothy, 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, for the time is coming, and I always like to insert here, and is now, when people will not endure sound teaching or doctrine, 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'll wander off into myths.

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That's the day we live in, and that's the state of so many visible

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Christian churches. So Christ makes it clear here that if you really are his disciples, you're going to abide in his word, and the reason why these people are children of Satan is shown by their fruit, and what is their fruit?

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They cannot bear to hear God's word. How many verses are you going to preach today, pastor?

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Is it necessary that you preach 24? Can't you just cut that back to five, maybe four?

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I mean, we have important things to do here, and we've got a fellowship time we've got to get to and stuff, right?

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And don't you recognize it's already March. We've got to start preparing the fields in order to put the crops in, plant those seeds for the harvest, and you keep droning on, and your sermons keep getting longer and longer.

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We don't need to hear that much Bible. It reminds me of the movie Amadeus, when they confronted

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Mozart, and they said, you know, your music has too many notes. Just remove some of the too many notes, too much

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Bible, too much Jesus, too much word, right? The reason why you don't understand what

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I say, Jesus says, is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil.

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Your will is to do your father's desires. You think the devil wants us to be hearing God's word? No, not at all.

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You think the devil wants us to hear God's word rightly taught? No way. Do you think the devil wants us to hear

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God's word and have it all point to Jesus? No way,

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Jose. So you can see what's going on here. You are of your father, the devil.

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Your will is to do your father's desires. The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and he does not stand in the truth, and neither do his children, because there is no truth in him.

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When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he's a liar, and he's the father of lies.

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I think a good paraphrase would basically be to say, the devil's native language is lies.

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He speaks it fluently, and anybody, including pastors, who are fluent at speaking lies show exactly who their father is.

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It's like speaking parcel mouth, right? Speaking this snaky language.

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When he lies, he speaks out of his own character. He is the liar, and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you don't believe me.

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Which one of you convicts me of sin, Jesus asks, and now we're properly into our gospel text.

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If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? And here's where I think the translation from the

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Greek is a little bit more helpful at this point. But he says, if I am saying the truth to you, because of what then are you not believing me?

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When you kind of rephrase it that way, you get what Jesus is getting at. Listen, I'm telling you the truth. Why is it then that you don't believe what

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I'm saying? It's actually quite simple. He says this, whoever is of God hears the words of God.

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The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God. When the

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Bible is preached, do you do this? La la la la la la la, I can't hear you, ah, right?

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It's an annoying behavior. I hate when children do that. It just makes me want to pull out a switch and engage in some good old corporal punishment, right?

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Did I say that out loud? Don't worry, we don't practice that here at Congen's Fingers, so you don't have to send CPS. But you get the idea.

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That's just really annoying. But that's what the children of the devil do when it comes to God's word. Stop telling me that!

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I don't want to hear it! Reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.

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And here it comes. And I've got to note something here. We've all seen when guys prepare to fight, when things have come to fist to cuffs, what happens?

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First move, you take your coat off, hand it to somebody else, right? You roll up your sleeves, right?

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We're about ready to rumble here. And when people are fighting, their true selves really come out.

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All pretenses and facades, they are just gone. And so what's going to happen at this point is that Jesus has pushed them to show exactly who they are.

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He just said, you're children of the devil. That's it, we're going to fight Jesus. And here's what they're going to do.

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They're going to behave just like children of the devil. He just said, the devil is a liar and the father of lies.

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And that's his native language. That's what he just said. And so here's what comes next out of these people.

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They're just going to vomit up what is their true character. So the

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Jews answered him, are we not right in saying that you're a Samaritan and that you have a demon? Wow.

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A racial epitaph and accusing him of being demonic. And there it is. And there it is. That's the false narrative.

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They just broke the eighth commandment. You should not bear false witness against your neighbor. They just broke it. I mean, shattered it into a bazillion pieces.

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It might as well have been a nuclear bomb going off, right? And don't you think it's kind of fascinating because these

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Jews are religious. This then gets to another problem. The children of the devil who do not want to hear the words of God, they all have this pious pretense that they put forward, this facade that they engage in putting paint on all the time, but they're nothing but hypocrites.

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They give lip service to wanting to hear about Jesus and God, but they don't want to have anything to do with him.

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And all the while, they talk about how much they pray and all these things that they do. And so here are these religious

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Jews. They just broke the eighth commandment, proving Jesus's point. Satan's a liar.

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You're his children. And then you're a Samaritan and you have a demon. And they don't even see the irony.

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They didn't even see the disconnect. So Jesus, just matter of factly, answers them.

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I don't 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. A little bit of a note here. One of the things I've noticed about the hypocritical, oh man, they seek their own glory.

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If you're ever at, you know, we don't have a good one here. Do we even have a good bookstore in Grand Forks or in town?

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The only time I ever see good bookstores now is when I travel. Like last time

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I was in the United Kingdom, there was a wonderful bookstore there. When I was in Australia, wonderful bookstore.

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And every time you get into a big bookstore, where's the first place I go? I want to see what's in the religious section, right?

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So one of the things I've noticed, good Christian books are going to engage in exegesis.

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They're going to help you rightly understand biblical texts. And the covers are generally artistic, okay?

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There's some good art that goes with them and they look like something that would look scholarly on your bookshelf.

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Bad Christian books always feature a portrait of the person who wrote the book.

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Joel Osteen, ding, with shiny teeth and everything like that. Joyce Meyer, like looking like the

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Joker because of the bad plastic surgery, right? Joseph Prince and all these other people, right?

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It's always a photograph of them. Believe me, if I ever wrote a book, the last thing

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I would want to put on that book is a cover of the face of my face. I'm afraid

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I would scare children away, okay? But the point is this, is that the hypocritical and those who do not bear to hear

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Christ's words, they always seek their own glory. Always.

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It's kind of a pattern with them. Jesus says, I don't seek my own glory. There's one who seeks it and he's the judge.

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Truly truly I say to you, if anyone unhears where it is, this is a promise that drops out right in the middle of this conflict.

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You'll note that Jesus isn't addressing us, but wow, there's a big thing in here. Truly truly

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I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. And the way the

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Greek reads here is fantastic. If anyone keeps my word, he will not see death on into the age or into eternity.

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Never ever ever. And this is just wonderful. Because remember, the wages of sin is death.

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And so, I don't know, death seems to be a problem for all of us.

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Because we've all sinned. But Jesus says, anyone who keeps my word, he will never see death.

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And note, he's not addressing us. He's addressing the children of the devil. Similarly to the way God was addressing the serpent in the

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Garden of Eden. And there it is, this wonderful promise. Do you believe it or not? I always come back and think about the call

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I got from Victor Sweeney when he picked up Arlen Stengram's corpse. Calls me up.

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I never get calls from Victor Sweeney after he's picked up a corpse. But he called me that morning.

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He just said, I just want to let you know I've just picked up Arlen. Thank you for letting me know that, Victor. And he says, and I wanted to let you know that he had the most peaceful, happy look on his face.

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As if the last thing that he'd seen was something really glorious and great. Thank you for letting me know that,

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Victor. World's famous mortician calling me up on the phone to let me know that, right? But that's the point.

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Because I was there just a day earlier to prepare him for what was coming.

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And I heard his confession. I heard his absolution. I heard his prayer for mercy.

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And the scriptures that assured him that he would never taste death. Arlen Stengram never tasted it because he, in his own very simple way, kept

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God's words and kept the words of Christ. And this promise is true. You can go to the bank with it.

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Jesus, unlike the devil and unlike his children, has nothing to do with lies. He only speaks the truth.

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And the reason why it is true that we will never see death is because Christ has seen it for us.

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He has bled and died on the cross so that you and I can be forgiven and pardoned. He is the one who tasted death.

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In fact, you would think of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. And he says, Father, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me.

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Again, not my will, not your will be done. Jesus tasted death. He drank that cup.

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He knows exactly what death tastes like. And he drank it down to the dregs so that you will never have to take a sip from that chalice.

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Beautiful when you think about it. We've already died anyway. We're all buried into Christ's death and his resurrection.

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Is it any wonder then that his children, you and I, we don't see death. Hang on to these promises.

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Although you'll note they were spoken in an angry tone, spoken in the middle of an argument with Satan's children.

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Truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my words, he will never see death. And at this, the children of the devil lose their minds.

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Now we know you have a demon. Really? They saw this as the ultimate proof, this great promise that Jesus gives.

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They saw this as proof that he had a demon. And here's their logic. Abraham, he heard

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God's word. He kept God's word. And Abraham died. What about those prophets from the

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Old Testament? They heard the words of God so much so that they wrote them down for us. We still have

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God's words through those prophets. Did they live? No. They died too. So yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death.

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Are you greater than our father Abraham who died and the prophets who died? Who do you make yourself out to be?

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And I would note that question, who do you make yourself out to be? That is a dangerous question.

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Because that then forms the basis of the charge against Jesus in the kangaroo court that he will go to on the night that he is betrayed.

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Because after they're done with Jesus that night, they bring Jesus to Pilate and they are trying to convince

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Pilate to crucify him. And Pilate is pushing back against their demands to have him crucified.

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And they said, this man has made himself to be the son of God.

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That's the charge, right? He's made himself to be the son of God. If I made myself to be the son of God, we'd all know that I wasn't.

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I was lying. And so their claim here, by asking the question, who do you make yourself out to be?

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They're looking for that angle, to have Jesus say something, just give us the word, say something blasphemous that somehow says that you're more than just a human being and we're going to nail you to a tree.

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We're going to kill you. So 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. And I love what Jesus says here. If I were to say that I do not know God, I would be a liar like you.

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But I do know him and I keep his word. Zing! Right?

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Man, just speaking the truth in the sea, in the swamp, in the cesspool of lies.

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Your father Abraham rejoiced. The Greek is a little stronger. He was overjoyed that he would see my day.

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He saw it and he was glad. And so now the Jews said to him, you're not yet 50 years old and you've seen

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Abraham. And Jesus goes, well, you do have a point.

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That seems a little uppity of me, right? No, that's not what he says. Truly, truly, I say to you, lego human, amen, amen, lego human,

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I say to you, before Abraham was, ego eimi, I am.

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And Jesus here isn't saying that he's old. I just want to make this clear. Before Abraham was,

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I am, he's not saying, well, actually, in truth, I'm really, really old, much older than you think.

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That's not what he's saying. By saying, ego eimi, Jesus is invoking the divine name from Exodus chapter three, applying it to himself, and they knew exactly what he meant.

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So that was it. The volcano is now erupting. They picked up stones to throw at Jesus because he's making himself to be none other than God in human flesh.

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They picked up stones to throw at him, and the ESV doesn't do us any favors here. It says, Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

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That's not what it says in the Greek. The verb here for hid is passive, which means the text says

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Jesus was hidden, and he went out of the temple.

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Miraculously, if you think about it, I don't like the idea of Jesus running away like Indiana Jones on the streets of Egypt and hiding behind a basket so that the

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Nazis don't get him, right? That's not the picture that's here. Instead, it says,

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Jesus was hidden. That's what the text says, and it's passive. He didn't actively hide himself.

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He was hidden, the text says, and he went out of the temple. So what does it all mean?

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Here we see this great, intense argument, this great conflict, but in the midst of it, we hear

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Christ drop this huge promise, anyone who keeps his words, they will never taste death.

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And it's here where I think our epistle text from Hebrews does us a good favor this fifth

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Sunday of Lent. As we get ready to go into Holy Week a week from now, we must keep these things in mind and come to grips with what is said here.

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Hebrews 9 says that when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once and for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

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Although you and I have sinned horribly against God, we were born under the dominion of darkness, we were born enslaved to sin, and we were born children of the devil,

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God has had mercy on us and sent Christ to bleed and to die for us. And the book of Hebrews reveals that Jesus is not only our sacrifice, he is also our high priest.

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And although he is not from the tribe of Judah, that's because only, sorry, he's from the tribe of Judah, he's not from Levi, and from Judah there are no high priests, yet Jesus is not a high priest in the order of Aaron and the sons of Aaron, the

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Levites, instead he is our high priest in the order of Melchizedek, the king of righteousness, the king of peace, that's who

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Christ is. And you'll note then that Christ here, it says, entered into the holy places once and for all.

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And if you remember and you think back to Moses making the tabernacle, God made it very clear that he was to make the tabernacle a particular way, with artifacts and things like this that had to be done and made to look certain ways.

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And the reason why the book of Hebrews reveals is because, well, that tabernacle, which would eventually become the temple, was nothing more than a replica.

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Think of it this way. Have you ever watched like, you know, Pawn Stars, okay, or the

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Antiques Roadshow? And if somebody has an authentic thing, okay, maybe somebody has like an authentic prop that appeared in a particular movie, maybe the

01:06:03

Maltese Falcon, the original Maltese Falcon, the one that was actually in the movie, right? That would be a lot worth a lot of money,

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I mean a ton of money, and people are willing to pay oodles and oodles and oodles of cash in order to get that one unique original thing.

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But how much do you think a replica of the Maltese Falcon would sell for on Amazon?

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Six, seven bucks maybe, made in China, right? But the authentic thing, the real thing is worth a lot.

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And that's kind of the point, is that the tabernacle itself, the one that was served in Israel, was always a replica of the real one.

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And we learn here from the book of Hebrews that Christ, he entered into the authentic tabernacle, the one not made by hands, that's not of this creation.

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And there as our high priest, he poured out his own blood on the real mercy seat.

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And that blood was what was sacrificed, he was sacrificed and his blood was on the cross, and he took some of that blood and thus poured it out on the real mercy seat, and thus secured for us an eternal redemption.

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Again, redemption has to do with slavery. He purchased us from slavery to sin, death, and the devil, all by means of his blood.

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And then the author of Hebrews says, if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls, with the ashes of a heifer, sanctified for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, thus purifying our consciences from dead works to serve the living

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God. Therefore Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, and we are in covenant with God, dear saints.

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Christ has established that new covenant through his blood, so that those who are called may receive what?

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The promised eternal inheritance, and Christ has given us the detail that even though our bodies perish, we will never ever taste or see death, since a death has occurred that has redeemed us from all the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

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So brothers and sisters, I hope you are not annoyed by Jesus today. And note here that Jesus is even willing to engage in outright verbal conflict, get into an argument and stand his ground, and in the midst of it, say things that are so comforting to us, but so provocative to the children of the devil, that those promises become the very grounds that they want to kill

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Christ for. But us, we're not here to murder Christ. We've already done that.

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We're here to trust in his words and cling to his promises, and see the fulfillment of his words in our own lives, because each of us are heading to our own deaths.

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Do you believe Jesus' words, that you will never see death, ever, into eternity, into the ages?

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You should, because Christ never, unlike the children of the devil, lies.

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In the name of Jesus, amen. We rise to confess our faith together in the words of the

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Nicene Creed. I believe in one

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God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one

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Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his

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Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very

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God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the

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Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

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And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the

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Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets, and I believe in one holy,

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Christian, and apostolic Church, I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

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Amen. Let us pray for the whole

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Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. Almighty God, Everlasting Father, you saw

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Israel in their despair and raised them up to hope by placing your Spirit upon them. Join us together with the communion of the saints in Christ.

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Raise up our dry and weary spirits by your Holy Spirit, that we may be strong in faith, bold in witness, holy in life, and steadfast in hope.

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Lord, in your mercy. Amen. Holy Father, your Son, our Lord, commanded us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who persecute us.

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We implore you by your gracious visitation to lead our enemies to true repentance and to have the same love, be of one accord, share one mind and heart with us and with your whole

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Church. Lord, in your mercy. Amen. Lord God, you called Father Abraham to offer his beloved

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Son to you, yet you spared him for the sake of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Help all godly parents to bring up their children in your fear and your love, to direct their ways according to your holy word, and to commend them to your fatherly care.

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Lord, in your mercy. Amen. Almighty God, uphold all civil authorities, especially

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Joseph our president, and preserve our nation in peace, and allow your people to live quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty.

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Lord, in your mercy. Amen. Oh Lord, because of our sins we are not worthy to pray to you, yet in your mercy you receive our prayers through the intercession of Jesus Christ, our great high priest.

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Here are supplications for those who are in need. Today we lift before you Victoria, Natalie, Missy, Jonathan, Gerald, Cricket, Angela, Emma, John, and Carrie.

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We pray for Judy, Angie, and Chuck. We pray for Jana, Noah, Deb, Zach, Shaylin, Mia, Miranda, and Katie.

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We also pray for those who mourn the family of Patti Solem, and we pray for those who are under the devil's lies,

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Anna and Rob, Georgette, and John. And now we also lift up before you those whom we name within our hearts.

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We ask that you would answer our petitions on account of the merits and mediation of your son, our savior. Lord, in your mercy.

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Prepare our hearts, oh God, and give us faith in the word of your son, our great high priest and our mediator of the new testament in his blood.

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Make us worthy to eat his body and drink his blood, that in full confidence we may go to the altar of God to our exceeding joy.

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Lord, in your mercy. Heavenly Father, you spared Isaac, Abram's son, and established his seed.

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Jesus Christ is the savior of many nations. Gather us into your heavenly kingdom with all your saints, the children of Abraham by faith.

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Lord, in your mercy. Lord, keep us steadfast in your words so that we may not be deceived by that liar and murderer of the devil, but know your truth and so come to everlasting life.

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Through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.