I Am The Door

And we've got families at the lake and families everywhere. Hopefully they're able to watch online, but I wanted to say welcome, specifically to the saints. Welcome to those who are poor in spirit. The kingdom of heaven is yours.

You know that, right? And this gathering is, as we like to remind ourselves, it's kind of like our embassy. You belong here. I want to say welcome to those who mourn, for you are guaranteed comfort. It's a guarantee, a comfort found in him, and a comfort that is experienced in and through the gathering of his saints, his people this morning on his day to worship him.

Welcome all who are meek, for the earth belongs to you. They out there, the strong, the mighty, they think this earth belongs to them. Little do they know it's our inheritance. They're just prancing around on our soil that belongs to us.

Welcome to those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you are satisfied in him and him alone, amen? This world has offered you all week to quench your thirst, to appease your hunger with saltwater and rotten meat.

That's all they've had to offer, isn't it? Are you guys awake this morning? But you've tasted and seen that the Lord is good. That's why you want to come and gather. Welcome to all who are merciful, for you have truly received mercy.

Welcome to those who are pure of heart, for you shall surely see God. Welcome all peacemakers, for you have been made sons of God. Welcome to the persecuted, those who have been persecuted for righteousness sake this week, for the kingdom of heaven is yours in Christ.

And all God's people said, amen. I just want to welcome all of our covenant members, those who were able to be here today. Thank you for bringing your gifts and abilities to this body, this particular body of Christ.

When you entered through those doors this morning, you were at home, you are with your true family, gathering to come into the presence of our father, the creator God. That's why we gather. We come with fear and trembling, but with boldness.

And why do we come with boldness? Come on, because Christ, we're covered. We've been given the righteousness of Christ. And so we get to come boldly, covered in the righteousness of Christ. But I also want to say, welcome to all of our guests today.

We have many guests that are coming to visit today. We're so glad you're with us this morning. We pray that you would grow in the fear and knowledge of the Lord today. We pray that you would see the glory of Christ this glorious Lord's day.

Well, before we start our worship, one of the habits that we have here as a church is we like to remember that we're not alone. We like to remember that it's not just us, that there are other saints all over the world, other brothers and sisters that are worshiping.

And we like to pray for a local church. And this local church is near and dear to our hearts. Many of you remember Creston Thomas from Christ the Redeemer. They are a church plant in Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

And he keeps us updated. I haven't been able to reach out to him this week and get a specific prayer request, but we know what they're dealing with down there and what they're working with and trying to be obedient to kingdom work.

So we just want to bow this morning. We want to pray for the brothers and sisters there at Christ the Redeemer. Pray that God will be honored in their worship this morning. So if you would, please bow with me to pray for our brothers and sisters.

Well, dear heavenly father, we stop now and we come before you and we want to thank you for who you are. We thank you for your good providence. We thank you for your sovereign hand. We thank you for your kindness in not leaving us to ourselves.

Father, you have brought us together as a people to worship you and you have also brought us into perfect union with our brothers and sisters all over the world, specifically right now, those at Christ the Redeemer there in Pine Bluff.

Well, we thank you for them. We thank you for those wonderful brothers and sisters that stand firm in your word. I thank you for Creston this morning. I pray that you bless him. I pray that you give him boldness this morning as he prepares to preach your word.

Lord, I pray that you would give him wisdom, that you would raise up leaders there in that church so that he may too have a plurality of elders, of leaders that are qualified men to help as under shepherds of the church, that they would be obedient to the good shepherd, King Jesus.

Lord, I pray that you'd be with their people. They are in a very difficult and broken community. Lord, we pray for their brothers and sisters that are there, that they have unique struggles, unique difficulties, that they desperately need your grace.

They desperately need your guiding hand in their life to be salt and light in a lost and dying world. So we lift them up to you. We pray that you would be honored in their midst this morning. We pray that they would worship in spirit and in truth.

We thank you and we pray that you would do your mighty work that only you can do. And we pray all this in Christ's name, amen.

Amen.

Well, this Lord's Day is a very special Lord's Day. They're all special, but particularly today we have a baptism. And so before I introduce who's getting baptized today, I wanna speak to the importance of what baptism is as an ordinance that God has graciously given to his people to celebrate.

I wanna read a passage. And I want this to always be in the back of our minds when we start doing things like baptism or partaking in the Lord's Supper. It's very clear on how a person is made right before God.

And it's always by faith alone in Christ alone. The apostle Paul said in Ephesians chapter two, for by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

But Paul goes on to say, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So baptism is something that believers obey in and participate in as a picture, as a representation to say, God has saved me by his amazing grace.

And baptism is a declaration of your faith to the body saying, hold me accountable. I need to live life together with the body. So that being said, Katie, will you please come and share a little bit of your testimony of how God has saved you by his amazing grace.

My name is Katie McDaniel. I'm from Perigold, Arkansas, and I was born and raised in the Methodist church. My family was very heavily involved in that church and we loved doing missions with the youth group.

Our pastor there decided that it was no longer necessary to go on missions or on mission trips or church camp because it costs too much money. My family and I became exiled by the congregation along with the faculty and staff.

I can't say that we were kicked out of the church, so I won't, but we were pushed to the door long enough to where we decided that we couldn't stay any longer. So my mom, my sisters, and I started going to almost every local church we could find.

We found another Methodist church that we loved and my sister and I even joined the worship team. Then there was the huge division between the Methodist church. Not long after that, we left the Methodist community entirely.

I started identifying myself as non-denominational or interdenominational, dividing myself amongst other Christians. I didn't realize it then, but I was cutting myself off from uniting with other brothers and sisters.

My family and I then found a really good Baptist church, which is crazy to me because I was raised with people who told me that Baptists were crazy. With this church, I finally felt like I belonged. My whole family was baptized and joined the church as members.

I joined the worship team and made many friends. One night in the back of my mom's car, I decided to give my life to God, knowing all the things that happened after, I realized that I was not following Jesus in any way.

For two years in high school, I have struggled with every kind of sin imaginable. Even through this sin, I started writing sermons to try and preach to my youth group at church. Well, then we left that church.

We joined another Baptist church. This one was better, but I couldn't stay for long because I was going to college and I didn't wanna drive that far back and forth. I started drinking with my friends.

I could feel myself getting an addiction to alcohol. I started college. Then I was brought to this lovely church by my friend Nathan. Even with the first service, I felt like my eyes were just opened.

Everyone was so nice and everyone was so welcoming. Then I started struggling with depression and not long after that, I became suicidal in November. I couldn't take it anymore. I was so lonely and I came to Christ and I told him everything and it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted.

I remember a wise woman once told me that even though I've come to Christ, my life would not get any easier. And boy, was she right. I lost my childhood dog. I got broken up with. I gave up on alcohol and became sober.

Then I fell right back into depression. I lost my best friend since preschool. My depression got way worse. I started downloading dating apps, allowing worldly people into my closest relationships. Then the worst that could have happened, I lost three of my best friends in the whole world that I had made music with for years.

I cannot describe to you the emotional pain I was going through all while still attending this church. So I cut off emotional contact with everyone. I stopped going to church consistently. I hardened my heart and theater was the only thing that was keeping me going until the musical I was in ended.

I started having suicidal thoughts again. Fell right back into drinking and clubbing and partying. And I fell back into my addiction. I kept having panic attacks before, during, and after church. Gave all my attention to the world.

I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't stop. My last night at the club, I went back to my friend's house with a couple of boys. I knew if I continued down this path, I would end up with those people every night and the morning after.

So I went to church the next morning and I was falling asleep during the sermon. I knew I had to stop. So I repented and officially decided to join the church and follow Jesus and not just to be with him, but to follow him.

If you were to ask me what was the official day I accepted Jesus, I would say that there were many days. I don't have a date on my calendar because it was never my choice to follow Jesus. My king chose me before I was born and he chose me during my addictions and he never failed me.

And I think that is much more important than a date on a calendar. After realizing this, I finally reconciled with a brother and that was the final step in this process of joining this church. And that brother helped me realize that I needed to fill the void with Jesus Christ.

Day standing, come on, let's stand. As we get ready to start our service, what a great start to the day. And later on at the end of the service, we're gonna be bringing her up for new member recognition to be part of this covenant body, praise God.

Let's go to our great God in a call to worship. Our call to worship comes from the 150th Psalm. And before we jump into it this morning, as we prepare to declare this great Psalm, I want us to pay very close attention to what the psalmist is calling God's people to do in worship, okay?

I want you to pay very close attention. And I want us as a people to compare it to what much of even specifically reformed worship looks like now. Yes, God is to be worshiped with awe and great reverence.

He is to be worshiped in a very orderly fashion. We affirm that that is biblical, but guess who gets to define that? Not church history, not some tradition, and definitely not us, not you, not me. God in his own words.

And so as we declare this call to worship from Psalm 150 this morning, I want you to think about that for one moment, is how is God calling us as a people to worship him? Fair enough? The psalmist says, praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary. Praise him for his mighty deeds. Praise him with the trumpet sound. Praise him with tambourine and dance. Praise him with sounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

And all God's people said, amen, amen. Let's go to our great God in a prayer of adoration before we begin to sing to him. This is all worship, right? What we've been doing already is worship. The songs aren't the worship.

The songs are a part of worship. We are worshiping through song. Right now we worship through a prayer of adoration. Please bow with me. Heavenly Father, you are the God who was, you are the God who is, and you are the God who will forever be.

You are from everlasting to everlasting. And so we praise you in your sanctuary. We praise you in your heavens. For we are not confined to worship you in a temple. We're not confined to a mountain or a tent.

The veil has been torn, and the Holy Spirit has made his dwelling place within us. We, your people who are in Christ, are your temple. We worship you in spirit and in truth. You are worthy of our praise.

So we praise you for your excellent greatness. We praise you for your mighty deeds. We praise you with the sound of the guitar this morning. We praise you with the melody of the keys. We praise you with the rhythm of the drums.

We praise you with our voices. We praise you through joyous dance. We praise you with our clapping. We praise you with our hands raised high. And in all of it, we praise you with our hearts for there truly is joy in the house of the Lord today.

Amen.

We worship the God who was. We worship the God who is. We worship the God who evermore will be. Prison doors, he parted the raging sea. My God, he holds the victor.

You've seen this one.

Who saves that grave. My God, still. Accept and reject. Let the house of the Lord sing praise.

Come on, sing that out.

For today, we won't be quiet. We shout, I want no time.

There's joy in the house of the Lord.

And declaring is not through a sinless, perfect life lived out by us, is it? There's a reason we have to sing, he will hold me fast, not I will hold me fast. If that were the case, we would all be without hope.

We would most certainly lose our grip. A heart that desires holiness, that desires righteousness, the evidence of a changed life and a changed heart is a desire for that holiness and righteousness that we can never seem to achieve, but is seen through the ongoing confession of sin.

Take a moment to publicly go to the Lord in a prayer of confession. Before him and acknowledging our sin against him. Acknowledging our inability to do the things that we ought to do. Acknowledging that we often do the things we ought not to pray.

A prayer of assurance. The assurance that we have in Christ that he will certainly hold us fast. Please bow with me. Unfaithful flesh. Sin that had enslaved us to unrighteousness. That no longer has its chains on us.

No longer has hold on us. We fall prey to it still. As we are left here in this present darkness. But we do not walk in the perfect unity that we have in the triune God. We do not walk in the perfect unity that we have with each other, brothers and sisters.

We allow conflict and division. We bring disunity into the body that you have made perfectly unified. Forgive us. Speak of things we should not speak of. And we hold our tongues in times where we should speak truth and speak the word.

Forgive us. We confess these things before you. And God, we know that we are not to come before you making offering as if we are making penance for these sins. Because we know that we stand righteous in Christ that he has already paid the price.

Our savior Jesus Christ has already paid for even those sins. And we stand in the great assurance that we have covered in the blood and his righteous, perfect, spotless blood. That when you look at us, God, you do not look at us as unrighteous.

Unrighteous, you look at us as a new creation that you've made. You see the righteousness of your son imputed to us, given to us. And we stand in that boldness. We acknowledge it. We confess it to one another.

We confess it ultimately to you. But we do not, we do not have to wallow in that. We can come before you boldly as our father and our great savior holds us fast. Jesus said, all that you've given me, I've not lost one of them.

Oh, I praise you that you have not lost me. Just to rest in this this morning. Be honored in our worship in Christ's name.

I think this has been sad

I forgot, we're gonna go to the table. In preparation to go to the table, we have prayed a prayer of confession and assurance. Encourage you, saints, if you are in Christ this morning and you are in good standing with a local evangelical church, you're welcome to this table.

But you must take this very seriously. This is not a time of penance. This is not your time to get right you and God, get right with God. This is a time to rest in what he's done. But Paul does give warning not to come to this table in an unworthy manner.

Some are sick and some have even died for coming to this table in an unworthy manner. What does Paul mean? If you are not in Christ, that's an unworthy manner. But also, if you are harboring sin, if you have sin in your life, we all have sin in our life, but if you're not wanting to confess that sin and lay it at the foot of the cross, you need to lay that sin at the foot of the cross before you come and take of the wine and the bread.

There's something spiritual going on at this table. This is not just something normal. This is an ordinance of this church, of the church. Let us pray that God would be honored in it. And as soon as we do, the way this works is we'll probably split the room somewhere in this arena.

We'll come around the outsides, grab of the wine and the bread, and then go back to your seats through the middle aisle. Hang on to the elements. Usually you can partake once you sit down, but it's the first day of the month, so we partake together, as I read from 1 Corinthians 11.

But let us pray that God would be honored in our worship through this ordinance. Father, we come to you once again, we bow before you, and we thank you for this sanctifying work of the table, that we get to come and partake of the wine that represents the blood of our Savior Christ was built for us, the bread that represents his body, Lord, the unleavened bread that has no leaven in it, that is pure, like his body was pure, the wine with the alcohol that is pure, so that there is no impurity in it.

And then also the single source, we're eating from the same loaf of bread, we're drinking from the same cup of wine, because it represents all of the unity that we have in the one Savior, Jesus Christ.

If there is any sin harbored in the heart of any saint in this morning, I pray that they would look to the cross, lay it at the foot of the cross before they come and partake, and that you would be honored in our worship, that you would mold us.

We know, Christ, that you are with us in a unique and special way at this table. We thank you for that work in our hearts and minds today. We pray in Christ's name, amen. You may go to get the elements, as I read from the first part of 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul says, for I, Paul, received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it.

He said that this was given to him, he received it from the Lord, and he had given thanks, and he broke it. Bow with me. Lord, we thank you once again. I know that this is just bread. This is not literally your body.

Jesus said, this is my body, which is for you. Took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. It's, oh, what a better covenant, right? Do this as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.

Paul says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, what are you doing? You're proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes. Let's sing of the greatness and goodness of our Savior God, the triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The guys will come by and gather the cups. So if you hang on to them, they're gonna come by with a tray and gather those from you.

Oh, how great thou art.

Wow, what a great day it's been, together in the house of the Lord, and to experience what we've seen, his mighty hand at work. And that's the whole point of this series that we're going through. You know, we've labeled this series, Who Do You Say That I Am?

Because at the end, we wanna come through and see just how great our Lord and Savior is, how great our God is. And in doing this, we've been going through the seven great I Am statements that Jesus made in the Gospel of John.

Two weeks ago, we covered I am the bread of life. Last week, I am the light of the world. Now we're gonna have just a small mini series within this series, because we're gonna be covering I am the door and I am the good shepherd.

And those are both contained in the same quite long section of scripture. So we're gonna be kind of doing an introduction and covering part of that today, and then we'll finish that up next week. But what we've been covering in the last two weeks has been more on an individual level.

Who do you say that I am? Jesus asks as a person. And we've seen this conflict that Jesus has been having with the Pharisees, with the religious elite, what John terms as the Jews. And that's the Hebrews, that's the citizens of Israel, but it also includes the religious elite of the day, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin.

And we're gonna see this conflict escalate today as it continues to escalate up until the upper room. So we're gonna see that. But today we're gonna kind of switch gears. Instead of being on a personal level, we're gonna be speaking as a church.

Church, Jesus Christ asks, who do you say that I am? You see, if the church gets this wrong, if they don't get the answer correct to this question, they're most likely gonna be teaching their members heretical doctrines by not preaching the truth about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

And they will run the risk of not even being a church at all. I want you to understand how serious that is. If you're not preaching the truth about our Lord and Savior, it is as written in his word as God has revealed it in his word, you run the risk of not even being a church.

That is serious. And sadly, this is the case of many churches throughout history. And it's also appears to be more prevalent in the time that we live. We see churches teaching salvation by faith and works.

We see that Jesus has already returned. They're teaching, well, Jesus has already come. Our blessed hope has already happened. It teaches that all humanity will be saved by the atoning work of Jesus Christ.

And that's not what scripture tells us. They teach us that some of Jesus' words are false. They just ignore it. And then they accept others because that's the way they believe and that's the way they want to live their lives.

They teach that Jesus' words were true, but only during the time that he walked the earth because it was only applicable to the culture that he lived in. It's no longer applicable to our culture today because we've changed.

We're more enlightened. So it's really our truth that we're going to worship. Well, sadly to say, when you're answering this question personally or as a church, there's no margin or allowance for error.

Many in the church today are so considered, are considering the side issues why the vital and central doctrines remain undecided. They remain ignored or at worst, they're not even addressed. And even if they are, it's not according to the truth of scripture.

So whose responsibility is it? To make sure that these doctrines are correct. Is it the leaders of the church's responsibility or is it the members responsibility in the church? Well, you may have guessed the answer is yes.

It's both. However, ultimately those in the position of leadership bear accountability, the most accountability to make sure that it's done. That rests with them. These leaders in the church in Jesus's time, as I described a minute ago, they're the Pharisees, they're the Sadducees, the scribes, the Sanhedrins, the rabbis of the time.

Today, those religious leaders, they're the deacons, the pastors, the elders, and the bishops. These are the ones that can and do at times lead their congregations down the dead end road of scripture based on cultural norms and other worldly concerns instead of the truth of the Bible.

They have led over time the powers of darkness in the form of culture, money, power, numbers, acceptance, and influence lead them into the mire of the pit of ignorance instead of following Jesus Christ into the truth of green pastures.

They become, as we will discuss today, false shepherds. False shepherds for which the Lord has a scathing rebuke. In Jeremiah 23, one, woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord.

That's how serious it is. Well, last week, John told us, the Apostle John in his very first chapter, I quoted, said, the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it. And what a picture this was of the condition of Israel.

Their spiritual ignorance, their spiritual numbness that the leaders of Israel had concerning the truth of God's word, especially in the Old Testament. So today and this week, I'll be addressing the third and fourth of the great I am statements.

As I said, I am the door and I am the good shepherd. Now we'll be building context like we have throughout the other two today. It'll be an introduction. It'll be terminology that we need to understand.

And then we'll go into the verses and then next week we'll finish it up. But last week we were in Capernaum. Jesus says, I am the light of the world. And the Pharisees replied to him, you are bearing witness about yourself.

Your testimony is not true. And I told you that this is basically the Pharisees telling Jesus, you're just a bold-faced liar. You're not being truthful about yourself at all. And what is actually happening here, this was in John 8, 12.

And if you'd like to go ahead and turn to John 8 because we're gonna be picking up there. And this is a long discourse that runs all the way through John 10, 21, which we'll be ending up at next week.

Now this summary from John details a long conflict that Jesus is having with the Jews, the religious elite, the Pharisees of the day. The place of this conflict is still in the temple, most likely still in the court of the women where we were last week when he made this claim.

And the way I wanna address this is that I want to point out three contrasts as we build up to the section that we're gonna be in today, the sermon text. I wanna first contrast is gonna be light and darkness.

And that's where we left off last week. When Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Let us pray before I get started. Father, we just thank you so much for your revealed word of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Father, today, I just ask that you would change hearts. Father, that hearts would be able to understand what is being spoken about your son, Jesus Christ, and the work that he performed, the words that he said, the things, the works that he did, Lord Jesus.

Father, just give me clarity to be able to explain this section of scripture. I pray in Christ's name, amen. So as we get started here in John 8, I'm gonna be kind of doing like I did last week, kind of a quick drive-through.

I want to develop context for the text scripture that we're gonna be in. So we're gonna be kind of moving along a little bit, but there's two things I want to point out for you to be aware of. One of them is who is speaking.

And I'll point that out, because it's not always clear since I'm kind of jumping around a little bit. And the other is which father, the word father is capitalized and which word father is not. Now, I know this is the case in the ESV Bible.

I am not sure it is in other translations, but I will point that out also because I believe it's important. So we're gonna be starting in John 8, 28. This is after this conflict with the Pharisees, this discourse, you could even call it a debate.

If you was listening to it on YouTube, you'd probably think that it was, that he is having. And it says, so Jesus said to them, talking to these Pharisees, when you have lifted up the son of man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of my own authority, but speak just as the father taught me.

Note, father is capitalized here. He's talking about his father, Father God. That's who he's talking about. And note here, I wanna say, he said, when you have lifted up the son of man, this is a reference to his crucifixion.

When they lift him up on the cross, he's saying, then you will know who I am. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. Oh, yeah. Who has left me? He has not left me alone for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

As he was saying these things, many believed in him. And we have seen this before. We saw this last week. As he is speaking words and truths to these people, many are coming to him. And this is a problem.

The Pharisees are noting this, and this is an issue to them. Now look down in verse 37 and 38. This again is Jesus is speaking. I know that you are the offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen my father capitalize, and you do what you've heard from your father. Father's not capitalized. So it's not the same father he's speaking of here. It's a different father. Now I wanna point out, here we see Jesus states, he says, I know you're your offspring of Abraham.

And I wanna explain kind of what he's talking about. And it has actually to do the same thing of Moses, because Abraham and Moses was a big storm cloud in the thought process of these religious leaders.

They clouded everything that they did, everything that they thought of. You go all the way back to Abraham, the Abrahamic covenant, that's what gave the nation of Israel, the people of God. And it was the lineage all the way back to Abraham that they were so proud of.

They could trace their roots all the way back to Abraham. And that's what they're talking about here. Here a bit later, we're gonna see, or we're gonna talk a little bit about Moses, and you have the Mosaic covenant.

That's where the laws came from for the nation of Israel in that covenant. And that's what controlled their whole life. That controlled their religion, their government, everything they did from sunup to sundown.

And that was so much of their pride. That they could do every bit of this little law all the way down to the smallest bit. So in 41, if you'll look there, the Pharisees are replying to Jesus. What they're saying is, you are doing the works your father did, not capitalized.

They said to him, we were not born of sexual immoralities. We have one father, which is capitalized, and they even tell us who it is, even God. So I mean, what Jesus has told them when he's talking about who he is, I mean, it's just blown them away.

And so the only reply they have to it is to do a little bad mouthing to Jesus. And it's exactly what they do when they say, we were not born of sexual immorality. If you look in the NAS translation, the New American Standard, it translates the Greek word for sexual immorality is fornication.

What they are saying is, hey, you were born out of wedlock, Jesus. You were born in sexual immorality, but no, not us. We can trace, our lineage is pure all the way back to Abraham, but not you. And we have one father and that is God.

So then we see in John 44, this is Jesus talking again, and Jesus is gonna get a little more pointed with them, just in case they didn't understand what he was saying. You are of your father, not capitalized, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.

They can't believe him. And why? Well, he told us back in, I believe it's 37 or 38. He says, my words find no place in you. What he is saying is there's nowhere in you that my words can take hold. And we'll talk more about why, but we've talked about that in the last two weeks too.

He's saying that, but then he gives them the answer to why or us the answer to why in verse 47. He says, whoever is of God, hears the words of God. And the reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.

So basically what he's saying, and here we see it again, we've talked about it and you're gonna hear the phrase again and you'll hear it probably in every sermon in this series. Whoever is of God hears the words of God.

Hearing the word of God is receiving and understanding the testimony of God concerning his son, Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I speak the words of my father and as he speaks who he is, this is the father speaking of who the son is.