Episode Transcript
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Please continue standing and let's turn to
John, Chapter Seven, John Seven,
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verses fourteen through twenty four. John
Seven, verse fourteen. About the middle
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of the feast, Jesus went up
into the Temple and began teaching. The
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Jews therefore marveled, saying, how
is it that this man has learning when
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he has never studied? So Jesus
answered them. My teaching is not mine,
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but his, who sent me.
If anyone's will is to do God's
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will, he will know whether the
teaching is from God or whether I am
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speaking on my own authority. The
one who speaks on his own authority seeks
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his own glory, but the one
who seeks the glory of Him who sent
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him is true, and in him
there is no falsehood as not. Moses
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given you the law, yet none
of you keeps the law. Why do
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you seek to kill me? The
crowd answered, you have a demon who
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is seeking to kill you. Jesus
answered them. I did one work and
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you more, and you all marvel
at it. Moses gave you circumcision,
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not that it's is from Moses,
but from the father's and you circumcise a
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man on the Sabbath if on the
Sabbath a man's receives circumcision so that the
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law of Moses may not be broken. Are you angry with me because on
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the Sabbath I made a whole,
a man's whole body? Well, do
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not judge by appearances, but judge
with I judgment. God bless his word
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to us. Please be seated.
So I want to speak to you today
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about Jesus's last words in this passage, verse Twenty Four. I do not
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judge by appearances, but judge with
right judgment. Do not judge with appearances,
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but judge with right judgment. I
want to combine that with thinking about
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Jesus as he as he is a
prophet. In your bulletins you'll see across
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from our order of service a question
from the larger catechism. How do how
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doth Christ execute the Office of a
prophet? The answer is Christ executeth the
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office of a prophet in his revealing
to the church in all ages, by
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his spirit and word, in divers
ways of administration. The whole will of
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God. That's a phrase that comes
up in our passage. The whole will
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of God in all things concerning their
edification. That means building up and salvation.
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So what how does Jesus execute the
Office of a prophet? How is
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Jesus a prophet? He is a
prophet in revealing to us God's will.
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He tells us God's will and for
a particular purpose, for our building up
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and for our strengthening. With that, we come to think about some of
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the words that Jesus says here,
in particular verse Twenty Four. Do not
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judge with a peer Arances, but
judge with right judgment. You understand what
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this means? Right to judge not
by appearances, but to judge with right
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judgment. It means to make a
decision about someone or about something that is
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not on the way it seems,
but on the way that it is,
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and this is important in all kinds
of different circumstances. Right take a criminal
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trial, for example. Can you
imagine being punished for something that you didn't
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do because the judge was only seeing
things how they seemed and not how things
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really were? Be Horrible, right, for nightmare life scenario. The opposite's
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also true, seeing a person who
is truly guilty, and you know it
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and everyone knows it, walk free
because of appearances. Being guilty or innocent,
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wrong or right, that is something
that's supposed to be based on the
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truth, not on what we perceive
the truth to be. There is an
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objective standard that's different from what we
perceive. Now. Of course, that's
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not always easy, because we can
only perceive the truth right. There's no
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access to the truth apart from our
perception of it. One way we know
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this is that we sometimes get it
wrong. We sometimes interpret and perceive things
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incorrectly. The summer my kids were
playing with their cousins and at times when
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they were all moving fast, they're
all about the same age, I would
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sometimes call them the wrong names.
I would see one my child and find
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out in a moment that it wasn't
my child. Right, it seemed one
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way, but it wasn't. Why? Because my perception of it was wrong.
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However, there's no other way for
me to access the knowledge of those
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children, apart from perceiving it right, which means that the instructions Jesus gives
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here are very important. We need
to be warned, we need to be
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on guard, that our perception needs
to be tuned, corrected, made right.
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We should be people that seek the
truth and try to understand the truth
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and and overcome the bad ways that
we approach it. Do not judge by
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appearances, but judge with right judgment. Going back to a court room,
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judges must strive to judge based on
the truth, not the color of a
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person's skin, not the brand of
the clothes they're wearing. Not there who
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their friends are aren't do you remember
what proverb seventeen five says? He who
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justifies the wicked and he who condemns
the righteous are both alike and abomination to
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the Lord Right Jesus says. Do
not judge by appearances, but judge with
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right judgment, because that's what God
does. God judge is always perfectly based
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on the truth. He doesn't accept
bribes, he doesn't have biases that distort
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his judgment and keep him from seeing
what is and what isn't. No,
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God always perfectly does the right thing
and and so he's calling us to do
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that as well. Here's another example. You probably had the experience some time
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in your life of picking a friend
or a leader based on only how they
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looked, their outward appearances. You'd
paid attention to maybe they're good looks or
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something like that, and ignored their
true character and abilities. Remember what God
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said to Samuel About King Saul,
who is strong and handsome, a head
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taller than all the other people.
It's we read them for Samuel Sixteen seven.
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But the Lord said to Samuel,
do not look on his appearance or
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the height of his stature, because
I have rejected him. For the Lord
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sees not as man sees. Man
Looks on the outward appearance, but the
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Lord looks on the heart. All
right. So this is how the Lord
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operates. He doesn't see us and
all of our posturing or even a good
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looks or education or money, and
go wow, that person must be really
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important or good or something like that. He looks at our hearts. He
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judges with right judgment, and Jesus
is calling us to do the same.
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So we have all kinds of reasons
and life circumstances where this applies, various
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places in our lives where we have
to think very carefully about this. We're
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constantly making decisions and judgments. But
Jesus, its instructions also have consequences not
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just for this life but for the
life to come. When the judgment concerns
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the Work of God in Christ,
nothing could be more important than getting this
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right when it comes to understanding who
Jesus is and how we judge him,
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how we make sense of him,
what we decide about him. This is
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a very, very big deal.
Who is this Jesus? The people are
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wondering. How can he speak with
such authority? Why does he feel free
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to do what the Jewish authorities are
saying unlawful? What are we to make
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of this guy? And we we
have some expressions of that, those questions.
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Here in this passage you have a
demon. What are you talking about?
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And in the next passage as well, people will say, in Verse
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Twenty Five, is not this the
man they are seeking to kill? Can
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it be that the authorities really know
that this is the Christ? Verse Twenty
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Seven. But we know where this
man comes from, and when the Christ
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appears, no one will know where
he comes from. So there's all this
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discussion. But, as we be
read in verse thirteen last week, for
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the fear of the Jews, despite
all this talk, no one wants to
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speak openly about him. But the
question is still there. It's being murmured.
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Let me read to you verses ten
through thirteen, and perhaps I should
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have started there, but here it
is a verse ten. But after his
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brothers had gone up to the feast. He also went up, not publicly
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but in private. The Jews were
looking for him at the feast, saying
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where is he, and there was
much muttering about him among the people,
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that kind of whispering side conversations.
Did you that kind of stuff? Well,
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some said he's a good man,
others said no, he's leading the
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people astray. Yet for the fear
of the Jews, no one was able
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to speak freely of him. We
have a lot of freedom in our country
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to speak about Jesus, to ask
questions, to think carefully through is and
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what a blessing that is to be
able to go to a library, to
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buy books off the Internet, to
meet freely and openly here and ask questions
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and say who is Jesus? What
did he do? Why does it matter?
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There are other places in the world
where that's of course it's very,
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very difficult to do for fear of
authorities. People Whisper in the shadows,
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they talk in the quiet places and
closets and basements and outside and those kinds
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of things. But whether you do
it publicly or privately, there are still
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questions that must be answered. You
have to answer this question. Who is
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Jesus and there are people who see
Christians talking about following Jesus, worshiping Jesus,
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learning from Jesus, that have questions
and that wonder. Did He really
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die on a cross? Did he
really rise from the dead? He's not
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even here. How real can he
be? I don't see him? or
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how could he be so prideful to
claim that he's the only way that somebody
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can come through God, that he
is the only door through which the sheep
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can go in and out? Or
even more difficult for many to swallow about
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Jesus is this question. What right
does he have to tell me what to
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do? Remember, back in when
we looked at this chapter last week,
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Jesus said to his brothers, the
world doesn't hate you, they hate me
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because I tell them their works are
evil. Jesus is in conflict with the
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world and those who don't know him
and don't love him and don't follow him.
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They look at Jesus and say,
who are you? Look at me,
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and that's why we have this warning. To judge Jesus is just another
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man, or worse, and unrighteous
man, an evil man, a foolish
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man, is to misjudge him,
is to not judge rightly. It's to
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judge out of fear, out of
the biases of pride, selfjustification, and
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since is the scriptures teach us,
all of humanity's destiny is tied to him
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one way or another, we cannot
get this question wrong. We cannot.
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And so we ask then, I
hope, together, what do we think
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about Jesus? What does he say
about himself? He points us to three
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things which all mention briefly. The
first thing we see in this passage alone,
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and we ultimately, you ought to
look at the whole of Scriptures,
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but we're just considering this one this
morning. Well, the first thing he
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points us to, and John Points
us to, is that he has knowledge
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without learning. The Jews are marveling
at him this for this in Verse Fifteen,
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saying how is it that this man
has learning when he has never studied?
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And perhaps there are some young students
here who have wished that such a
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thing could be said of them.
Your teacher, how did you pass this
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test? You didn't study, you
didn't come to class, there was no
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problem. Right, of course this
never happens, right, which is if
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you saw something like this happening,
you would be amazed, you would marvel
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at it. How, how can
this person exhibit such teaching, such authority,
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such wisdom? They haven't got he
wasn't even go to the schools of
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the rabbis. He didn't go into
all the places where one should be taught
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and not to ought to be taught. How does he know? Well,
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the answer is that Jesus is divine, that Jesus, as the son of
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God, has all knowledge. He
is omniscient, he knows all things.
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When it's when I read earlier from
First Samuel, that man looks on outward
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appearances. For Samuel Sixteen seven,
man looks on outward appearances, but the
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Lord looks on the heart. That's
one of the ways in which he knows.
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He sees our inner most thoughts and
feelings and actions are intentions. He
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knows them perfectly. He knows you
better than you know yourself. Jesus is
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divinity. is on display here,
and it's been on display in other ways
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too. It's mentioned when Jesus comes
to the end of this section and he
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asked them this question about the Sabbath. In Verse Twenty Three says if on
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the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so
that the law of Moses may not be
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broken. Are you angry with me
because, on the Sabbath, I made
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a whole man's body well, or
a man's whole body well? You Remember?
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What he's referring to is remember he
was referring to a passage we looked
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at previously where he held someone on
the Sabbath, and the Jewish leaders were
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very upset about this. How did
he do that? Here was a man
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who was an invalid, a desperate
the most desperate of situations. Jesus says
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to him, get up, take
up your bed and walk, and he
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walks. He says to the woman
at the well, things to her that
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she thinks nobody knew. Certainly Jesus
shouldn't know. He was a stranger to
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her. How are these things possible? How did Jesus, as we read
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in a previous section, multiply a
few loaves of bread to feed thousands of
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people? Who is this guy?
He's not just a guy. He's got
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this man who, they say,
we know where he come from, comes
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from, we know his brothers and
sisters, we see his humanity. He's
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fully man. How is he doing
these things? The answer is because he's
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fully God. Jesus is doing these
things by his awesome, awesome, Omnipotent,
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Almighty power and knowledge. How can
he speak with such authority? Because
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he's God. That's how. No
one has more authority than him. Jesus
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doesn't have is, people sometimes say
today, in Oster Syndrome. Right,
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you know where you are in a
situation where you feel a little bit over
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your head and you're like, I
don't belong here. Maybe you're in a
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job that you don't feel qualified for, in a conversation that you're not really
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equipped for, or a relationship that
you don't know how to deal with,
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and they think you're one thing,
but you think you're something else. And
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all the Jesus didn't have that problem. Jesus never lacked confidence. Jesus never
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was debating, you know what,
these things. He was God. He
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spoke with authority and he never messed
up. He never made the wrong call,
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he never said the wrong thing,
he never judged things, even by
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accident, the wrong way. As
I read at the beginning of our service
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from Hebrews, here is God revealed
in the last times, fully, fully
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God. This is one thing that
we ought to believe about him. But
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this one who speaks is also fully
man, as the Jews fully know,
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and these people who are questioning him. But Jesus confesses this himself in a
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way when he says in verse Eighteen, the one who speaks on his own
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authority seeks his own glory, but
the one who seeks the glory of Him
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who sent him is true and in
him there is no falsehood. Jesus speaks
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about himself and the work that he's
doing, his work that is the as
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he's fulfilling this will of God.
He's fulfilling it as a servant. He's
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doing the will both as the son
of God, but also in his humanity.
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For us, Philippians tells us this, that Jesus did not consider equality
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with God a thing to be grasped, but took on the form of a
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man. He took on humanity,
he added that and became a servant,
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humbling himself in obedience, even to
the point of death, death on a
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cross. Jesus speaks both as fully
God and is fully man, and that's
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important, because it's as man that
he will die, and it's because he's
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man, it's because he took on
his our nature, that we will have
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life in him when we believe him
and when we trust him, and the
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last thing that Jesus teaches us,
the last thing we might say is revealed
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about him here, is that his
works are not unrighteous but righteous. What
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Jesus does, to put very simply, is Jesus doesn't do bad things.
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Jesus does good things. They're accusing
him of the opposite. Unfortunately. Jesus
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heals this man on the on the
Sabbath, and they say, how can
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you tell a man to pick up
his bed and walk? How can you
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heal him on the Sabbath? You're
breaking the law, remember Jesus. Jesus
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is answered to that here is that
if Moses commands the a man be circumcised,
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and you remember, circumcision was an
act in which a man was sanctified,
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he was marked as Holy, a
way in which he was this this
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small part of his body report to
represent the whole represented a cutting off and
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a cleansing, a marking before God. Jesus says, I just made his
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whole body. Well, I just
took him in his brokenness and is invalidity,
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in all of these, in his
sadness and his desperation, and I
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lifted him up. You say that
this thing isn't is an acceptable thing to
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do on the Sabbath. Why not
this greater work? And of course Jesus
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is right and it reminds us.
The point I'm wanting to make here is
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not so much about the Sabbath,
which we talked about when we looked at
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that passage before, but just simply
the point that Jesus is accusers are wrong.
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All of Jesus's accusers are wrong when
they accuse him of doing unrighteous things.
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Why don't your disciples wash their hands? How can you tell that man
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to be healed? Do you really
have authority to forgive sins? All these
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things that he's constantly accused of are
false. If Jesus is accused of unrighteousness,
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you can guarantee that the accuser is
the one who's wrong, not Jesus,
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and that's good news for people like
us who need someone like him to
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trust in, for people like us
who see an equity and injustice and unfair
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things constantly in our world, who
feel the weight of that on our souls
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and in our society, to have
someone who does no wrong, who acts
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as judge, is a wonderful thing. But of course you know, and
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I hope you're already thinking it.
He does even more than that. Not
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only is he perfect, not only
is he sinless, not only does he
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always judge perfectly and set all things
right, but then he steps down from
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the judicial bench and walks into the
executioners chamber so that he might die for
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people that were proclaimed guilty. That's
who our Lord is. That's what the
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Sabbath Miracle Represents, a broke,
consinful person being brought to life by the
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power of Jesus, by the power
of God, praise God. Knowing who
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Jesus is, then it might be
helpful to think about a few of the
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ways we stumble over ourselves, get
wrapped up and misjudge things, some of
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the things that come out in this
passage. One of the ways we do
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this is we accept the little things
but not the big things, like they
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were doing with circumcision and the healing. Another thing we do it is,
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and this is really bad, we
get things so backward that we say that
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the things that are of God are
of the devil. We attribute to him
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evil things, as they did here. You have a demon. What are
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you talking about? We attribute to
God spiritual powers of darkness and evil,
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which we ought never to do.
Now, perhaps you're saying yourself. I
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would never accuse Jesus of having a
demon. I would never accuse God of
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acting or being like Satan. But
I think we do various ways at various
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times, perhaps more subtle than this. But when we say, why did
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God make this happen? This isn't
fair, I don't deserve to be here.
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God's doing an sinful thing in my
life, I think I can accuse
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him of wrong for this thing or
that thing. Are we not doing something
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similar there? Are we not misjudging
him, who is perfect? These and
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other things, lots of other things, are ways that we judge by appearances,
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we judge by our own circumstances,
we judge by our very limited perspective,
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we judge by a very limited knowledge, we judge according to our sinful
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biases, we judge according to on
and on and on ECOS. We are
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in many ways masters of self deception, and that's why this commandment is,
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honestly, very hard. Do not
judge by appearances, but judge with right
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judgment, if homely. Lord,
this is a very, very difficult thing
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to do, but let me encourage
you with this. All close with this
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this difficult thing to do. This
really this thing that's impossible will to do
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perfectly, is accomplished for us and
in us in a couple ways by God.
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One Way, as I mentioned before, is that Jesus, of course
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follows this commandment, and he does
so perfectly, and he does it in
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such a way that he becomes a
perfect sacrifice that, when he gives his
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life for us, we are cleansed
of all of our sins. God play
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as a sacrifice. God places all
of our sins on him and finds it
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acceptable. His Wrath is turned away. There's another thing that God does for
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us in regards to this commandment,
and that's that he gives us his Holy
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Spirit to change us so that we
become capable of this in a new way.
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To it doesn't mean we get it
right and perfectly all the time,
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though one day we will, as
we are fully glorified by the spirit,
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but even now, in our sanctification, through the work of Christ, through
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the work of the spirit in us, we begin to see things for the
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first time. That's one of the
things it means to become a Christian.
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Jesus says something similar to that in
verse seventeen. If anyone's will is to
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do God's will, he will know
whether this teaching is from God or not.
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But how is our will changed?
The answer is by the Holy Spirit.
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I'd like you to open your hymnals
and look in the back at a
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shorter catechism question. There's a longer
catechism catechism version as well, but we'll
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just look at the shorter one.
Verse Thirty One. We're going to talk
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a little bit about the work of
God's spirit and I hope you will come
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to see why this is so encouraging. So question thirty one. This is
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paid nine hundred and seventy. I'm
sorry, I should have mentioned that sooner.
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I'll wait a moment. So question
thirty one is what is effectual calling?
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What is effectual calling? Effectual calling
is the work of God's spirit,
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whereby convincing us of our own sin
and misery, enlightning our minds in the
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knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to
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embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us
in the Gospel. Let's read that again.
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Let's read it together all I I'll
give the question, you give the
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answer. Okay, what is effectual
calling? Effectual calling is the work of
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God's spirit whereby convincing us of our
own sin and misery, enlightening our minds
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in the knowledge of Christ and renewing
our wills, he doth persuade and enable
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us to embrace Jesus, Christ freely
offered to us in the Gospel. So
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you see what the cut question is. Saying them in our three things are
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mentioned in our minds, in our
wills, or sorry, two things.
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They're enlightening our minds and renewing our
wills. He enables us to do something
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we were previously unable to do.
Effectual calling, you might put it in
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terms of verse twenty four, in
our passage, is the work of God's
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spirit, whereby he changes something in
us, in our nature, so that
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we no longer judge by appearances and
accused Jesus of having a demon all these
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crazy things, but instead we begin
to judge with right judgment. If you're
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a Christian, it's because God did
this in you. He enabled you,
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he persuaded you so that you would
embrace Jesus, so that you would see
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him and say, I know my
problem. I am convinced now of my
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sin and misery, instead of hiding
from it, instead of ignoring it,
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instead of walking sort sweeping it under
the rug, I am convinced of it
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and now I embrace Jesus. That's
what the spirit of God does to us,
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and this is taught in many places
in scripture. Let me read a
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few passages to you, Ephesians,
on eighteen, having the eyes of your
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hearts enlightened, that you may know
what is the hope to which he has
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called you, what are the riches
of his inglorious inheritance in the saints,
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and what is the immeasurable greatness of
his power towards us who believe according to
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the working of His light? Or
Paul speaks about his mission in Act Twenty
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Six. He says to open their
eyes so that they may turn from darkness
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to light and from the power of
Satan to God, that they may receive
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forgiveness of sins and place among those
who are sanctified by faith. In me,
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this is the mission in the work
of God, to open the eyes
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of our hearts. That's why we
have all these miracles right of people who
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are unable to do things and now
are able to do things, who can't
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see and then can see? Who
can't hear and now can hear, because
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Jesus is demonstrating how, the what
these in these external ways, the work
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that he is also doing internally.
And this is really good news for us
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because it means this. It means
that when we believe the truth about Jesus,
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it's grounded in a reception of him
that is given to us by God
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himself, that's enabled by God himself. In other words, we didn't go
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and sort of craft our own glasses
and sorts, force them on our head
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and you know, they're all scratched
up and wonky. No, God fixed
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our blindness and we saw. How
do you know you're seeing it? Because
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I'm seeing it my I'm not just
sticking some glasses on my eyes. He
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fixed my eyes. Paul says in
First Corinthians twe twenty four, but we
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preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block
to the Jews and following folly to the
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gentiles. That's how some people receive
him, but to those who are called
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effectually, to those who are called
both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the
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power of God and the wisdom of
God. So what we are saying here,
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then, is that Jesus Christ,
as our Prophet, works through this
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revelation, by the power of his
spirit, to change our hearts, in
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our minds, so that we can
see, so that we can judge with
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right judgment, and when we do, we know that it's because of him.
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We don't have to go back and
rest on our own ability and say,
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boy, I'm sure I figured out
how to figure out the truth.
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I'm so glad that my salvation rests
on these strong abilities of mine. What
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a disaster that would be. Right. Instead, we are relying on the
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effectual work of God himself, the
power of God, the wisdom of God
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and all of these other things I've
read to you from the Scriptures. Romans
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says, for the gifts and calling
of God are irrevocable. When you begin
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to see, you don't stop seeing. You just see more and more and
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more and more and more clearly as
you learn the scriptures, as you learn
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the word, as you come to
know Jesus as he really is and not
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as the foolishness that he appears to
be to the world. So the scriptures
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say. Therefore, do not be
ashamed about the testimony of our Lord.
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I believe this is in First Timothy. Do not be ashamed about the testimony
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of the Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, Paul says, but
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share in suffering for the Gospel by
the power of God who saved us and
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called us to a holy calling,
not because of our works, but because
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of his own purpose and grace which
he gave us in Christ Jesus, even
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before the ages began. Let's pray
