Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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If you would remained standing. If
you're a will please do otherwise, feel
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free to sit and let's turn our
attention to John Chapter Five, or will
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continue. I'm hearing God's Word From
this Gospel, Gospel of John. I'll
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be reading John Chapter Five, verse
thirty one to the end of the chapter.
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This is the word of the Lord. It stands forever. Let us
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hear it with faith. If I
alone bear witness about myself, my testimony
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is not true. This is Jesus
speaking here. If I alone bear witness
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about myself, my testimony is not
true. There is another who bears witness
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about me, and I know that
the testimony that he bears about me is
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true. You sent to John and
he has born witness to the truth.
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Not that the testimony that I receive
is from Man, but I say these
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things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and a shining
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lamp, and you were willing to
rejoice for a while in his light.
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But the testimony that I have is
greater than that of John, for the
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works that the father has given me
to accomplish, the very works that I
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am doing. Bear witness about me
that the father has sent me and the
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father who sent me, has himself
borne witness about me his voice. You
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have never heard his form, you
have never seen and you do not have
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his word abiding in you, for
you do not believe the one whom he
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has sent. You search the scriptures
because you think that in them you have
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eternal life, and it is they
that bear witness about me. Yet you
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refuse to come to me that you
may have life. I do not receive
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glory from people, but I know
that you do not have the love of
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God within you. I have come
in my father's name and you do not
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receive me. If I if another
comes in his own name, you will
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receive him. How can you believe
when you receive glory from one another and
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you do not seek the glory that
comes from the only God? Do not
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think that I will accuse you to
the father. There is one who accuses
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you, Moses, on whom you
have set your hope, for if you
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believed Moses, you would have you
would believe me, for he wrote of
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me. But if you do not
believe in his writings, how will you
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believe in my words? You may
be seated. These are strong words from
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Jesus, aren't they? It's helpful
and I hope they're not true of you.
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Will start there. Jesus says you
do not believe in Moses. I
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hope that's not true of you.
Jesus says you do not have eternal life.
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He says you have not received me, you refuse to come to me.
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I hope, as I say,
that's not true of any of you,
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but of course, if it is, if you do not receive God's
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word, if you do not hear
Jesus and believe, if you are not
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coming to him for eternal life,
then the words that Jesus says here are
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a warning for you. There are
warning to everyone that, as he says
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over and over again and demonstrates with
his works, that there is life in
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him, amazing life, abundant life, blessed life, heavenly life. There's
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life in Jesus, but apart from
him is is death. Why does Jesus
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speak such strong words? It's helpful
to remember the context in which they come.
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At the beginning of John, Chapter
Five, there was a feast,
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there was going on in Jerusalem.
It was the Sabbath Day, and Jesus
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looks out on this roofed colonnade and
sees this very sorry sight, a very
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pitiful thing, a myriad. It's
a John Rights, a myriad of invalids.
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Blind people, lame people, paralyzed
people are all there under this in
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this colonnade. and Jesus sees this
one man in particular who's a desire some
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healing but has been unable to find
it for third be eight years, lifetime
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for some people, especially in the
ancient world. Thirty eight years he had
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been paralyzed. Jesus goes to him
and he says to the man, he
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says, do you want to be
healed? In the man he says I
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basically, he says I can't,
I'm unable to. There's this water that
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seems to provide some healing, but
he can't get to it because he can't
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walk to it. And even if
he could, everybody goes before him.
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Nobody's there to carry him to it. He's totally helpless, totally stuck.
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He's desperate and and hopeless. Jesus
pities this man and he says to him
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get up, take up your bed
and walk. It's all he says,
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just the power of the word of
God and he says get up, take
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up your bed, and walk.
And that's what he does, the man,
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he gets up, he takes up
his bed and he walks. There
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were Jews there who saw this.
You remember when we went over this passage,
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if you were with us, there
were Jews there who saw us and,
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as I mentioned at the time,
it was a case study in missing
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the point right, a classic right. So here is this man, thirty
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eight years and invalid. The are
paralyzed here and now he's walking. This
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amazing miracle had been done and they
say to him, who told you to
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get up your bed or pick up
your bed and walk? Don't you know
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you're breaking the Sabbath, and we
talked about some of that when we covered
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that passage and the nature of the
Sabbath. And Jesus is work here in
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bringing out new life, in bringing
in showing what the Kingdom of God is
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and new creation, and encourage you
to go back and listen to that if
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you weren't able to hear that.
But what we see is that Jesus is
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doing this amazing work testifying to who
he is and why he's come. He
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is here to heal people in their
bodies and their souls. He also says
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to the man go and send no
more. Jesus is here for their bodies
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and their souls. This is the
work of new creation, this is the
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work of of new life, this
is the resting into which we enter through
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him. And that's why, Jesus
says, when they accused him of being
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disobedient to God and to his law, he says, my father is working
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until now and I am working now. This gets them very, very upset,
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because he is making it self equal
with God. And, as Jesus
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himself says here at the end of
our passage, he says there is only
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one God, the only God.
He says, Jesus is not saying that
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he he is another God, he's
not saying that he has power, simply
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power equal to God, as if
he were a man or some kind of
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created being which God then gave it
to him this power. Now he is
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saying that, though he is distinct
from the father as the son, nevertheless
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he is the only God, one
God in three persons, we confess.
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And here he's talking about his relationship
with this father, with his father,
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my father is working till now and
I am working. And then he goes
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on, as we looked at last
time, to talk about the relationship that
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he has, the relationship that he
has with his father. Jesus gives us
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this perspective that is very marvelous.
He reveals very lofty and heavenly things to
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us, that his will is his
will because it's the father's will, that
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his power is his power, because
it is the father's power, that he
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judges because the father has given judgment
to him, that he gives life because
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the father has given life to him, and all of these things not at
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any point in time, but eternally, eternal, only a giving from the
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father to the son. As I
said, very lofty things, heavenly things,
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things that could never be discovered by
those who are earthly minded. For
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those who are earthly minded, who
are only fixed on the things that are
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here and now, these things that
Jesus is saying are going to be very
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difficult to believe. That's why,
in a moment in our passage today,
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he talks about witnesses, he offers
proof for what he is saying. But
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I want to remind you about,
to focus and pause for a moment on
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what it means to be earthly minded, to not be able to receive the
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things that are coming to us here
from heaven. I'm thinking, for example,
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of materialists, of people who are
so focused only on the things of
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this world that they refuse to look
at God and Heaven and see only the
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ground and only the things around them, that refuse to give any credence or
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to believe in anything other than what
they can touch and see and perhaps even
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limited to what they can experience for
themselves. I'm also thinking of the self
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righteous person who is who is not
only focused only on the things of this
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world, but is particularly focused on
himself, his works, his wants,
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his plans. He is the chief
end of himself, he is his highest
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ideal, he is the divine within
himself. If he reaches in, if
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he struggles hard enough, if he
optimizes everything well enough, than he will
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do the great things of a God. No one offends him, he closes
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his ears. People like this are
like ants. They're busy, busy,
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busy building this little kingdom of dirt
without any perspective of this enormous world that
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is all around them, the world
in which they are dwelling and living and
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even building in. Jesus helps us
to see that when we have this kind
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of perspective, that all we're doing
is building these little kingdoms of dirt.
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He is beyond us. He comes
to us from another place, revealing to
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us another kind of knowledge, knowledge
that can't be discovered by simply pulling things
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in from around us or pulling things
out of ourselves. It's much, much
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bigger. Who can know the things
of the Almighty? His ways are not
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our ways, but it's good that
he is beyond us. Of course,
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that it does mean that we can't
control him, it does mean that we
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are required to give him our obedience, it does mean that we are lower
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than him and he is an authority
over us, but it also means that
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he can save us. It means
that he is powerful, it means that
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he is capable of doing the things
that we cannot. And ultimately, that's
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what Jesus is about. He's not
just giving us a greater perspective, a
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higher wisdom, a richer life of
the soul, although he is giving us
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all of that, praise be to
God, but he's also giving us this
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knowledge that can take us out of
our slavery to ourselves and to the material
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things of this world, slavery to
our sins, slavery to our obsession slavery
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to our lusts and our passions,
not so that we can transcend material things,
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but so that we can enjoy them
as the gifts of God, who
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is above us, so that we
can enjoy them as from our father who's
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taking care of us, so that
we can avoid those things that would do
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us harm, so that we can
love him, trust him, find him.
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This is what Jesus is doing,
this is what he is revealing.
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That brings us to our passage now
where he's speak. He's still speaking to
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these Jews who are wanting to kill
him. They are not just a very
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obvious sign that they are refusing him, not believing in him, they want
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to murder him. This is why
he's speaking very strongly about their rejection of
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him. And then we come to
verse thirty one and he says what I
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think is a kind of a stunning
thing. He says, if I alone
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bear witness about myself, my testimony
is not true. Now that might sound
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like Jesus is saying that he might
be lying, and that's not what he's
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saying. That's not why this is
a stunning thing. What he's saying is
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he's reminding us of something that we
all know, but are at least perhaps
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a surprised to hear Jesus apply it
to himself because he's so remarkable. And
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that's that. That the testimony of
one person about amazing, remarkable, even
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incredible. I use that word loosely. There things makes it hard to believe,
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the testimony of one person who says
these amazing things that are very hard
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to believe, that are really out
there beyond our usual experience. Me and
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spell on are the usual things we
think and feel. We don't usually take
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them as credible. Right, somebody
came up to you and said that they
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are the one true living God,
I would hope that you would have some
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doubts. Right. And what's so
amazing, I think about this passage,
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is Jesus is saying that you should
even have that about him. He's saying
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if I testify, in other words, if it's just words, if I'm
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just testifying about myself, then it's
not credible. It's not true that Jesus
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doesn't just say look, I said
it. So believe it, though?
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Of course we still. We should. He's God, he's not lying.
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Everything there is true, but notice
that he doesn't require a leap of faith
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in the way that people talk about
it. Christian faith is not sort of
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jumping out into the darkness wondering,
not, not not for no reason or
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even against reason. The Christian faith
is a rational faith and, just like
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in every other situation where we don't
believe extraordinary claims on the basis of one
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person's word alone, Jesus, as
says, if I do the same,
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it's it's not credible. Now we
get to the meat of the passage.
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Who are Jesus is witnesses? Right
at this point Jesus begins to marshal these
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different witnesses to say you don't have
to take my word for it, because
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there are witnesses that are testifying to
this so that you know they are true.
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The first witness he he brings forward
to testify to the truthfulness of these
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things is, I believe, the
Holy Spirit, who he refers to in
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verse thirty two as another. There
is another who bears witness about me,
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and I know that the testimony he
bears witness about me is true. The
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reason I believe that this is the
Holy Spirit is for two reasons. One,
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it fits with the rest of the
things he says here in this passage
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and also, later on in John
He's going to use those exact same words
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to tea. Talks about another periclet
another helper who comes and he will testify
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to you. These things concerning means
very similar language, and it's specifically,
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I'm connected with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, of course, has
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not been absent up till this point
in Jesus's ministry. Remember that it Jesus
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is baptism. The Holy Spirit descended
upon Jesus as a mark of his anointing,
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as a mark that God is.
He was going into the world that
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the father had anointed him with,
with the spirit, this one that testifies
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is true, Jesus says. Now
what this means, then, is that
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when the father is at work,
people come to believe in part. I
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say in part, not because it's
a third or something like that, but
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it's one of the reasons. We
might say that people come to believe because
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the spirit of God testifies to their
hearts that it's true. Remember John,
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for example. John is at the
Jordan, he's preaching, he's points at
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Jesus and he says hair this is
the one I was talking about. Here's
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the lamb of God who comes into
the world. And you know what happens?
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People start following Jesus. We read
about that. Is early disciples,
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including John Here who writes this Gospel. Why did John Follow Jesus? Why
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did John The Gospel writer followed Jesus? Why did Peter Fall Jesus? Why
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did others follow Jesus? Jesus is
telling us that it's in part because they
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received the testimony of the Holy Spirit. And you say, well, what
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about John? Wasn't at the testimony
about John that did that? Well,
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Jesus, of course addresses that.
Verse Thirty Four or thirty three. He
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says you sent to John and he
has borne witness to the truth. Okay,
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so yes, John is a witness, but then he says parenthetically verse
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Thirty Four, not that the testimony
I receive is from Man, but I
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say these things so that you may
be saved. Back to John. He
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was a burning and shining light and
you were willing to rejoice for a while
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in his light. A little bit
of a rebuke there thirty six, but
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the testimony that I have is greater
than that of John. The testimony that
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I have is greater than that of
John, so something else was going on
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there. John is a witness,
a burning a shining light, Jesus says.
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We likewise are witnesses, shining lights
to the Gospel. But when we
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tell people about Jesus, they don't
ultimately follow him because of us. They
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follow him because there's another witness working
silently in the background, the Holy Spirit
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who changes hearts and minds, opens
us up so that we can understand these
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things, get our eyes off our
little piles of dirt and up into the
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heavenly places, so that we can
see the Lord as he is and turned
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to him for forget in for giveness
and and for our life. He offers
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another witness, also in verse thirty
six. He says the works that might
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that thought that the father has given
me to accomplish the very works that I
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am doing. Think about the man
he just healed. They bear witness about
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me that the father has sent me. The father has sent me. So,
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in other words, Jesus is saying, I'm not all talk, all
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right, I'm not just saying things. This is proven by the things that
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I the things that I do.
Jesus is not just saying that he is
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a God, that he is the
son of God. He is demonstrating it
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as well. How well, by
and healing people of incurable things, by
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manipulating creation in such a way that
water turns into wine, by speaking authoritatively,
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by changing people's hearts, by forgiving
sins, by raising people from the
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dead, by being a greater prophet
than John These are the works that he
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says, the father has given me
to accomplish, the very works that I
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am doing. Their witness about me, and this has an effect on us.
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This testimony. Remember, just before
John Five, in John for Jesus
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met this woman at a well.
I remember he reveals to her things she
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knows about herself, but Jesus,
how does Jesus know about her five husbands
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and that the one she's living with
now is not her husband? She goes
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at this amazing thing, this ability
of this man to say these things,
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and she goes to her townsfolk and
says this one's the Messiah, and then
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they all come out and they see
him and they hear him and they talk
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with him and they say we believe
to Jesus does this throughout his ministry and
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he tells us things, he reveals
and he shows us with these miracles.
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Jesus continues to do that today,
he changes our lives, he changes our
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mind and in his word we have
the accounts of all these miracles. There
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were many more, right, you
remember, John, at the end of
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the book tells us there's so many
things I couldn't even record them all here,
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but these things are written so that
you can have eternal life. That's
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why they're here. These miracles are
recorded so that you would know about his
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miracles and believe them, so that
you would have an authentic witness to the
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truth about who Jesus is. That
brings us, then to the third witness,
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so the Holy Spirit, and then
Jesus's works, and now, finally,
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to the scriptures themselves, which you
see why they're how there's overlapping these
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things. He says in Verse Thirty
Seven, and the father who sent me
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has himself born witness about me.
Right, so the we could talk about
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the father's witness in particular. How
do we know? Where do we hear
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the father's voice? He says his
voice, you have never foreheard his form,
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you have never seen now. No, he says this, not because
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it hasn't been revealed to them,
but because they didn't see it when it
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was revealed. As he says in
Verse Thirty Eight. You do not have
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his word abiding in you. Why? For you do not believe the one
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whom he has sent. You search
the scriptures because you think that in them
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you have eternal life, and in
that they're right. They will have eternal
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life from the scriptures, except that
they reject the thing that the scriptures are
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about. He says. It is
they, the Scriptures, Moses, that
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reveal me, the scriptures bear witness
to me. Verse Forty. Yet you
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refuse to come to me that you
may have wife you. There's this great
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irony here. Right you're going to
the scriptures, you're searching the scriptures,
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you're trying to find all of these
things out so that you can have eternal
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life, and then, when it
offers you eternal life, you reject it.
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When you when you hear the very
thing to which they speak, to
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which they testify, to which they
witness, you reject it. You remember
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the parable of the seeds and the
soil, that perhaps you know this parable
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that Jesus tells about a sower scattering
seeds on the soil. A lot of
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those seeds never come up. Why? Blows away, birds eat it,
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it gets choked out, by weeds, these kinds of things. It didn't
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take root. That's what Jesus is
saying here. The word was given to
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you, but it didn't take root. The Old Testament was given to you
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as a witness to me. That
didn't take root. As he goes on
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to say, I don't have to
accuse you. I don't accuse you.
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Moses accuses you. You say that
you follow Moses, you say that you
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are you're accusing me of disobeying the
Sabbath, you're accusing me of blasphemy.
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You yourselves are rejecting Moses by rejecting
me. First Forty six if you believed
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Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me. Where
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did Moses ride of Jesus? All
over the place, on every page,
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in some very prominent and obvious sections, like Deuteronomy Eighteen, where he says
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a prophet will come after me that's
greater than me, like in the garden,
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where he records after the garden of
Eden and the fallen to sin,
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where God makes this promise to the
world that he will bring, through the
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seed of the woman, a son
who would crush the head of the serpent
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and bring blessing and restorations, all
things would bring life, in the covenants
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made to Abraham, recorded there,
that we have in Genesis, in the
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promises of a new kingdom that will
be established and and the kings that were
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rule, eventually revealed to be David
and others. All of these things testified
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in the law and the prophets and
the psalms. All of it about Jesus.
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So, going back to what I
said earlier about a case study in
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missing the point with the paralytic,
it didn't begin with him. It began
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long time before they ever saw this
miracle in their own hearts, with their
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own relationship with the Bible, with
the Old Testament and with the law of
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Moses and the Prophets. But thinking
about our own lives, if you've ever
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struggled to read the Old Testament,
if you ever have had trouble seeing salvation
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in it as clearly as the Gospels, then this is why. It's because
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you are not reading or you are
struggling to read, with Jesus as the
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key reading principle, as the thing
to which they all point. And that
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takes time and experience and searching the
scriptures to see how that works. But
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what we have testified so clearly to
us by Jesus here in John and many
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other places in both the old and
new testaments, is that God gave this
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word, like shadows, to a
body connected but different, realized fully in
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Christ. These things and Moses and
then the rest of the Old Testament.
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They are models pointing, types and
shadows pointing to his reality. And that's
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why the New Testament often explains these
things, Jesus mission, the nature of
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the church, our life in him, in Old Testament terms. If you've
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ever wondered why that is, that's
because there's a unity between the old and
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the new, connected and all unified
in the one to which all the scriptures
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speak, Jesus. So that's why
in the new testaments we read things about
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kingdoms and priests and sacrifices and temples
in relationship to what's going on now.
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The point is this. The scriptures, old and new, Bare Eternal Life,
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witness to to eternal life. Why? Because they witness to Jesus.
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The scriptures testify to Christ, and
so this is obviously I hope and encouragement
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to all of us to search the
scriptures if we want to know Jesus,
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if we want to believe him more. He's telling us here is the witness.
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Pay attention to the witness. If
you don't read your bibles, if
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you don't search the scriptures, if
you don't understand how they work, then
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you will have trouble with faith.
You will struggle to believe because the witness
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that is given to you you're ignoring. And then, of course, if
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you are searching, but you're not
searching in the way in which they were
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written, if you're not searching to
see Jesus and him revealed from beginning to
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end, genesis to revelation, then
again your struggle. You will struggle because
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you are missing the point. All
that to say, what we have here,
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then, are true witnesses. I
love what Jesus says in Verse Forty
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One. I do not receive glory
from people, says in Verse Forty Three.
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I have come in my father's name. He says. You willingly receive
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other people's testimony. I'm giving you
the testimony of God, his spirit,
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the scriptures. I'm giving to you
the power of my works, demonstrated,
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the works that the father has given
to me. John is great, John
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is a burning shining lamp, your
friend, your neighbor, your pastor these
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are all important people that God brings
into our lives to testify to the truthfulness.
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But ultimately, Jesus does not receive
his glory from men. Jesus,
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our hearts are not changed because that
the of the power inherent in a preacher
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or the power inherent in some other
place or in our knowledge or in our
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discovery. All of it always rests
in God, in God who saves us,
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in God who testifies to these things. And so as he's testifying to
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you this morning through me, through
the scriptures, I pray, through the
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spirit working in your heart. Let
me ask you, why fix your eyes
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on the things of this world and
be busy about building your little mound and
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focused entirely on yourself and on your
will and your ways, when God is
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speaking to you and saying follow me
and you will have eternal life better than
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the paralytic had? Eternal Life,
life where we stand up and we walk
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in the strength of Christ, out
of death, out of suffering and into
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places where we are securely with him. Beloved. God does not require us
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to go searching for some hidden truth
the can only be revealed in some secret
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formulaic way. He reveals to it, reveals it to US freely. He
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reveals it to you this morning.
So will you believe him or will you
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refuse him? Will you hear the
scriptures in vain, like writing on a
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sand, on sand, and let
it blow away, or will you hear
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his word and trust and what he
has said? If you believe him,
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if you hear his words, get
up, take up your bed and walk.
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Then you will walk, because he's
God. Amen. Let us pray.
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