G'day and welcome to stories of a faithful God for kids.

Shout out to the Taylor family who have been listening every week.

Great to have you with us.

Hope you keep enjoying the stories.

I want to tell you about something exciting coming up.

As far away as it may seem, Christmas is coming, and the lead up to Christmas is called

Advent.

Years ago, when our kids were very young, my

wife wrote an Advent calendar.

Every day on the first 25 days of December,

wed snuggle in as a family and learn more about the goodness and faithfulness of God

through Jesus.

It kept our hearts and minds focused on Jesus.

We looked at Old Testament promises about Jesus coming the first time.

We looked at what Jesus did when he arrived and how hes coming again.

After wed read some bible passages, our kids got to create the artwork that would go along

with each day as a reminder of what wed learned.

Now, in association with Youthworks Media, were having that Advent calendar published.

We want lots of other people to enjoy learning from the Bible from beginning to end.

Itll be a digital resource when it comes out, so youll be able to buy it and download it

from pretty much anywhere on the planet.

The details are still being finalized, but I

wanted to let you know now so you can start getting excited.

Now.

On with the show.

Imagine you're walking through a dark, mysterious cave, a cave so dark you can't even

see your hand in front of your face.

You hear the drip, drip, drip of water as you

feel your way along the wall.

After a while, the path splits in two ways.

You hear a voice coming from one direction.

It says, come this way.

I'll save you out of here.

Then you hear a voice from the other

direction.

No, don't listen to him.

If you follow him, you'll die.

Come this way.

Then the first voice says, no. That voice is leading you to certain death.

Don't be tricked.

Follow me.

And they keep arguing like that.

How would you know which one was telling the

truth? How would you make a decision?

If that's all there was to it? Then it would be too hard.

But what if, what if one of the people says, hang on, I have a torch?

They turn on their torch, and suddenly the light shows you everything.

The person with the torch is leading the way to safety.

Now, you can see that if you'd followed the other voice, you'd fall off a cliff.

Hearing those different voices, that's a bit what it's like with Jesus.

He says he's from God and can lead you to life.

Other people say he's a liar and wants to take you away from the good life.

Who's right? Who's wrong?

Well, it turns out someone has a light.

Someone can show us the truth.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a faithful God for kids.

At the end of our last episode, Jesus was in Jerusalem for a big festival.

He had spoken lots to the crowd.

Some of them, including the guys who were sent

to arrest him, think he's really great.

He's telling the truth, and we need to hear

more of it.

Most people, though, were getting angrier and

angrier.

They thought Jesus was lying and tricking

people.

At this festival, they light four huge fires

on massive columns way up high.

It's like having four olympic flames.

And at night, the light from them can be seen all over Jerusalem.

As everyone is thinking about that light, Jesus stands up in the temple and calls out in

chapter eight, verse twelve, I am the light of the world.

The person who follows me will never live in darkness.

He will have the light that gives life.

Woah.

Remember that story about the cave? Darkness keeps things secret.

In the darkness, you can't work out the truth of what's up ahead, but when the light comes,

you're safe.

Jesus is saying he's the greatest light, the

light that shows the whole truth, the light that gives life.

Lots of people don't believe him.

They think he's a liar.

They argue with him for a while.

Eventually, in verse 31, he says to the people

who do seem to believe him, if you continue to obey my teaching, you are truly my followers.

Then you will know the truth.

And the truth will make you free.

Hmm.

The truth will make you free.

Free from what? Does that mean that if you don't know the

truth, you're not free in any way.

How can you know if Jesus is telling the

truth? The best way to know is by looking at the

other things that Jesus has said and done, as well as what others have said.

What have we seen from Jesus? We've seen him heal sick people, turn water

into wine, walk on water, make food for thousands.

These are all things that only God should be able to do.

But we've also heard people talk about Jesus.

John the Baptist talked about him.

God talked about him in the Old Testament.

And all of this shows us that Jesus really is

telling the truth.

So what about the people who are angry with

him, the ones who call him a liar? Do they have things that suggest that they

know the truth? Let's find out.

Jesus has just said how he can help you know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

And the people respond in verse 33.

We are Abraham's children and we have never

been slaves.

So why do you say that we will be free?

Whoa.

Far out.

Did you hear that? Massive, whopping great big lie?

Not the bit about being Abraham's children.

That just means they're in Abraham's family,

even though he lived a long, long time ago.

No, they said they've never been slaves.

But if you know anything about Exodus, the book we looked at in our last series, you'll

know that the Israelites were slaves for a very long time.

To be in Abraham's family is to know that God rescued you from slavery.

So these people are believing a lie.

It's Jesus who tells us the truth.

It's Jesus who we can trust.

Now, even though their family had been slaves

in Egypt, Jesus wants them to know about a much bigger slavery, a much more dangerous

slavery.

It's slavery to sin.

Jesus says in verse 34, I tell you the truth, everyone who lives in sin is a slave to sin.

What does that mean? Well, a slave can't do whatever they want.

They have to do whatever their master wants.

And so if you're a slave to sin, you have to

keep sinning.

People think that if they ignore Jesus and

ignore God, then they're free.

But it just isn't true.

We need Jesus to show us the truth and set us free from sin.

Jesus wants to show the people just how bad their slavery is.

Theyve said theyre Abrahams children.

Well, Jesus is going to tell them that they

actually have a much worse father than Abraham.

Heres what he says in verse 37.

He says, I know you are Abrahams children, but

you want to kill me because you dont accept my teaching.

I am telling you what my father has shown me, but you do what your father has told you.

They're totally confused.

They're like, how father is Abraham?

What are you talking about? But the fact that they want to kill Jesus

shows that they don't really belong to Abraham.

Abraham loved and trusted God, so he'd love and trust Jesus.

He'd be really excited to meet Jesus.

That's why Jesus says to them in verse 39, if

you were really Abraham's children, you would do the things that Abraham did.

I am a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God.

But you are trying to kill me.

Abraham did nothing like that.

So you are doing the things that your own father did.

But they said, we are not like children who never knew who our father was.

God is our father.

He is the only father, we have.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

They just said Abraham is their father.

Now they're saying God is their father.

You know what's horrible about that?

Back in chapter five, that's exactly what they wanted to kill Jesus for saying that God is

his father, making himself equal with God.

They don't seem to want to punish themselves

for saying the same thing.

The truth is, they don't know the truth.

They're just saying whatever comes into their mind.

That sounds good.

If you want the truth, you need to listen to

Jesus.

And now Jesus tells them a truth that's really

hard to hear.

He's going to tell them who their real father

is.

It isn't Abraham, and it certainly isn't God.

In verse 42, Jesus says, if God were really your father, then you would love me.

Then later he tells them, your father is the devil.

You belong to him and want to do what he wants.

He was a murderer from the beginning.

He was against the truth, for there is no

truth in him.

He is a liar, and he is like the lies he

tells.

He is the father of lies.

But I speak the truth.

That is why you don't believe me.

All the evidence shows that Jesus is telling the truth.

The reason they don't believe him isn't because he's lying.

It's because they've believed the lies of the devil.

They don't understand the truth.

They're not willing to hear the truth.

They're slaves to lies and the devil and to sin.

Because they don't want to hear the truth, they start insulting Jesus.

They ignore the evidence and just start calling Jesus names.

In verse 48, they answer, we say, you are a samaritan.

We say, a demon is coming to you.

Are we not right?

It's like if your teacher tells you you've got question five wrong, and they want to explain

why you've got it wrong and how it can be better, but you just say, yeah, yeah, well.

Well, you got question five wrong, and you smell.

So ha.

It's not a very good way of finding out the

truth.

So Jesus says, I don't have a demon.

And then he invites them to the truth.

He invites them to believe the truth.

Believe him.

In verse 51, he says, I tell you the truth.

If anyone obeys my teaching, he will never die.

That's a pretty amazing truth.

He's not saying our bodies won't stop.

It's just that for a believer in Jesus, it's like sleep, and he'll wake us up when he

returns.

Jesus is offering life while they're wanting

to kill him.

He's wanting to give them new life forever.

Life, real life with God.

Free from sin and the devil.

They think that Jesus is talking nonsense though.

They think it's craziness for him to suggest that he can give life.

They say, now we know that you have a demon in you.

Even Abraham and the prophets died.

But you say whoever obeys my teaching will

never die.

Do you think that you're greater than our

father Abraham? Abraham died and the prophets died too.

Who do you think you are? This is when things get really serious.

Jesus is basing everything he's saying on who he is and who he's come from.

How come he can offer life and freedom from sin?

How come he can invite people to live forever? If they believe in him?

It's because he's come from God the father.

God the father has given Jesus, his son the

right to say all these things.

The reason they don't understand Jesus is

because they don't know God.

He says to them in verse 54, if I give honour

to myself, that honour is worth nothing.

The one who gives me honour is my father.

And you say that he is your God.

But you don't really know him.

I know him.

If I said I dont know him then I would be a

liar as you are liars.

But I do know him.

And I obey what he says.

Your father Abraham was very happy that he

would see my day.

He saw that day and was glad.

Now theyre really confused.

So they say in verse 57.

What?

Youve never seen Abraham? You're not even 50 years old.

Jesus answers by telling them something that John told us right at the start of his gospel.

Something amazing.

It's the most wonderful truth about who Jesus

really is.

He says, I tell you the truth.

Before Abraham was born, I am.

Don't panic if you think jesus has really bad

English.

It's not that he should have said before

Abraham was born, I was.

No, he means to say I am because he's saying

his name.

He's saying who he is.

Where have we heard that name before? I am back in Exodus when Moses was at the

burning bush and God said I am who I am.

Tell the Israelites I am.

Sent me to you.

Jesus is saying he's that God.

The same God that rescued them out of slavery in Egypt has arrived on earth to save them

from slavery to sin.

The people listening to Jesus knows that's

exactly what he's saying.

And they hate it because they're slaves to

sin.

They don't want the truth.

They don't want to listen to God, even though they say they do.

So they pick up rocks to throw at jesus to kill him.

But Jesus hides himself and slips out of the temple.

You know, lots of people are going to say, don't follow Jesus.

Don't believe him.

Believe us instead.

But all the things they've seen in John's gospel show us Jesus isn't lying.

He's telling us the truth.

And if we believe him and trust him, he'll

show us the truth.

And the truth will set us free from sin and

death.

Jesus is about to meet a man who he's going to

set free.

And even though everyone thinks of this guy as

bad and dumb and not very important, he's going to show that he can see the light and

truth better than almost anyone else around.

But that's a story for next time.

I want to say thank you so much to people who have come on board as financial supporters.

I can't keep doing this without more financial support.

So if you've been thinking about it, if you want to keep hearing stories of a faithful God

for kids, go to the website faithfulgod.net.

start donating today.

Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.