32. Seeing God: Jesus and John’s Gospel Part 1

If God is invisible, how can you know he’s really there? What if he came down to earth and actually became a human? As we start this new series in John’s Gospel, we hear how God the Son did something amazing that would change the world forever.

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Transcript
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G'day, everyone.

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Dave here.

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Welcome back to stories of a faithful God for kids.

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I'm so glad you've come back because today we're starting a new series and it's gonna be

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a cracker.

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We're gonna have a look at John's gospel.

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John was one of the disciples of Jesus.

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He watched Jesus for three years.

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He saw and heard amazing things and then he wrote them down for us in his gospel.

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Before we get into that though, let me ask you a question.

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How can you know God? I mean, he's invisible, right?

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How do you know he's even there? If he is there, how can you know what he's

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like? Imagine if someone came up to you, pointed to

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the air and said, oh, see this here? That's my invisible friend.

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He's as tall as the moon.

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He's got purple freckles and 18 noses.

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He's from the planet sparshod, which is invisible as well.

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He's got tiny legs but really big muscles.

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If you make him angry, he'll make you sit in

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his ear while he counts to 1 billion.

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Oh, and he really likes to eat doughnuts.

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What would you do if someone said that? I suspect most of us wouldn't believe them.

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But how could we know for certain? Wed probably want some proof or evidence that

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this thing is really there, right? Well, what about God?

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Hes invisible, so how can we know him? Wheres the proof?

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Thankfully, theres really great proof we really can know God.

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To find out how, get ready to listen because its time for our next episode of stories of a

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faithful God for kids.

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Picture the earth as a big ball of water

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floating through space.

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There's no sun or moon.

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There aren't any stars.

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There's no land and the water has no life.

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And then God speaks.

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He says, let there be light.

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And light bursts out to shine on the earth.

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God speaks again and again and each time he

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says his words, something new happens.

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God is so powerful that even things that don't

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exist obey his word.

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You might have read about that at the

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beginning of the Bible.

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It starts with the words in the beginning.

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Strangely, when John sits down to write his gospel, he starts with exactly the same words.

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In the beginning he says that in the beginning there was the word.

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That's a strange thing to say.

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But he must be talking about God's word,

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right? Because before God made anything, there was

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only God.

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Actually, though, John uses the word word as a

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kind of nickname for Jesus.

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He uses it to describe Jesus.

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And as he describes the word Jesus, he tells us some amazing things.

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First, he tells us that the word Jesus was with God and is God.

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What? How can he be both with God and be God?

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I mean, I'm not with me, I just am me.

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But Jesus, the word is with God, and at the

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same time he is God.

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Woo.

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John also says that Jesus is God the son.

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There's God the father and God the son, which

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means there must be two gods, right? Because I know how to add up.

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And one plus one is two.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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So there must be two gods.

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What? There's not two gods?

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No, the Bible tells us that there's only one God.

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So John's telling us that in God the one God, there's God the father and God the son.

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Jesus the father is fully God.

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He's not half a God.

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He's fully God, and Jesus is fully God.

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He isn't half a God either.

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To make it even more complicated later, John will tell us about God the Holy spirit.

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He's fully God too.

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The fancy word for this is the Trinity.

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It means there's only one God.

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He's always one and always three.

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He's never not three, and he's never not one.

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Sometimes you see him as three.

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The son speaks to the father who sends the spirit.

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Sometimes you see him as one, but he's always one and always three.

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Is your mind blown yet? Well, John tells us something else amazing

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about Jesus.

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He says in verse three of chapter one, all

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things were made through him.

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Nothing was made without him.

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All things, everything was made through Jesus.

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That's why John's given him the nickname the

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word.

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Because God made the world through his words.

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And he made it all through Jesus.

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Through Jesus he made everything, including

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cats and dogs, worms, ducks, eagles, pigeons, whales, coral, jellyfish and flies.

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Nostrils, hair, fingernails, skin.

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Clouds, waves, leaves, the tallest trees, and

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the tiniest plants, the sun, moon and stars, the rain and fog, all the ants in the world,

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and even, even your belly button.

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It was all made through Jesus.

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Who's God the sun.

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I'd love to hear what you really like that

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Jesus made.

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In the show notes.

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I'll put a link to a survey where you can say what your favorite part of the world that God

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made through Jesus is.

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I'll leave it there for a week and then I'll

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read out the answers next week on another episode.

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Now, everything we've said so far, that Jesus was with God and is God that he's God the son,

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that everything was made through him.

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It's all great, but it's all still invisible.

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The next thing John tells us though, changes all of that.

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He says, jesus, God the Son came into the world, the invisible God, got a human body.

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All of a sudden people could see him.

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Sometimes people ask, can we see God?

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And part of the answer is, well you can't at the moment, but if you lived at the right

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time, you could have.

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John was one of the people who saw him.

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In verse 14 he says the word, that's Jesus.

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The word, became a man and lived among us.

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This is amazing.

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Jesus isn't like us.

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We started in our mum's tummies, but he's always been there.

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God's always been there, but very kindly.

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Jesus came to earth to become a human like us.

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That means he had to be born like us.

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He had to grow up like us.

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For the first time he had hair and a nose and even a belly button.

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Thats why when people like John first met Jesus they didnt realize that he was God.

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They just thought he was a human.

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A pretty great human, but nothing more than a

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human.

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As they watched him though and listened to

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him, they came to see that there was far more to him.

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He is human, fully human and fully God at the same time.

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One of the things that's so great about this is that by getting to know Jesus, we can get

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to know God.

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The faithful God, the glorious God.

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Jesus shows us what God is really like.

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So in verse 18, John says, no man has ever

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seen God, but God, the only son, is very close to the father, and the sun has shown us what

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God is like.

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If you want to know God, you need to get to

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know Jesus.

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Jesus is God in the flesh.

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I should say though, that not everyone who met Jesus liked him or accepted him.

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Not everyone thought he was God.

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Most people gave up on him.

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John actually tells us about that in verse ten.

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He says the world was made through him, but the world did not know him.

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How sad is that? Jesus put on a body and came to this world,

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that he'd made the people he'd made and they didn't believe who he was.

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Even more amazingly, he came to the Israelites who were also called the Jews, God's people

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from the Old Testament, the people who knew the most about him, but even they didn't like

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him.

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John says in verse eleven that his own people

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did not accept him.

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It's so sad.

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But.

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But even though that's generally true, that

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people in the world who weren't jewish and also jewish people didn't accept Jesus, it's

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not the full story because actually, there were people from the Jews and the rest of the

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world who did accept him.

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And for those people, Jesus did something

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amazing.

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He gave them something amazing.

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Jesus made them full members of the royal family of the universe.

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That's right.

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He brings them into God's royal family.

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Let me read to you what John says in verse twelve.

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He says, but some people did accept him.

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They believed in him.

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To them, he gave the right to become children of God.

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Last year I was a teacher in the school where my kids go.

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And one day in the playground my daughter came up to me and asked me for some money to buy

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something and I gave it to her.

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Now there are hundreds of kids at that school,

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and if any of the other kids who aren't my children came and asked me for money, I would

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have said no, you need to ask your parents.

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But because it was my daughter, my family

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member who asked, I gave it to her.

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When you're in a family, there are special

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things that you get just because you're in that family.

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No one outside of the family can get them.

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It's very special to be in a family.

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We're not naturally a part of God's family.

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We're made by God, but that doesn't make us

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his family.

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Jesus, on the other hand, is the son of

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goddess.

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Hes always been the son of God.

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He has a relationship with God the father.

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Thats perfect.

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How amazing then that even though we dont naturally belong to that family, if we believe

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in Jesus, if we trust him as God the son, then he invites us to be children of God as well.

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Its especially amazing when you think that this is the greatest, most powerful, most

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wonderful, most spectacular family in all the universe.

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This is the biggest news in the world.

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There's no bigger present that anyone could

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have knowing God, being brought into the family of God all through Jesus.

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John tells us all this at the start of his book about Jesus.

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He wants us to believe it.

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In fact, right near the end of the book he

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tells us that he wrote it all down so that we would believe in Jesus and that if we believe

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in Jesus, we'll have life forever.

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But he doesn't just tell us these big ideas

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about Jesus, he also tells us about the things he saw and heard from Jesus, the things that

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convinced him that Jesus really is God.

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He's going to tell us the most amazing things,

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the most wonderful things, things that will help us to know God through Jesus.

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But that's a story for next time.

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Well, I hope you enjoyed our first episode in

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John's gospel.

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Don't forget to click on the link in the show

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notes and fill in the survey where you can tell me some of your favourite things that God

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made through Jesus adults if you're finding these shows really helpful, I'm so glad.

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I'd really appreciate it if you can support me financially by providing some money each

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month.

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Ive only been able to make the shows so far

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with the generous support of other people who can see the value of this, so if youre willing

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and able to help in that way, id really appreciate it.

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Dont forget to let other people know about the show.

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Tell them that weve started a new series and also to check out the older series as well.

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And also please rate and review the show on your app.

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That would be really great.

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Thanks everyone.

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Bye for now.

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