G'day everyone. Dave Whittingham here.

Welcome to stories of a faithful God.

Before we get into it today, I have a couple of quick announcements.

Firstly, if you're into instagram and you've looked at the stories of a faithful God

account, you've probably seen that there's basically nothing there that's changed.

After much gentle encouragement, I'm now posting short 1 minute videos talking about

pretty much anything to do with the christian life.

Its also on TikTok with the same videos.

If you prefer that platform, just search for

stories of a faithful God and hit follow on either platform.

Secondly, many of you will be familiar with an event thats usually printed in our bibles at

the start of John chapter eight.

Its the story of when an adulterous woman is

brought to Jesus for judgment and he chooses not to condemn her.

If you are familiar with it, youll know that its usually printed in brackets with a note

that reads something like the earliest and most reliable manuscripts do not have this

passage.

Basically, John never wrote that passage.

And if you look at what comes either side, its pretty obvious that someones literally cut in

halfway through a conversation and dropped the story in there.

Thats a really short explanation for saying why im not going to be talking about it in

todays story.

If you want a much fuller explanation then boy

do I have some exciting news for you.

Something big is about to happen in the world

of stories of a faithful God.

Podcasts in the next couple of weeks I'll be

launching the stories of a faithful God club.

That's right, you heard it here first.

The stories of a faithful God club will be launching very, very soon.

What is this club, I hear you ask? Its a very exclusive club for those who want

to hear more, think more, learn more, itll include exclusive bonus episodes thatll bounce

off things weve covered here on the main stream.

Things like what is that bit about Jesus and the adulterous woman?

Should it be in the Bible? How have people decided what is in the Bible

this English Bible in my hands? Most importantly, can I trust it?

Well cover theological ideas like what is the Trinity?

Why is it so good? Why have so many people rejected the idea?

Well look at historical things like what happened to Judah between the Old Testament

and the New Testament.

What was life really like in Jesus day?

Most of the time these bonus episodes will be interviews and discussions, but occasionally I

might just go it alone as well.

I'm just finalising the practical details, but

it's going to launch sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Keep an ear out.

Stories of a faithful God club.

And now on with the show.

Let me start with a question to get our minds

into the story today.

What is sin?

This thing we talk about, the thing that Jesus came to deal with, what is it?

How do you spot it? How do you get rid of it?

Is it really that bad? There are lots of words that can be used to

describe it.

You can say it's rebellion against God.

You can say it's selfishness.

You can say it's the desire to be in charge of

our own lives instead of letting God be in charge.

Those are some of my go to descriptions and I'm confident that they're right.

But even as I say them, I feel like they don't fully capture the power and evil of sin.

It's hard to feel the horror of it.

When we read the stories in the Bible, we see

ideas in action.

So there's the idea that God's faithful.

Through the Bible stories, we see his faithfulness in action.

We see salvation in action.

We see justice and mercy in action.

In today's passage, we take a deep dive into the world of sin.

We see what happens when people whose hearts are set against God meet God in the flesh.

What does it make them do? How does it affect the way they think?

Most importantly, what does Jesus do in the face of sin?

Don't worry, this passage isn't all doom and gloom.

Even as Jesus is tackling the forces of darkness, he's proclaiming salvation from that

darkness, and some people start to believe in him.

But the passage does teach us the power and danger of sin.

It's a lesson we need to learn so we can see it in ourselves and keep coming to Jesus for

help.

And also to understand the world around us,

why it functions the way it does.

And so, without further ado, I present to you

our next episode of stories of a faithful goddess.

Perhaps more than any of the other gospel writers, John provides a sequence of events in

historical order.

Jesus starts in obscurity, but at his first

public Passover in Jerusalem, he gets believers and enemies.

He heads back to Galilee, where his fame follows him.

But it's a fame not yet grounded in firm belief.

He returns to Jerusalem for another festival, where he miraculously heals a man who's been

sick for 38 years.

And yet this creates more opposition, even to

the point of people wanting to kill them.

He goes back home to Galilee, where again

people welcome him and are excited by him.

But as we saw at the end of the last episode,

they abandoned him when he didn't keep the flow of miracles coming.

The miracles are meant to be signs pointing to who Jesus is.

But the people didn't really care about Jesus.

They just cared about the miracles.

So todays passage in John, chapter seven starts with that apparent failure hanging over

the whole scene.

Jesus is still in Galilee.

Theres less murderous opposition there, but heaps of people have deserted him.

Another festival is about to happen in Jerusalem where already the jewish leaders are

wanting to kill him for blasphemy for claiming equality with God.

And the gossip is flying.

Will Jesus come to the festival?

Is it too dangerous for him? Is he good?

Is he bad? His brothers, they kind of take it on

themselves to be his social media and pr advisors.

In chapter seven, verse three, they say to Jesus, leave here and go to Judea so that your

disciples can see your works that you're doing.

For no one does anything in secret while he's seeking public recognition.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world.

They're like, come on, you gotta get out there, press the flesh, show the miracles.

If you want to be famous, it's just what you've got to do.

And it sounds like good advice, doesn't it? Surely Jesus came to draw the crowds for

people to know him and see him.

That's a good thing, right?

Except the next thing John tells us would suggest not after they've given this advice,

John tells us in verse five for not even his brothers believed in him.

What's wrong with what they've said? Why is their advice about being a public

figure so defective? I think it's because of what they've told him

to do, what they're encouraging him to do.

They're encouraging him to be more public with

his works by which I think they mean his miraculous works.

Go to Judea so that your disciples can see your works that you're doing.

The brothers don't see the works or signs or miracles as pointers to Jesus identity.

They see them as crowd pleasers.

If you want to get more people in Jesus, do

more miracles.

But that was exactly the problem.

People were excited.

But when Jesus tried to use the miracle to

help them see something more important help them get eternal life through him they didn't

want a bar of it.

They wanted more miracles.

And when he didn't deliver on demand, they abandoned him.

But we don't get eternal life by watching miracles.

We get it by believing in Jesus.

The brothers haven't understood that yet.

They're not thinking like God thinks yet.

Jesus responds by highlighting the division

between him and them.

They're still on the side of the rebellious,

sinful world.

In verse six, Jesus says, my time has not yet

arrived, but your time is always at hand.

The world cannot hate you.

But it does hate me, because I testify about it that its works are evil.

Go up to the festival yourselves.

Im not going up to this festival because my

time has not yet fully come.

So the brothers head off without him.

Then, a little surprisingly, Jesus heads off too.

Not publicly, but in secret.

Its like hes saying to the brothers, I wont go

on your terms.

I wont go to fulfill peoples false

expectations of me.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, the city's buzzing.

John tells us in verse eleven, the Jews were looking for him at the festival and saying,

where is he? And there was a lot of murmuring about him

among the crowds.

Some were saying, he's a good man.

Others were saying, no, on the contrary, he's deceiving the people.

Still, nobody was talking publicly about him for fear of the Jews.

You see there how it's not just dangerous now to be Jesus, it's also dangerous to be

associated with Jesus.

That's why last time Jesus was in Jerusalem,

the man he'd healed on the Sabbath was so quick to help the Jews with their inquiries

about Jesus.

He didn't want to be in trouble as well.

The festival is the festival of shelters, or the festival of booths or tabernacles or

tents.

It's a week long festival where even though

people have flocked the city, they live in temporary shelters for a week.

They're meant to celebrate it at harvest time, giving thanks to God for all the blessings

he's given them.

They live in shelters to remind them of the

time when God rescued them from Egypt, the time when they lived in tents in the

wilderness before they came to the promised land.

It's a reminder that everything they have is a result of God's salvation work.

Jesus goes through the first half of the week completely unnoticed.

He really is there in secret.

But then he heads up to the temple, not to do

miracles, but to teach publicly, in full view of his enemies who want him dead.

And his teaching blows people away.

They can't understand how this country

bumpkin, who's never been to one of the special religious schools for people like the

Pharisees, can teach with so much depth and insight.

Jesus answer is simple.

Hes like, hey, im not making this stuff up.

The one who sent me meaning his father in heaven told me what to say and im saying it.

He also says that if they really want to know God, if theyre genuine about wanting to obey

him, theyll be able to work out if hes from God or not.

Its a challenge to the crowd.

He knows he's from God.

All the evidence and testimony points that way.

So if they say he's not from God, it actually says more about them and their sinful hearts

than it says about him.

In fact, Jesus knows that lots of them aren't

genuine.

So he stops the subtle approach and calls them

out.

In verse 19 he says, didn't Moses give you the

law? Yet none of you keeps the law?

Why are you trying to kill me? Have you ever had someone suddenly reveal a

secret about you? That's pretty embarrassing.

We know from back in chapter five that people are trying to kill Jesus, but they don't want

Jesus to know about it.

Remember, though, one of Jesus titles way back

in chapter one, he's called the light.

John, chapter one, verse four says about

Jesus, in him was life, and that life was the light of men.

That light shines in the darkness, and yet the darkness did not overcome it.

His enemies have been plotting evil in darkness, but he shines a light on their evil.

The response of the crowd is not to be appalled by that evil, but to accuse Jesus of

evil instead.

They yell in verse 20, you have a demon who's

trying to kill you.

Jesus doesn't name names.

Instead, he focuses on the reason they want him dead.

It had kicked off when he'd healed someone on the Sabbath last time he was in Jerusalem.

They were all appalled that he'd break God's Sabbath law from the ten Commandments.

Except he didn't.

He'd only broken their false, self righteous

laws.

And in fact, Jesus points out that they

themselves seemed to break those laws.

He explains their hypocrisy by talking about

circumcision.

The law says you have to circumcise a baby boy

on the 8th day after his birth.

My maths isnt great, but by my calculation,

that means that roughly one in eight boys will be circumcised on a Sabbath.

It doesnt bother God.

And it doesnt seem to bother these guys

either.

So Jesus says in verse 23, if a man receives

circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses wont be broken.

Are you angry at me because I made a man entirely well on the Sabbath?

Stop judging according to outward appearances.

Rather judge according to righteous judgment.

In other words, you cut bits off on a sabbath.

Why is it bad for me to actually fix someone?

Jesus? The light is exposing their hypocrisy, their

willingness to do certain things themselves, but then want to kill Jesus for doing

something even better.

He's exposing the darkness of their hearts and

their evil, but he invites them to join him in the light to accept the truth and think

rightly.

The hypocrisy is seen again in the whispered

conversations of Jerusalem.

The crowd had accused Jesus of having a demon

for thinking someone's trying to kill him.

It turns out its actually public knowledge

that people are trying to kill him.

When your hearts driven by sin, youll say

anything, even when you know its not true.

Of course, the knowledge that the leaders want

Jesus dead makes people really confused.

They say, isnt this the man theyre trying to

kill? Yet look, hes speaking publicly and theyre

saying nothing to him.

Can it be true that the authorities know he is

the Messiah? But we know where this man is from.

When the Messiah comes, nobody will know where he's from.

What they know is that he's Jesus of Nazareth, but actually they don't know where he's from.

Nazareth isn't his origin story.

We heard his true story back in chapter one.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was goddesse.

The reason they're confused isn't because they don't know where he was born.

It's because they haven't understood the signs he's done, the signs that show he's from God.

It's because they don't know God, even though they're in the temple supposedly to worship

God.

So Jesus cries out in verse 28, you know me

and you know where I am from.

Yet I have not come on my own.

But the one who sent me is true.

You don't know him.

I know him because I am from him and he sent me.

Then we get this kind of weird line in verse 30.

Then they tried to seize him.

Yet no one laid a hand on him because his hour

had not yet come.

In other words, Jesus is going to be seized.

He is going to be killed, but not in their timing.

They don't set the agenda.

God sets the agenda.

He sets the hour.

Not everyone's so hard hearted as these

people, though.

Some people haven't just seen or heard about

the miracles.

They've accepted them as the signs about Jesus

identity that they really are.

So they say in verse 31, when the Messiah

comes, he won't perform more signs than this man has done.

Will he? In a sense, they're stating the blindingly.

Obviously, everything about Jesus points to him being the Christ or messiah.

It should be as plain as the nose on your face.

Except sin makes you blind.

The people's hard hearts are so darkened in

their selfish rebellion against God.

They can't see the light.

Around about now, the Pharisees and chief priests realize that their inaction isn't

helping their cause.

So they send some servants to arrest Jesus.

What they don't do, what they might regret in a little while, is give the servants some

noise cancelling headphones.

You'll see why pretty soon.

Meanwhile, Jesus is still speaking in the temple.

And it's like he knows they're about to make a move.

And so he tells the crowd about how soon he'll be going away.

And they won't be able to follow him.

He's talking, of course, about his return to

his father in heaven.

But the Jews are just confused.

They're still thinking geographically.

In verse 35, they say, where does he intend to

go so that we won't find him? He doesn't intend to go to the jewish people,

dispersed among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he?

What is this remark he's made? You will look for me, and you will not find

me.

And where I am, you cannot come.

Even though they don't get it, Jesus is saying again that his movements are not dictated by

them.

They're not directed by the priests or

Pharisees, by the mob or the servants coming to arrest him.

God's in charge.

This is shown in the fact that a few days go

past and Jesus still hasn't been arrested.

Now we've come to the final day of the feast.

The greatest day of the feast.

On this day, everyone gathers at the temple.

The high priest goes down to the pool of Siloam and collects water in a golden vessel.

He carries it in a great procession.

And as he enters the temple, everyone cheers.

Remember, this is a harvest festival.

And the water represents the water that's

brought about the harvest.

It represents life.

The water is carried to the altar and poured out before God, the giver of life.

The giver of the water of life.

And with this great ceremony at the front of

everyone's minds, Jesus stands up in the crowd and yells out in verse 37, if anyone is

thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

The one who believes in me, as the scripture

has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him.

In the Old Testament, God invites people to come to him and drink.

And Jesus is picking up on that.

What's amazing is that he's saying, if you

want that living water, if you want the life that only God can give you, get it through

him.

God's prophets talked about how the time when

water flows will be a time when sin is washed away, when forgiveness comes and hearts are

changed.

People won't want to sin anymore.

They won't be defined by sin anymore.

And the reason is that God will put something,

someone inside his people that'll transform their hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of

flesh.

He'll put his holy spirit inside them.

And that's exactly what Jesus is promising.

In verse 39, John tells us, he said this about

the spirit.

Those who believed in Jesus were going to

receive the spirit, for the spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been

glorified.

Jesus is promising the fulfillment of all the

promises, all the hopes of the Old Testament.

The reason Israel has failed time and time

again was because they couldn't overcome.

No one, including us, can overcome the power

of sin in our hearts, but God can.

And that time is here.

God the father sent his son to give people his spirit to save people.

Some of the people in the crowd hear Jesus words and they realize he's speaking the

truth.

He really is the prophet and Christ bringing

in the great age of salvation.

But others are still blind.

In verse 41, they say, surely the Messiah doesn't come from Galilee, does he?

Doesn't the scripture say that the Messiah comes from David's offspring and from the town

of Bethlehem where David lived? Again, that question about where Jesus is

from.

Of course we know that Jesus actually was born

in Bethlehem because we have the other gospels.

John hasnt mentioned Jesus birth in Bethlehem, though not because hes denying it, but because

hes saying, look at all the evidence you can see.

Thats enough.

Its enough to prompt you to try and find out

where hes from rather than just assume that you know.

Then we're told some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid hands on him.

Some of the people who don't lay hands on him are the servants sent to arrest him.

Imagine the surprise of the chief priests and Pharisees when the servants come back empty

handed.

It's not like Jesus is hiding.

He's just stood up and yelled in the most public manner possible.

And so they ask, why didn't you bring him? And the servants reply in verse 46, no man

ever spoke like this.

That's why they should have given them the

noise cancelling headphones.

The servants have been stunned and won over to

Jesus by his words.

Again, the leaders show that because they hate

Jesus.

They'll also hate anyone associated with

Jesus.

They say to the servants, are you fooled too?

Have any of the rulers or Pharisees believed in him?

But this crowd, which doesn't know the law, is accursed.

The air of righteous indignation.

The assumption that they speak for God, that

they're the holy ones.

It's so arrogant.

They refuse to examine the evidence honestly and openly.

At this point, someone very bravely speaks up.

Someone we met before, back in chapter three.

Nicodemus.

That chapter gave us no indication of how

Nicodemus responded to Jesus after their conversation.

The last time we saw him, he just seemed confused.

But now we see he's still trying to work Jesus out.

He's still on a journey of discovery.

And he's much more honest in that journey than

the other Pharisees around him.

He says to them in verse 52, our law doesn't

judge a man before it hears from him and knows what he's doing, does it?

He's saying, hey, let's look at the evidence.

Let's listen and see what he says.

He has a really honest approach.

But they're having none of it.

Again, they respond with an insult.

You aren't from Galilee too, are you?

Investigate and you'll see that no prophet arises from Galilee.

Now remember back to chapter one.

When Philip was invited to see Jesus of

Nazareth, who might be the messiah.

His first response was to say that nothing

good comes out of Nazareth.

But he then went to Jesus and investigated

honestly.

And became convinced that Jesus is the Christ.

Jesus even recognized his honesty.

And said, look.

An israelite in whom there's no deceit.

These guys aren't like that.

They use their insults as an excuse not to investigate further.

They're deceiving themselves.

They prefer the darkness instead of the light.

As well as the water ceremony, the feast of shelters is celebrated with light.

In the temple, there are four enormous columns.

With cauldrons on the top for fire.

Think of four giant olympic torches.

Blazing their light over the whole of Jerusalem.

The irony is that so many of the Jews are living in darkness.

Blinded by their sin.

Jesus stands up to invite them out of that

darkness.

He announces in verse 14, I am the light of

the world.

Anyone who follows me will never walk in

darkness, but will have the light of life.

It's a wonderful invitation to give sight to

the blind, life to the dead.

But the Pharisees are having none of it.

They're now desperate to undermine Jesus.

They try to make it seem like his massive

claims are baseless, like they have no evidence behind them.

They say to him, you are testifying about yourself.

Your testimony is not valid.

This is willful ignorance on their behalf.

You may remember that the last time Jesus was in Jerusalem, he laid down the basis for his

claims.

He talked about the testimony of John the

Baptist, the evidence of the signs of miracles.

And the words that God wrote in the Old Testament.

The testimony about him is strong and convincing.

Jesus doesnt go over all that again, though.

He simply says that what he says is true, and

its backed up by his father.

That should be enough for them to accept him.

But in their sin, theyre not willing to follow the law that they claim so boldly to uphold.

Jesus says in verse 17, even in your law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is

true.

I am the one who testifies about myself.

And the father who sent me testifies about me.

Then they asked him, where is your father?

This is a trick question again.

At his last visit, Jesus had called God his

father, making himself equal with God.

They know his answer.

They're just trying to trap him.

Instead of being trapped, Jesus uses their

question to show how they don't know God.

You know neither me nor my father.

Jesus answered, if you knew me, you would also know my father.

He spoke these words by the treasury while teaching in the temple.

But no one seized him because his hour had not yet come.

In other words, Jesus isn't hiding, but he is in control.

The Pharisees refusal to listen to Jesus.

Their willful ignorance, their disobedience to

the law.

It puts them in deadly danger.

Time and time and time again, we've seen the link between knowing God the father and

knowing Jesus.

If you know Jesus, you know the father.

If you reject Jesus, you reject God.

You reject life.

You're stuck in death.

So jesus says to them in verse 21, I'm going

away.

You will look for me, and you will die in your

sin.

Where I'm going, you cannot come.

So the Jews said again, he won't kill himself, will he?

Since he says, where I'm going, you cannot come.

You are from below.

He told them, I am from above.

You are of this world.

I am not of this world.

Therefore, I told you that you will die in your sins.

For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

These are religious leaders, the people who are meant to know God really well.

It's shocking to suggest that they're going to die in their sins.

But it's true.

They don't know God.

Just this week, a religious leader, someone who lots of people think of as the great

christian leader, showed the same problem as these leaders.

Pope Francis, speaking to a crowd in Singapore, said, all religions are a path to

goddess.

They're like different languages in order to

arrive at God.

But God is God for all.

This is the exact opposite of what Jesus says.

Jesus says, if you do not believe that I am

he, you will die in your sins.

The pope says he represents Christ, but he's

happy to say that people who reject Jesus or don't treat him as the one true path to

salvation are fine.

The pope is not siding with Jesus, just like

these leaders aren't siding with Jesus.

And because of that, they're condemning

themselves to death in their sin.

In a minute, we'll see there's someone else

that they're siding with as well.

The Pharisees keep going around in circles.

They ask Jesus, who are you? And Jesus replies in exasperation, exactly

what I've been telling you from the very beginning.

This is what dishonest people do, people who don't really want to know the answers.

They go around and around asking the same questions in slightly different ways, looking

for a way to trap you.

Jesus knows that they're trying to get him

killed.

He knows that they will have him killed.

But it won't be the moment of their victory.

It'll be the moment of the greatest revelation

of who he is, the full and final answer to their question, who are you?

Just like he said back in chapter two, when they asked for a sign proving his authority,

and he said, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up again in three days.

Talking about his body now, again in verse 28, he points to the cross and says, when ye lift

up the son of Mandev, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own.

But just as the father taught me, I say these things.

The one who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone because I always do

what pleases him.

And John tells us that as he was saying these

things, many believed in him.

The tension is rising.

But at the same time, for some people at least, Jesus words seem to be cutting through

as we've seen through John.

Though belief can be fleeting, it can have the

appearance of real belief, but soon be gone with the wind.

It's like a spark in a fireplace that needs to be fanned into flame.

And so Jesus speaks to the people who seem to be coming on board and he makes a wonderful

promise.

He says, if you continue in my word, you

really are my disciples.

You will know the truth, and the truth will

set you free.

Those words have been misused over and over

and over again throughout history, including as the motto of the CIA.

But you see here the real way to the truth, the way to true freedom, is by believing in

Jesus, believing his word, by becoming a real disciple of Jesus.

But it raises the obvious.

Freedom from what?

What do people need to be set free from? The people listening to Jesus dont think they

need to be freed from anything.

They respond to Jesus with the most

remarkable, proud, blatantly untrue boast.

Its what happens when you set yourself against

Jesus.

Youre forced to cling to lies, no matter how

ludicrous.

In verse 33, they say, we are descendants of

Abraham and we have never been enslaved to anyone.

How can you say you will become free? Such a ridiculous thing to say.

Forget for the moment that they're currently living in a roman province.

Forget that for the last 600 years, there've been a political football tossed between the

great empires of the age.

The Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the

Romans.

Just ask, what are they all doing in Jerusalem

at this very moment? They're celebrating the feast of shelters.

They've been living in tents and shelters for a week to remind them of when God rescued them

from slavery.

They're not interested in the truth, and

that's because of a far deeper slavery.

They're in a slavery that's infected humanity

since Adam.

Jesus tells them, truly, I tell you, everyone

who commits sin is a slave of sin.

That's a pretty offensive idea, isn't it?

Just like these Jews, people today want to believe they're free.

They want to believe they set their own course and agenda.

I'm free to make my own decisions and choose my own lifestyle.

And Jesus says, no, you're not.

You think you're free, but actually you're

enslaved to that relentless desire to reject God.

When Adam and Eve first ate the fruit, they thought they were setting themselves free,

free from God, free from his kingship.

But they were just handing themselves and all

of humanity over to be shackled and chained into destruction and death.

But Jesus comes with good news.

News of hope.

The one who is rejected and continues to be rejected has come to free people from that

slavery.

The son of the household is here with grace to

give.

He tells them, so if the Son sets you free,

you really will be free.

He knows, though, that lots of them don't want

to be set free.

They don't want to acknowledge their slavery.

And so Jesus highlights the chasm between him and them, between the goodness of his work and

the evil of theirs.

Between the goodness of his father, who sent

him, and the evil of their father, who they obey.

He says, I know you are descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to kill me because

my word has no place among you.

I speak what I have seen in the presence of

the father.

So then you do what you have heard from your

father.

This feels like a slap in the face to them.

They're so proud of their heritage.

They're linked to Abraham and the promises of

God.

But Jesus is saying, if you belong to Abraham,

you'd act like Abraham.

But instead, you're acting like someone else.

As I read this next exchange, feel the weight of what Jesus is accusing them of.

In verse 39, they say our father is Abraham.

If you were Abraham's children, Jesus told

them you would do what Abraham did.

But now you are trying to kill me, a man who

has told you the truth that I heard from God.

Abraham did not do this.

You're doing what your father does.

We weren't born of sexual immorality, they

said.

We have one father, God.

See how they've upped the ante there? Now they've gone even further than Abraham and

claimed God is their father.

Ironically, that's exactly what they wanted to

kill Jesus for back in chapter five.

Their slavery to sin makes them say things

that don't make sense.

Jesus continues, if God were your father, you

would love me.

Because I am from God and I am here.

For I didn't come on my own, but he sent me.

Why don't you understand what I say?

Because you cannot listen to my word.

You are of your father, the devil, and you

want to carry out your father's desires.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does

not stand in the truth.

Because there is no truth in him.

When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature.

Because he is a liar and the father of lies.

Yet because I tell the truth, you do not

believe me.

Who among you can convict me of sin?

If I am telling the truth, why dont you believe me?

The one who is from God listens to gods words.

That is why you dont listen.

Because you are not from God.

The Jews responded to him.

Arent we right in saying that youre a samaritan and have a demon?

There are two different stories here.

The Jews are saying that they're free.

They're children of Abraham and children of God.

They also say Jesus has a demon.

Jesus, on the other hand, says he's the true

son of God and that they're children of the devil.

Who's right? Do we need to even say?

Can't we all live out our own truth? No. This is a matter of life and death.

So what have we seen? We've seen the Jews tell lie after lie,

claiming they don't want to kill him, claiming they've always been free, wanting to kill him

for one thing, then doing exactly the same thing, accusing him of breaking the law, but

then not following that law themselves.

Whereas Jesus words have been shown time and

time again to be true and powerful, healing the sick, giving joy and hope, saving from

death.

John's been carefully laying out the case

throughout his gospel to show us who's in the right.

Because John wants us to know.

Jesus wants us to know that there's a way out

of the slavery to sin and Satan.

Jesus is here to shine light into darkness,

shine truth onto lies, to break the shackles that bind us, not just to sin, but to death

itself.

In verse 51, Jesus says, truly, I tell you, if

anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.

Then the Jews said, now we know you have a

demon.

Abraham died, and so did the prophets.

You say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death.

Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died and the prophets died?

Who do you claim to be? That same question.

Who are you? Who do you claim to be?

Why do you think you can say all these things? Come on, Jesus, out with it.

Jesus still doesn't answer directly.

He tells them how.

He's the one who obeys his father and is glorified by his father also.

He's the one who brings hope.

He says in verse 56, your father Abraham

rejoiced to see my day.

He saw it and was glad.

The Jews replied, you aren't 50 years old yet, and you've seen Abraham.

Jesus said to them, truly, I tell you before, Abraham Washington, I am.

There it is, the plain statement from Jesus they've been waiting for.

The most remarkable announcement in history.

The one, true, only God, the God of Abraham,

Isaac and Jacob, the God who rescued his people from slavery in Egypt with a mighty

hand and outstretched arm, who brought them safely through the wilderness, living in

shelters into the land flowing with milk and honey, where year on year, they could

celebrate the plentiful harvest given by God.

That God who declared his name to be I am.

That God is standing right there in front of them in human form.

All the evidence that John's laid out for us shows the truth of Jesus.

Remarkable words.

But they're enslaved to Liesen.

In their slavery.

They can't believe that their God's come to

save them.

They can only believe that this man is a fake

and liar, and so they do exactly what he's been saying they want to do in verse 59.

So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus was hidden and went out from the temple.

What is sin? It's a grasping after freedom from God that

only locks you into slavery.

Slavery to sin, slavery to Satan, slavery to

death.

In our sin, we think we're chasing the truth,

but we're enslaved to lies.

In our sin, we think we're in charge of our

own lives, but really we're enslaved to do whatever is against God and which leads to our

destruction and death.

Jesus came to show us that.

We're enslaved to show that true freedom only comes from submitting to God as king.

He shows the truth.

He breaks the chains of evil.

He gives us life.

The only way out of sin to God is through

Jesus.

If you're not a believer in Jesus yet, why not

start now? Come into the light.

Come into the truth.

Come to him and drink the water of life that

only he can give.

If you are a believer, give thanks to God for

opening your eyes through Jesus.

We haven't worked this out ourselves.

He's the one who's opened our eyes.

When you're talking to people who aren't

believers yet, don't be surprised when they twist and bend in their words.

When they say one thing 1 minute and something different the next minute.

Don't be surprised when they wriggle and squirm to avoid the truth in ways that don't

make any sense.

They're enslaved.

Also, don't condemn them.

Don't think I'm so much better than them.

Simply and gently show them the truth.

Shine the light of Jesus onto their darkness.

Some will run as hard as they can from that light, but some, some will rejoice.

They'll be so excited to finally see what they could never see before.

Jesus is about to meet a man like that.

He's a blind man.

vision.

But that's a story for next time.

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Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.