How is it that some come to faith and others don't? Even when their experiences, backgrounds, or exposures can be equal. Listen in.
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
How is it that some come to faith and others don't? Even when their experiences, backgrounds, or exposures can be equal. Listen in.
So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy. [1 Peter 1:13-16]
Good morning church. I want you to know that when I read the text that's available for us today.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:I hear a very sort of modern argument going on, not, not the sort of thing that, that, that, uh, separates us so much, but in a very sort of modern discussion that we don't usually expect from the first century, it's about what it means or, or how do we become one of Jesus's sheep? The last couple of Sundays we've been talking about, he's the good shepherd that his sheep hear his voice and his sheep hear him and follow him and obey him and all this stuff. But right in the middle of that, there's this question front and centered is what is required for belief.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:It's a very modern question. It's a very, um, two or 300, 400 centuries ago. Question. It's a question for all time, the Calvinists would say, well, you know, God makes his choice and he predestines you. And so that's what makes you a believer Wesleyans that's us would say that God does know who's there and he does choose, but he gives us the right to Peck. Now, the Calvinists would say that the Wesleyans are antinomian or, or Pelagian Pelagian is not an antinomian where there is no law, that's antinomianism, but semi plagiarism is that it's all on us. That we're just earning our salvation in the way we do this thing. That is the very extreme of one side. Whereas the very extreme of the Calvinist, the opposite angle is that, um, there are churches in the Calvinist system that don't do Sunday school. They don't do education or anything like that, because none of that makes one ounce of difference to your salvation, because if you're going to be saved, you're going to do it no matter what. And you don't have to know anything. Those extremes just like today and almost all our arguments that the extremes just lose sight of each other and become unmanageable unmerited sort of opinions. So the question before us today, and in the argument from John 10 22 through 42, wait, so let me go back and catch us up with 19. Jesus has just said, um, I'm going to lay down my life and I'm going to pick it back up. And this is what my father has commanded or given me the right to do. Then he said, when he said these things, the people were divided in their opinions about it. This is from John 10, 19, some said he's demon possessed. And out of his mind, why listen to a man like that and others that this doesn't sound like a man possessed by a demon kind of demon opened the eyes of the blind. Do you see the extremes that, that there's nothing in the middle between these two. It's very common and very up to date on this thing. Here's verse 22. It was winter and Jesus was in Jerusalem. At the time of Hanukkah, the feast of dedication. He was in the temple, walking through the section, known as Solomon's Colonnade and the people surrounded him and asked, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly,
Speaker 3:Okay,
Speaker 1:Jesus replied. I have already told you and you don't believe me. The proof is the work I do in my father's name, but you don't believe me because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice and I know them and they follow me. We're going to come back to that part that this I've already told you, and you don't believe the proof's in the work, but you don't believe because you're not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them. And they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me. For my father has given them to me. And he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the father's hand. The father and I are one. Once again, the people picked up stones to kill him. Jesus said at my father's direction, I have done many good works. For which one are you going to stone? Me? Jesus. They replied we're stoning you not for any good work, but for blasphemy you a mere man claimed to be God, Jesus replied is written in your own scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people I say your gods. It's a very interesting term, lowercase G gods. And you know that the scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God, uppercase, God message were called God's lowercase gods. Why do you call it blaspheme me? When I say I am the son of Dodd, uppercase God, after all the father set me apart and sent me into the world, don't believe me, unless I carry out my father's work. But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works, I've done. Even if you don't believe me, then you will know and understand the father is in me and I am in the father, believes the works is what he's saying. Once again, they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left. He went beyond the Jordan river, near the place where John was first baptizing and stayed there awhile. And many followed him. John didn't perform miraculous signs. They remarked to one another, but everything he said about this man has come true. And many who were there believed in Jesus name. Okay? The question I have for you today is will you choose to believe from what you've seen, will you choose to believe? And the answer is, of course you will choose the many of us lean on the wrong things to choose from. Just in conversations in the last three weeks, I've had a couple of conversations with a number of different people that if this person's from the right family, right, they're raised right. They're raised in the church. They'll have a chance to believe, except that's kind of the Jewish system of belief, right? That I'm Jewish. And so I'm his people that's not really out is that he, he doesn't respect that in that way. How about being exposed enough? Well, you know, if you just get exposed enough and I'm one of those witness people that, that believe some of the statistics, cause I've seen them play out that you have to be exposed to the gospel 7.2 times in order to believe it. But that doesn't mean that you will choose to believe it from the exposure. What about talking about Jesus does talking about Jesus, make you a believer or praying. Does praying make you a believer and a follower? No. The question goes back to these verses. I told you I'd come back to tell us plainly, if you're the Messiah they said in verse 24, Jesus replied, I have told you and you don't believe the proof is in the work I do in my father's name. But you don't believe me because you're not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. So here's the question. How will you decide? Let's say you've been hanging around Jesus. That's essentially what this describes in the temple right now is that they're in the temple, hanging around, listening to Jesus, watching him do stuff. And they come together in the middle of an argument and go tell us, we don't know what to believe. And some of them say, well, his words are weird, but we don't understand his words. But what he does is amazing. Oh no. His words are so weird. Says the other side of that, that you can't look at what he's doing. It says dough being near by loitering in the vicinity of Jesus is what some people think is belief in our time. I have not people. Well, I know I'm a believer because I've prayed every meal after, since I was a little kid. Yeah. That's sort of the cultic C U L T I C. Cultic signs of belief that if you're a believer, you will pray, but praying doesn't make you a believer. It's not the other way around, but this gets to this thing I've told you, but you don't hear me. You're not listening. You're lingering or loitering in the vicinity of Jesus and you're not listening, but let's say the words of Jesus, follow up on your errors. And, and, and you are listening, but you choose not to believe. So who is right? This whole story goes like this. My sheep, listen to my voice. I know them. And they follow me right in the middle of this argument down at the end of the first Jesus went off and some people followed him and many believed because of what the testimony about him. And they did it. This is what happens. You've got to opt in plain and simple. God knows who's going to opt in is the way that I would explain it. But he is so careful about our freedom to choose because he's not after robots and all this other stuff. He's after people that will choose and love and act out of that relationship. And, and he knows that if he chooses for them, then when he gets his robots or the worst case scenario in a Calvinist situation is that once saved, always saved languages. I D I sent the prayer. Now I just get to do whatever I want to do for the rest of my life. See, that's not belief. That's not choosing. That's not opting in hanging around Jesus, what family you're from your heritage. None of that is opt in. The key to this whole thing is opt in church. You lose the gods, working and paving the way and witnessing to you and laying things out and saying to you nearby and wooing you into a relationship. But you can also not lose sight that you have the chance to be in the vicinity of all the things that God is doing all the time. You have the choice to do all that and to stand there and go, man, he's a crazy man. We ought to get rid of him. Doesn't matter what good things he does. I've seen all the miraculous things I don't church seeing is not believing. Believing is believing. Trusting is believing, acting out of that trust. Once you opt in and follow him, you stop lingering and loitering in the vicinity of Jesus. You begin a new life of faith where you're not just standing around like everybody else. You must opt in. Here's the verse that we're talking about. Once again, here we are right back there. Tell us if you're plainly. I told you and you don't believe me. The proof is right there in front of you in the work I do, but you don't believe me because you're not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. Are you listening? Church? Are you a hearing his voice? Are you opting in certainly Jesus and God Jews you before the beginning of time, but you church, you got to choose Jesus too. Let's do that. You pray with me, Lord Jesus. I thank you for today. Help us not just linger nearby and be spectators in a life and a world set for you. Help us see what you're doing. Help us recognize, help us opt in Lord Jesus in your precious name. Amen.