SPEAKER_03: Welcome to City Church Dublin Sermon Archives.
SPEAKER_03: Join us this week as we continue to work through the Book of John in our series The Gospel of John.
SPEAKER_00: So the reading today is from John 10, verse 22 to 42.
SPEAKER_00: At that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.
SPEAKER_00: So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?
SPEAKER_00: If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe.
SPEAKER_00: The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.
SPEAKER_00: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
SPEAKER_00: I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_00: My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand.
SPEAKER_00: I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you going to stone me?
SPEAKER_00: The Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said you are gods?
SPEAKER_00: If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, the scripture cannot be broken.
SPEAKER_00: Do you say to him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, You are blaspheming, because I said I am the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.
SPEAKER_00: But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
SPEAKER_00: He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained.
SPEAKER_00: And many came to him, and they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true, and many believed in him there, and so reads God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Well, good morning, everyone.
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to you.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Mark.
SPEAKER_02: I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_02: In the year 167 BC, so 167 years before Christ, there was a man who governed the region of Israel, Palestine, Judea, uh, the Middle East.
SPEAKER_02: And his name was Antiochus Epiphanes.
SPEAKER_02: His name meant God manifest.
SPEAKER_02: That's uh uh not a humble name.
SPEAKER_02: Uh if you he took it to himself, he said, I will be a Epiphanes.
SPEAKER_02: I am God's revelation on earth, I am God's gift to humanity.
SPEAKER_02: He was a wicked man, and uh he hated uh the Jews, he hated Jewish worship, and so in 167 he decided that he would uh make a decree, make a law basically banning the worship of Yahweh, the God of uh the Jews, the God of the Old Testament scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: He uh broke into the temple, the most sacred place in all of Judaism, and there did what you are not supposed to do.
SPEAKER_02: He sacrificed pigs, and he fed the Jewish people pork, he erected an idol to Zeus, he desecrated the temple, their most holy site.
SPEAKER_02: He wasn't just being petulant, he was trying to obliterate and outlaw the worship of God.
SPEAKER_02: And in response to uh these actions, the the Jews uh rallied together and launched a revolt that lasted about two years.
SPEAKER_02: The revolt was led by a man and his sons.
SPEAKER_02: The name of the man was Judas Maccabees.
SPEAKER_02: And the name of the revolt is known now as the Maccabean Revolt because it was led by his family.
SPEAKER_02: And during a series of military campaigns in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, he managed by against all odds to push back this Greek, Greco-Syrian army and uh and re establish Jewish rule and order in Jerusalem and in Judea.
SPEAKER_02: And in the year 165, two years later, the Jews rededicated the temple, they rededicated the altar where the burnt sacrifices would be offered, and that celebration is known as Hanukkah.
SPEAKER_02: So, any friends, fans here, I should be dressed as an armadillo right now, uh, telling you all about Hanukkah.
SPEAKER_02: But that is the story behind the Jewish feast of Hanukkah around Christmas time.
SPEAKER_02: It is celebrating this, this feast of dedication.
SPEAKER_02: The Maccabeans had restored true worship, they had dedicated themselves to God again, and it is at this we read verse 22, this feast of dedication in winter, at Christmas time, to be anachronistic about it, but at Christmas time in the winter, Jesus walks.
SPEAKER_02: You can see him there almost in your mind's eye, with his shoulders hunched, perhaps with the hood of his cloak up, walking in the colonnades.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: To shelter from the wind at the Feast of Dedication.
SPEAKER_02: Two centuries earlier, the Jews had expelled foreign invaders, drove back invading armies, and reestablished their national identity.
SPEAKER_02: But now there was another power.
SPEAKER_02: Rome was in charge during the time when Jesus walked in the colonnade of Solomon, another foreign power in their nation, in their promised land.
SPEAKER_02: And so the questions hung unanswered.
SPEAKER_02: Where was Messiah?
SPEAKER_02: Where was the man like Judas Maccabees, who would surpass the Maccabees, and would finally drive out these Gentiles from the land and give the land back to God's people.
SPEAKER_02: In this feast of dedication, those questions were in the mind of every Jew there.
SPEAKER_02: And so they see this man who has been saying extraordinary things and doing extraordinary things, walking in the colonnades, and they press in around him, they surround him, and they say to Jesus, Tell us plainly, stop messing about Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Just tell us, would you please?
SPEAKER_02: Stop playing games.
SPEAKER_02: Are you the Messiah?
SPEAKER_02: Are you God's promised king, the one who was foretold that he would come and reestablish God's rule on earth?
SPEAKER_02: Is that you?
SPEAKER_02: Tell us plainly.
SPEAKER_02: How long will you keep us in suspense?
SPEAKER_02: They say, verse 24.
SPEAKER_02: If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.
SPEAKER_02: There's a book by a guy called John Dixon who writes very pithy, um, almost kind of introduction to introductions to Christianity.
SPEAKER_02: They're worth picking up if you've uh if you're wrestling through uh questions of suffering or of the essence of Christianity, but he also wrote a book called If I Were God, I would make myself clearer.
SPEAKER_02: If I were God, I would make myself clearer.
SPEAKER_02: They're coming to Jesus and saying, tell us plainly.
SPEAKER_02: And perhaps actually, you are interacting currently with Christianity like that.
SPEAKER_02: You're like, why can't it just be clearer?
SPEAKER_02: Why does Jesus keep on sounding like Morpheus from the matrix?
SPEAKER_02: Everything is just in a bit of a riddle.
SPEAKER_02: You're in good company here with the Jews.
SPEAKER_02: So they asked, tell us plainly.
SPEAKER_02: But there's an issue behind their question, a deeper issue that is worth exploring during our time this morning, and it's the one that Jesus really addresses in his answer.
SPEAKER_02: The question, the deeper question, is what actually keeps people from faith?
SPEAKER_02: What stops people from becoming a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: Is it lack of knowledge?
SPEAKER_02: Is it lack of intellectual clarity?
SPEAKER_02: Both of those things are important.
SPEAKER_02: We are a church that prizes and values those things.
SPEAKER_02: We we want to uh to press in deep into the scriptures.
SPEAKER_02: We want people to engage their their minds, but is that really at the crux of the issue?
SPEAKER_02: Jesus' answer is surprising.
SPEAKER_02: Look at his answer to them in verse 25.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus answers and says, I told you, and you do not believe.
SPEAKER_02: The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, and you do not believe.
SPEAKER_02: He says, I told you, I have answered plainly, is what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_02: Moreover, not only have I answered you plainly, but I have shown you.
SPEAKER_02: I have backed up what I have said, I have both talked the talk and I've walked the walk.
SPEAKER_02: I've said things about myself, and I've shown you in my miraculous deeds, in my works, that I am who I said I am.
SPEAKER_02: But you do not believe.
SPEAKER_02: You see, twice, once in verse 25 and once in verse 26, but you do not believe.
SPEAKER_02: The thing that was keeping them from faith wasn't a lack of evidence, it wasn't a lack of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: There's something else going on.
SPEAKER_01: They do not believe.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelief.
SPEAKER_02: Unbelief in Jesus is much more a heart issue than it is a head issue.
SPEAKER_02: It is much more an issue of the heart than one of the intellect or of reason.
SPEAKER_02: We've already seen in John's Gospel and noted it at various points that one of the things that keeps people from believing in Jesus is that they they love themselves.
SPEAKER_02: They love receiving glory from others.
SPEAKER_02: That's uh the problem that he diagnoses with the Jewish leaders.
SPEAKER_02: He's in back in chapter five.
SPEAKER_02: He's like, How can you believe when you're too busy seeking the glory that comes from one another?
SPEAKER_02: And not seeking the glory that comes from God.
SPEAKER_02: You're too caught up with the opinions of others about your life.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what's keeping you from faith.
SPEAKER_02: Your heart is captivated by other things.
SPEAKER_02: Your heart is captivated by other glories.
SPEAKER_02: The glory of success, the glory of the affirmation or adulation of others, the glory of intimacy that comes from another human being.
SPEAKER_02: You're obsessing over those things, and your heart is captivated by them, and so you do not believe.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus pushes us further.
SPEAKER_02: And he pushes us deeper.
SPEAKER_02: And perhaps even this morning, he pushes us into a slightly uncomfortable place.
SPEAKER_02: I'll say, now this will start uncomfortable and hopefully get more comfortable, right?
SPEAKER_02: That's uh so bear with me through it if you begin to bristle.
SPEAKER_02: Because look at what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_02: What is the rationale in verse 26 for why they do not believe?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 26, but you do you do not believe because so he's going to give the reason why they don't believe, you are not part of my flock.
SPEAKER_02: You do not believe because you are not part of my flock.
SPEAKER_02: Why do the people listening to Jesus not believe?
SPEAKER_01: Because they are not one of Jesus' sheep.
SPEAKER_01: Huh.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you might say, but hold on.
SPEAKER_02: But isn't believing how you become one of Jesus' sheep?
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that the whole deal?
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that how it works?
SPEAKER_01: You believe, and then you become one of the flock, one of Jesus' sheep.
SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, here it's the other way around.
SPEAKER_01: The sheep believe.
SPEAKER_02: It's been it's been like that all the way through this chapter, it's been like that all the way through John's gospel, but even just in this chapter, what have we read?
SPEAKER_02: My sheep hear my voice and come out.
SPEAKER_02: He has sheep in the mixed fold that we talked about last week, and his sheep recognize the voice of him, the good shepherd, and they come out, they respond to him, they believe in him.
SPEAKER_01: His sheep believe, not you believe, and then you become a sheep.
SPEAKER_01: Let's push it further and try and get some clarity on this.
SPEAKER_02: If I were to ask you this morning, and maybe you can answer the question yourself in your head, if you are a Christian here this morning, if you're a believer in Jesus, ask yourself how did I become a Christian?
SPEAKER_02: How did you become a Christian?
SPEAKER_02: How did you become a follower of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: The instinct is to begin that answer with the first person, with I.
SPEAKER_02: I went to a Bible study, I was invited to church, I was brought up in a Christian home, I trusted Jesus when I was five, I put my hand up at the summer camp.
SPEAKER_01: All of those answers are wonderful, but they are all insufficient, they are all in a biblical sense incomplete.
SPEAKER_01: They do not go back far enough.
SPEAKER_01: The answer begins not with I, but with God.
SPEAKER_02: God acted to save me.
SPEAKER_02: God set his love upon me when I didn't even know his name.
SPEAKER_02: God chose me before the foundation of the world that I might be his.
SPEAKER_02: God made me one of his sheep while I was wandering in ignorance and had no idea that he was searching for me.
SPEAKER_01: And in grace he dedicated me to be one of his own.
SPEAKER_02: So that when I was five years old with my parents, or when I was at the youth camp, or when I had come to church after responding to the invite, so that God had dedicated me, and when I was in that context, I heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, and I came out and I responded in repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_01: That is how salvation works.
SPEAKER_02: Of course, I am aware that there will be people here this morning.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and one of the things that they will say to themselves, or one of the things that you're saying to yourself, is Am I a sheep?
SPEAKER_01: How do I know if I'm a sheep?
SPEAKER_01: If that's the case.
SPEAKER_01: Am I really a sheep?
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you a top tip.
SPEAKER_02: Don't look inside yourself for the answer.
SPEAKER_02: Don't go inside and go, okay, think think I gotta think myself into sheep-likeness.
SPEAKER_02: What would it mean to be a sheep?
SPEAKER_02: I've got to I've got to search here and go, am I sheepy enough for for God?
SPEAKER_02: That's not the way to answer the question.
SPEAKER_02: You don't look inside to yourself for the answer, you look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Do you hear his voice?
SPEAKER_02: And do you hear his voice as the voice of the good shepherd?
SPEAKER_02: Do you believe in him?
SPEAKER_02: Are you following him where he leads?
SPEAKER_02: Then, brother or sister in Christ, congratulations, you're a sheep.
SPEAKER_02: Don't look in.
SPEAKER_02: Look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Am I hearing his voice?
SPEAKER_02: Am I responding to the voice of the good shepherd?
SPEAKER_02: Am I following him where he leads?
SPEAKER_01: Then take heart.
SPEAKER_01: That's the hard bit of the sermon.
SPEAKER_02: Let's infuse all of this with some wonderful comfort, because there is glorious comfort in this passage for all of us.
SPEAKER_02: He gives us a wonderful encouragement to all those who are his sheep, who are following and trusting in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Because just as God acts to save us while we were still weak, Paul confirms that.
SPEAKER_02: Romans 5, verse 8, God demonstrates his love for us in this that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_02: And just as God acts to save us before we respond in faith, so also he preserves us eternally.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 28.
SPEAKER_02: I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
SPEAKER_02: And no one will snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_02: My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of his hand.
SPEAKER_02: Let's put it plainly.
SPEAKER_02: You are saved by God alone, and you are preserved until the end by God alone.
SPEAKER_02: Not in your strength or in the clarity of your faith, but the object of your faith.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, this is the ground of Christian assurance.
SPEAKER_02: If you're in the market for a tattoo, verse 28 is the one to get.
SPEAKER_02: No one will snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_02: You get it translated into Greek or something and down your forearm, like you do you.
SPEAKER_02: But this is the ground of your assurance as a believer when you're when you're anxious or fearful about the future, or you feel you maybe you're sitting here this morning, you think, I don't feel particularly sheep-like right now.
SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm clinging with feeble fingers to the ledge of God's great grace, and they're all coming apart one by one.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to remember, it's not the strength of your faith.
SPEAKER_02: It's not the extent to which you hold on to Jesus, it's the extent to which he holds on to you.
SPEAKER_02: Do you see?
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that wonderful?
SPEAKER_02: No one will ever snatch you out of his hand.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus gifts the believer life eternal, begun now, stretching into eternity.
SPEAKER_02: He says they will never perish.
SPEAKER_02: We all already looked at this back in chapter eight, where he talked about how they won't die.
SPEAKER_02: You, your physical body might cease to live, might cease to function, but not even physical death can separate you from the preserving hand of Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing can snatch them out of my hand.
SPEAKER_02: We've already seen this sort of language back in chapter six.
SPEAKER_02: All that the Father has given me will come to me, and all those who come to me I will never drive away.
SPEAKER_02: These are the verses, friends, brothers, sisters, these are the verses when that dark night descends over your soul and you're wondering, is Jesus really for me?
SPEAKER_01: Am I really his?
SPEAKER_02: You run to places like John 10, 28 and 29.
SPEAKER_02: You run to places like John 6, 37 for assurance and for rest and for comfort and for counsel.
SPEAKER_02: The truths of these verses are deep and abiding and wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: What they mean is that no tragedy, no war, no exile can displace you from the love of the savior.
SPEAKER_02: No poverty or lack can separate you from the savior's keeping.
SPEAKER_02: No sick.
SPEAKER_02: Sickness, nor sorrow, nor death can rip you from his loving embrace.
SPEAKER_01: No one will snatch them from my hand.
SPEAKER_02: The nineteenth century Bishop of Liverpool, man called JC Ryle, said this about these verses.
SPEAKER_02: He said, He says, Christ declares that his people will never perish.
SPEAKER_02: Weak as they are, they will all be saved.
SPEAKER_02: Not one of them shall be lost and cast away.
SPEAKER_02: Not one of them shall miss heaven.
SPEAKER_02: If they err, they shall be brought back.
SPEAKER_02: If they fall, they shall be raised.
SPEAKER_02: The enemies of their soul may be strong and mighty, but their Savior is mightier, and none shall pluck them out of the Savior's hand.
SPEAKER_01: Take comfort, that just as God in Christ has acted to save you, so he will keep you to the end.
SPEAKER_02: Through every trial, through every tribulation, he will see that you come through every suffering as gold refined in the fire.
SPEAKER_01: No one will snatch them from my hand.
SPEAKER_02: And how is it that the believer is unsnatchable?
SPEAKER_02: Well, we're given the answer.
SPEAKER_02: First of all, Jesus pivots to the Father, the Father has given them to me, he's greater than all, and no one can snatch them from my hand, and then verse thirty, I and the Father are one.
SPEAKER_02: The Father is greater than all, and the Father are Son, the Father and the Son are all.
SPEAKER_02: Here, friends, we could go for a little while and swim in deep theological waters, but I will restrain myself.
SPEAKER_02: What Jesus is saying is reasonably simple at a surface level.
SPEAKER_02: What he is saying here in verse thirty is that there is there is no conflict, there is no rivalry between the Father and the Son.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, there is perfect unity and harmony.
SPEAKER_01: To what end?
SPEAKER_01: To preserve sinners like us to eternity.
SPEAKER_01: God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is interested and mindful of you and preserving you until you reach that heavenly shore.
SPEAKER_01: The Father and the Son are one, united at the level of their will, their desire to preserve a people until the end.
SPEAKER_01: One in their action.
SPEAKER_01: One in their essence.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 31, the Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus answered them, I've shown you many good works from the Father, for which one of them are you going to stone me?
SPEAKER_02: The Jews answered him, It's not for the good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes there's this objection of Jesus never said he was God.
SPEAKER_02: He's doing it right here.
SPEAKER_02: The Jews understand that he's doing it right here.
SPEAKER_02: That's what blasphemy is.
SPEAKER_02: He's claiming divine status.
SPEAKER_02: He's claiming to be God and they're trying to kill him.
SPEAKER_02: Now, there's a deep irony to this, right?
SPEAKER_02: They came to Jesus back in uh verse 23 looking for clarity.
SPEAKER_02: And they got it.
SPEAKER_01: And their response, they understood what Jesus was saying, and they tried to kill him.
SPEAKER_01: This is the thing.
SPEAKER_02: If nothing else, this confirms that becoming a Christian is an issue of the heart and not of the mind.
SPEAKER_02: You can get clarity on who Jesus is and still hate it.
SPEAKER_02: You can be utterly convinced of what you should do and still absolutely reel against your actual doing of it.
SPEAKER_01: You can still have your questions answered and hate Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of the heart, not just a matter of the head.
SPEAKER_02: So they try to stone him, and uh and Jesus does a Jesus does an intriguing little um little sidestep to really kind of get them to stop long enough.
SPEAKER_02: Uh look at Jesus' defense.
SPEAKER_02: He quotes Psalm 82, and Jesus answered them, verse 34, uh Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said you are gods?
SPEAKER_02: If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken.
SPEAKER_02: Do you say of him uh him whom the father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said I am the son of God?
SPEAKER_02: Now, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_02: This is this is strange.
SPEAKER_02: This is a strange defense.
SPEAKER_02: Now, he quotes Psalm 82, where God is speaking most probably to the to the leaders of Israel who received the law on Mount Sinai.
SPEAKER_02: Back in Exodus, they came out of Egypt, they come to get the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_02: And God, in a sense, in this Psalm is speaking to them and calling them small g gods.
SPEAKER_02: Basically, what he's saying is to have my word, my revelation, my law is such a phenomenal privilege for you that it almost makes you gods to the rest of the world, to the nations.
SPEAKER_02: You are small g gods because my word has come to you.
SPEAKER_02: That's what Psalm 82 is saying.
SPEAKER_02: It's such a privilege.
SPEAKER_02: And so Jesus turns it and says, Well, if God called those guys, if God called you Jewish leaders who received the law small g gods, why do you get upset when I call myself God because I am, well, the supreme revelation of the Father, the one who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_02: Or in the language of this passage, the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world.
SPEAKER_02: Here is why I started telling you a history lesson.
SPEAKER_02: Here is why I started telling you about Antiochus Epiphanes.
SPEAKER_02: Remember his name?
SPEAKER_02: God manifest.
SPEAKER_02: What has the Father done?
SPEAKER_02: The Father has sent the Son into the world, consecrated him, and sent him as God made flesh.
SPEAKER_02: What's more, the word for consecrate here that Jesus uses is exactly the same word as the word for dedicate.
SPEAKER_02: He's saying the Father's dedicated me.
SPEAKER_02: You're here celebrating the dedication of the temple as the restoration of true worship.
SPEAKER_02: But the father's dedicated me and sent me into the world.
SPEAKER_02: In essence, he's telling the Jews, you've missed the point of Hanukkah.
SPEAKER_02: You've missed the point of the festival.
SPEAKER_02: They're celebrating the dedication of the temple, but now a better temple stands in their midst with shoulders hunched from the cold, walking in the colonnade of Solomon.
SPEAKER_02: The Father has dedicated the Son and sent him into the world.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, do you know what?
SPEAKER_02: We're far too easily distracted by shadows.
SPEAKER_02: We are far too easily distracted by shadows.
SPEAKER_02: Pornography is the shadow of intimacy.
SPEAKER_02: Your virtual life is a shadow of real connection.
SPEAKER_02: Your marriage, or those of you who long to be married, it is a shadow of the true reality of Christ in its church.
SPEAKER_02: We're so obsessed with shadows rather than what they point to.
SPEAKER_02: Religious people, more than most, love shadows.
SPEAKER_02: They love the shadows of ritual and sacrament and lose sight of all that they point to.
SPEAKER_02: Do you not come from a context?
SPEAKER_02: Are you not aware of how empty religion can become and seem and look?
SPEAKER_01: Because people become obsessed with shadows and forms rather than what they point to.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews were celebrating their liberation.
SPEAKER_02: And yet they scoffed at the one who said to them in chapter 8, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.
SPEAKER_02: They were giving thanks for the restoration of true worship, but forgot that all of the sacrifices of God, the sacrifices that God really wanted, were the sacrifices of a broken heart and a contrite spirit.
SPEAKER_02: They forgot that the Father was seeking worshippers who would worship the Father not in a place, but around a person in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_02: They rejoiced at the dedication of the temple and of its altar, and yet gazed into the face of the one in whom heaven and earth overlapped, because that's what a temple is.
SPEAKER_02: The temple is the place where heaven and earth overlap.
SPEAKER_02: And when the God man Jesus walked on this earth, heaven and earth overlapped in him, making an end to all temples.
SPEAKER_02: And they saw him, but they could not see his majesty.
SPEAKER_02: They were blinded because they were obsessed by the glory that comes from one another.
SPEAKER_02: They could not see that John the Baptist was right, way back in chapter one, that as they dedicated the altar, there would be an end to the sacrifices.
SPEAKER_02: And John the Baptist was right when he pointed at Jesus and said, Behold the Lamb of God who will take away the sin of the world.
SPEAKER_01: They were obsessed with forms and shadows and completely missed the point.
SPEAKER_02: And again, right at the end in verse 39, Jesus does another work just to show us the reader again of the miraculous nature.
SPEAKER_02: The crowd is pressing in around him.
SPEAKER_02: They were pressing in around him in chapter six to uh to make him king by force.
SPEAKER_02: The crowd who had had their bellies filled at the feeding of the 5,000 wanted to go and crown him king.
SPEAKER_02: But now there's another crowd, there's another crowd that's pressing in, but this time they're trying to kill him.
SPEAKER_02: And what do we read, verse 39?
SPEAKER_02: Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their midst.
SPEAKER_02: This miraculous slipping away.
SPEAKER_02: Again, we just have a hint, we just have a hint of the son's sovereign control of the events that are unfolding.
SPEAKER_02: That neither exaltation nor execution will happen outside of his timing, outside of his sovereign will.
SPEAKER_02: But John leaves us with a contrast, and here we finish with verse 40 and 42.
SPEAKER_02: John likes to do this.
SPEAKER_02: He did it in verses 19 and 20, where you had the main narrative and then a little kind of but here's another thing.
SPEAKER_02: That's really what's going on here.
SPEAKER_02: So he goes away, verse have a look at it with me.
SPEAKER_02: He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and he remained there.
SPEAKER_02: Many came to him, and they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true, and many believed him in him there.
SPEAKER_02: This is a contrast.
SPEAKER_02: The religious elites at the feast of dedication were celebrating.
SPEAKER_02: Celebrating shadows.
SPEAKER_01: They saw works, and yet they despised Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: And yet, across the Jordan, far away from the religious leaders, far away from the gods of Israel, there were those who saw no miraculous work.
SPEAKER_02: They simply believed in the testimony of John.
SPEAKER_01: And they dedicated themselves to following Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And many believed in him there.
SPEAKER_02: Devotion to Christ comes not simply as a result of plain answers, though we want to give them as far as we are able.
SPEAKER_01: But they are not enough.
SPEAKER_01: Nor does it come from witnessing divine works.
SPEAKER_02: They are also insufficient.
SPEAKER_02: No devotion to Christ begins with God, who acts to save us in our weakness, in our ignorance, in our folly and hard-heartedness.
SPEAKER_02: And who in his grace sets his love upon us so that when we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd calling us, we cannot help but rise and follow.
SPEAKER_02: Is Are you hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd?
SPEAKER_02: If you are, do not harden your heart against him.
SPEAKER_01: Do not hear that voice and fail to respond with repentance and faith.
SPEAKER_02: Come seek comfort in him and know the joy of his preserving and persevering love through every season of your life until you see him face to face.