John 8:12-59 - Finders Keepers
Main Idea: Believe and obey Jesus, and find everything you truly need in Him.
Find direction and purpose for your life in Jesus. (vs. 12-30)
Find freedom from your sin in Jesus. (vs. 31-36)
Find an Everlasting Father through Jesus. (vs. 37-47)
Find eternal life in Jesus, God the Son. (vs. 48-59)
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
Today, we are continuing in our study of John 5 through 10 called Pick A Side. And we've been seeing how John highlights for us within these chapters of scripture, that when Jesus was here on earth, he was not universally loved.
Sometimes people today, they think of Jesus and they think great moral teacher, they think wonderful example for your life and mine. They don't tend to think of him as particularly controversial.
However, as we have seen, I believe this is message number seven-ish. Oh, actually, I think it might. Oh, it's right there.
This is message number seven in 5 through 10. We've seen over and over and over again, that though Jesus was good and Jesus was perfect, people didn't know quite what to do with him. And some people received him gladly.
You have Peter saying at the end of chapter number six, like, Lord, where else are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life. Other people wanted to try and kill Jesus.
And we saw in chapter five, as it starts off with Jesus healing a man that could not walk for 37 years and heals him on the Sabbath day.
And the religious leaders of the time, instead of saying, God is here, God is doing miracles in our midst, instead the response was, He can't do that. That's illegal.
You can't, if you will, you can't magically heal people on a day you're not supposed to work.
And instead of them recognizing who Jesus was and what he had come to do, which was to deliver us, to save us, to bring us into the kingdom of his father, they were too busy insisting on their own kingdom.
And so today, as we are in chapter 8 in verses 12 through 59, today's message is entitled, Finders Keepers, Finders Keepers. Hopefully it's been a long time since some of you have had to hear the phrase, Finders Keepers.
It's a great rule when you're a kid and you see something you like, and you go, this is awesome. I've always wanted a, you know, I'll age myself a little bit for some of you and way underage myself for others of you.
Oh man, this Nintendo DS, this is amazing. I've always wanted one. Finders Keepers for other of you.
You would really not like it if anyone in this room played Finders Keepers with your stuff today. You know, for me, if, end of service, I'm there, I'm greeting guests, and one of you walks up to the platform and you're like, Oh, I like this Bible.
Finders Keepers. I'd be like, Oh, come on. That was mine.
Finders Keepers are normally not a good thing. But today we are going to look at something that we can find that God intends for us to keep, something we are encouraged to keep forever.
Specifically today, we are encouraged to believe and obey Jesus and find everything we truly need in him. Believe and obey Jesus and find everything you truly need in him.
Jesus has been disputing with the religious leaders, Galilean citizens and Jerusalem temple worshipers over his identity in these past couple of chapters and chapter eight is no exception.
However, in today's verses, Jesus also declares that the most fundamental needs that you and I have in life can be met through a lifelong relationship with him as our Lord and Savior.
That you and I have needs as human beings, that Jesus intends for us to find those needs met through a relationship with him. Let's pray. We'll walk through our passage and discover what those incredible needs we can find met through Jesus are.
Dear Lord, thank you for this morning. Lord, thank you for the singing for the time of worship devoted to you. Lord, I pray for every person that's here today, God, that we would have a heart and a desire to hear from you.
God, I pray that for every person that's here today, that they would be sensitive to your voice speaking through your word.
Lord, if there's someone here today that does not know you as Savior, they do not know that if they died today, that heaven would be their home. God, I pray that they would get that settled today.
Lord, we ask that you would be glorified in your church. Lord, be with my words. Help me to only say what you want me to and nothing more.
Love you, Lord, and we pray all this in your name. Amen. We're going to see four specific needs that we can find met in Jesus today.
And the first of these in verses 12 through 30 of the passage is that we can find direction and purpose for your life in Jesus. Find direction and purpose for your life in Jesus. Let's begin in verse number 12.
And hey, Jimmy, I'm going to do something really random for you today. Hey, can you click through my verses for me today? Bless you.
Thank you. So let's read through together. Jesus spoke to them again.
So these are the temple worshipers. They're gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles, which was remembering how God had provided for Israel in the wilderness journey. We've heard Jesus declare himself to be the bread of life.
He says, I am the sustenance from God that you truly need for your soul. And in verse number 12, Jesus says, I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.
So the Pharisees said to him, you're testifying about yourself. Your testimony is not valid. They're saying you can't call as a witness for this, if you will, this judgment trial of who Jesus really is.
Jesus' star witness can't be Jesus. They say you're testifying about yourself. Your testimony is invalid.
But Jesus says, even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true because I know where I came from and where I'm going. In effect, I came from heaven to earth to show the way, as the old song says, and I know that I am going back to heaven.
You can trust me because I am God. He says, but you don't know where I come from or where I'm going. He says, you don't understand who I am.
Verse 15, you judge by human standards. I judge no one. We talked about this at length last week, making the right judgment call here.
When Jesus says, I judge no one, Jesus is saying this, I have not made final determination and said, this person, they're lost forever. This situation, it's done with. Jesus says, that's not how I am interacting.
Even as we would read in John 3, the son of man did not come into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world through him might be saved.
And he says, you guys are making final determination on who I am and what I'm capable of based on where I'm from in Galilee.
He says, you're making a determination on me based on whether I line up with your religious structure and not on whether or not I am pointing you to what the scripture says and that I am pointing you to God.
Verse number 16, Jesus says, if I do judge, my judgment is true because it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me.
Jesus says, if I'm going to issue a final declaration, I'm God, that's my prerogative, and I'm also not doing it alone, but the Son and the Father are agreed in what they say.
Verse 17, even in your law, it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. He says, I am the one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me. He says, you want your witnesses?
I give you God the Son and God the Father, and they both say that this message is accurate. Verse 19, then they asked him, where is your father?
They're thinking some earthly guy who, I don't know if they're saying, okay, well, I guess if he's really impressive, then maybe we'll listen to Jesus. They don't understand. He's not talking about an earthly father.
He's talking about the heavenly father. Verse 19, he says, you know neither me nor my father, Jesus answered. If you knew me, you would also know my father.
John would echo this then in 1 John 2, 3, 4 and 5, where he would say, to know Jesus is to know God the father. And you cannot know, you cannot have an experiential knowledge or relationship with God the father outside of the person of Jesus Christ.
John chapter 1 deals with that at length, that Jesus is the one that has revealed the father to us, that we understand how the father thinks and his love for us and the depths to which he will sacrifice even his own life to be reconciled to us.
Verse number 20, he spoke these words by the treasury while teaching in the temple, but no one seized him because his hour had not yet come. I do find it interesting.
This gives the physical location of where Jesus is teaching, but I also notice here Jesus was God's treasure. The temple treasury wasn't made to be filled with just the treasures of humanity.
It was meant to be filled with the presence of God himself. And God, the light of the world was there, the light to shine into the darkness when people didn't know what God wanted from them, how they could receive salvation.
When they didn't know what their future or when they died, what would happen to them. Jesus came to illuminate the path. He came to be a light that would be followed.
And they were missing it. They missed the treasure of God even as he was standing by the treasury. It says, no one seized him.
They didn't take him to be killed because it was not yet time for Christ to die on our behalf for sin. Verse 21, then he said to them again, 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.
This is slightly better than last week where when Jesus said, where I'm going, you can't come. If you will, Jesus says, I'm going to return to heaven. And right now in your state of unbelief and rejection of the Messiah, you can't go to heaven.
You can't go to where I'm going. They didn't understand. And so last week they asked themselves, is he going to go to like where all of the Jews are scattered?
Is he going to Europe? That cracked me up last week that they're like, he's not going to Europe, is he? Cause we can't go there.
And now they begin to understand a little bit more. Jesus is saying, I'm going to pass on. And when I do so, you can't follow me in your current state of unbelief.
Verse 23, Jesus clarifies, he says, you are from below. You are from the earth. He told them, I am from above.
I am from heaven. 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. I love hearing this verse.
Jesus doesn't say, well, you're just toast. There's no hope for you. Like, see you never.
Instead, Jesus says, if you don't believe that I am the Messiah, then you will die in your sins. God's desire is not that anyone would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.
Everyone would recognize that Jesus is God, that he paid the price for our sin in full on the cross, and that everyone who turns to him in faith, everyone that believes in Jesus, will find everlasting life and forgiveness and freedom.
Verse number 25. They respond to him, who are you? Exactly what I've been telling you from the very beginning, Jesus told them.
I have many things to say and to judge about you, but the one who sent me is true, and what I've heard from him, these things I tell the world. They did not know he was speaking to them about the father.
So Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, verse 28, 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 gospel writers often reference here the lifting up of the Son of Man. This would be Jesus placed on the cross.
This would bring to mind two things, one Jesus highlighted for us in John 3, where he talks about the serpent in the wilderness that Moses lifted up, and all of the Israelites that had been bitten and were poisoned by snakes in the wilderness,
everyone that looked on the bronze serpent that was lifted up on a stick, everyone that looked would live. And so Jesus says, when you look to Jesus in faith, believing that God will save you and forgive you, God will do so.
The other thing that it would bring to mind would be from Daniel 7, and we're going to go over Daniel 7 through 12 in July. Sermon series affectionately titled Apocalypse in July, as we look at God's, if you will, unveiling of history as he sees it.
The son of man in Daniel 7 is the one that, from all of the chaos of this world's governments, he's the one that reigns victorious, and he is lifted up all the way into the throne room of God, and he reigns alongside the father.
So, Jesus here is making it very explicit. You find salvation in me. I am the king of the entire world.
They asked probably somewhat sarcastically, who are you? And he gives them a definite literal answer. Then verse 29, the one who sent me is with me.
He has not left me alone because I always do what pleases him. And this is true for Jesus, and it is true for us.
If you have accepted the Lord Jesus as your Savior, the one who sent you, the one who saved you, the one who bled and died for you is with you each moment. There is not one second of your existence that the Lord Jesus is not right by you.
That's hard for us to think about, especially when we go through difficulties, hardships, relational difficulties, health battles. We go, God, where are you? And we don't realize He is right there with us.
Even as Jesus told the Apostle Paul before he became the Apostle Paul and was a persecutor of Christians named Saul of Tarsus, he told Saul, why are you persecuting me? That as Saul harmed individual Christians, Jesus felt their pain.
I want you to know, whatever pain that you're going through right now, Jesus knows. He's not a stranger to the difficulties in your life. And He is with you in each and every moment.
And He has not left you alone. Oh, but I love this. But it's not because you always do what pleases God.
It's because Jesus always did what pleases God. And because Jesus was perfect, you and I can have a relationship with God, though we are imperfect. Verse number 30, as he was saying these things, many believed in him.
We're going to see in the following verses, this is a superficial belief right at first. They go, oh yeah, I think there might be something really special about this man.
As we get to the following verses, we're going to see that doesn't stick around for a whole long time for some reasons. But today we can find direction and purpose for our life in Jesus.
Jesus had a specific direction and purpose while he was on earth. And he offers you direction and purpose for your life as well. His purpose was to obey God and to tell others what God says and show them what God is like.
Your life purpose is also to obey God, to tell others what God says and to show them what God is like.
A life pointed towards obeying God and making him known is less specific than we would like, but it's also far more specific than is comfortable for us. We want a specific house, job, spouse, retirement age, etc.
God wants the fruit of the spirit in our lives, love, joy, peace, patience, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. And he wants us to make disciples.
In that, we go, all right, God, I just want you to like give me an answer right now. What's supposed to be my next step? Where do I apply?
God's like, well, that's not really as important as how you treat your family member. Okay, well, God, I just, I really, really need you to make clear, like, is this the person I'm supposed to marry or should I break up with them?
God goes, it's not really about that. It's about the relationship. It's about the how you get there more than the destination itself.
Frankly, that then changes our prayers. That we are less insistent on God, give me the outcomes that I want, but it's God, I can pray for some outcomes, but would you shape me into who I need to be in your estimation once I get wherever I'm going?
Today, are you looking for God to guide you to a spot, but not tell you how to get there? Let's focus on how God wants us to live. In Psalm 119, David would write, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
This is what Jesus illuminates for us. He shows us how to live using the words from the late 1800s writer and then his grandson who wrote an updated version of it in the 1900s. What would Jesus do?
That's our light, that's our example. Jesus didn't just illuminate the world so we could see nice things about God. He illuminated the path so that we would walk and follow him in faith and obedience to the Lord.
Want to know how to deal with your wayward kid? Jesus isn't going to give you the perfect script to win them back to instant obedience or perfection, but he will show you how to interact with them and what to do or not to do as you go.
Second specific need that we find met in Jesus is you can find freedom from your sin in Jesus. You see this in verses 31 through 36 of the passage.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in, if you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
So here, there's an initial belief, or if you want to look at it in light of the full New Testament, there's belief, but there's not yet a repentance, a following of Jesus, a recognition or an action of following Jesus as Lord.
So they believe something about Jesus, but now Jesus calls them to action. He says, if you believe that I am the Messiah, continue in my word, walk as I am walking, and the truth of God will set you free. They take a little umbrage to that, right?
Listen, I'm fine believing in you, but what do you mean I'm going to be made free? Verse 33, we are descendants of Abraham, they answered him, and we have never been enslaved to anyone. How can you say you will become free?
They take this as some sort of personal affront. Verse 34, Jesus responded, truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.
Everyone who commits sin, that is anything we think, say, or do that goes against God's law, his character, his very nature. And everyone who commits sin is enslaved to sin. It tells you what to do, and you have no choice other than to follow sin.
Verse 35, a slave does not remain in the household forever, but a son does remain forever. And how slavery worked there in kind of first century Rome, it wasn't like the Chateau slavery that we had in America and England and other parts of the world.
You could, after a certain amount of time, you could buy your freedom out from slavery in the Roman world. And so having a slave wasn't a perpetual state. It was something people were in for a little bit of time.
They'd maybe gotten into debt. Maybe their people group had been conquered by the Roman Empire. And so they were taken away to be slaves for an amount of time before purchasing their freedom back.
And so he says a slave doesn't get to stick around. They're not staying around. He says, but the son does remain forever.
God does not want you to just be in relationship with him for perhaps a prayer at an altar. He doesn't just want you to get baptized and then never darken the doors of a church again. God wants to live with you forever.
Every day of your life, he wants to be with you in each moment. And so here Jesus is calling them to a life of following Jesus, not just the initial choice or decision to believe in Jesus and receive salvation with him as the Messiah.
But he's saying live with God in mind. Verse 35, sorry, 36. So if the sun sets you free, you really will be free.
Today, your sin traps you. It eats away at your soul and your mind. It poisons and destroys your relationships and friendships.
And it convinces you that you are absolutely fine and justified in doing so. But here's Jesus' truth. Your yelling and arguing and anger does not make you right or respected.
It makes you isolated and feared. Your sexual immorality isn't getting you closer to your partner.
It's tricking you into thinking you are secure and emotionally connected with someone that is not committed to you and will not love you like Jesus wants your spouse to. But there is freedom in Jesus.
As we follow God's word, we find answers for how to say no to the sin that destroys us. We find his grace, his power and ability to say no through his Holy Spirit. You don't have to be the liar anymore.
You don't have to stay in your addiction. You can be kind with your words. How?
Because who the son sets free is free indeed. So today we can find direction and purpose in Jesus. We can find freedom from our sin in Jesus.
Thirdly, we can find an everlasting father through Jesus. See this in verses 37 through 47. Jesus says, I know you are descendants of Abraham.
He says, I know you are an Israelite, you're a Jew. And at that point in time, you know, God's chosen people.
He says, but just because you're descended physically from Abraham doesn't mean that you have a relationship with God just because of who your great-great-great-great-grandfather was. He says, you have to personally know and walk with God.
He says, you are trying to kill me because my word has no place among you. Verse 38, I speak what I've seen in the presence of the father. So then you do what you have heard from your father.
Verse 39, our father's Abraham, they replied. If you were Abraham's children, Jesus told them, you would do what Abraham did. Now, beginning of this year, we spent like 13, 14 weeks looking at the life of Abraham.
And we saw Abraham was imperfect, but over and over and over again, God said, hey, here's the promise that I'm making. And Abraham said, okay, I believe it. I don't know how it's gonna work, but I'll believe it.
And he followed and he obeyed and he listened to the voice of God when God spoke to him. Here, Jesus is speaking to them. God himself is speaking to these people and they are not listening.
And instead of listening, they say, because he says he's the son of God, we're going to find a way to kill him. So Jesus says, you may be Abraham's physical descendants, but you are not his spiritual descendants.
Verse 40, but now you're trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. Verse 41, you're doing what your father does.
Jesus says, you have a spiritual father when you do not accept Jesus as savior. Your spiritual father outside of a relationship with God is Satan. Verse number 41, we weren't born of sexual immorality.
They said, we have one father, God. They basically say, we're not illegitimate children. We aren't from outside of the covenant community of Israel.
So they say God is our father because we're physically descended from Abraham. Jesus says to them, verse 42, if God were your father, you would love me. If you love God, you love God's kids.
You say that with me? If you love God, you love God's kids. Let's do that one more time.
If you love God, you love God's kids. Okay. I'm human.
Sometimes I get frustrated with God's kids. I am frustrating. Sometimes God's kids get frustrated with me.
But if we love God, we love God's kids. Nowhere is that more true than if you claim to have a relationship with God. It comes through Jesus or not at all.
You do not get to have any sort of everlasting hope while rejecting the source of hope in life, which is Jesus Christ. He says, I came from God, and I am here. For I didn't come on my own, but He sent me.
Some people have gotten confused and they think, okay, Jesus loves us, but God the Father, like He's just the angry one and He judges. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The whole Trinity was involved in the plan of salvation, that the Father planned it from the very beginning. We would read that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
We would read that Jesus, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat on the right hand of the throne of God.
And we would read that the Holy Spirit is the one that, in the moment of salvation, He regenerates us. He makes us new. He baptizes.
He places, He immerses us into the family of God, into the body of Christ, so that we are a part of His family forever. Jesus didn't go on a rogue journey, but the Father sent the Son to declare His love to the world.
Verse 43, 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.
When you encounter people that say that there are alternate means to heaven other than the finished work of Jesus Christ, that is a lie from the Father of lies. One that would tell you to look outside of Jesus for salvation.
When there's someone that says, I can just live my life and as long as my good outweighs my bad, at the end of it, I'll be okay. No, that is Satan attempting to send you straight to destruction and death and hell.
No, my friend, there is salvation found in no one other than Jesus. We must listen to him. Verse 46, who among you can convict me of sin?
If I'm telling the truth, why don't you believe me? He says, look at my track record.
See if I have ever lied to you, if I have ever extorted anyone, if I've ever cheated anyone out of anything, if I have ever been profane or crude in what I'm saying. He says, none of you have ever seen me sin and yet you're not listening to me.
Verse 47, the one who is from God listens to God's words. This is why you don't listen because you are not from God. Here, there's an important part here.
The one who is from God listens to God's words. First and foremost, this is talking about Jesus. Jesus is from God.
He listens to what God says. If you today are a professing Christian, we gotta listen to all of this. We can't just listen to the parts that are nice.
We can't just listen to the parts that are comforting. We need the parts that say, hey, Bryon, you're really messing up here. You gotta apologize for that.
You gotta stop doing that. You gotta follow this. If we claim to know and love God, then let us be people of the Book.
We listen to the words of our Father. And the ones that do not listen to God, it is because they have not received new life in Jesus.
So sometimes, as we're witnessing to people, there are a couple of people even online right now that I've been in some communication with, and they are not Christians at this point in their life.
But in my head, I'm not like, oh, they're just so stupid. My prayer is, Lord, they're not listening to you yet because they're not believers, because they don't have you as their father. They're not from you yet.
And so I'm asking, Lord, would you save these individuals and help them to know you? To listen to Jesus, to accept what he says and follow it, is to become a child of God. You have the son, you become a child of God.
We definitely don't have time to go into everything that being a child of God entails. There's just a few highlights that I'll mention. When you pray, it's not some random transcendent being that is hearing you.
It is your heavenly dad. If what you are asking for will be ultimately good for you, for your soul and for you in eternity, there is nothing that God will withhold from you.
And if there is something in your life that God has not given you yet, realize that just because my two and a half year old Evelyn wants a lollipop at lunchtime and I tell her, no, it doesn't mean that I don't want what's good for her or that I don't
love her. It just might be the right gift at the wrong time. Or God might have a better gift that he is wanting us to be asking for, but we can trust our father.
And number two, if God is our father, if we're a child of God, you can't unbecome someone's child. B and F, like they're mine. I'm stuck with them.
Like I can disavow them, but you take a DNA test and it's coming right back to me. And they're like, yep, he belongs to them. You cannot unbecome someone's child.
You can never be unberthed. If you are truly a child of God, that is an eternal state. The fact that you are a child of God means that he is intentionally by his choice stuck with you forever.
And it's not based on your performance or your perfection. It's based on Jesus' performance and Jesus' perfection. Which leads us to the last need today that we find met in Jesus, which is that we can find eternal life in Jesus, God the Son.
Picking up in verse 48, the Jews responded to him to all of this, that he says, I'm the Messiah. You have to listen to me. You have to listen to the heavenly father.
If you don't listen to my words, you are not from God. You are listening to Satan. Satan is your spiritual father.
I'm calling you from death to life. The Jews respond to him, aren't we right in saying that you're a Samaritan and have a demon? The Samaritans were an incredibly hated people group.
There was a lot of racial animosity and hatred towards the Samaritans from the Jews. And they say, you are demon possessed. You are outside of your mind, and you are from a racial group that we do not like.
This is not a godly response. If your response to someone talking to you is that you call them a racial slur, and you say you're out of your mind, that is probably an indication that you are not walking the right path. Don't be like these guys.
Verse 49, I do not have a demon, Jesus answered. On the contrary, I honor my father, and you dishonor me. Verse 50, I do not seek my own glory.
There is one who seeks it and judges. He says, I'm not worried right now about like my reputation or my greatness. There is someone who does care about it and who does judge those that are not honoring Jesus.
Verse 51, truly, I tell you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. To treasure and love and follow the word of God, the gospel of Jesus means that you will experience eternal life. You will never see death.
Verse 52, again, not understanding. The Jews said, now we know you have a demon. Abraham died and so did the prophets.
And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death. They say, if following God's word meant that you are never going to die, then all of these other individuals that we look up to in the faith, they would still be alive right now.
But again, Jesus isn't talking about the physical and the here and now. He's talking about the spiritual, that there will be no spiritual death, but you will experience everlasting life.
The Jews in verse 53 say, are you greater than our father Abraham who died and the prophets died? Who do you claim to be? Verse 54, if I glorify myself, Jesus answered, my glory is nothing.
My father, about whom you say he is our God, he is the one who glorifies me. You don't know him, but I know him. If I were to say to you, I don't know him.
I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.
What kind of day? Like we walked through the whole life of Abraham. When did Abraham see what was going to happen?
It's right from the very beginning in Genesis 12, when God told Abraham that from Abraham's descendants, all the nations of the world would be blessed. God's plan has never been to just save one race, one nation, one group of people.
Instead, God is after those from every nation and tribe and language, that he would save the world that has gone its own path and gone towards destruction. God wants to save every person.
So Abraham, when he heard the promises of God, when he heard about those descendants like the stars in the sky and like the sand on the sea, he believed God and he believed that God was able to bring life even out of death, as we saw in the story of
Abraham and Isaac. The Jews replied, verse 57, you weren't 50 years old yet and you've seen Abraham. They knew the timeline, the chronology didn't quite match up.
And so they said, listen, you're maybe we would know at this point, probably somewhere around 30, 31, maybe push in 32 years old. And Jesus says in John 8 58, truly I tell you before Abraham was, I am. Okay.
I don't think as I look out across the room, I don't think many of you are Jewish people. This would be a shockingly startlingly blasphemous statement to them. It's a phrase, I am.
This is what God declared his name to be to Moses from the burning bush. I am Yahweh, Jehovah. I am that I am.
And here Jesus says, I am transcendent. Even before Abraham's existence, I am God. Unfortunately, verse 59, so they picked up stones to throw at him.
They want to kill him. This is actually, as you look at Jewish history, not the first time that a godly person had been threatened with stoning. This happened to Moses.
This happened to David. This happened to a couple of the prophets as well, that people, when they got upset at what these prophets were saying, they would attempt to kill them. It says, but Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple.
Find eternal life in Jesus, God the Son. I've gone over it many times today, but I'll give this one final paragraph for you. God loves you, created you for a relationship with him.
You have lived your life in your own wisdom and weighed down by your sin, and you are headed for destruction on your own. But Jesus came and died in your place and he rose again. And now your sins can be forgiven.
Now you can have the relationship with God that he made you for, and you can live your life according to his wisdom with his spirit and his people. And you'll be with him for all eternity.
If you have any questions about that, I would love to talk with you at any time. Any of our elders would be thrilled to speak with you.
If you're here today with a friend or a family member, I know they would love to tell you about how they accepted Jesus as their Savior. Today, you have heard about the most valuable thing in existence.
A relationship with God the Father through Jesus Christ, which results in us finding direction and purpose, freedom from sin, an everlasting Father, and eternal life. Today, will you choose to keep what you have found?
Will you choose to believe and obey Jesus and find everything you truly need in Him?
