And welcome back again.
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We're studying
the Good Shepherd.
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And Dr. Pauliene, you
know, before the break
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I was thinking about this
and I was wondering to myself
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as a pastor if I had
a congregation to flock
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and for some reason
whatever happened I lost my job,
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I was told I couldn't be paid.
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I was thinking would I
still shepherd the flock?
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Would I do what
I was doing before?
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Would my passion for the sheep,
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for my sheep be the same
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as before when I
was getting paid?
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Would it be the
same without pay?
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And I think that--
that is a great tests,
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it's a great test for
those who do shepherd the flock
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and its--that's a great
responsibility isn't it?
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And I think that
should probably be
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a searching of
our own hearts to see,
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you know, where
do I stand with that?
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Will I truly
shepherd Gods flock?
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And eventually this is
the-- what Jesus is saying,
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you know, our responsibility
is to that Good Shepherd.
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You know, what do you think?
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Ah, it's that's beautiful.
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You know we don't
want to be the hired end,
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you know, and the story here
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and Jesus speaks
powerfully to our hearts.
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You know, the structures of
religion are beautiful thing.
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In that they're put there
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in order to further the
work of God to strengthen it,
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to take it places it couldn't go
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without some structure,
without some organization.
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The problem is
whenever you set up a structure
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it's tempting for
that to become the focus.
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You can see it, you can hear it,
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you can touch
it. See it's there.
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It's within the five senses.
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The tendency is know
to focus on the structure
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rather than on
John's spiritual vision,
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the deeper thing.
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Even when Jesus was there,
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there was a
tendency to focus on Him.
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What He could give them?
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He could bring us
bread. He can bring us water.
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You know, He can do
all these things for us
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and to loose side of
the deeper spiritual mission
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that was a reason
that He truly came.
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So I think this
Good Shepherd story--
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you're right it as
challenge us very, very deeply.
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Because if Jesus
was willing to die
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or He will die for His
sheep and without any pay
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or anything
like that we see here
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how the Pharisees
cast it out a blind man
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and they were the blind ones.
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They were supposed to be
the Shepherd of God's people,
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Gods flock and they were--
won't you say that they were in
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the wolf and sheep's clothing
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that Jesus is
talking about. Yeah.
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And that's why we can make sense
now that we read chapter 21,
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where He starts with
I'm the Good Shepherd.
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That's powerful, that's amazing.
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That's right. That's right.
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So He challenges us to
the depth of our being,
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this is the
Gospel of John calls us
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to go deeper then
we otherwise would.
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Now in chapter 10 after He gives
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that discourse
on the Good Shepherd
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what would be the
second half of that chapter?
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Starts in verse 22
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and why don't
you read 22 and 23?
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"Now was the Feast of
Dedication in Jerusalem
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and it was winter,
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and Jesus walked in the
temple in Solomon's porch.
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Then the Jews surrounded Him
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and said to Him 'How
long do You keep us in doubt?
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If You are the
Christ tell us plainly.'"
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So, did you know that Hanukkah
was in the New Testament?
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I didn't know
that. What is Hanukkah?
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Well it's the
Feast of Dedication.
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This is the Feast of
Dedication and its winter.
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You see, the only
one of Jewish feasts
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that is in winter is
the Feast of Dedication.
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It comes around Christmas
time in the western countries.
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Now so this is
two or three months
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after the story of the
Good Shepherd and so on.
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So we made a jump now,
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we've gone a
considerable period of time.
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And you say what is
doing in the New Testament?
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The Feast of
Hanukkah, the Feat of Dedication
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was founded about
200 years before this.
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So it's not an
Old Testament feast.
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To say why
would Jesus come here?
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Because the Feast of Dedication
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builds on Old
Testament background as well.
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For example, when the
temple the Tabernacle of Moses
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was put
together it was dedicated
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and you see that
in Exodus Chapter 40.
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So you had a dedication there
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and the Greek
word there is engkainia
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which means
dedication, so that occurs there
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and the Greek version of that.
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When Solomon
finished the temple,
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that was a dedication
service once again there
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and that's like a thousand
years before the time of Jesus.
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In Ezra Chapter 6
there's a dedication
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of Zerubbabel temple
after the return from Babylon.
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Once again in Nehemiah
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it tells of another
dedication that occurred there.
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And then the fifth
one would be the one
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that the Jews celebrate
with the Hanukkah feast
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and that is when the Maccabees
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who drive the Syrian out
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and restore the temple and
start the sacrifices again.
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They had a dedication service.
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That was the first
of the Hanukkah feast.
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So the Hanukkah
feast really looks back
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on a whole series
of temple dedications.
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But more then that
in the New Testament
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you have Jesus as a baby.
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He is taken to the temple
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and He is
dedicated in the temple.
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So Jesus Himself
had this dedication.
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Then at the baptism of Jesus
He's dedicated for His mission.
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Now here He attends
the Feast of Dedication.
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In the Book of Hebrews it
talks about the dedication
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of the Heavenly Sanctuary.
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And then finally in
the Book of Revelation
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God Himself appears in
person in the New Jerusalem.
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So the dedication of the
temple in the Old Testament
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was when God
Himself would come down
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and be a living
presence in the temple.
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That's extended to Jesus
that in the coming of Jesus,
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the temple of God is among us.
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The glory of God has
entered a human body,
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and so Jesus own
body is a temple.
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In Matthew, He stands
in front of people and say
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something greater than
the temple is standing here.
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The only thing that
was greater than the temple
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was the glory of God
that was inside that temple
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and made it a temple.
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So when Jesus said something
greater than the temple
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is standing here He
means the Shekinah Glory
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is present in His body.
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So this Feast of Dedication
is brought in here by John
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because it is a powerful
message about who Jesus is.
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He is truly God. He
is the Logos come down.
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He is God revealed among us
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and in Jesus we see
the living representation
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of every thing
that the temple meant.
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So the Feast of
Dedication basically celebrates
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the dedication of
the original temple.
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When Jesus comes to that feast
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He is saying that
the true dedication
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is occurring in My presence.
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Jesus Himself is the one who
dedicated those earlier temples
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and now He comes to the temple
at the Feast of Dedication.
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And those questions I ask him
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how long will
you keep us in doubt,
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if you're the Christ why
don't you tell us plainly.
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Did--was Jesus keeping
them in doubt or what? Yeah.
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Well, I think
that the reality here
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is that as the Messiah,
Jesus has come to represent God,
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but for the Jews
not the Samaritans,
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for the Jews Messiah meant
a military political leader.
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He would have taken the
religion where it wanted to go.
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You know, there's
the serving of money
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and power and
all the rest of that.
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So He didn't want to
admit to the term Messiah,
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because they miss used it.
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Instead He uses the son of man
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which is the
figure drawn from Daniel
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one who was with
God in the beginning
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and who takes up the
position of Adam on this earth.
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Jesus fits that role so
He calls Himself son of man.
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But Messiah in their
thinking was not exactly
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what He aspired to be.
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And in verse 25
He does answers this,
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I told you, but
you don't believe.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Well, because
they didn't believe
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the kind of
Messiah He was. Right.
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They were looking for a king.
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They were looking
for a military general.
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But in John 6 He shows
what kind of Messiah He is.
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He's someone
that gives His flesh
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and His blood to eat and drink.
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And you remember at the
end of John 6 they're saying,
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you know, who can handle
this? This is the hard saying.
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You know we got to get out here.
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This guy is not
what we thought He was.
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So as people find out
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who Jesus is really some
will choose to follow Him
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but others will resist.
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And it seems
that in their hearts
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they deliberately
did not want to believe
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because it seems
in verse 25 is exactly
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what the blind man said.
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You know, I already told you
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who He'll mean and
you don't want to believe.
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And Jesus says,
I already told you
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and you don't believe.
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So they already set in
the hearts that decision
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that okay this is not the
one we're looking for? Yeah.
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And that's why they planned
to murder him, all right.
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That's why it's so important
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that we not simply
play on the surface,
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it isn't obvious
that Jesus is God.
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You know, think about this,
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the moment that God
wants to communicate to us
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and sends us
Himself in a human form
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that very human form
causes us to focus on the human
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and not on the divine.
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So it's critical to understand
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that Jesus truly
did come from God.
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And it gives us
number of things.
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First of all through Jesus
we know what God is really like.
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He's not a big powerful
bully like all the Pagan Gods
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but rather He's
one who would come
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and sacrifice
Himself for His creation.
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That's an amazing thing
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when we stop
and think about that
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He would sacrifice
Himself for His creation.
00:11:05.38\00:11:08.28
And when you
see that kind of God
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one of two things
is going to happen.
00:11:10.63\00:11:12.76
The one possible
is you look at that
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and say, I don't want of
anything to do with that.
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I want to be big
shot in this world.
00:11:18.13\00:11:20.23
I want to have money.
00:11:20.26\00:11:21.53
I want to have sex.
I want to have power.
00:11:21.56\00:11:23.28
I want to have all
the goodies, you see.
00:11:23.31\00:11:25.65
And so we might
react in that way.
00:11:25.68\00:11:27.44
But there are
some who when they see
00:11:27.47\00:11:30.67
what God is really
like a charm by that
00:11:30.70\00:11:33.81
and I say that is what
I really aspired to be.
00:11:33.84\00:11:37.29
That is who I want to be.
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And if I become more like Jesus
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I will be attaining
the purpose of my life.
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So when we know what
God is really like in Christ
00:11:44.98\00:11:48.51
the two paths become
very stark and very clear.
00:11:48.54\00:11:51.94
Well Dr. Pauliene, I
think we run out of time.
00:11:51.97\00:11:54.95
We want to thank you,
again for being with us.
00:11:54.98\00:11:57.29
We're not finished
with the Gospel of John.
00:11:57.32\00:11:58.80
We still have
almost half of book left.
00:11:58.83\00:12:01.65
And so friends,
join us next time
00:12:01.68\00:12:03.66
as we continue to read
together the Gospel of John
00:12:03.69\00:12:06.59
and remember to accept
Christ as you personal Savior.
00:12:06.62\00:12:09.25
He is the Good Shepherd,
00:12:09.28\00:12:10.65
a light to truth and
the way. Till next time.
00:12:10.68\00:12:12.74