The Devil You Know

This is a lesson about narratives. Stories. What voice we allow to tell us who we are and what we believe about God and ourselves.

These voices are not just notions. Not just ideas but those voices contain the essence, the identity of the speaker. Because they are supernatural voices, they shape reality and identity. So which voice?

The Voice in My Head

The Story I Believe

The Desires I Indulge

John 8:31–47 NIV84

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.” “Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the things your own father does.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

Big Idea: The Devil you know is more is a desire than a person.

His influence is more subtle

His voice often familiar and sensible. (easy to rationalize)

My own Dads Voice: Having now lost that, trying to remember what he said, how he said it....etc.

THE BEGINNING

That God appears at time’s beginning is not too difficult to comprehend, but that He appears at the beginning and end of time simultaneously is not so easy to grasp.5

A. W. Tozer

These are believing Jews, and still THEY stumble

(discuss skandalon?)

Over what do they stumble, specifically?

How is it that they get to this place even in the face of belief.

What do they see that is not truthful?

What do they hold to that is not real?

what is is about the ‘voice’ they hear that sounds reasonable and make s them believe it?

MAIN BODY IDEA:

Track all of the main ideas of this text concept by concept and illustrate it in a slide:

“From the Beginning” the ancient narrative

The Light and Life that are promised

The dig at Jesus for “where is your dad” speaking perhaps of Josephs absence

Question his legitimacy because that dont see his Dad around.

He says he is going away, they assume suicide

“Lifting Up” is a metaphor for Roman death, not stoning.

Remember Luke 3 “Do not say ‘we have Abe as our father’”....out of these stones...

they are seed, but that is not the same as descendent...

as this Genealogy argument evolves he uses the aphorism “SON” for the first time in their presence.

He is a SON, they are illegitimate sons..and not of Abraham either

Ancestry not equal to salvation

unless it is the proper father, like the SONs is a matter of life and death, being free or enslaved.

Finally Jesus makes the issue about who we LISTEN TO AS THE DEFINITIVE OF WHOSE SON OR DAUGHTER WE ARE.

THE VOICE IN MY HEAD

The New International Version (1984) John 8:46–47

46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

the hearing issue is no aural, its linked to identity.

They hear the voice of one to whom they belong, to whom they have pledged allegiance.

THE DEVIL PUTS HIS VOICE IN MY HEAD TOO...

THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

The Devil speaks: He Tells, He gives us a set of identities, we call them ideas, but they are more powerful than ideas. they are actually latent desires, these desires drive us to action, that action is self reinforcing. And the desire for more of what we have grows, and after some time of doing this, its no longer even processed as “desire” but just “who I am”

How Temptation Works

This is the most difficult circumstance: Now I have to “destroy myself” (so I perceive) if I am to repent. This idea is in fact Biblical, but once I get into this place it is most unpalatable. Indeed it is now easier to rationalize my sins and appetites than it is to deal with them or live the cruciform life.

James 1:13-15 “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”

This is about WILL AND DESIRE.

James tells that desire creates battles for supremacy. Desires create rivalry. These rivalries are also seen

People Say Stuff, but I have to decide it is worth my time to refute

People say stuff, and I have to decide whether I believe God will make it right, if I choose to engage, I am engaging in enemy territory..I am allowing myself to fight on tainted soil.

We call it by other names. Character assassins. Slander, lies, fabrication, running people down. Gossip. It seeks some special understanding about another person that you just HAVE to share. And it’s always negative

Using lies and misinformation and misrepresentation to gain advantage over another. This is devil speech. Stop it. It creates mistrust. It sows dishonesty and distrust .

The Gospel of John John 8:41

“We are not born of unlawful intercourse,” they quickly reply.

The challenger of legitimacy. They are begging to be seen as legitimate

The desire for legitimacy or “genuineness “ are still hot buttons for most of us.

We have to remember that legitimately is not claimed, it is show by action and practice. Not by genealogy. In many ways these Jews grew up in the church, so to speak. Don’t settle for this.

Teens: the answer is not to be bored, or abandon the faith you see,,,maybe it’s to do it better and make it your own.

FALSE NARRATIVES. LIES MAYBE. BUT LETS EXPLORE.

WE KNOW BETTER

I know, indeed, the evil of that I purpose; but my inclination gets the better of my judgment.

1078.

Euripides

They had been told. This Abraham argument was entrenched. It was how they imagined their entire relationship with YHWH. It’s very hard to abandon a truth you have heard from your community for years.

Luke 3:8 NIV84

Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.

Perhaps at some point the true even becomes more

Important than GOD. Needing to be right. Needing to be part of something. Once we substitute God for these other things, the water gets cloudy pretty fast.

Let me share about how that happened to me:

New in ministry. Wanting to produce that they chose the right man. I defined this almost entirely by getting the job done. Growth etc. and when You are compensated and called there are things you ought to do and healthy work ethic is not wrong.

What I can say now 16 years later is that I did not have any sense of how God intended to shape me. I was arrogant and ignorant. I concluded that because I was asked that I was sent.

God uses the prophecy to shape the prophet. God is as interested in who I became. That impacts how he can use me later on and that includes here.

I have a specific skill set. And a POV. I’ve been shaped by all that has happened to me. I am the evangelist for you and YOU are the family for me.

Your challenges. Your history and your story will not interact with my story and become one story. I call that destiny, not ministry.

But you see without gods voice in my head, I see in two dimensions. What I do for you and what you do for me. Or even “what you do to me”!

The Jews had enough faith to believe in Jesus. But not enough of God voice in their head to make the transition from believe to Son. On one sense their family history (sins of Abraham) got in the way. Their history was louder than the voice of God.

I know this narrative. As I am starting to contemplate a life without my dad I am trying to remember what he taught me, who he was. And wasn’t. How I need to remember him and what to internalize.

THE CLOSING CHALLENGES:

Easy to believe, to agree, to be comforted by ‘knowing the things about God’ maybe we even congratulated ourselves because we have John 8:31-32 memorized?

“SATAN” it is not his “being” that we battle, but what he does to manipulate our desires that gets us into trouble.

A Scripture Based Narrative

CS Lewis quote about desires being good and from God, and manipulating them. Using our own gifts to harm us, this hurts God the most.

the voices in our head must be more powerful than the desires of our bodies or we cannot follow Jesus!

the devil murders, murders what? Murders how?

He murders our desire for God:

The more satisfaction you experience from God, while still in this world, the greater your desire for the next.

John Piper

All he says are lies: the father of all lies, all accusations, all false narratives about you, what you have done, how bad you are, why you are not measuring up....all lies....

make a list of the lies I believe about myself

SHARE: HOW I LONG TO READ WHAT MY DAD MIGHT HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT ME IN HIS JOURNALS. EVEN NOW, LONGING TO KNOW WHAT HE THOUGHT, WHTHER WHAT I THINK HE THOUGHT, OR HOPED HE THOUGHT WAS TRUE....

Carnal desire is a gulf that is never filled up.

Thomas Manton