Changes: Security and Performance

Plan to pause our study of the Gospel of John until next year.

Life’s Healing Choices… great time to join or start a small group study…

Learned to fish in fish pond… vacation fishing for trout… presenting the fly as a real floating bug… it sounds easy, but it’s actually pretty difficult to cast a weightless bait into rushing water and get it to float like it’s not tied to anything

That’s the sort of thing that makes me worry about some people… people who consider themselves Christians and in fact spend their lives, working hard to make their life look like the real thing with the expectation that in the end it will pay off… only it never does.

This is the last episode of Jesus’s public ministry, inviting the public to believe through his words and his deeds

Festival of dedication

Solomon’s Colonnade

It sounds like the people are very sincere… but we will see that in reality they aren’t…

How long will you keep us in suspense? It’s as though they have doubts, but that’s not the case.

Doubts and Disbelief

Jesus calls them out for disbelief… their disbelief is proved because “His” sheep:

Coaching… When does a person become a part of the team? When they join, commit to being a part. When they make the commitment, they get a uniform and the equipment… They’re expected to come to practice, to play, to follow the expectations of the team. Kids don’t show up and start practicing then get made a part of the team...

Same way with Jesus… what makes you one of His sheep? Believing.

And believing results in real changes in your life, Jesus lists them here as hearing, being known, and following.

Jesus’s sheep Hear and Follow

Hear his voice

Audibly? The Spirit of God alive in us, our helper,

John 14:26 NIV

26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 16:13 NIV

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Jesus knows them… he’s talking to you. It’s not a pa announcement

His sheep follow his voice

Doesn’t mean we are to be perfect, but are you seeking to follow him?

None of us could pass a test for perfection, but would most people look at your life and say… yep, they are trying to follow Jesus.

Over and over again He has urged these people to let His works, which have been done in His Father’s name, bear witness to who He is. But they will not submit to that kind of evidence and so it is impossible for them to hear His voice and follow Him. They are not His sheep.

…this leads to experiencing eternal life that can’t be stolen or taken away

John 10:28–29 NIV

28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

Divine Security

Belief moves us to following Jesus and that leads to eternal life. That eternal life is held for us in the hands of one who it can not be taken from.

This verse has been understood by Christians in 2 different ways, one believes that Jesus is saying that there is no way we can lose this salvation, that our salvation is secure, no matter what. The only reason a person doesn’t experience this eternal life is that one isn’t predestined to be a part of Jesus’s flock.

The other way of looking at this verse is that this salvation we are promised is trustworthy. And anyone excluded from his flock was the result of continued resistance to the Father’s voice… if they would only submit to the Father’s voice, God would give them over into the care of Jesus the Good Shepherd whose voice they would hear and follow.

It’s clear that no thief can take anything from the hands of the Father, but this passage doesn’t address the tendency of sheep to wander away.

On our FB team, when players don’t come to practice, when they don’t come to games would you say they were on the team? no

Same for a sheep of Jesus, if a sheep isn’t following the shepherd, does he belong? In the same way can you live your life any way you want if you are a follower of Jesus? This passage seems to say that they belong to a different shepherd… not Jesus because a follower of Jesus does the things that followers would do.

But as long as He is your shepherd, you are safe… eternally safe because,

I and the Father are one

This is what revealed the intent of the crowd… they had stones to kill Jesus, but knowing that they couldn't just kill him with out reason, he asked.

Which miracle are you killing me for?

They were clear, they were going to kill him for claiming to be God.

The people saw Jesus as anything but God.

That’s how many see him today… a good man; but how could he be good if he was a liar and a fraud because who claimed to be God...

That’s something for everyone to consider. But that’s not all.

John 10:37–38 NLT

37 Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work. 38 But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”

This what Jesus has been saying all along… believe the work of God you see because of me.

Miracle of healing… miracle of transformation

This is what happens when Jesus gets involved in a person’s life.

You see, Jesus wasn’t a man making himself out to be God; he was God who made himself a man.

The Jews said he was a fraud, Jesus says he is God, That leaves me with 2 questions for you.

Who do you say Jesus is?

What do you do with who you say Jesus is?

Follow him… listen for his voice