A Plea To Return

Introduction

Issue of authority… “Not my president”, Russia and Ukraine (sovereign nation or should be committed to old alliances by force)… an idea we can still relate too.

In our Scripture this morning… authority is the issue at hand and it is determined based on promise, based on family. The Jews say, “we’re of Abraham” and Jesus says, “I am of God”. Jesus takes it one step further and tells the Jews, you don’t act like your father Abraham, so is he really who you are looking too.

Sobering… this rings true of maybe your family. We’ve heard those quips… like father like son… your mother’s daughter, we imitate those that we love and respect.

I have a friend named John. John is a few years older than me. When I met John, I was in High School and he was in his early 20’s. John and his brother Joel were super fun to be around. They always harassed each other and poked fun of one another. Joel was stockier, stronger, and more rugged looking than his older brother John. John was smaller, good looking, surfer type, and very independent (followed the beat to his own drum). Their parents were both Jesus people (a move of God in the 60’s and 70’s; hippies coming to Jesus). Still had an anti-establishment mentality, loving, gentle, and non-conformist approach to life.

We were hanging out one day and John was telling me a story. That last week, John was looking for something in the attic. John came across a dusty old folder, opened it up, and saw adoption papers. He ran downstairs looking for his brother… he found Joel, held them up and said, “Ha, you’re adopted!”. John was like, “man that makes so much sense!”. Joel was crushed, disillusioned… in his twenties and everything he thought he knew was called into question. Both parents were called into the house for an explanation. As they starred at the parents, they broke the tension, “Yes, we did adopt a child… but Joel it wasn’t you, it was John.” It took a moment but then Joel turned to John and said, “In your face”.

While, now being removed 20+ years from that moment, I think brothers will be brothers. Adoption is a beautiful thing. There was something about John and Joel that I’ve thought about. There was enough difference between them that the thought of one of them being adopted wasn’t completely out of the question. There was also character qualities they had, having been formed and raised by two people that were committed to Jesus, each other, and their children. Regardless of biology, there are qualities, behaviors, beliefs, values, and convictions that identified them as children of their parents.

In our text this morning, Jesus is continuing His engagement of the Pharisees and those on the Temple stairs, calling them to live into their identity as God’s people, as children of Abraham. They may be direct descendants, but they are acting, behaving, and driven by the qualities, behavior, belief, values, and convictions of the evil one.

As we saw last week, Jesus wants to set them free. At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus called the two groups (the religious leaders and the woman) into who they are to be, calling out the hypocrisy of their actions. Religious leaders were to represent God (Ex 34:6-7 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”” )… and the woman was not condemned but exhorted to be a child of God, not to sin any further… to be who God has called her to be… a woman set apart for Him, holy, redeemed, positioned in His favor.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, would you turn to John 8:37-59. Would you stand with me as I read our text this morning. This is the word of the Lord. Would you pray with me. Amen. Please be seated.

Like Father, like Son

(vss. 37-41a)

in vss 37 and 38 there are two “fathers” being spoken about by Jesus. His Father and then the father of the Pharisees.

The Jews have always seen Abraham as their father. He is the father of the Hebrew people who would become the Jewish nation.

Gen 12:1-2 “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.”

Gen 15:1-5 “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.” And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.””

From Abraham and Sarah comes Isaac, from Isaac and Rebekah comes Jacob & Esau, From Jacob and his wives come Joseph, his eleven brothers, who end up making up the twelve tribes of Israel.

God makes a promise, a covenant with Abraham, and confirms that He will bring about what He promised Abraham.

Gen 15:6 “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

Abraham believed God. God is in the flesh standing before them speaking to them of all these things, and they can not hear it, understand it, believe it. They had removed themselves from allegiance to God and allegiance to their system, to their tradition, to their power over people.

Power is good when it is used properly, to help others succeed and flourish. Power has an ability corrupt. It goes from using it as a tool to serve others as a tool to serve the wielder of the power.

I recently had an opportunity to interview Brian Brodersen, pastor at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, regarding leadership, teams, pastoral ministry, and lessons learned in his many decades of ministry. The question was asked, “What lessons have you learned from the pitfalls or obstacles you have experienced in leading teams?”

One of the realities that visibly grieves him is the truth that power corrupts the leader. The leader must put a check on it all the time. A few things help in keeping the corrosive power of power in check:

1. Mutual accountability

2. Keeping at the forefront of our minds, we are serving Jesus, the Lord, and King

3. Admit being wrong and being able to quickly say, “please forgive me.”

Brain would say, “If the son of God, Creator of the universe, says, “I am gentle and lowly and heart,” and that is what he is, then we should be too.”

If you follow any high profile christian ministers, you would know that there have been too many that have fallen to temptation and sin that has disqualified them and hurt many others. There are those who are being investigated and accused of abuse and being domineering (which is forbidden an elder/shepherd by scripture).

If we have power, influence, and we follow Jesus as Lord, we have an obligation and responsibility, being faithful to Jesus, to use that power for the liberation of people, the flourishing of all, and to use it with Kingdom of God ethics.

Jesus was calling those with agency and power out to a right relationship with God the Father.

Another study for another time, but a freebie this morning. Study the history of the Jewish people at this time being oppressed by the Roman government. They sought reprieve and freedom from this power, but yet the oppressed and but unbearable burdens upon their own people. The enslaved/captured sought to enslave and oppress those in their influence. It’s worth studying the human tendency vs. the gospel response that the Spirit of God works in His people.

(vss 39-41a)

He reinforces His point. If you were Abraham’s kids, you’d do the things he did.

Jesus said, “If you were Abraham’s kids, you’d believe God like he did (Gen 15:6) but you don’t and so you are not his kids.

You are actually like your dad.

This to me is the ultimate act of love by Jesus. He is calling out truth. He is laying it out for them in such a way that they can’t help but see what He is saying. Gentle, to the point, AND with the desire to see them renounce their wicked ways and follow Him, as children of Abraham would do.

Like Snake, like Slanderer

(vss. 41b-47)

They respond to Jesus’ comments with cruelty and hate.

vs 41b… This comment can be taken one of two ways, or in fact that they meant it both ways. One is to call Jesus’ life into question… calling him illegitimate because Joseph was not his biological dad. Or in that they are pure people who can trace their lives back to the descendants, back to Abraham who received God’s promise.

Those of you who deal with stigma’s, trauma, and hurt that others cause based on family association, or just plain lies and slander… Jesus knows what you are going through… right here we see the cruelty, the slander, and the inability to perceive what is really happening that they call Jesus illegitimate. This followed Him, and it is exposed in this moment.

Jesus responds with compassion… vs.42, “If God was your father, you’d love me.”

vs.44 Jesus tells them, “You are of your father the devil”. This NT word is translated from the OT word Satan. Literally here it is the word where we derive our word for slanderer. They are doing exactly what the devil’s desires are. Slander the Son.

This is what the Devil, the enemy, the deceiver, the slanderer… this is what he does.

The Devil is not his name, lucifer, satan, these are all titles… none of these are names. We actually don’t know its name. This is the ultimate cosmic shame. For centuries, really the beginning of time, name meant identity and being. If you had a name it meant something, giving value and worth. The Bible never names this being, demon, spirit… but they have a title, titles of shame.

From Genesis 3, deceiving Adam and Eve, to then Matthew 4 when Jesus is tempted in the desert, and entering Judas as we see later… he is bent on stealing, killing, and destroying (John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”) .

Luke would record in his gospel where Jesus would say, Luke 6:43-45 ““For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

vs 47 is a beautiful promise and reality. John 8:47 “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.””

We don’t need to fret when people reject our witness or testimony. It is not on us to convince or persuade, but it is a holy act of God to draw someone. We pray that God would draw them and that belief would happen. When we share our love for and faith in Jesus, we can rest assured that when God transforms them, they will receive God’s words, but it is a work of His Spirit. We share, we witness, we pray, we look to bless, we love, we testify, but we remember it is God’s work to bring someone to faith. And we rejoice when it happens. We reject the lies of the enemy that we can “do better” or somehow win some one by our intellect… but the Bible says, its with the heart (their being) that one believes and confesses Jesus as Lord.

The Day they had all been waiting for

(vss. 48-59)

vs 48 they slander Jesus and make a comment wanting to demean him (Samaritan) and actually the work of God to be demonic.

Here is where I know that the heart of Jesus is love. You and I would probably be calling down fire at this point, justifiably incinerating them. While we would probably be incinerating them, Jesus is continuing to hold up a mirror that they might see the truth, turn, and confess Him as Lord.

There is a strength that comes when you know the truth.

He tells them (vs.51), if you keep His word (the truth) you will never see death.

What a claim… we know this to be true… it’s not the death of the body we should be totally concerned with, but the death of the soul… the second death. Our soul is eternal, weigh and consider eternity. This moment that we are in is miniscule in comparison to eternity, realize now (as beautiful or as difficult as it is), is just that, a moment. May we live in light of the understanding of eternity.

Rope Illustration.

John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1–10 (Before Abraham, ‘I Am’ (John 8.48–59)) NT Wright

Jesus goes further, claiming in verses 54–56 that the one true God is at work in and through him, and that Abraham himself, in trusting this one God and his promises for the future, had celebrated the fact that he would see the day of Jesus. This seems to mean that Abraham, in trusting God’s promises that through his family all the peoples of the earth would be blessed, was actually looking ahead to the day when Jesus would bring that promise into reality. He is claiming, in other words, that he, Jesus, is at last embodying what the one living God, Abraham’s God, had envisaged and promised all those years ago.

What then does he mean in the crucial verse 58? He is identifying himself so closely with the one true and living God that he can speak of himself as being there ‘before Abraham existed’. This is as close as we come on the lips of Jesus to a direct statement of what John says in his Prologue (1:1–2).

Again, we would be wrong to see this passage as part of a gentle, abstract theological discussion. It takes place at the leading edge between ecstasy and fury, with the crowd accusing Jesus of being demon-possessed and Jesus exploring more and more what it means that he is speaking and acting as the very mouthpiece of the father and that they can’t and won’t understand and believe him. In this setting, what verse 58 seems to mean is this. Jesus is so conscious of the father with him, working in him, speaking through him, that he can speak, in a kind of ecstasy of union, in the name of the father. ‘I Am’: one of the central meanings of YHWH, the secret and holy name of God. Jesus has seen himself so identified with the father that he can use the Name as a way of referring to himself and his mission. ‘Before Abraham existed, “I Am”.’

Conclusion

We end where we started… those who were looking to pick up stones and throw them at the woman, are now picking up stones to throw them at Jesus. We don’t throw stones today, but if we are still in disbelief, we continue to read on. We continue to look at who Jesus is and who He claims to be.

If you have yet to yield your life to Jesus, give it to him today. Allow Him to sit on the throne of your heart, allow Him to be the authority in your life. In Him there is life, peace, and a wholeness that He alone can bring.

In our authority, when it is challenged or there becomes an outside force greater than our own comes enslavement, bondage, and oppression. Our souls battle that. In yielding to the highest authority, that is God in Jesus Christ, we receive His good gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control… sin and death have no power, Jesus has overcome these.

I want to invite our staff, elders, deacons, ministry leads down to the front at this time.

If you are struggling with sin and dependence on Christ there will be those here to pray with you. If you need prayer this morning for anything, please don’t leave this morning with out seeking it out.

Let’s pray.