Sunday's Sermon

A friend of mine asked me to post one of my sermons. Currently we do not have a away to do audio or video of my sermons. We are hoping by 2008 to be on the net. So here is this last weeks sermon posted for you to read. All scripture is taken from the ESV
-IW

Who’s your Daddy? John 8:37-47
August 5, 2007 Pablo, MGJ

Introduction:
· Which parent do you look more like?
· Your mom or your dad?
· Who do you act like?
· Most of us pick up tendencies from watching our parents.
· How we talk, different facial gestures,
· Even how we pronounce words.
· The title of this week’s sermon.
· Who’s your daddy?
· It is a very important question to ask.
· Who is my daddy?
· Who do I look like, whom do I sound like?
· How do I resemble my father?
· Can you tell by looking at me that I am father son?
· When you get to meet my earthly Father Paul,
· You will get to see some resemblance.
· When you look at my girls, you know that they are mine.
· Like the girls look like me, and sometimes even act me.
· We need to be the same thing.
· With our Heavenly Father.
· People are going to judge God by the way we behave.
· Just like people judge us, on the way our kids behave.
· So who’s your daddy?
· What’s his name?
· Is he rich like me?
· How well do you know the Father?
· Jesus makes it clear in the section of Scripture either you’re a child of God, or you are a child of Satan.
· How can we tell?
· Who do you act like?

Let’s Read

37” I know that you are the offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and do you what you have heard from your father.

39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’ Children, you would be doing what Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing what your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father----- even God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God was your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is lair and the father of lies. 45 But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 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.


1.Jesus draws a dividing line:
· Remember last week, how the Jews were saying they were offspring of Abraham?
· Jesus does not argue with them.
· He says I know that you are the offspring of Abraham.
· Notice that he does not say that they are children of Abraham.
· He says offspring.
· He means offspring.
· Children have relationships and follow their parents.
· Offspring.
· You might come from the same seed, but that does not mean that you are close.
· Yes these men are part of the nation of Israel.
· Yes, Abraham is the father the Judaic faith,
· But they are not following it, nor do they have the faith like Abraham.
· It’s someone calling him or her a Christian, but not living it.
· We have a world for that we call them hypocrites
· You might say you’re a Christian.
· But are you living it?
· It’s easy to say you believe
· Do your actions, words, and thoughts back it up?
· Can people tell that you follow the Father?
· And this is what Jesus is getting at.

“Your offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you”

· We know that through Mosaic Law that we are not supposed to murder people.
· Yet that is what they want to do.
· To murder Jesus.
· Because they are not hearing the words, in their hearts.
· They might hear them in their ears.
· But that is the last place they are going, because they are not open to hear from God.
· They do not like what God is saying to them.
· There are times in our lives that we do not like what God saying to us, and that is time for you to repent.
· Because God is right and we are wrong.
· And what we are about to see is a classic of example of people dealing with the truth in their lives.
· They accept it, and change their lives to it.
· They will fight it and find any reason to ignore it.
· Much like I did about worshipping with instruments.
· They will put up defensives and start attacking the person that brings the truth of who they’re to them.
· Jesus does not let them live in their fantasy world about who their true father is, and he will not lets live in ours either.




2 So Jesus shows the line of which daddy do you follow?
I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you heard from your father

· Notice the difference in your bibles. My Father has a capitol F, while your father has small f.
· This is giving God the proper respect he deserves.
· The difference is amazing,
· Jesus is telling them once again, I speak what I have seen with my FATHER
· That means that Jesus is spending time with God, that He is Encountering God.
· Then he tells them you do what you heard from your father.
· Meaning the DEVIL!
· Act like the Devil, talk like the devil, then you belong to the devil.

39 They answer him “Abraham is our father” Jesus said to them, “If your were Abraham’s children, you be doing what Abraham did, but now seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41 You are doing what your father did.

· We have to see what Abraham did
· He followed God.
· He left home and family to follow God.
· He was willing to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice.
· Trusting that God, who gave him a son in his old age, could fulfill the promise of many descendants.
· I guess God will just bring him back to life.
· He is God after all, and can do what he wants.
· He created this world; he can choose who lives and who dies.
· And he can bring people back from the dead if he wants to.
· Abraham followed God, even when he did not understand everything was going on.
· We need to do the same things.
· My Friend Pastor Wayne used to tell me this all the time.
· Mike sometimes God moves to point A, to B, to point C, just to prepare us for point D.
· Do I wish that I went through all of the garbage in Texas and NM NO!
· I don’t wish that on anyone.
· Legalistic, non-scripture following supposed Christ followers
· Churches built on man, instead of Jesus.
· No way.
· But knowing that I had to go through that to get here.
· Looking back it is well worth it.
· Did not like it going through it,
· Still healing from some of it
· Just some of you are still healing from the garbage that has happened here.
· When we look back at life, God takes through a variety of things to prune us, to teach us lessons, show our hearts and to draw us closer to Him.
· How we react in this situations that show other and us people who we truly belong to.
· Are we turning to God and trying to look like Jesus?
· Or do we look more Satan
· Do people see Jesus alive and well in us, or do see the very sins
· That we are told separate us from God?
· That Jesus died on the cross to set us free from?
· It’s what we talked about last week.
· Are you controlled by Christ Jesus or by sin?
· Jesus came to set us free from sin,
· And we should strive to live like it.
· Instead of listening to Jesus and the proper response of repenting of their sin.
· They do the classic cowardly move and
· They decide to attack Jesus

41b They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father –even God”.
· This is an attack on the character of Jesus
· It is what people do.
· It is wrong and yet it still happens today.
· You don’t like what someone says to you.
· So you attack them.
· Try to discredit them, instead of facing your issues
· Here they are attacking Jesus claiming that he does not know who his daddy is, because Mary had a child before Joseph slept with her.
· They do not believe in Christ divine origin.
· Slow they try to slap him in the face with the worldly views that your mom is an adulterer and your dad a fool.
· But Jesus is talking about Spiritual things.
· We are spiritual beings, and too often we let this world dictate what we believe and what we do.
· We allow the influence of Satan and the world to form us, instead of God the Father.
· We need to remember that while we live in this world, IT is not our home, and we are just passing through.

3. How to know; who your father is.
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me”

· This is real simple:
· If God is your Father, you would love me.
· If God is not your Father, you do not love me.
·
· Kind of like
· If you abide in my word you are my disciples
· If you don’t abide in my word you are not my disciples
·
· Those who are baptized will be saved.
· Those who are not baptized will not be saved?
·
· We can do that with a lot of scripture
· If you love Jesus you keep his commandments.
· If you don’t love Jesus, you won’t keep them.
· It’s the process of asking a question. “And if I don’t, what happens”
· It’s a debate practice. Let’s take this to polar opposite and see what it says.
· We do this with the commands and teachings of Jesus, it is pretty scary
· If I don’t forgive other, I won’t be forgiven.
· And Jesus is talking them to Polar opposite of God being their Father.
· He is taking them to truth that their actions and thoughts lead to the fact that Satan is their father.
· They think that God is their Father, but in reality they act more like Satan than God.
· The old saying. “The apple does not fall from the tree” applies here.
· And it should be wake up call for us.
· Because we are told that we are going to be judged, that our idle words are going to be brought into judgment
· And we serve a just God.

Let’s continue reading at 43

43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

· Jesus makes it clear that the reason they do not understand his words
· Is because their father is the devil.
· How would you feel if someone said that you?
· Seriously how would you feel
· If someone who has healed people in front of you, who has over turned tables, who people have tried to arrest, and they do not.
· Stands in front of you and says you do not understand me, because you are children of the Devil?
· You do not understand the things of God, because you are not his child.
· Because you are a child of the devil.
· And this is what he looks like.
· He is a murderer
· He wants nothing to do with truth, because it is not in him
· He is liar – it is his character.
· He is the Father of lies.
· That is what Satan looks like.
· He also is described as roaring lion, looking for someone to devour
· That is how Satan is describe a lying, murderer who is hungry to devour others.
· Nice guy, yet many people in the church look more like him, then they do Jesus Christ.
· It is estimated by “The Way of the Master” only about 10% of the people sitting in the pews on Sunday mornings
· Are honestly following Jesus.
· That means that 90% of the people keeping a pew warm, are not thinking like Jesus,
· And are not “Always doing the things that are pleasing to God”
· That Scares ME!
· IT should scare you.
· Because you are either part of the 10& or you are part of 90%
· And God knows, and other people do to by your actions, words, and deeds who you really belong too.
· People much like these Jews who claim to be religious, who claim to follow Jesus.
· Have murderous hearts
· They want their own ways, and they will do whatever it takes to get their own way.
· In the Book of James we are told that is why we have quarrels and fights in the church.
· To the point of death.
· People want what they want, not caring about what the Bible says, or the under shepherds of the church have to say.
· They do not even listen to the Sr. Pastor of church – Jesus Christ has to say about things.
· They forget that church is not about them.
· It’s about Jesus.
· And our lives transforming to become more like his.
· People lie, it’s the same thing that Satan did to Adam and Eve.
· Go ahead and eat the fruit.
· Nothing will happen to you.
· God is lying you won’t taste death.
· He just does not want you to be as smart or wise as him.
· And that is what Satan is doing today.
· He is still lying to us.
· That sin that is controlling your life.
· It doesn’t matter.
· Of course the bible really doesn’t mean what it says.
· Everybody is doing it.
· You don’t want to be considered a Jesus freak do you?
· Nobody will know.
· Just do it once it won’t anything.
· The Bible is just another book.
· Jesus wasn’t real.
· All good people go to heaven.
· Those are all lies of Satan.
· And he is good at it.
· We forget that he wants to destroy us.
· That Satan is Lair; there fore he lies to us.
· He lies to the world.
· And the only way to combat lies and liars is with the truth.
· And that truth is Jesus Christ.
· We need to make sure that we are listening to Jesus and not Satan.
· Because What Goes into the Mind, comes out in the Life.
· And quite frankly, what comes out of mouths, according to Jesus is what is in our hearts
· The world needs people with the love of Jesus coming out of the mouth, not the lies of Satan.
· We need to be a people,
· Who are about the truth of Jesus Christ.
· That shows the world through our actions and our words the Love of Jesus Christ.
· If we are not showing them Jesus whom are we showing them?
· Because if we are not showing them the truth, then we must be showing them something that is corrupted by the devil
· Or the devil himself.
· And Jesus nails them with this.
· He has already told them that their real father is the devil, and not God so he continues on.
· Challenging them on who they listen too




4. The final dagger
“But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. 48 Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

· How do you personally respond to that?
· Basically Jesus is saying, “You listen to lies, and refuse to believe the truth.”
· The sad part there are million of people that claim to follow Christ Jesus that are so used to garbage
· They are offended by God’s word, and refuse to follow the Bible, and settle for the teachings of man.
· We are not called to follow man; we are called to follow Jesus.
· And when we have a hard time following Jesus,
· We need to turn to him for help, not discount him.
· We need to say “Jesus can you help here?
· Please help me.
· Jesus telling the truth should put us on notice.


Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
· Which lead me to ask this question.
· Are you honestly hearing the words of God?
· Are you listening to what God is saying to you?
· Are you following What God is saying?
· Because if we are of God,
· Then we hear God.
· And if we are not God.
· Then we are not hearing God.
· And that scares me to death to think that people who are part of my flock.
· Are not hearing God.
· That they are listening to the lies of Satan, and following after his teachings.
· Instead of the truth of Jesus Christ, and becoming followers of Jesus Christ.
· In the end it does matter who you follow.
· In the end you will either be with Satan in the lake of burning sulfur
· Or you will be dancing with Jesus.
· Those are the two choices,
· There is no door number #3.
· There is no “Do over”
· It’s either you lived for Jesus, or followed the lies of the devil.
· I ask you today
· Are you living for Jesus,
· Are you transforming to look more like him
· Or are you listening to and following the lies of Satan?
· If you are listening to Satan.
· Then stop it.
· Seek help; get support, pray until something happens.
· Ask Christ for forgiveness.
· Put a stake in the ground and say with all of you being
· Today I will follow Jesus and stop following Satan.
· Today and everyday for forward I will follow Jesus.
· And I will look like my Father in heaven.
· In the words of Joshua “choose this day whom you will serve, as for me and my house we will serve the Lord”
· And because we are serving the lord, we will look more like Jesus, then the Father of Lies, and the devil.

Wrap it up and invitation

As yuo can tell I am little intense. I desire to be Holy,a nd have the people who claim to be Christ-followers to live Holy lives as best they can. Prasie God for his grace adn mercy when we do mess up!