Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 16, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 10

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November 16, 2016 | Men's Fraternity - Fall 2016, Session 10 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, hey men, good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: We are um we are actually in the stretch.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh next week is our last men's fraternity for uh the fall.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um hey, I just wanted to share with you.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had the uh profound privilege of uh waving the wheat this past Saturday with uh Jack Powers at the uh KU game.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was uh it was a lot of fun.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful day.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um unfortunately, our our waving the wheat just didn't uh do enough to carry them uh unfortunately.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a uh but it was a great game.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let these guys uh give the highlights and details here in a minute.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we're uh we're still talking about uh Philip, and he was a uh pragmatic guy that uh kind of came to uh believe.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but um part of our lesson today we're gonna uh talk a little bit about, or I think it's in one of the principles, we've got a little uh some writings from C.S.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, Jesus made a number of claims about himself.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um no one comes to the Father but by me.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I and the Father are one.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh some pretty profound claims.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So you you get a lot of people that say, Well, I believe that Jesus was a good moral man, a good teacher, and C.S.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis makes the claim.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: God, you can't you can't come to that conclusion.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's really only three things.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I just wanted to share with you, I learned some alliterations years ago that I kind of stuck in the back of my mind that helped me recall that uh that argument.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus, there's really only three conclusions you can come to if Jesus makes those claims.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was either a liar, a lunatic, or he was Lord.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there's uh kind of remembering the three L's.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one is uh remembering D's, he's either a deceiver, he was deceived himself, or he's deity.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, to come to the to think that, well, Jesus was a good moral teacher, now you you can bring up that argument.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's either a liar, he's uh a lunatic, or he's Lord.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, with that, I'm gonna turn it over to uh uh Jason and Derek here to take us through the lesson, give us some sports highlights.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: That was great.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: We could just pray right now, and that's actually the main point that we were gonna talk about.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: So good.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we have uh some sports highlights.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Jim's at the ETS, the Evangelical Theological Seminar.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Society seminar?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: So session?
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh yeah, the session, there you go.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: ETS, not DTS, but I think he's with the president from DTS.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So uh anyway, we we kind of had to come up with our own PowerPoint today.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Do you guys so does anybody not know what ETS is?
• 2:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Look, we don't know what it stands for, but we know what it is.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: You guys all have those acronyms in your work too, where you know the acronym, but you don't really know what it stands for.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I had lots of those too.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: But basically, people, a bunch of scholars come together, and this year it's in Texas, a bunch of scholars come together about just different hot button topics in Christianity and exegesis and theology, kind of all these different areas, and come together for this conference for a couple of days and talk about their findings or studies and kind of all these nuances or really big words.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Really big words that nobody else understands.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, so I we were having a training uh for our uh uh Sunday school children's workers this week, and uh it was right after church we were having food, and I happened to check the score for the Chiefs game in between us eating food so I could announce it, and so I could all the Chiefs fans I could encourage them, and it was 17 to 3, they were losing, so I decided to keep that to myself during the training because I thought for sure they were gonna lose.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: But then I came back and they actually came back and won, which was pretty amazing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: But uh Marcus Peters, what a what a crazy player he's been.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And versatile.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, versatile because he decided that he was gonna be a punter this week, actually.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um if who who watched the game?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: All right, so he had one punt for negative five yards, actually, for the game.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: But uh crazy, he almost, I mean, I think he almost cost the Chiefs a chance to win it before they went to overtime.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: It was tied.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Carolina had the ball, and Marcus Peters came and stripped the ball, got the ball, got excited and punted the ball into the stands, uh, got a penalty.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: If they would have called a 15-yard penalty, he probably would have put them out of out of field goal range and changed a little bit of what they could have done.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think there was 20 seconds left or something in the game.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: But luckily, they had mercy on us, only caught a five-yard penalty and then scored a field goal to win it.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: Good for them.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a pretty amazing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: The Chiefs are doing good, so that's good.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't they like seven and two?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Seven and two.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Top of the AFC West.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow just slipping under the radar the whole season.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: The magic of Kansas City.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then K-State, I believe.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: You can tell me if I'm wrong, they take on Baylor this week, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Baylor, then KU.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they did not play, right, this last week for football.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um bye week.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: They had the bye week.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then after a tough game last weekend, uh, overtime loss to Indianapolis, uh KU won a close one last night.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Did someone anyone stay up for the whole game?
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we have some people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Any highlights that you guys want to point out?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us, play by play, Sam.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: What was the last shot like?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Good job.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I felt it in the moment just then.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there you go.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I got a text from Hunteroo this morning at about 5 15.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: He said, hey, it was a good showing.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he he lives over on the East Coast and is not a Duke fan, so I think he was happy.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um Jeff, actually, Jeff Sorensen is actually was actually at the game, so I'm sure that he's almost ready to get on a plane now to come back home.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: So anyway, good good stuff.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh K you.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is that right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: There we go.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: So today we have uh we're we're gonna start on in our books.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be in uh page 92, and uh finishing up with Philip here.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh as I was reading through this, we uh Derek and I were planning.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: We said we're gonna do things a little bit different.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna go through the main passage of scripture that is talked about, and then give you time to discuss a little bit in your groups.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um John chapter 14, verse uh 1 through 11 is the main part of the text that we're gonna talk about today, but I'm gonna back up a little bit to John chapter 13, actually, because there was something really shocking that was said to the disciples here that they took as a very shocking announcement.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, this is John chapter 13, the beginning of John chapter 13, it's the beginning of Passover.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this is when they wash the dis uh Jesus washes the disciples' feet, they're having their meal.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: But in verse 33, uh he Jesus goes through a whole bunch of shocking revelations that uh he's gonna be uh handed over, someone's going to betray him.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: And then in verse 33, chapter 13, verse 33, it says, My children, I will uh I will be with you only a little longer.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you will look uh for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I will tell you now.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_02: Where I'm going, you cannot come.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: A new command I give I give you, love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: By this everyone uh will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you can almost put yourself in that situation.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: They follow Jesus, uh they are starting to understand kind of that Jesus is the Messiah, uh, you know, following him wherever they go, and now he's saying, Hey, you're I'm not gonna you're not gonna I'm not gonna be with you much longer.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And there's you can almost feel the panic, and and you know, of course, Peter says, Well, wherever you're going, I'll go.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, he says, You actually will, you'll lay your down your life for me.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_02: That is true, but they didn't understand exactly.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then, so chapter 14, he just said that I'm not gonna be with you uh much longer to his disciples, and they're kind of like reeling from that and trying to understand what that means.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when uh John chapter 14 comes in, and it says in uh John chapter 14 uh verse 1, Do not let your hearts be troubled.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you believe in God, but also in me.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_02: My father's house, in my father's house there are many rooms.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_02: If that were not so, uh would I not have told you that I uh that I am going to there to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take take you to be with me, and you also will may be where I where I am.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know the way to the place where I am going.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then you have Thomas that says, But but Lord, you know, uh we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you have Peter in verse 13 or chapter 13 saying, Hey, I'm going wherever you're going, and Thomas, like, how do we know the way, you know, and kind of doing, you know, just trying to figure out what Jesus is uh talking about here.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um and that's when uh we come in uh for uh Philip uh kind of gets in and on the mix uh as Jesus continues to talk uh to them.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um if you read the chapter here, uh Getz kind of uh uh sees Philip's uh response in verse eight actually as kind of sarcastic almost or uh in a in a way because I think that they're just like, Wait, what are you talking about, Jesus?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: Where what are we supposed to do?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're the Messiah, how come you're leaving?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, um to verse six.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can just imagine Jesus with his disciples at this point.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, Man, I've already told you guys three times, like I'm gonna have to die, and then I'm gonna go to heaven, and you guys aren't getting it, and oh my goodness, you're asking these questions again.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um but right after that in verse six it says, Jesus answered, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you really know me, you will know my father as well.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you guys remember back last week, um, one of the things that we were talking about specifically was Philip, is that he was very pragmatic, he was very kind of matter-of-fact, factual, and he couldn't, at least at this point, he couldn't make that jump from seeing Jesus in person being the son of Joseph and being the Messiah, to him actually being God, actually recognizing him as more than the son of Joseph, as more than the Messiah, but actually as deity, actually as God.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why Jesus says here, you know, if you know me, if you've seen me in the flesh, you know who I am, then you know the Father.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna see what what his response is.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: In verse 8, it says, Philip said, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has got to be like, Oh my goodness, seriously.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just said, if you've seen me, if you know me, then you already know the father.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have the same characteristics, we have the same attributes.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: We are one, we're the same.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And Philip clearly still doesn't see that because he says, Show us the Father.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I imagine he's probably thinking back to, you know, the transfiguration, he's probably thinking back to um, as God revealed himself to Moses, kind of a visual representation, but he doesn't understand that he has the best visual representation of God standing right in front of him.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then we go into verse 9 and says, Jesus answered, Don't you know me, Philip?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: Even after I've been among you such a long time, anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: How can you say, Show us the Father?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: Then verse eleven.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Believe me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, Jesus is laying it out plain as day before Philip.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: He's saying, Look, I am God, the Father is God.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: We we are both God.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you've seen me, you see you spent time with me, got to know me, trust in me, then you've seen God.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's no more to God that you need to see, because you've got the full essence, the full deity of God right in front of you.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 11 at the very end, he says, but if you're not gonna believe because I just told you plainly, then at least believe because of the works that I've done.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: At least believe because of all the miracles that you've seen up to this point.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you've seen uh nearly 9,000 people fed off of a few loaves of bread.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen people healed, you've seen so many different miracles that I've done.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: At least those things should be the testament that I really am God if you don't believe me plainly.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I I love that there.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's it almost seems to me he's saying very full philosophically, hey, I'm in the Father, the Father's in me, and trying to get his point across, and then the end he's just like, Hey, remember I did all these miracles?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Just remember that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh at the very base level, you know, who can do a miracle other than than God?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was I was telling Derek, it almost seems like to me like the like the trump card, like the you're you know, the thing that you could always go back to and say, Well, Jesus raised people from the dead, Jesus fed people with miraculously, Jesus healed people when no one else could be healed, he cast out demons.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, this is a silly example probably, but this is where my mind goes.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, with my my children, uh, who who in here has children that like to play rock, paper, scissors?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: No one?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: All right, just me.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we have one here.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, just go with me for this illustration, and then if it flops, then it's alright.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but my my son and daughter, my sons and daughter, they like to play rock, paper, scissors.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, if they rock, paper, scissors, shoot, and they have paper and rock and scissors, and each one beats each other in its own different way.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: And every once in a while, my son Athen will pick out one finger and he'll say, Well, dynamite, and dynamite beats everything, or bazooka, you know, or something like that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: And of course, bazooka can beat the rock, paper, or the scissors.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: But it's almost to me, that's what Jesus is saying here is like, hey, you remember and think about this, and I have to be in the Father, and the Father's in me, and I'm, you know, think about this in a in a logical way.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: But if not, hey, you know, just remember all the things I did, you know, all the miracles that happen, you know, bazooka beats all and everything.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I think it's I think one thing that we all can take away from Jesus' example right here is that sometimes when we're sharing the gospel, when we're sharing Christ with somebody else, we can tell them plain as day, we can say, you know, Jesus died for our sins, he rose again, and and all these things.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it just doesn't sink in.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so in our lives, if we are sharing Christ with somebody else, then we all have experiences with Christ in our life where we can show how God actually worked in our life.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe as a time that we were going through something tough, and it was like, God, I don't know how this specific situation worked out, but I know that your hand was in it.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how this specific job situation worked out, but I know that your hand was in it.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Or this one thing didn't look very probable, and God, because of you, you really did pull off a miracle and allow this thing to happen.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so each of us, while we do need to share very just straightforwardly what the gospel is, we all have individual stories of God's working in our life that we can share with people where we know that that was God.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: We know that it was a situation where you know we didn't necessarily have control over it, but God somehow worked in the way that he works to reveal himself to us personally through signs, through miracles, ultimately to point people to him to have salvation in him.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it brings us to in the end of the chapter, the three principles that we're supposed to learn from Philip and the Paul touched on this one, but in a view of his claims, Jesus cannot be a great moral teacher.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, I don't know why exactly, other than maybe just to try I don't know.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why people uh would like to say, hey, Jesus, I'll accept him as a moral teacher, but I can't accept him as the son of God, or I can't accept him as God in the flesh.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like to that point, is that's just so crazy to me.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like I can say, okay, he's a good person, he's a good teacher, but uh as Paul was saying before, it you know, somebody that claims to be God, that claims that he's going to go prepare a place for you, and there's enough room for everyone, and you'll come, you know, I'll come back for you.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: And those kind of claims, you know, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: No man comes to the Father except through me.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have to really kind of admit that that's not if he if he's not God, if he's not who he says he is, then he is totally saying something false, and that would mean that he is not a great moral teacher.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: But that's been a lie that's been told for a long time.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And in most in most religions, we'll say, well, Jesus, you know, we can they can all agree that Jesus is a good teacher, but he's so much more than that.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um, like C.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: S.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis is the first to point out, I think Josh McDowell points out in his books too, is that uh, as Paul said, you have to come to grips that Jesus is either uh Lord, lunatic, or liar, because someone that says, I am God, but but then you think, oh, he's really not, but he really truly believes that usually those are the kind of people that you lock up, right?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the type of people you put in the loony bin uh if if it's not true and he can't back it up.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus actually did back it up uh by how he lived and the evidences of the miracles that he that nobody disputed at the time and and since uh been collaborated with lots of different documents too, then not just the Bible.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the second principle that we have is every person who sincerely and humbly seeks to know who Jesus is will discover a satisfactory answer.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's a a principle that I think is really interesting.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know about about you guys and the interactions with different people that you have, but there's a lot of people who say, Oh, we don't believe in Jesus, don't believe in God, don't believe in this and that.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I just wonder, have you has that person sought out God?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Has that person made made a sincere effort to seek God and to seek the truth and see what's out there from an objective point of view without having a preconceived notion that God cannot be real or is not real?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because God's not God's not a God that is hiding himself, he's revealed himself in so many ways, he's revealed himself obviously in creation, but also specially uh through the scripture.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: He's revealed himself just through the spreading of the gospel through other people, and we can all attest to different times when God has shown up in our lives.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it just I don't know, in a way it kind of makes me sad for those people who discount Christ or discount God, but haven't really made an effort just to objectively see if he's real for themselves.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's even for all of us, even if we we are believers, you know, just through different situations in life, sometimes you just say, Man, God, are you are you are you listening to what I'm what I'm going through right now?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you hear what I'm saying?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Do you do you see this problem?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes it doesn't feel like it.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know in my life, sometimes it can seem that way.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, God, there's this problem, and it's just going on and going on and going on.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't seem to be getting revol resolved right now.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: But every single time when we Truly seek God.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: We say, God, please reveal yourself.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm all guards are down.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not coming in with preconceived notions, but I just want to know that you're there.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he always does every single time.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because he wants us to know him.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of his deepest desires, is that we one come into a relationship with him and then continue to go him.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he's not gonna hide himself from us if we're actively seeking him out, which is something that's pretty cool.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: And the the third principle is doubts and concerns are normal, even true Christians, particular are particularly at certain points in our lives.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: And um doubts and concerns, you know, can creep in in lots of different ways.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: I remember this was about a year ago.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: I have a really good friend, his name's Ross, and uh they moved away from Topeka, him and his wife, a little while ago.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: But he wrote me a Facebook message about a little over a year ago, just saying, hey, it started off basically, Jason, I've just had it.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: I, you know, I'm about ready to throw in the towel.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh everybody in our church is fighting, everybody can't seem to get along.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he's like, I love Jesus, but you know, the way that God's people treat each other, the way that society is going, I just don't have a lot of faith uh in in it.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so it kind of took me off guard.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: He's a very intellectual person, he's a very smart person.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: He had a very emotional reaction to uh people and certain circumstances of his life and uh the way people treated other people around him.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh that caused him to kind of doubt his core essential beliefs of even of Christianity and of God.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's when and I read this, I thought of him when I was reading through this book because uh Gene Getz talks about when he was young, even there were people within the church that tried to persuade him to believe certain things and talk bad about other people so they would follow them instead of other people.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he said he had a really good professor at Wheaton that kind of took him under his wing and kind of taught him how to scholarly read the Bible and how to navigate through life.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: But um what I take out of this is first off is that our actions, our us being ambassadors of Christ, as the Bible says, is important, it is real.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: When people see how we live, uh hopefully they can see Christ, hopefully it points them to Christ.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: But also uh makes me uh remind myself that people are just people and not put too much uh stock in someone that I trust or respect because there's always people, uh people always make mistakes, people are sinful, we're all sinful, we always uh have issues in our life, but uh you know, when we're having those doubts and concerns, it's important to remember the kind of the things we're talking about here that Jesus is the one that is God, that He came, you know, came to this earth and lived a perfect life.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh He is the really the only example that we should 100% look at to as the way that we're supposed to live and the way that a Christian should live ultimately.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um there's kind of interesting to me how uh it just depends on perspective sometimes whether you're gonna have whether or not a situation in your life will increase your faith or cause you to have doubts and concerns.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And certain people can go through the same exact thing, and just depending on their perspective, if got an understanding that sometimes that through the bad things God can grow you, God can challenge you.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: If you cling to Christ, cling to the rock that is God, that He can pull you through and your faith can be strengthened, as opposed to letting those doubts and concerns overcome you and uh take you farther away from faith.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: So we ready for our memory verse?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Ready.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, let's say this together.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Ask and it will be given to you.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: Seek and you will find.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Knock and the door will be open to you.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: For everyone who asks receives.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: He who seeks finds.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And to him who knocks, the door will be open.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Luke 11, 9, and 10.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um before we pray, there's some small group questions that that we can cover in our groups.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh page 97 to 99.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, are just a lot a lot of good questions in there.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can pilfer through those and see which ones most apply to you guys as a group.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Would you like to pray for us?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, let's pray.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Heavenly Father, thank you so much just for for caring for us, for loving us, thank you for creating us, and thank you for giving us your word that we can study and understand that even when your son was talking to his disciples, they were a little confused, Father.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, thank you for being patient with us and patient with them and explaining yourselves, Father.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: I pray that we would come away with this from the study and with a greater appreciation for your word and who you are, but also a greater understanding of who you are.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: So in Jesus' name I pray.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Next also, next week will be our last week of men's frat for the semester.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: So we will meet next week.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: That'll be our last week for the semester.