FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, PART 2 (30 OF 75)
by Mike Stone
Scripture: John 8:31-59
This content is part of a series.
Free at Last, Free at Last, Part 2 (30 of 75)
Series: The Gospel of John
Mike Stone
John 8:31-59
Because I knew we would not finish this section of Scripture, I thought about a fancy title for this 2nd part. It reminds me of the story of the seminary student who was writing a sermon for a preaching class. He received his paper back with a ''B.'' The professor commended him for the excellent writing but was concerned that the title of the sermon was boring. He offered the student extra points if he would resubmit the paper with a better title.
To help the student the professor gave the following illustration. He said, ''Imagine you are pastoring a church and a bus load of people are driving by your church. Imagine they see your sermon title on the church sign. Now, give your sermon a title that would make those people want to turn into your parking lot and run into your church building!''
The next day, the young man resubmitted his seminary paper with the new title, ''There's a Bomb on Your Bus.''
Well, my title isn't that fancy but we do want to look at part 2 of a brief mini-series on spiritual freedom. Let's remind ourselves of where we are in John 8.
In the temple, on or around the feast of tabernacles, Jesus had presented Himself as the Light of the World. Rather than turn to Him for deliverance from darkness, the religious Jews for the most part clung to their evil deeds and remained enslaved in the bondage of darkness. Yet verse 30 indicates that some believed in Him.
In this book, John makes no distinction with the word usage of ''believe'' that we find in verse 30. We are left to observe the life transformation, or lack thereof, to determine the genuineness of their ''belief.''
Unfortunately, most of them failed the test.
We find here a case study in people who believe in their head but not in their heart. Although some perhaps did sincerely believe, most were only temporary fleeting pretenders. They fooled others, perhaps even ...
Series: The Gospel of John
Mike Stone
John 8:31-59
Because I knew we would not finish this section of Scripture, I thought about a fancy title for this 2nd part. It reminds me of the story of the seminary student who was writing a sermon for a preaching class. He received his paper back with a ''B.'' The professor commended him for the excellent writing but was concerned that the title of the sermon was boring. He offered the student extra points if he would resubmit the paper with a better title.
To help the student the professor gave the following illustration. He said, ''Imagine you are pastoring a church and a bus load of people are driving by your church. Imagine they see your sermon title on the church sign. Now, give your sermon a title that would make those people want to turn into your parking lot and run into your church building!''
The next day, the young man resubmitted his seminary paper with the new title, ''There's a Bomb on Your Bus.''
Well, my title isn't that fancy but we do want to look at part 2 of a brief mini-series on spiritual freedom. Let's remind ourselves of where we are in John 8.
In the temple, on or around the feast of tabernacles, Jesus had presented Himself as the Light of the World. Rather than turn to Him for deliverance from darkness, the religious Jews for the most part clung to their evil deeds and remained enslaved in the bondage of darkness. Yet verse 30 indicates that some believed in Him.
In this book, John makes no distinction with the word usage of ''believe'' that we find in verse 30. We are left to observe the life transformation, or lack thereof, to determine the genuineness of their ''belief.''
Unfortunately, most of them failed the test.
We find here a case study in people who believe in their head but not in their heart. Although some perhaps did sincerely believe, most were only temporary fleeting pretenders. They fooled others, perhaps even ...
There are 11765 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
