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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Aaron Schmid

That You May Believe

Father God, it is such a privilege to come to you in prayer.

It is a privilege to open your word and to study your word.

Right now, I ask that you would hide me behind your cross.

I ask that your Holy Spirit that touches our hearts, that speaks to our hearts, would be here, and that the words and the thoughts that I have would not be my own, but that they would be from you, from the throne room of grace.

I pray, Lord, that you would speak through me and that I would not be seen, but that a perfect picture of your son would be seen.

This is my prayer in Christ's name, amen.

So this morning, as I kind of alluded to, we're gonna be talking about what it means to believe in Christ.

What it means to believe more specifically in his words alone.

So I'm actually not going to be starting in Luke, we're actually gonna be going to the Book of John.

So if you have your Bible still open, turn a couple pages here to the Book of John and we're gonna just start in the first chapter there.

And I'm going to give you a little context here of just kind of an overview of kind of where we're going and as you're turning there.

So I've been going through the book of John and many of you have probably noticed, if you've studied at all or familiar with all with the book of John, got to about the seventh or eighth chapter in the book of John, and over and over and over, there's this recurring theme, mostly coming from Christ, of this idea that he's trying to get people to believe in him.

And over and over and over, this happens.

And so when I was asked to speak here, I was, like I said, I was around like 7, chapter 7 or chapter 8 in John.

And instantly when I was asked to speak, my mind went to this topic.

I'm like, man, this is such a simple topic, but it is a recurring theme throughout this book.

And so I took a fast-track study throughout the book of John, and I didn't study in detail, but just to see how often this theme comes up of Christ trying all these different ways to trying to get us to believe in Him, and in Him as the Son of God, and in His words.

And lo and behold, it happens throughout the book of John, clear to the end.

And so, as many of you are probably familiar, the book of John is intended for those second-generation Christians, those Christians that never met Christ face-to-face, that they may read this book, and that through the writings in this book they may believe in Christ.

Now, what I'm going to share with you this morning is nothing new, it's nothing extravagant, it's nothing cutting edge or theology, It's actually very, very, very simple.

And it's very, very foundational to each of our Christian experiences.

And I would say that is absolutely essential that to our Christian experience.

So just to kind of give you an idea too, we're gonna be covering a lot of ground here.

And there's gonna be the temptation that I'm going to have to start talking about other little tangents here.

But I'm going to withhold that temptation, and we're going to stay on this common theme, this common thread of belief.

It's going to be like going to the Zion National Park and trying to see the whole Zion National Park in a day.

It's not going to be possible, but what you are blown away with when you go to Zion, if you've ever been there, I encourage you to go there, what you are going to see is the beauty of this canyon.

And so that's what I want you to be able to see is the beauty of this message of believing in Christ's words implicitly.

So as we go through the book of John, I'm just gonna try and follow the narrative as these themes come up.

1 of the first times that this theme of believing in God comes up is actually in the first chapter of John, towards the end of the chapter.

And specifically I'm gonna be starting in verse 43.

I'm going to kind of paraphrase, just for time's sake, these few passages that I'm going to bring up here, so I encourage you to read on your own also.

But, So just to kind of give you a context here, this is Christ's first disciples, Peter and John, and then specifically in verse 43 it's talking about Philip and Nathaniel.

So Christ's first disciples asked them to follow him.

Now a couple, a little before this, Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, and when 1 of the first times that Christ showed up to the crowd where John the Baptist was, John the Baptist used a really interesting title for Christ.

He looks at Christ and he says, behold the Lamb of God.

And there was a crowd there and they looked at the man that John was pointing to and they're like, could this be?

I mean he didn't he doesn't look like the Messiah that we're looking for.

And Nathaniel, which later on is a future disciple of Christ, Nathaniel is convicted that this is, could this be?

Could this be the Messiah that we are looking for?

And he's convicted in his heart, but there's some conflict going on.

And so he goes to, by himself, and he goes to under a fig tree.

And under this fig tree, him and Philip are really good friends.

And under this fig tree is where they have communed with God before.

So Nathaniel goes there and he's wrestling with God in prayer about this.

And so fast forward then when Christ calls Philip, follow me.

Philip then goes to Nathanael and says you have to come check out this guy.

And Nathanael is full of doubt, but he goes anyways.

And 1 of the first things that comes out of Christ's mouth is this.

Jesus answered and said to him, Nathanael, before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.

When Christ saw Nathanael, he knew Nathanael's heart.

He knew the issues in Nathaniel's heart and he knew what he was wrestling with.

You know what he said this to affirm Nathaniel's faith in him and later on as you read you will see that it was because of this that he believed in Christ.

So this establishes a very important theme throughout the book of John, is that Christ, many believed in Christ by the words that he spoke that touched the issues of their heart.

So that's 1 thing that we will see over and over and over through the book of John.

The next theme, the next way that many people believed in Christ is actually found in the next chapter of John, John 2.

And here is Christ's first miracle, him turning the water to wine.

After the third day of this wedding feast, they ran out of wine.

There could be a whole lot that we could say about that in itself, but we're gonna keep moving on with this theme of belief.

On the third day, they run out of wine, changes the water to wine.

And this miracle we see was an evidence of His divinity, and in verse 11 it sheds a really important light on the purpose in general of Christ's performing miracles.

So we read in verse 11 of chapter 2, this the beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.

Almost every occurrence in the book of John specifically that you see Christ performing a miracle you almost always see this phrase that many believe that his disciples believe.

Christ was at all these different angles trying to get those around him to believe in who he was.

And as we go along with this message, we're gonna see what does that really mean?

So there's 1 more, there's actually a couple more instances that I wanna point out in Christ's ministry.

I mean, we could go chapter by chapter by chapter and we're going to see this reoccurring theme.

But there's 2 instances that I want to talk about where Christ particularly shows an interest or praises the individual in a way for the faith and for believing in him.

So 1 of the first instances is still in the book of John, turn to chapter 5 of the book of John.

And it's a story, again, I'm gonna paraphrase, but it's a story that you're probably very familiar with.

It's about the man by the pool of Bethesda.

This man was crippled, and as we read, he was crippled for roughly 38 years.

And now at that time, this pool was thought to have some special healing power that if when there was these ripples in the pool, if those wanting to be healed could get into the pool, they would be healed.

And so it's a Sabbath day, This man is sitting next to this pool, and Christ comes to him, and he sees him, and he says, verse 6, do you want to be made well?

And the next verse after it shows the man's response, and it's full of excuses.

It's full of how many times that yes, yes I want to be made well, but how many times have I tried to go into this pool and I've gotten trampled or I don't have anyone to get there, get me there, and I can't help but think of myself in this situation where Christ comes to me and he asks, do you want to be made whole?

Do you want complete victory over this sin?

Do you want the power and the strength to reach out to those people that is so intimidating to talk to about me and my love for them?

And I give excuse after excuse after excuse, but little do I realize that the decision for all of that to take place rests with me, and it rests with us, because Christ is coming to you asking, do you want to be made whole?

Verse 8, Jesus said to him, now, real briefly before I begin, think of all the different ways, Christ is about to heal this man, but think of all the different ways that Christ could have healed him.

And instead, instead of all the different ways of like maybe picking him up or maybe touching him or you know whatever, whatever comes to mind, of all the ways He specifically is intentional about just simply giving him his word.

He says to him, in verse 8, Jesus said to him, rise, take up your bed, and walk.

So when the man heard this, he had 2 options.

Christ didn't give him any reason to believe in him.

And after all, he had all these excuses of why he hasn't been healed before.

He could have just continued to dwell on those excuses.

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That You May Believe

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