What makes us so sure Jesus is who He claimed to be?

<p>What makes us so sure Jesus is who He claimed to be?</p>

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Hope Channel

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

Sebastien Braxton

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Paul Samuel

01 Why Apologetics?

Jonathan Walter

02 Climbing Mars Hill

03 Divine Design

04 The Problem of Evil

05 Jesus and Hinduism

06 Jesus and Buddhism

07 Jesus and Islam

08 Jesus is Different

09 The Resurrection: Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Joe Kretschmar

10 The Bible

11 Hellfire

12 Doomsday Cults

13 Hope for Non-Christians

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Joe Reeves with Inverse.

Hello, my name is Joe and welcome to Inverse.

On Inverse we love studying the Bible and we have our Bibles opened right here with friends.

And at Inverse we are studying the Bible.

If you don't know, it's not about apologizing.

It's about explaining and knowing the reasons for your faith and for your beliefs.

Christian apologetics is defending the Christian faith and answering tough questions.

So we try to ask really hard questions on this panel and see if we can make each other stumble.

And thanks for joining us wherever you're watching from.

You can read our Bible study guides on inversebible.org and you will love going to Apologetics on that website and our previous Bible studies as well.

Our programs are on hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

And so today and on this episode, we are going to read the words of Jesus and we're going to think about who he is.

And I'm going to invite Jonathan to open us with prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity we have to study the Bible.

Thank you for how you've led in our lives, how you've led us through this program.

And in this arc that we are in right now, apologetics, we just ask that you will help us to understand why we believe what we believe or why someone should believe in Christianity.

I pray that you will bless us now and be with us through spirit in Jesus name we pray.

We are in the Gospel of John today, chapter 14.

Some of these closing moments with Jesus and his disciples and really confirming his identity with them as he shares some of these last words with them.

So we'll read from chapter 14 and Felicia will read for us.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also.

And where I go, you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No 1 comes to the Father except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

And from now on, you know him and have seen him.

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, and it is sufficient for us.

Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?

The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.

And good to read the whole chapter in your devotional time, your own study time, these words of Jesus.

And in the last few episodes of Apologetics, we've been studying about Jesus and Hinduism, Jesus and Buddhism, Jesus and Islam.

And we listen to the different world teachers and what belief systems are offered in this world, and we have to make a choice whose words we believe.

And Paul, as we read these words of Jesus, What makes Jesus different than other world religion teachers?

Other world teachers, Krishna, Muhammad, Buddha, all of them are trying to articulate, they're looking for light, they're looking for truth.

Jesus is the embodiment of that truth, that's what he claims to be.

Lewis, you know, who very often thought about these questions, he says very famously, he says, someone who says I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claims to be God, he says, This will not do.

He says, a man who is merely man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic or else he would be the devil of hell.

Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something else." Powerful quote.

Basically what he's ruling out Jesus just being a good moral teacher.

They don't accept him being God or the son of God necessarily or the sent from heaven, but teaching good ethics and promoting good values or moral values.

And it's hard to, if someone, you accept someone as a good moral teacher, but then they make this outrageous claim that they're God.

Like, if I had a friend who is a good person, but then that friend is like, I'm God, That sort of puts me to doubt everything else that you say, if you have that sort of illusion about yourself.

And so that's strange in how we can conclude he's a good moral teacher, but he's not what he says he is.

But the other thing it makes me think about when we ask what makes Jesus different, there is this passage in Song of Solomon, chapter 5.

And of course, this is this imagery of this woman and this man and their love relationship.

And in verse 9 of chapter 5, it says, "'What is your beloved more than another beloved "'offers among women?

"'What is your beloved more than another beloved Ophiris among women?

What is your beloved more than another that you charge us so?

And then she goes on to list all of these qualities about what makes him so different.

My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among 10, 000.

And then she ends, yay, he is altogether lovely.

1 of the things that differentiates Jesus from all of the other leaders is this invitation that we have to be in relationship with Him.

He's not simply trying to get you to do a list of good things.

He's not just trying to get you to walk and step in a certain way, which is a part of it, but He's inviting us to something so much greater.

So to think that He as Creator, as God, as powerful, is interested in your thoughts, is interested in your heart.

That definitely is a winning point compared to everyone else or all the other leaders who are just trying to get you to change your behavior.

And that's why I'm glad you started with verse 1 in John 14, because Jesus is saying, I came down from heaven.

I'm going to prepare mansions for you so that where I am there, you may be also.

Series

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

08 Jesus is Different

Transcript

Description

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