Sabbath School 4th Quarter 2024: Themes in the Gospel of John

Mark Finley

HopeLives365

11 The Father, the Son, and the Spirit

Welcome back to our studies in the Gospel of John.

The study this week focuses on the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and how the members of the Godhead work together in creation, in redemption, and in the total plan of salvation in the light of the great controversy.

So let's pray as we launch into our lesson.

Father in heaven, thank you for the word of God.

Thank you for the opportunity of studying your word and listening to your spirit speak to our hearts.

Our prayer is that you would give us divine insights in this lesson that would make a difference in our lives in Christ's name, amen.

Now you recall the Gospel of John focuses on the divinity of Christ and it uses 3 lines of evidence to establish Jesus' divinity.

First, the miracles or signs that Jesus performed.

There are 7 great signs in the book of John.

Secondly, the evidence of the witnesses that come forth to testify that Jesus is divine.

Thirdly, the teachings of Jesus, in particular, the I am statements of Jesus and the witness of Christ himself, the self-declaration of Jesus.

You see, if Jesus is not divine, if he's not eternal, you only have 2 choices.

When a person says that they are divine, when they say they are the son of God, if they are not, what does that mean?

It means they're either a lunatic, right?

Gracie people think they're God, or it means that they are extremely self-deceived.

Now to say Jesus was either a lunatic or self-deceived is preposterous.

You look at his miracles, you look at the witnesses of Christ, You look at the evidence of his life.

You look at the prophecies that were fulfilled in his life.

You look at the prophecies that were fulfilled not only in his life, but in his death, his resurrection.

And I mean, a self-deceived person certainly isn't gonna be raised from the dead and the evidence for the resurrection is strong.

So Christ is everything that he said he was, the divine, eternal son of God with life unborrowed, underived, life eternal.

When we look at the beginning of the gospel of John, very similar to the beginning of the book of Genesis.

Look, John chapter 1, verse 1, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.

Now, if you look at Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, how does that verse start?

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now notice, all things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made.

In him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it." So you remember in Genesis it said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness.

Let us, the plurality of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, participate together in creation.

We might say it this way, although it's quite simplistic, the Father is the master designer of creation.

He creates through the active power of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is the active agent in creation, who establishes all things through the might, strength, and power of the Holy Spirit.

He accomplishes his work through Jesus and Jesus accomplishes it through the Holy Spirit.

So the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit participate in creation.

They participate in the plan of salvation and redemption.

You know, somebody said, to try to understand the eternity of the Godhead is to lose your mind.

To try to reject it is to lose your soul.

In other words, this is a subject so big, so large.

I like the way that our lesson puts it here.

It says, for centuries, this is The first paragraph under Sabbath afternoon's lesson, for centuries, humans have tried to understand the nature of the Godhead, but because we can't, many reject the idea.

How foolish though to reject something just because we can not fully understand it, or because it doesn't fit with the narrow limits of human reasoning.

You remember the story of 1 of the ancient philosophers, Christian philosophers, who's walking down a beach 1 day and he sees a little boy and this little boy has dug a hole, and he has a pail, and he goes out to the ocean and takes a pail of water and he puts it in the hole.

He goes out again to the ocean, takes another pail full of water, puts it in the hole, And the philosopher says to him, little boy, what are you doing?

And the philosopher has been contemplating the Godhead, the eternity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and how they relate.

And the little boy says, I'm putting the ocean in my hole.

As the philosopher walks down, he begins to think, that's what I've been trying to do.

Put the ocean of God's infinity in my mind.

When something is infinity, when it's infinite, you cannot grasp all of it, but it doesn't mean you can't grasp any of it.

Infinite things require our study, but the more we study, the more they appear beautiful and magnificent to us.

So let's look at the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and Try to understand something about this divine mystery of infinity.

When you look at the point of salvation, there's 1 thing that is for certain.

Jesus says in John 10 and verse 30, that he and his father are 1.

They're 1 in their purpose to save humanity.

They're 1 in their goals to accomplish the salvation of the human race.

We look there at John 10, verse 28, 29, and 30.

And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all.

No 1 is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

I and my father are one." Now notice Jesus' statement, I and my father are 1.

Means we have 1 supreme goal to save the human race.

It means that Jesus existed with the Father from eternity.

They are both eternal, never had a beginning, never had an ending.

If Jesus had a beginning, he would not be eternal.

And if he's not eternal, he could not give us eternal life.

Did they understand that Jesus was claiming to be divine?

Indeed they did, because it says in the next verse, verse 31, then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.

Because He said he and his father are 1, that he existed from all eternity.

Now in the great controversy, the point of salvation, Jesus comes and he comes for a variety of purposes.

Any single definition of why Jesus came falls short because Jesus came for a variety of purposes.

He came to restore the human race in the image of God.

Christ came to face the temptations of Satan head-on, to overcome, so that the image of God could be restored in humanity.

Second, he came to reveal the love of God.

Every time he touches blind eyes and they're opened and touches deaf ears and they're unstopped.

Every time he heals the withered arm of a cripple paralytic.

Every time he touches the legs of 1 who can't walk and heals them.

Every time he does that, Jesus is showing this is what God is like.

InVerse 4th Quarter 2024: The Gospel of John

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Joe Reeves

Jonathan Walter

Hope Channel

11 The Hour Has Come

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, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey guys, my name's Justin and you're on Inverse.

And we're glad you are watching and listening and partaking with us in the studio here at Hope Channel International.

We have Israel and Jonathan and Joe and we, the 4 of us, have been studying the book of John, the gospel of John, I would say 1 of our favorites in the Bible.

And hopefully by after 8 or 9 weeks of study, it's your favorite as well.

Want to encourage you to go to hopetv.org slash universe and you can watch the previous episodes and catch up with us, Catch up with us.

We're currently in, what chapter are we in, guys?

And we've been bouncing around, but we're progressing through the book of John.

And if you wanna download the Bible study guide, you can go to inversebible.org and look at the subsection there called Bible Studies and look at John and you'll see other Bible Studies out there too.

John 18 and I have a prayer by Joe and we'll get into it.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the privilege to open your word and to receive these words.

May they go deep inside of our hearts and affect the change that you want to impact us with today.

Chapter 18, we're ending, we're getting to the end of the gospel of John, but we are slowing down a lot.

As Joe mentioned, the chapters are quite long here and chapterization happened long after the Bible was written But we're seeing that the narrative does kind of, almost slow-mo, because there's all these details happening and Jesus speaking and what's happening.

But chapter 18 is full of a lot of dialogue and action because there's stuff happening right before Jesus' death.

Verse 1, let's read verses 1 through, we'll just take it easy.

And Israel, if you can read verses 1 onwards for us.

It says, when Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the book Kidron, where there was a garden which he and his disciples entered.

And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples.

Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.

Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking?

And Judas, who betrayed him, also stood with them.

Now when he had said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground.

And he asked them again, whom are you seeking?

Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he.

Therefore, if you seek me, let these go their way.

That the saying might be fulfilled, which he spoke, of those whom you gave me, I have lost none.

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear.

So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword away, sorry, put your sword into the sheath.

Shall I not drink the cup which my father has given me?" Okay, we'll pause there.

Well, we have now moved after the beautiful chapters of chapter, really, 12 through 17, describing the last hours of Jesus with his disciples, his last sermons and teachings that are very, very focused on love and the Holy Spirit and humility and service and unity and just his final appeal, so to say, we are now entering the darkness of the night.

The disciples and Jesus are leaving the upper room.

They're on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

And Judas, who was, we were told already that he's going to betray Jesus, has now come to do just that.

When I was reading this, I also envisioned night, but it doesn't actually, I guess with the verse 3, the lanterns and torches there, we're seeing, yeah.

It may have been the early morning, but it was.

I'm just emphasizing, there is the light darkness motif that continues through this.

That's kind of the background there that kind of sets everything up.

And what we see here is interesting that, John does not describe the scene of Jesus praying.

And, with his, you know, him, him does it, Am I missing it?

He doesn't, he doesn't, the other gospels.

But I'm talking about the prayer, you know, and he's sweating blood and the disciples like don't fall asleep.

We go straight to the betrayal part of Judas.

There's special emphasis on Judas, the Judas narrative that John is trying to emphasize.

Yeah, we have seen him multiple times now, and I believe that, you know, because if you remember, it mentions in John chapter, what was it?

He loved them to the end, John chapter 12.

Yes, it says here that Jesus, you know, he loved them to the end.

He was, he was, you know, including Judas in this whole process, as long as he could.

And now we see the clash that, you know, Judas has made a decision and is now coming to betray his Lord.

So what the, the, Jonathan was talking about the fact that there's an emphasis on Judas.

I think, you know, with the year scenario, with the year scenario, and then Peter denies Jesus in verse 15 to 18.

And so, and then 25, there's, you know, the second denial.

So there's all of these different things that are happening both within the life of Judas and within the life of Peter.

I think that's very, very significant because both of them committed horrible sins against Christ in the time of, you know, his, his, in, in the worst time of his life.

And yet 1 becomes a leader in his church and the other 1 ends up taking his own life.

And so, I think that in the end really classifies God's people into kind of 2 camps.

They're kind of set up to be compared against each other, huh?

And so I thought that that was also significant.

The fact that there is, you know, 2, 2 different characters that are being compared and contrasted.

It's just a funny element that that John is just, you know, spilling the tea on all the inside gang here.

Like, you know, Judas did this and Peter did this and Judas.

He's like, I'm the 1 that the Lord loved, you know?

A Man After Gods Own Heart: King David

David Wright

Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

09 Living Above Retaliation

Well today we're continuing our series on David, a man after God's own heart.

Today we're looking at living above retaliation.

Have you ever been in a situation where you have been tempted to retaliate, to fight back?

I think of a story that a relative of ours tells of they were there at Taco Bell and they were eating their food.

This was when they were in high school, and 1 of their friends got up to, I don't know, use the restroom or get their order, whatever it was, and they did a trick I'd never heard of before, and kids don't do this, and especially don't do this and say, you got the idea from me.

They took a hot sauce packet and carefully opened it, and then inserted a straw into it, and then put all of that down into their carbonated drink.

Now, I hope you're not smiling because you've done this before.

And so then, when the friend came back, they said, I have this drink that's just really, really good.

Well, okay, and and so took a really big of hot sauce You know in the back of her throat and she's coughing and sputtering and all these other things she goes to grab somebody else's drink to try to get relief and it had hot sauce too.

And I hear that story and I think, oh my goodness, what would you do if that situation had been done to you?

Would you be tempted to be thinking and surmising?

So we were camping 1 time in Indian Boundary over in Tennessee, beautiful little spot.

And I don't know about you, but sometimes it's hard to get away from work with all of your things to the campground, get everything set up, you know, food, all the rest before it gets dark.

And on this occasion, there was a big group that was coming from all over, almost a reunion of sorts.

We were there, the tents and everything were set up.

There was even a fire going, but supper was kind of the last piece, and so while we were having supper of hot dogs, the sun had pretty much gone down, it was quite dark, and so you really couldn't see too well, but that's okay, you can see well enough.

And so hot dogs, as I said, was on the menu, and for my brother-in-law, I had nothing to do with this, but for poor Jeremiah, somebody said, hey Jeremiah, I have a hot dog for you that I made for you.

You know, you're so busy, he was, he was juggling kids and putting up tents and the whole thing here Let me do you a favor.

I mean he was hungry took a big bite of that hot dog You know something's coming.

It was a cat tail It wasn't a fresh cat tail.

It's kind of an old 1 that just kind of got really pithy and What is this I Remember my own experience camping and we were having haystacks.

I think it was for Sabbath lunch or something.

And there's, you know, haystacks are good any time, but then when you get out into the woods, everything tastes better in the woods.

So we're in the woods, and there's everything spread out, and I just remember on this particular occasion, I was just really hungry and I just happened to go first.

Everybody's kind of being bashful, I thought, well I'm not gonna be bashful.

So I went through and I got my beans and I put them on, you know, the chips and the whole thing, went through my whole line.

First bite, first 1 through lunch, first bite, and I bite down on something that's like, this is weird.

It was kind of a chewy, soft, but then you kind of penetrated and crunched through it, and then there was a little bit of this sweetness, I thought, I just ate like a slug or something.

And you know, you're trying to like, do I spit this out, do I keep, and with every bite, no, this is wrong.

Some individual, I think it was my uncle and my brother, cut up a piece of dried apricot and put it into the chili beans.

Chili beans and dried apricot don't go together, especially when you're eating this out in the open air with bugs and everything else.

You know, these are kind of more light things, but the question still remains, what do you do when somebody gets 1 over on you or worse, maybe it's actually out of real frustration with you or they just want to do something to harm you.

There's all kinds of expressions with that too.

Payback stings or payback this or don't cross me or if you do and all these threats.

Is that how the Christian should respond with retaliation, with revenge?

You know, there's whole movie plots, by the way, based on this idea of revenge.

There was a young person over here who said no.

But there are whole movie plots based on revenge, and sometimes the theme of some of these films are like, I'm gonna do nothing else in life, I'm gonna put everything else aside, and I'm gonna 0 in on getting my revenge.

I mean, you finally get your revenge after I don't know how many years you've been plotting this thing?

All right, so we're going back to our Bibles.

We've marched all the way through to chapter 23.

And you may recall that David is a fugitive at this point.

And in chapter 23, verse 14, it says, Saul sought David every day.

And at the end of chapter 23, this is going back some time ago, but we saw David coming down off the high ground, off of a position that he was better suited for battle, but rather than keep the high ground, he flees and he runs, but David is in hot pursuit and very quickly he is surrounded.

Now of course, David, I think, if he were to engage with Saul, could easily take Saul, right?

Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.

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All Teachings

11 The Father, the Son, and the Spirit

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11 The Hour Has Come

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09 Living Above Retaliation

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11 The Father, the Son, and the Spirit

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01 The Mental Health Crisis

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