I'm excited to share the word today. I feel like if I could stand here and preach and sit at the same time, I think I'd wanna do that. Because I think what God has for us today is of that, not that it's not all important, but I just think today is a real important day. It's something I need, it's something I think each one of us need, because I wanna talk today, the title of my message is this, it's called Closing the Gap.
Closing the Gap, because a lot of times, we have certain expectations of things. We read things in scripture, we declare things over our lives, we have an expectation. But then what we know to be true and what we experience, there's a gap between that. There's this gap, there's this reality gap, that the thing that we're expecting, the thing that we believe or that we read about or pray about, and we don't see the experience of it in our life.
And so today, my goal today in my teaching is that we close the gap, that we bring the gap between reality and experience closer together. And I don't know that we'll ever get to this side of heaven. I don't know that we'll ever get to the place to where they're one and the same, but I do know this, there's more available. I do know this that we can, whatever level, whatever gap we have between those two realities, we can shrink it, we can bring it closer together.
And so we're gonna talk today about the one thing that I believe is the number one key to closing the gap. And that's the word truth. The number one thing I believe in closing the gap is the word truth. And so if you, we're gonna look at a few scriptures with just open up, but I wanna start with a very familiar scripture and it's John 1010.
I think most people can quote this by heart, but let's just take it slow, because sometimes we can be so familiar with a verse that we can miss. We can miss the truth of it sometimes. So we're gonna start with John 1010, it says this, it says the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly.
I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly. A lot of times we focus on the first half of this verse. We all know that the thief comes to do what? Steal, kill and destroy.
That's his only agenda. He has no other agenda, but to destroy your life, to steal from your life and to automatically render you useless to kill you in essence of being effective for God. Jesus comes with a completely different agenda. Jesus doesn't come to take away, he comes to give.
He doesn't come to reduce, he comes to improve. He says, I have come that you may have what life? Now if you know if it says may have life and may have it more abundantly, the word may, it means might, it's the subjunctive mood. It's the mood of possibility and potential, which means this.
It's not a guarantee. It's possible, but it's not a guarantee. He says, I have come that you may have life. This word life is the word zoe.
Anybody ever hear of zoe before? Zoe, some people will say this, some people will say, zoe is the God kind of life. I don't like that definition, because zoe is actually the life of God. God's life.
And so Jesus says, I have come that you may have God's life. Like the very life that Jesus has, the very life that the Father has, the very life that's in the Holy Spirit that He has, Jesus comes to give you the identical same life. He comes to give you God life. And He says, I'm not just coming to give you God life.
I'm coming to give you God life in abundance, more abundantly, as if it's not good enough. Isn't it good? Just like that would be good enough. But what happens sometimes we stop it good enough and don't go on to all that He's provided.
Because He hasn't just provided God's life. He's provided God's life in abundance, to the full, to the overflow. I like this word more abundant. If you look at it in the Greek, it actually means two things.
It not only means quantity, but it also means quality. It's not just the abundance of things that you can put a number on, but it's the quality. It's the quality of life that He brings. Look at this, it means super abundant, excessive, exceeding in number, measure, rank, or need.
So here's what I want to ask. Is anybody experiencing the life of God right now to the degree that it's more than you need? A lot of people experience life like they're trying to get what they need. If you're just trying to have your needs met, you're falling short of what He's provided.
Because He's provided life in abundance that's more than you need, it's in excess. It's above a fixed number or measure. It means superior, extraordinary, surpassing more eminent. Now I want to emphasize this, more eminent, more remarkable, more excellent, superiority, advantage, quality over and above, more than is necessary.
Exceeding abundantly supremely something further, more, much more than all. Anybody here want to write in there? What is it? More, it's more than.
Say this, there is more. No matter what you've experienced, there's more. No matter what you've tapped into, there's more. Because the abundance of God is not limited by time and space and it can't be quantified.
So you may have tapped into the more of God, but even if you have, there's still more. So say this over your life, say there is more. Prophecy over your life, there's more. Oh, come on, say it like you're saying it to the devil.
Come on, there's more. Like that here you. Right? Say it like you mean it.
Like we sit through the other news more. See, there's so many things in the Bible that we take as a point of theology and never actually to absorb the truth of the word. Like, I don't care if you know it, but when you receive it and understand it and begin to allow it to penetrate into your spirit, like you're going to be again to expect more. And so there's this gap.
See, that's where this gap is. Next slide. See, most believers have settled somewhere in the gap between new life and abundant life. Like that Jesus came to give you new life.
He comes to bring you eternal life that you must be born again. You must be born again. There's no chance of abundant life if you don't have life. But a lot of believers receive life and then they live somewhere in that gap between life and abundant life.
Like, and so there's this gap. And so what we want to do today is we want to, we want to close the gap. We want to shrink the gap. We want to figure out what's keeping me, whatever place in that gap I'm living, wherever I've decided to level off, wherever I've decided to, you know what, it's good enough.
Why would I ever say it's good enough when there's more? If there's more in Christ, why wouldn't I want more? Why wouldn't I want a better marriage? Why wouldn't I, here, my wife says, right here.
Why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't I want more for my children? Why wouldn't I want more in my walk with the Lord? Why wouldn't I want more for my job?
Why wouldn't I want to? See, if I have Christ in me, at some point there should be an effulgence. There should be a radiance that I'm not just reflecting Christ, but I'm releasing Christ. That the life that's in me should be evident to the point that people see more than just life.
They see abundant life. Like it should point to Christ. And so we've got to close this gap. See, being born again is necessary.
Being born again gives you access, but being born again doesn't give you the experience. And I want you to be born again. If you don't know Jesus, you must be born again. You can't enter the kingdom unless you're born again.
But if you've accepted Jesus, then I want you to move from life to experiencing the abundant life that Jesus has provided. We want to close that gap. See, I think the key is this. Jesus says in John chapter, go to the next slide there, I'm sorry.
He says in John 14, six, I couldn't remember the verse. I was gonna say five, but John 14, six, he says, I am the way. Let's say this, I am the way. I am the truth and I am the life.
No one comes to the Father, except by or through me. See, Jesus is the only way to connect with the Father. The only way to have a relationship with the Father is through the Son Jesus. See, he says, I am the way.
If you're gonna connect with the Father, I'm the way. And see, what happens is a lot of people have encountered Jesus as the way, but never experience him as the life because they fail to engage him as the truth. And so if you think about this, like clap if you're there, but don't clap if you're not there yet, right? Because look, he's the way, like you have to be saved.
There is no other name under heaven whereby you must be saved. Like there's one name, there's one way, it's Jesus. You must encounter him and have a born again experience. But see, so many people can't get from the way to the life because in between the two is what, the truth.
And so you may have encountered him as the way, you might be saved, you might be born again, you might be living right, but you haven't experienced life because you fail to engage the truth. There's a thing called rules of engagement. Rules of engagement is, it can be a military term to where a superior officer gives the rules and the rags that within a certain context of a mission, what can be done, how things can be fought, what the soldiers can do. There's rules of engagement in business that lead to more productive meetings or better collaboration.
Like, hey, you can't laugh at somebody when they make a dumb comment. Although I kind of do that sometimes, but my rules of engagement are different. You know, there's rules of engagement in marriage. Like there's counselors, marriage counselors that provide rules of engagement for couples that are having a time.
Kristen and I, we went to marriage counseling, I don't know how many times, but quite a few. But back in the day, things weren't great. And we argued and fought and bicker and yelled and cussed and like, it was bad. And so one thing that our counselor gave us as a rule of engagement was, you can only argue at McDonald's or public restaurant.
So wouldn't you know, yeah, because you know, in a restaurant, you're not gonna say all the things you're gonna say at home. You're a little more reserved. So you're not gonna cost as much. You're not gonna like be rate somebody as much.
You're gonna be more civilized. So my rule of engagement for what helped us was like, if we had an argument, we didn't, we, we, okay, hold it. We're gonna go down to Burger King. We're gonna sit there and we're gonna hash this out over a whopper.
Yeah, and I had it my way. Yeah. See, all you men, if you wanna have it your way, it's gotta be her way. Like, like there's no other way.
You learn that after a few arguments. You can win the battle and lose the war. It's not worth it. Cause all of a sudden 10 o'clock comes around and you'd be sleeping on the couch.
So Jesus says this. He says on the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Paul says this to Timothy in the next slide.
I think we already said it. You can counter him as the way. Yeah, so Paul, and he's talking to the Ephesian church. Paul says this to the church at Ephesus.
He says a similar thing to what I just said. If you have your Bibles turned to Ephesians chapter four, cause I wanna read this to you, Ephesians four. Remember when Paul's writing the Ephesians, he's writing two believers. These are saved, and he says in Ephesians four verse 17, he says this I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles.
He's saying you're saved, but you should be living a life that doesn't look like the rest of the Gentiles. So remember Gentiles represent unsaved, but he's talking to save people. And he says that you should be able to walk the walk, live the life, the entirety of your life should not be like other Gentiles. In the futility of their mind, I think I put up there, the word futility means devoid of truth.
It means vanity, it means emptiness. So he says, how do the other Gentiles walk? Well, the first thing that's evident is their minds are devoid, there's an absence of truth. And look at the result of being an absence of truth, having their understanding darkened, which means this.
It means there's an absence of light, there's an absence of revelation, there's an absence of illumination, there's an absence of knowledge because their understanding has been darkened. Being alienated from what, the zoe. Because though their minds are devoid of truth, they're alienated from the zoe of God. Now, they're saved, right?
They're saved, so they're connected. To be alienated means this, it means to be a non-participant. Imagine this, you're a possessor of zoe life, but because your mind is void of truth, the result is that you are a non-participant in the life of God. You possess it, but you don't participate in it.
And the reason you don't participate in the very thing that you possess is because the mind is devoid, absent of truth. He just wanna say because of the ignorance that is in them. Lack of understanding. Because of the blindness of their heart, it means that the heart over time has become calloused and dull.
Who being past feeling, which means they develop such a callous on their heart, they don't even feel a sense of pain anymore when they do wrong. They become callous to it. Having given themselves to lewdness, that means shameless promiscuity, to the point where you live a life, a promiscuity, but have no shame about what you do. And work uncleanness with greediness, which basically means that you do every kind of impurity and you have a desire for more of it.
All of that started with a mind that was devoid of truth. A mind devoid of truth leads to all those things. The worst of it is this, is that you live a life that you become a non-participant, alienated, separated. It means to not have intimacy with the life of God.
Man, I want you to be in a minute. I want you to be a participant in God's life. Like what a tragedy to have Zoe and not participate in Zoe, not experience Zoe. And the one thing standing between Zoe and abundant Zoe is truth.
And so that's what I want to talk about today. How do we access truth? How do we access truth? How do we become acquainted with truth?
How do we do that? Where is it from that? How do we access it? How do we become acquainted with it?
And how do we apply it? So those three things today. How do we access truth? Number one, how do we become acquainted with?
So acquainted with doesn't, it's not just like you say, oh, nice to make your acquaintance. We're not shaking hands with truth and just casually being introduced to it. To be acquainted with something is to be familiar with it because you've studied or experienced it. So that we become thoroughly acquainted, fully acquainted.
So how do we access truth? How do we become acquainted with truth? And then finally, how do we make application? The application of what that truth is.
Because accessing it, being familiar with it, all fall short if we don't apply it. Like it's got to be applied to our life. It's got to be applied. So there's three ways.
Oh, let's just, at the end of Paul's thing, the phoenix says you've not so learned clay if indeed you've heard him in top and has the truth is in Jesus. So he's saying this, it's like you didn't learn that behavior from Jesus. If you truly heard him, if you truly were taught by him because in him is the truth. So if you heard the message of Jesus beyond just the message of salvation, then you wouldn't be living the way you're living.
You would allow truth to penetrate your life to the degree to where you move from just accessing and having Zoe life to moving over here and experiencing abundant Zoe life. But there's a whole lot of mess right here in the middle. And that's what we want to deal with today. Let's get the mess out of the middle, right?
Let's get that mess. That mess is right here. The mess is here. This is the one thing that's keeping you back.
It's not that you need more faith. God needs you at the point of your faith. See, I see so many people that have been prayed for. They've had hands laid on.
They've been prophesied over. They've come to the altar. They've been have impartation. They fall out.
They do whatever. But then they get up, they go home and they're no different. Because your life becomes the reality of what's right here. The reality of the life you're living, you can go right to your mind.
And so we're gonna look at this thing called truth today. So I want you to know this, that God, it says that he desires all men to be what, right? It's God's will that you're saved. But beyond salvation, God has a second desire for you.
See, God's will, a lot of things that talk about God's will, the word desire is also will. This is will that you're saved. God is not willing that any should what perish, but that all should come to repents. Beyond salvation, what's God's second will for you?
According to this verse, that you would come to the knowledge of the truth. That word knowledge is epignosis. It means precise knowledge, exact knowledge, accurate knowledge, fullness of knowledge. It comes from the word gynosco, it's epic nosco, but it's fullness of knowledge that comes from knowledge that's acquired through experience.
It's an experience with Jesus that leads me into a greater fullness of knowledge. And he says, I want you to get saved. But if you're saved beyond that, I want you to come to this place of the fullness, of accurate knowledge, the knowledge of the truth. All right, number one is this.
We have access to the truth. Then we're gonna talk about being acquainted with the truth. And then finally, application of the truth. There's three ways God gives us access to the truth.
Three distinct ways that we access truth. I'll give them to you then. We'll look at a few verses. Number one, the word of God.
Number two, the spirit of God. And number three, the minister of God. The word of God, the spirit of God, and the minister of God. Let's start with the word of God.
So we're talking about accessing truth. How do I access truth? Number one, the word of God. John 17, 17, Jesus says this.
Sanctify them by your, what? Truth, your word is truth. So to sanctify just means to set you apart, to make you holy, to cleanse you, to purify you. He says, set my disciples apart by your truth.
Your word is truth. And so on 119, verse 160, it says this. The entirety of your word is what? Truth.
See, the problem is this. It's not that we don't, we don't through the word of God have access to the truth. It's that a lot of times we only want partial truth. We want to go to the buffet line of God's word.
We, you know, anybody go to the Chinese buffet? Not anymore. Not anymore. I'm gonna say this.
Meow, meow. Hey, baby, recap. You probably haven't didn't know it, right? Yeah.
But you go to the Chinese buffet. What do you do? Does anybody eat everything on the buffet? No, you don't, because you pick the things that what?
You like, you get the fried wontons. Everybody likes those. You get the crab, that's what I meant. Crab rangoon, too, doesn't love crab rangoon.
You know, there's certain things that you're gonna get because you have an affinity for them. You like them. You're familiar with them. And so what happens when we access the truth of God's word, we tend to word, we have this bias toward things that we're comfortable with, things that we know, things that we understand.
And when we go to the word, we just wanna pick out the pieces of truth that already line up the way we are. And the ones that challenge us, the ones that demand a decision, the ones that stand in our face and make us take a healthy look in the mirror, oh, you know what, I don't like the taste of that one. I'm just gonna leave it there. I'm gonna leave that one on the buffet for Seth.
Because God knows Seth needs to step out and try a few things. Like you talk about a picky eater. This guy is the pickiest, I know. But I think he pales in comparison to the pickiness most Christians have with the word of God.
Like we wanna pick and choose what truth that we wanna use in our lives. And David says this, he says, the entirety of your word is truth. Now, I want you to remember this, I've told you this before, the written word of God. This is the written word of God.
It is all true. It's all truth. But all truth is not contained in this one book. Like a book can't contain all the truth that God has.
There's more to God than what's written here. It's all true, but it doesn't contain the entirety of all truth. As a matter of fact, Jesus said, or John said about Jesus, even if it was just written the works that he did, the books, there couldn't be enough books in the whole world to contain all the things that he did. So there's not everything that's true is recorded here.
But there is another access that we have called the Spirit of God that does give us access to all truth. So the Spirit of God is the means through which we access all truth. Jesus said in John chapter 14, he says this, he says, and I will pray the Father that he will give you another comforter, even, who will abide with you how long? Forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him because he is with you and will be in you.
So think about this, I have the record of God's word, which is in its entirety, it's truth. But it doesn't contain all truth, it is all truth though. And then he gives me the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, who abides with me for how long? Forever, so I have access to all truth forever.
In John 16, it says this, he says, I have many things that I wanna tell you, but you're not ready to receive them yet. However, when he, the Spirit of truth is com, he will do what, guide you into all truth. So I have this, I have the Spirit of truth living in me for all time, and I have the Spirit of truth who lives in me for all time can guide me into all truth. So any truth that's not contained here is accessible through the ministry and the power of the Holy Spirit.
So think about this, it's God's word, now remember Jesus is the word of God, you're talking about the written, is God's word all true? Yes, is the Spirit of truth all true? Yes, all right, the transitive property of equality and math, anybody know it? The transitive property of equality.
All right, means that, anybody take algebra? All right, if A equals B, all right, get this, if A equals B, I'm sorry, if A equals C and B equals C, then A and B have to equal each other. If God's word is truth and the Holy Spirit is truth, truth always has to equal truth, therefore what's true in God's word has to be true with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so when people say, well, I'm like, hey bro, why are you and your girlfriend living together?
Well, we prayed about it and we just felt like the Holy Spirit told us that if we lived together, it would help us become better stewards of our money. And by saving money, he would help us get to that place where we could get married. Now, all of a sudden I get a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, because I don't find that truth in the word of God. What I find in the word of God is flee for an occasion and all useful us.
I said that you shouldn't even do things that have the appearance of evil, that sleeping together ahead of marriage is sin, and the Holy Spirit is not gonna lead you to do something that's sin to shape you in a spiritual gift of stewardship. And so when you say the Holy Spirit told me, if he told you, it better line up with the truth of God's word because the truth of the Spirit and truth of the word always have to agree. Truth always equals truth. You can give me another excuse and just say, you know what, I don't want to do what God's word said.
I'm like, okay, that's your choice. But don't tell me God said, because if God said it, agree with God what God wrote, the two have to equal. Anybody wanna leave? I'll give you a chance to go right now.
You're welcome to go. You don't have to listen to this. But I'm telling you, I'm gonna help you close the gap. We're gonna help you close the gap.
The third way we access truth is through the minister of God. What we would call in Ephesians four is the fivefold ministry gifts. The minister of God, the man or woman of God that's placed into your life to help teach you what the truth of God's word is. Jeremiah says, in Jeremiah chapter three verse 15, he says this, he says, and I will give you shepherds according to my heart.
I will give you shepherds, pastors. I'll give you shepherds according to what? The heart of God, who will feed you understanding and knowledge. So the job of the pastor, the job of the teacher, the apostolic teacher, the prophetic teacher, all the fivefold ministry gifts have a teaching application.
That there should be teaching that's happening that helps you understand what God's word says. You remember how it said that how be it when he, the spirit of truth will guide you into all truth? Do you remember when Philip, the evangelist, he was in Sumeria, had a miracle service and then God tells him to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go to go and he runs into the Ethiopian Union, Acts chapter eight, you guys remember the story? And the Holy Spirit says go to the chariot and so he walks up to the chariot and he sees the Ethiopian Union, he's reading from Isaiah.
And he says, do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopian Union, say that five times. Ethiopian Union says, how can I understand unless a man guide me? That word guide me is the same word as the Holy Spirit guiding us into all truth.
So there's an application, the problem is there's too many people teaching that don't have proper instruction and grounding in the word. And what happens is, and that's what Paul says, to Timothy, he said this, he says, be diligent, study to know yourself approved, a work and that does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. She'll be up there, next slide. Second Timothy, 215, be diligent.
Present your self-approved to God, a worker who does not need to, there's no need to be ashamed when you've put the time and effort into studying the word of God. See, he says this, a worker that doesn't need to be ashamed, rightly dividing what, the word of truth. If the word should be rightly divided, guess what also can happen? It can be wrongly divided.
If it can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided. The word rightly divided actually means to cut a straight line, to cut a straight line. But see, you can listen to a lot of teachers, preachers, TikTok videos that are not grounded in good doctrinal theology. And what happens is, just like I said, when you compare what the Holy Spirit said, he said to you, to what God's word said, you better compare, if all truth equals truth, you better compare what's being taught.
And that line up with what the Spirit says and what God's word says. Because no man, including me, including anybody, is beyond, you know, messing it up. It can be messed up. I've taught error by accident before.
It happens. I genuinely, it's why James 3-1 says that a teacher's held to a higher, like a higher responsibility. There's a responsibility that I preach with, because I know that I'm responsible, that I'm affecting people's lives. See this word, it says to cut rightly, to cut a straight line.
Last week we had a pastor in his wife door house for dinner. I went, I wanted to make it nice. They were from Oakland. I went and picked up some fillets at Martin's.
And if you, first of all, I got shocked, the guy, I was like, whoo, I don't realize fillets was so expensive anymore. But I had that wrong thought for a minute. Well, if I put this back on the shelf, would anybody notice bad thought? I had to pull that bad thought down, right?
But so I get these four fillets. He puts two in a pack. And so I got two packs of two, and they're thick, and they look great, and they're great color, and they're all in the pack, and they're all uniform. So when you're making steaks, I look at the cook steaks, they need to be the same thickness.
Otherwise, your cooking times will vary, and it throws the whole process off. I get home, I open the package, and the steak goes, whoop, yeah, because it's under this wrap, right? And it's kind of like Spanx. Now we'll go, no.
No. No. I just didn't say that. Yeah.
Yeah. Take this meat out of the wrapper, and it goes like this. And I look, and all of a sudden the steaks that I thought were cut uniform, they're cut crooked. That there's a guy that was posing as a butcher that didn't know how to use the knife, and he cut me a bunch of crooked steaks, but he arranged them in the packet so that they looked genuine.
They looked accurate. And I just felt like that there's a lot of teachers, preachers, pastors, apostles, prophets, evangelists, that are cutting the word crooked, and it looks good on the surface, but when you dig down and unwrap it, you realize it doesn't really line up. And those things, if we get wrong and accurate truths, will keep you stuck in that gap. Dig into God's word.
Search it out. Be like the Bereans who search the scriptures daily. There's a responsibility, like, it's not just like, oh, God, pour it in. You gotta put the work in.
It's not hard work. It's like, hey, you get to fellowship with Jesus. It's good work. But those things will keep you in the gap.
So God gives us access. He gives us access to the truth, through the word of God, the written word of God. He gives us access to the truth, through the spirit of God. And he gives us access to the truth, through the man or woman of God that's ministering, from an apostolic, prophetic teaching, an authoritative teaching.
You need that. You need to be instructed. You need somebody who is able to feed you. Feed you truth.
Feed you knowledge. Feed you understanding. Not feed you baby food. Like you're not gonna grow being fed baby food.
And so we wanna make sure that we're teaching truth. We're teaching with accuracy, that it's able to build you up. Like the word of his grace falls as, the word of grace will build you up. All right, access to the truth.
Now once we have access to the truth, we've gotta become acquainted with. I've gotta get familiar with it. There needs to be a familiarity with the truth. See, it's not just being able to quote scriptures, not just being able to find scripture.
It's not just being able to know scripture. There's a verse in 2 Timothy. I can't remember the exact verse. It's maybe 3-7.
Somebody help me out. It says ever learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth. Ever learning, verse seven. 2 Timothy 3-7.
So I don't wanna read verse six because, oh, there it is. How about that? Something. Somebody says, turn around dummy.
Let's practice. Turn around dummy. All right. So the verse before this talks about gullible women.
So I don't wanna make this a female thing. All right. It talks about gullible women. But it could just as easy be gullible men.
But you become gullible. Here's what it says. It says these men creep in these homes and they take advantage of gullible women who are overlaid with sins. And then it says they're always learning.
They're always learning. But they're never coming to what? The knowledge of the truth. They're never coming to that accuracy, the fullness.
And so a lot of times people put all this time into study and learning. It's not about learning. It's about letting what you learn change you. It's about getting to the place where it affects you.
That you become familiar with it. That you become knowledgeable of it to the point where there's an intimacy. Like there's intimacy with the word that you know. Like you can know truth.
Like I could quote to you some math formula, but I may not be able to explain it. I may not understand it. But there are people that not just know the formula but can tell you the behind how it works, how you get to that place. And that's what he's calling us to.
All right. So John chapter A verse 30 through 33 says this. This is another familiar. I'm not teaching anything new today.
Right? These are passages you probably already know. Verse 30 says this. I spoke these words to many who what?
Believed. The other one here believes in Jesus. All right. So now a little bit different now because he's resurrected and ascended, but these were believers prior to the cross.
Nonetheless believers. So these are the ones that believed in him. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him verse 31. If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed.
And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. And they answered him and said, where Abraham's descendants have never been and bonded to anyone. How can you say will be made free? Where Abraham said, like, here's a group of believers that were in bondage and didn't know it.
It describes a lot of people in the church today. Like you can be a believer and be stuck in something. They said, we've never, how can you just said we'll be made free? We've never been a bondage to anyone.
They were in bondage to the Egyptians. They've been in jibondas to the Persians. They've been in bondage to the Babylonians. They've been in bondage to the Syrians.
They've been in bondage to the Philistines. And now they're in bondage to the Romans at the very moment. They've never been in bondage to anybody, but I'm all good. I'm good.
I'm good. I'm good. Oh, really? Cause when I see your life, don't look too good.
It looks like you're stuck in the gap, but you don't even realize you're stuck in the gap. You're a believer, but you're stuck here. And because you're stuck here, you're not experiencing what's over here. Jesus says, if you abide in my word, that means to remain, to stay.
It's the same word used as the Holy Spirit taking up residence in you. He abides in me. He dwells in me. Jesus says, if you dwell in my word, which is truth.
If you abide in my word, then you are what? My disciples. So it's not that you're a born again, like you need to get born again, but we're not set out to make converse. Jesus says I want you to make disciples of all nations.
A disciple is a learner. A disciple is a person that studies under somebody's or somebody who says I want you to make learners. And he says if you stay in the truth, if you remain in the truth of my word, eventually your identity goes from being born again to now being a disciple. You can't be a disciple if you don't stay in the Word.
So you can be a Christian, you can be a believer, but you're not a disciple apart from your meaning in the Word of God. And it says if you abide in my word, then you are my disciples of a truth or indeed and you shall what? No, the truth and the truth will do what? So you're free.
So freedom is on the other side of what? Truth. So freedom's over here. You're in bondage back there, but you don't even know it.
And you don't know it because you haven't spent enough time in the truth to become a disciple. Just a baby believer who saved me going to heaven, but you're not experiencing freedom yet. You're not experiencing victory yet. You're not experiencing the abundant life yet because you chose to stay here because you're not willing to let the truth make you look in the mirror.
He says if you abide in my word, then and only then will I give you the identity of a disciple. And when you're a disciple, then you'll also know what? The truth. You can't know the truth unless you do what?
Abide in the Word. Well, the truth will set me free. Yeah, it's the truth that you know from being a disciple that comes from abiding in the Word. The truth that you don't know won't set you free, but you can't know it until you stay there.
You've got to stay there long enough to become acquainted with it because it says you shall be my disciples and you shall know, which is that word, genoscale again, which means it means sexual intimacy between a husband and a wife. It means knowledge that comes through experience and intimacy. That I only get the knowledge that comes through experiencing intimacy when I stay in the house. And when I stay there, then I begin to interact with Jesus and the Holy Spirit in his Word and allow people to pour in my life and all of a sudden boom, illumination comes, revelation comes, understanding comes.
And it's the knowledge that I've gained now through experience that gives me the ability to experience the freedom that he's already provided, or I can just be a believer. I mean, that's your choice. I don't want to just be a believer. I don't want to be a believer even in bondage.
I want to be a believer in freedom. I want to be a believer that that accesses the more. Like, if you're free, there's still more freedom. If you're victorious, there's still more victory.
Like, if you've experienced the glory of God, there's more, there's more, but you have to, like, he abides in you, but you've got to abide in him. You've got to stay there. You have to stay there long enough for the Word to do its work. See, when I got delivered of lust and pornography and all that stuff, 18 years ago, that God delivered me from, I didn't have a miraculous delivery, but I had a six-month delivery.
And it came from renewing my mind every day with the Word of God. And I woke up one day, six months later, and it was gone. And it hasn't come back ever, ever. See, not all freedom come.
See, I believe in the miraculous deliverance. We see it all the time. But progressive deliverance, because I'm remaining in the Word, is probably the more common. We just don't give the Word time to work.
But you got to stay there. Yeah, stay there. Remain. All right, application.
I had a friend of mine. Well, I didn't have a friend. He's still a friend. We don't.
Well, he may not be if he watches this, but I got a pretty good chance he won't. This guy has had a call of God on his life for ever since I've known him 50-some years. Never preached a message that I know of. But nonetheless, I believe the call of God is on his life.
Been through a couple failed marriages after probably number two. He moved in with his then current girlfriend. I said, bro, what are you doing? What are you doing?
I said, you're living with this girl. I mean, clearly violates God's Word. You're living in sin. He goes, yeah, I know what God's Word said.
And I actually believe that it is sin. I'm just choosing to do it. I'm like, okay, that's your choice. You can, I believe, see, Jesus paid for us to have the freedom of choice.
He paid for your freedom to choose. And sad, because that's not the best choice. But nonetheless, the young dothings, I understand the truth. I've been acquainted with the truth.
I'm familiar with the truth. But I refuse to apply the truth to my life. And I think a lot of people, if you make it to number two, now can we take it to number three? Can we take it to number three?
Because there's this thing called walking in truth, living in truth. Like it's not just that I've accessed, I've read the word of God, I understand it, I have the Spirit of God in me, he's guiding me into all truth. I have, I'm surrounded by men and women of God that are pouring into me. I have access to truth.
I've become acquainted with it. I've stayed here and I've stayed here and I've let the words start to work on me and reveal truth to me. But now I got to take the next step. I got to do something with it.
There has to be application. Say this, transformation is warfare. Transformation is warfare. Go back to the slide, I think just prior to this, the next one.
So you can, you can be the person that says, you know what, I know the truth, but I refuse to apply it. I know what God's Word says, but I refuse. That results in perpetuation, which means this, you know the truth, the truth won't set you free because you haven't, you've rejected it. Your situation will continue to be perpetuated.
Refusal to apply the truth results in perpetuation. Misapplication of truth results in justification. Now I don't mean justification like the fact that God declares you righteous. Like we know the biblical justification.
I'm talking about justification like let me justify to you while I'm living the way I'm living. Jesse, people all the time that will pull nuggets of truth that is true, but then they misapply or only partially apply truth. Is this a true statement from 1 John chapter 4? Pastor Seth loves this.
God is love. God is love. Is that true? Right?
We take the statement, God is love, that we are to love others and love God and all that, right? We take that truth and partially apply the truth without taking the other side of the truth that says in Hebrews 12, whom God loves, he corrects. Well, God's love and you better love me and if you don't, if you disagree and try to correct me, then you're not loving me. Wrong.
I love you enough to correct you. If I didn't love you, if I didn't love you, I'd let you go to hell. If I didn't love you once you got saved, I'd let you continue to live the life you're living. If you're going down a highway and the bridge is out and I run out and it's like stop, stop, stop.
You get mad at me for a second. Like, what are you doing with you? Dummy, turn around. And I said, roll down the window.
I'm like the bridge is out. Oh, all of a sudden, I'm not the bad guy anymore. See, if you love somebody, see, God loves you enough not to let you stay the same. It says, whom the Lord loves, he corrects, who has a father that loves them that doesn't correct you?
I want to say, if God doesn't correct you, then you're an illegitimate child, actually a bastard. That's what it says. If you're not, if God loves you but doesn't correct you, then you're an illegitimate child that's born of a prostitute or a female slave. That's not who you are.
You're a child of God. You're born of the Father, not of the will and then but of the will of God. And if God loves you, he will correct you and he will bring people into your life to help correct you, access to the truth, the word, the spirit, and also the man or woman of God. So don't, partial application, misapplication of truth ends up, let me justify it to you and give you an excuse while I continue to remain where I am.
Well, let me give you a reason why you shouldn't because there is, there's more. Applied truth leads to transformation. See, you won't experience transformation that God has until you, like you can access it, you can become acquainted with it, but you've got to apply it. Transformation is spiritual warfare.
Why? Because once the lie has been exposed, what's the opposite of truth? A lie. Once the lie is exposed, we got to do something with it.
Right? Then lie, Paul says that he calls him strongholds, that lie upon lie, brick upon brick. The enemy builds this fortress, this castle, this stronghold in your mind in which he hides behind, hides behind, but all of a sudden the truth of God's word, which is also light exposes it. And once it's exposed, we got to deal with it.
We got to do something. Second Corinthians 10 verse 4 and 5 says, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty to God and God to the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down arguments, which are, we talked about this a few weeks ago, reasonings, reasoning. You sit in reason in your mind why it's okay.
In other words, imaginations, do you know, as you begin to rehearse something enough, you bounce it back, all of a sudden you begin to see it, the reasoning turns into an imagination. And you begin to see yourself the way the enemy just lied to you about. It says casting down, pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, imaginations, reasoning. Every high thing that exalts itself elevates itself against what?
The knowledge of God which is the truth. Anything that elevates itself above what God says needs brought down. It says bringing every thought into the captivity, into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Not your obedience, it's his obedience.
So when I have a wrong thought, when went to the obedience of Jesus place at the cross, by one man's disobedience, Paul says, anywhere made sinners, but by the obedience of one man, many shall be made righteous. I take the wrong thought and I compare it to the obedience of Christ and say, was this paid for in the death burial and resurrection of Jesus? How does it compare to his obedience? If it wasn't paid for, then I don't need it.
If it was paid for in the obedience of Christ, I need it. And I don't just need it. I want it. And I want it because there's more.
Like what he paid for is unlimited. It's unlimited in healing. It's unlimited in freedom. It's unlimited in victory.
It's all the things that you'll ever need in quality and quantity to live the abundant life that Jesus paid for. To have anybody that wants that today. Like I want it. I want it.
It's available. It's available. I'm going to leave you with a quote by this real old guy named Charles Spurgeon. I don't ever quote Spurgeon, but I'm going to give it a go today.
He says, the more truth you believe, the more sanctified you'll be. Remember it says, Jesus said, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. The more truth you believe, the more sanctified you'll be.
The operation of truth upon the mind is to separate a man, and I'm going to say, or woman of God from the world unto the service of God. Like you need that. You need that. Let's pray.