<h3>Podcast Week 8 | John 15-16</h3>
<h3>SHOW NOTES</h3>
DAY 1: John 15:1-17
Stories: Love One Another
Curiosities:
1) What does it mean to bear fruit? Will we be cut off if we don’t produce fruit? What is the difference between pruning and cutting? How can we remain in Jesus?
2) What does it mean if we ask for what we want and it is not done? Does that mean that we are not in Jesus?
3) We are not servants of God – this is one of the most powerful statements of the Bible. By believing and fellowshipping with Jesus, we are granted the rights to be friends of God. That isn’t a trite way of saying we are friends and servants, but that we are actually friends. God calls us friends! He has not held back anything from us.
4) How can we love one another?
DAY 2: John 15:18-27
Stories: Contention with the world
Curiosities:
1) Why do we get hated by the world just for following Jesus and doing His will? If the world loves us, does that mean we don’t belong to Jesus? John told us in chapter one that the people Jesus created to love Him chose not to – they rejected Him – because they loved darkness; sin. If they rejected Jesus, they will reject us too, but not everyone rejects.
2) Who is the Advocate?
3) The testimony of the Apostles
DAY 3: John 16:1-15
Stories: Persecution, Holy Spirit Continued
Curiosities:
1) How could we fall away? Why do we need to know these things in advance?
2) It is better that Jesus goes away so the Holy Spirit will come – that’s a powerful testimony of the power and place of the Holy Spirit in our lives
3) Sin, righteousness and judgment – these three things are the main three things that cause people to reject God.
Sinful hearts hate for their sin to be exposed. We want to hold onto it.
Sinful hearts want to be self-righteous. Our sinful nature wants to make excuses for our sin and why it’s not really all that bad. We want to excuse ourselves.
Sinful hearts do not want to be judged, but to do the judging. By only judging others, we feel we can keep judgment against us at an arms length, and thereby control who we feel has access to judge us.
The problem with these three things is that we are sinful, we have no righteousness of our own and we have a judge whom we didn’t choose and we have no control over – He is the one who has already judged Satan.
4) The Spirit will teach us things in season as we are ready for them. We should seek and ask constantly for the Spirit to teach us new things and free our hearts from darkness.
DAY 4: John 16:16-33
Stories: Pain and Joy
Curiosities:
1) Why don’t the disciples get it? Why can’t they see what we see clearly with hindsight? John is pointing out in this passage the difficulty they had with understanding what Jesus was saying. He did this not to self-incriminate himself or others, or to make them look stupid, but to illustrate how hard it is to understand what God is telling us unless we go straight to Him in honesty and ask for clarification. We need to engage with him in conversation
2) They scattered. Jesus did not reject the disciples even when they denied Him or scattered and left Him alone. They all (but one) came back to Him. That is what matters. When we stumble and fall, will we get up and accept forgiveness and return to Jesus?