What if the religion I grew up with isn’t the same as following Jesus?
WATCH
I Am, 3 of 7 from March 15, 2026
“When we recognize Jesus’ leadership He filters deadly distractions.”
John 9-10 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores Jesus’ identity as the light of the world and the door of the sheep, highlighting how he heals spiritual blindness, filters out destructive voices, and alone provides true abundance in life. Pastor Michael discusses how we often begin with selfish motives, are bombarded by competing influences, and must humbly learn to recognize and follow Jesus’ voice as our true and caring shepherd.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What ailments might Jesus be using to get our attention?
💬 Do we recognize the voice of Truth when He calls to us?
💬 What influences have we accepted without bringing them to Jesus?
-
Cool. Well, good morning, church. I'm glad to be together with you, slides or no slides.
It's going to be a great morning.
Yeah. So we've been in a series over the last couple of weeks where we've just called it I Am. And what we want to do is we want to take a look at what is it that Jesus said about himself. How did Jesus describe himself? Kind of taking Jesus in his own words.
So instead of listening in and tuning into what grandma said about Jesus or what the mostly bald guy says on Sunday mornings about Jesus or what the TikTok influencers are doing on the Insta reels, I have no idea. But instead of, like listening to all of those voices and trying to figure out, like, who's saying what and which one is right to just tune all that down, turn the volume down on that and go back to the source. What does Jesus say about himself? Because as we've looked in the biography about Jesus that we call John, there's seven times where Jesus just kind of stops what's going on and says, hey, by the way, I am. And he describes.
Makes a statement to describe what he's like. So first he says, I am the bread of life. He says, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. And whoever trusts me and follows me will never be thirsty again.
And we saw in that week that we all kind of come to Jesus for selfish reasons. At first I think if that's a new idea for us, we're like, I don't think I like that. I came for Jesus for good reasons, for honest reasons. I was pursuing him like, yeah, yeah, I get that. But we all kind of start from a selfish place.
What can Jesus do for me? And I just say that so that we can all be on the same page. That's where we start. Babies are selfish, and that's okay. I've never met a baby that didn't think they were the center of the universe.
And that's okay. We all start there. But as we let those desires bring us to Jesus, and let Jesus rewire our desires, he says, I'm the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry. Which means you're going to come to me for selfish reasons, and then I'm going to sustain you with things that you didn't even know to ask for.
I'm the bread of life. And then last week we saw Jesus make this statement, I am the light of the world. World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. I am the light of the world.
Not a light in the world, the light of the world. I'm the one by which all things are seen clearly. And we saw that Jesus lights up things that we can't see on our own. You know, whether you have glasses or not, like, there are things in your perspective and your perception of how the world works that are. That are off.
And when we come to Jesus and when we trust him, when we look at him in faith, our faith becomes the lenses by which we begin to see the world. And he lights up things that we cannot see on our own. He gives us insight. He helps us to see what's true, whether we could actually prove it or not. So he's the light of the world.
He lights up things that we cannot see on our own. Last week, we kind of started with that statement, I am the light of the world. And as we got to that statement, the rest of the chapter was a little bit confusing. So we started on that statement, and then we kind of wandered around over those two chapters to try to figure out how to tie all this stuff together. That's our procedure as we went through last week.
This week, we're going to start with the wandering, and we're going to end up with another I am statement. Okay, so it's a little bit backwards from how we structured things last week. If you've been following along, if you haven't been following along, that's interesting to you. We've got all of those resources on our YouTube page and our website, our podcast. You can listen back or read summaries of them.
Whatever you'll actually do, I want to give you options that you'll actually do, not things that, you know you have options that you're never going to do. Okay, let's pray.
It's our habit as neighborhood church to pray. The Disciples prayer, you may have heard it as the Lord's Prayer growing up. Oftentimes it's prayed out of, oh, cool, we got it. We got slides now. Oftentimes we pray it out of the Book of Common Prayer, which is kind of a King James Y translation.
This morning, we're going to pray it out of the English Standard Version. So the words are here on the screen if you're not familiar with it. But more than saying the right words, it's not a spell, it's not an incantation. We don't like. Say this so that then God pays attention to us.
God pays attention to us as we direct our attention to him, and he asks us to shape our heart and our desires around these things. So let's just stop everything for a minute, and I'm just going to give you a second. If you haven't talked to Jesus yet this morning, just say good morning to him.
If there's something that's particularly burdensome to you, I just pray that you would tell them about it.
Lord, I thank you that you hear the prayers of your people and that you care about the concerns of our heart. Would you reshape us today? We ask as we pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Amen. Would you navigate with me to the book of John? And we're going to start in verse 35. So John 9:35. We ended with these verses last week, and it's the conclusion of what we talked about.
In the light of the world, Jesus makes this statement, I'm the light of the world. And there are some religious people, religious teachers at the time, who say, you don't have. Like, the way that you made that statement is wrong. They start debating with him about the way that he made the statement. And what's crazy to me is Jesus spends a whole chapter listening to their nonsense.
Like, he goes back and forth with them about that, but he makes the statement, I'm the light of the world. And then they don't talk about being the light of the world at all. Which we turn the page into chapter nine. And Jesus is like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm the light of the world. Let me show you.
I'm going to heal a blind guy. So he heals a blind guy. And that starts off a whole different debate, a whole different interrogation and investigation from the religious leaders of the time. But this is how that story ends. He's healed a blind guy.
There's been an investigation. The Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, have kicked the blind guy out of the synagogue. They've removed him from the spiritual commun. And Jesus goes and finds him. That's where our story picks up.
In John 9:35, Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And having found him, he said, do you believe in the son of man? He answered, and who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus Said to him, you have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, lord, I believe.
And he worshiped him. Jesus said, for judgment. I came into this world that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things and they said to him, are we also blind? Jesus said to them, if you were blind, you would have no guilt.
But now that you say we see, your guilt remains. So fascinating. I'd encourage you read John 7, 8, and 9 all together in one sitting. Sometimes you need to zero in on a verse, and sometimes you need to speed read through to pick up what it is that Jesus is doing here. And these are some chapters that like, there's something he's doing.
The more you kind of digest this. So he's healed this blind guy. And these Pharisees are like, surely he couldn't do that. Now here's a thing that I had not noticed up until I studied this semi recently. Do you remember in Sunday school maybe when you were a little kid or you first started like hearing about Jesus, miracles and stuff like that, like he healed the blind guy.
And you're like, yeah, of course stuff like that happens all the time. Like we've got Noah in the ark, there's this giant flood. We've got Daniel in the lion's den. There's these lions that don't eat Daniel. Like there's weird stuff that happens in the Bible everywhere.
And so of course Jesus heals a blind guy. Here's what's crazy to me that I had not ever really realized there are no instances in the Old Testament, in most of the Bible, for hundreds of years, there are no instances of God healing a blind person. What's that? Right? I'm getting there.
Hold on, let me make the point.
That's my wife. Sorry if you don't know. I love her so much.
All throughout the Old Testament, there's no instances of any prophet anywhere healing somebody who's blind. But for hundreds of years before Jesus, the prophets did say, when Messiah comes, when God sends a deliverer, the way that you will know that the deliverer has come is he will heal blind people. For them, when they heard that, they're like, that's never happened before. For me, when I read this, I'm like, of course the prophecy said that they were talking about Jesus. That's because I'm looking backwards.
But when Jesus says, oh, yeah, by the way, I'm the light of the world, like, here's a Blind Guy, you can see now. Your name's not Blind Guy anymore. Your name is Sight Guy, because you can see now. Like you're gonna walk out here. It's crazy to me.
Who do you believe in? The Son of Man? He answered, who is he, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, you have seen him. That's a brand new idea for this guy.
He was born blind. You have seen the Son of Man. And that was a sign that the prophet said hundreds of years ago, nobody's ever done this before. But when it happens, you'll know God's doing something.
You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. So Sight Guy says, lord, I believe. And he worshiped him. He worshiped him.
The goal in Jesus kind of healing, this man says in John, chapter nine and verse three. The reason why, like, this guy had been blind from birth is because Jesus wanted to use him as a way to glorify God. He says in verse three. And he's using this guy's physical blindness to highlight the spiritual blindness of the people who were supposed to know better. The Pharisees, the religious teachers of the time.
They're saying, we see everything perfectly. We've got the whole book of Deuteronomy memorized. We can tell you what the table of contents of every book of the Scripture is. We know it forwards, backwards, upside down, inside out. We can even nitpick the details.
We can justify every behavior that we want to according to the scriptures. However, we know the book and we have no idea who the Word is. We know the Word of God and don't know the heart of God. And Jesus says, listen, if you had said, I don't see it clearly, then you'd have no guilt. If you'd have admitted that you were blind, if you were just ignorant, that would be forgivable.
But you're ignorant and you're saying that you're not. And so your guilt remains.
Arrogance makes us guilty. But their humility might have led to their own healing of their spiritual blindness and Jesus. All throughout these chapters, Jesus is saying, if you reject me. Jesus says, if you reject me, you are also rejecting the Father. If you reject me, you are rejecting Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament.
It's not a different God. He says, if you reject Jesus, you reject me, you reject the Father.
I wonder.
I wonder what ailments we have that Jesus might be trying to use to get our attention spiritually.
What ailments might Jesus be using to, like, get our attention? Because Blind guy had been blind his whole life. Blind guy's parents. I don't know if you thought about this, but blind guy's parents were pretty sure they were the ones that had messed him up. It's a good thing.
That's an ancient problem. Parents today don't ever have that kind of guilt. But, like, they had that guilt, right? We had messed him up. That's why he was born blind.
Jesus says, now I want to glorify God. What ailments might Jesus be using to get our attention? There are physical and mental and emotional ailments that Jesus will use in order to get our spiritual attention.
Because the world is broken. But Jesus never wastes pain. The world is broken. Blindness exists. Sickness exists.
Our brains don't work the way they ought to work. We trust in things that we ought not to trust in. People betray us. People have wrong motives. The world is broken.
But Jesus never wastes pain. How can a good God let evil persist? He takes the evil and he uses it for good. How can God use this despicable evil that's beyond mine? Pay grade, I have no idea.
I lose sleep over it, too.
But he says, if you trust me, in the end, on the last day, you'll see it. You'll see how I used evil to glorify myself and make good come of it. And at the end of time, you'll say, I was right. And you'll glorify me and you'll praise me for my wisdom.
The world is broken. Yes, And I'm sorry that it's broken. And the only reason that I have comfort to tell you that the world is broken. The only reason I have comfort to tell you that there is evil in the world and a good God allows it to exist is because Jesus never wastes pain. The brokenness even serves his purpose, even when it's beyond me.
Our instruction and Jesus instruction here in the text is to believe in Him.
Do you believe in the Son of Man? Who is he that I may believe in Him? You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking. He said, lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.
Jesus invitation is, do you trust me? Do you believe in me? Are you putting your faith in me? Are you seeing things the way that I'm telling you they are? Do you trust me?
Are you living as though what I have told you is true? I'm not asking you if you prayed a prayer one time and walked an aisle. Do you trust that date that somebody wrote in the front of your Bible? I'm not Asking you if you trust a system where you go to church when you get time and when there's nothing else going on so that you can kind of feel a certain way about things that come out of the book. Ask do you trust him, who is the Son of Man?
I hope that if I have done my job well, you should see him, not me.
If I am accurately communicating his word, then you should not be impressed with me and my abilities. You should be impressed with him and his grace and his mercy that he would send some semi bald guy to come and tell you about him.
Our belief is validated by our behavior. And there's just one small point. That's actually not a small point, but it's a different sermon. He said, lord, I believe. And he worshiped him.
And then Jesus keeps talking like, jesus let Sight guy worship him. That doesn't happen unless he's God. Like God doesn't share his glory with anybody. The angels know that if a human falls down and starts to worship the angel, the angel is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, get up, get up, get up, get up. You got the wrong thing.
You should glorify God. Jesus sees him bow down and accepts his worship. I am the light of the world before Abraham was. I am. It's a little point, but it's big.
So we've got this interaction with Jesus and these Pharisees. He's using Sight Guy to highlight these Pharisees spiritual blindness. And when we recognize Jesus leadership, he's going to filter deadly distractions. Let's keep reading. Because we turn the page in chapter 10.
Notice he just picks up teaching after this. There's not a transition. This is all kind of part of the same thing. So if you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say we see, your guilt remains.
Truly, truly, I say to you. Verse 10 or chapter 10. Truly, truly, I say to you. He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way. That man is a thief and a robber.
But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep to him. The gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep sheep by name, and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him. For they do not know the voice of strangers.
This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So all of this is all tied together. And so Jesus finishes talking to the Pharisees. He says, if you had just been blind, you'd have been fine. But because you're blind people claiming to have sight, your guilt remains. And so let me tell you a story.
Let me paint you a picture. He opens up a shepherd. Now, if you've been around for a couple of months, this picture looks real familiar because we actually just started off this year looking at Psalm 23, which is a beautiful psalm and a poetic expression of, like, God's shepherding care of us. And so I've got lots of sheep pictures. And if you want to see them, you can go back in the archives and you can.
You can listen to those messages. It's really, really good. But Jesus says, I need you to, like, as you're thinking, Pharisees and people who are watching this conversation, like, I need you to think about this as though you people are a flock of sheep. Sheep. And that there are people coming and calling out to you and asking for your attention, your affection, your loyalty.
Anybody who comes into the sheepfold, other than through the door, is somebody who's coming in with selfish motives and going to harm the sheep. But if somebody walks up to the door and there's a gatekeeper at the door, and that gatekeeper, like, recognizes the shepherd, he's going to open up the door and let the shepherd call his sheep out. The sheep are going to hear his voice. They're going to recognize him. They're going to follow him out, which is crazy.
Sheep do that. Like, sheep will follow just their shepherd. Even if two shepherds are using the same call, if they don't recognize the voice of the shepherd, they won't follow. You can find YouTube videos on it, like, go and search it. But it's kind of fascinating.
The sheep will recognize their voice, and they'll follow him out, right? So he uses this metaphor to say, people, you're hearing my conversation with the Pharisees. I am telling them they're blind. Let me illustrate this for you by telling you that y' all are like sheep. And if anybody's coming over the wall and they're not coming through the gatekeeper, which is like another guy who's just been entrusted with responsibility to babysit the sheep for a while.
Shepherd's got to go do business or something like that in town. He'll put his sheep in a corral and set somebody at the gate to make sure nobody, like, wanders off with the sheep. Gatekeeper will recognize him and then let these folks come in the door. Is the way that you know that you're authorized, right? And so when we recognize Jesus leadership, he filters deadly distractions.
There are all these voices all the way around the sheepfold. There are all these people that are trying to get at our sheep, that are, that are calling you, that want you to follow them. There are all of these things. But when you hear my voice, you will know that you should follow me. When you recognize my call and you come with me, you know that I will care for you, I will take, I will love you, I'll feed you, I'll take you in the way that you ought to go.
But there are other voices in the world. Don't we know just Google, because I'm sure it's more than the last time I looked at it a couple years ago. How many ads were we see in a day on average? There are voices yelling at us. Your attention is a commodity that people will pay big money to do, will pay good money to get a hold of.
But the shepherd, the shepherd of the sheep is recognized by the gatekeeper. He goes into the sheepfold. He calls to his sheep. His sheep recognize his voice. And then the shepherd leads them out where they ought to go.
Here's the deal. Jesus is not hiding from those who belong to him.
We all start from a selfish place and like, that's okay. I don't think we need to feel guilty about that. But there was definitely a season in my life where I felt like I made a choice. I'm going to seek after God. I'm going to go and find him somewhere.
And I started on this spiritual journey to go and find God. And I was going to do that. And it's crazy to me that I could spend so much time looking and looking and looking, looking for somebody who was never hiding to begin with.
I was so blind that I could not hear that his truth was calling out to me from the beginning of my journey. And Jesus is not hiding from those who belong to him. He's calling out. He's inviting. He has come into the fold and he is seeking to give instruction and leadership.
Because when we recognize Jesus love leadership, he's going to filter all the other voices. They're going to lead us off for their own selfish purpose. The sheep learn to recognize the voice of their shepherd, and then they won't follow a stranger. That's the goofy thing. Here's what happens to me.
You guys are probably better than me, but this is what happens to me. I will hear a voice and I'll go, oh, that's a little bit wrong. That's a stranger's voice. And then I'll just kind of, like, go that way a little bit to see how wrong are they? What if they're a little bit.
I don't know. What if I like it more over here? I'll recognize it's a strange voice, and then I'll just test it out a little bit. And Jesus says, no, no, no. My sheep hear my voice.
They recognize my voice, and they don't follow a stranger.
Anyone approaching the sheep from kind of an unauthorized entrance has seen selfish motivation. So, friends, do we recognize the voice of truth when he calls?
Do we recognize the voice of truth when he calls? When he calls, friends, he calls. He's not hiding.
He wants to speak. He wants you to hear. He wants to instruct. He wants to care. He wants to give you his perspective.
He loves you enough to tell you when you're blind. So do we recognize the voice of truth when he calls to us?
And how are we growing in that recognition? Like, how do you tune into the voice of the Holy Spirit? Well, I can give you 1189 chapters that sound a whole lot like the voice of the Holy Spirit because he wrote them.
Man, that's such a cute illustration. I love Jesus. He's so. He's got a way with words. We get it.
We kind of tracking with what he's saying here.
Cool. Because they did not get it. I don't know if that's encouraging to you, but I love verses like verse six. Is it verse six? Let me double check.
I got the right one. Yeah. Verse six. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was. Was saying to them.
Like, that might be my life verse. If you were looking for a tattoo, this might be the one.
This figure of speech Jesus using, they did not understand what he was saying. He goes off on this whole illustration, and you've had, like, you're. You're blessed to have me to kind of guide you through as you understand. It's not that I'm actually looking at what comes next to tell you what this kind of means, but, like, there he's like, all they get is Jesus, and they only get one shot. Like, they don't get to go back and replay the podcast.
They don't get to do it in slow mo. Like, they just get him into one shot, and he tells this story about the sheep, and they're like, I thought we were talking about blindness. We were. You were just the light of the world. And now we're in the field again.
I don't understand what you mean. Jesus, what are you. Are you calling? Do I need to get a gatekeeper? Like, what do I do with this?
He's like, okay, so verse seven. He kind of starts over, all right. So again, Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you. I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers.
But the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus says, I am the door of the sheep. He's like. He's got this whole illustration where there's a gatekeeper and all this stuff. He's like, that's too many. There's too many moving parts to this illustration.
Let me simplify it for you. I'm the door. No gatekeeper. It's just me. Now, oftentimes, because of the way that the wilderness worked, they would set up sheepfolds as kind of temporary places near oases.
Oases. I don't know if that's the proper plural, but that's the one I'm using. And so what they would do is they build a kind of a circular wall, and then they would leave a gap in the wall. So oftentimes you came up to a sheepfold, you'd be like, nah, somebody didn't finish their job. The carpenter didn't show up for work after the brick masons were done.
Like, no, no. But that's not what they were doing. What they would do is they would set up the sheepfold. The shepherd, as he's going along, he would herd all the sheep into the fold at night, and then he would lay down in the door so that there's nobody coming in that he doesn't know about, and there's nobody getting out that he didn't know about. He's sitting in the door and he's got his rod and he's got his staff, and they're comfortable comfort for me on a good day, and they're discipline for me on a day where I'm going wily, right?
So Jesus says, listen, I'm the door. I'm the one who is going to filter what gets to you. I'm asking you to observe that if somebody's coming to you from over the wall, that they probably don't have your best interest at heart. Let me be the one who filters what influences your heart.
The door filters out thieves and robbers.
Jesus is saying that the spiritual leaders of Israel lead with a selfish motivation and that ultimately. This is kind of crazy. I spent probably more time chewing on it. I don't have a good answer for you, but Jesus is saying that. So the sheep didn't ever really fully entrust themselves to the shepherds of Israel.
Now you can take a look In Ezekiel, chapter 34 is written a couple hundred years before Jesus. But there is a devastating account of the spiritual leadership of Israel at the time, where he just calls the shepherds of Israel out, the people who are supposed to shepherd the pastors. He's like, you guys are fat. You've been eating my sheep. You haven't been caring for the sheep.
You've been letting the sheep beat each other up. Like, you're just. You're worthless. I'm going to get rid of all of you, and I'm going to come and I'll be the shepherd of all the sheep. That's another sermon, but that's great homework.
Really, really good reading. Ezekiel 34. It's a fascinating picture of responsibility for spiritual compromise because there's a flock whose heart is not aligned with God. And Jesus says, listen, you didn't fully entrust yourself. You smelled something fishy about what they were trying to lead you to.
And so now that you're hearing my voice, now that you recognize the call, the question is, are you going to let me filter and are you going to let me lead?
Because when we recognize Jesus leadership, it's not just like, oh, I see it, but when we recognize it, oh, that's for me. I am his sheep. He is my shepherd. I follow him. When we recognize, recognize his leadership, he filters out deadly distractions.
Problem is, we'll hear it. I hear the voice of God all the way over there. It's in that book that I really. It makes me feel kooky when I read it during the week. Like, I just leave that over there.
Like, I hear it, I see it, but I don't recognize it. As for me, when we recognize Jesus leadership, that's when he filters out the deadly distractions. We're like, look at all these distractions. I'm in distraction world. Everywhere I go, there's other voices.
And we're like, this is so many voices. And he's like, don't listen to any of those. Don't follow those voices. Let recognize my leadership. Follow me.
Submit to me. Let me be your shepherd. And then I'll Filter all that out. You want to turn the world down? Focus your heart on Jesus.
It's in a different context, but he does say, no one can serve two masters. Either hate the one and love the other.
But the true shepherd is recognized. He enters the fold. He calls, he leads. And here in these verses we see he saves the sheep. He delivers them from that which would kill them them.
And he provides nourishment for what they need. Did you see that?
I am the door. Verse 9. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Put it in your notes this way. Easier said than believed. Abundance in life is only provided by Jesus.
Abundance in life is only provided by Jesus. The problem is we've believed the other voices. We've believed the voice that says, if you work hard enough at work and you get that promotion and you get that pay raise and you get to retirement, you will have an abundant life to live out.
I've made it a habit and whatever, but I've made it a habit of asking folks that are like, retired for a year or two, is this what you like? Is this everything you worked for? I have yet to meet somebody who says, yes, retirement is everything I dreamed it would be. I'm fully satisfied now that I've worked my whole life and now quit everything and just serve myself.
Abundance in life is only provided by Jesus. But some of us have, like, bought into the lie that says if you raise your kids and your kids go in the right way, then you will be satisfied that you, you will feel like you have an abundance and you will have arrived spiritually because you have been a good parent. If your kids love you, then you have everything that you need and it's empty.
Some of us have believed the lie that as long as everybody in the room likes me, then I've got everything I need. I've got affirmation, I've got the affection, I've got abundance.
But abundance in life is only provided by Jesus. His approval is the only one that counts. There are some of us, and maybe this is me, but there are some of us who have believed the lie that if I can just be at peace with myself, if I can just make myself happy, or I can just satisfy the way that my brain wants to work and I can just satisfy all my desires, then I will have abundance.
And the voice of the shepherd says, you can't find abundance in Yourself, abundance in life is only provided by Jesus.
The thief comes only to steal, to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it abundant.
What influence have we accepted without bringing it to Jesus first? Not asking, I'm not saying. All right, well, you got to turn off all those R rated movies like you're going to hell if you're not watching. If you're watching R rated movies. That was what I grew up in, youth group, right.
I'm not saying that, although maybe I don't know. The question is, what influences have we just accepted as influences without bringing them to Jesus, without even asking the question? What things have we allowed to condition our thinking as we scroll and scroll and scroll, without asking Jesus, is this even true?
What voices in our workplace have we just bought in as believing that that's the only way to go when Jesus says, actually there's another way, there's humility and love and service and that the greatest among you will be the one among you who serves. And that working in the rat race to get the promotion, actually in the up, just leveling everybody. What influences have we accepted without bringing them to Jesus first? That's a question that only he and you can answer.
But like the Pharisees, Their arrogance made them guilty and humility may have been the channel to their healing.
Just ask you to bring those things to Jesus and give him permission to filter the influences of your life.
Peter says it this way. Clothe yourselves. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you.
Be sober minded. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you to him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Jesus, we thank you for your word and your teaching.
Lord, we ask that you would give us discernment.
Lord, I ask that the folks that are hearing my voice would measure my words by you and your words, that if there's any error in my presentation or any error in my thinking that does not represent you or your heart, that they would know that they would hear your voice and follow you Lord where I need correction Would you correct me?
I ask that you'd give us discernment about the influences and the voices that are just constantly churning in our ears.
May we unsubscribe by your power may we uninstall may we mute and cancel by the empowerment of your spirit not by your own strength not just mustering up some motivation today but we're genuinely being led by your spirit genuinely hearing your voice and genuinely responding in humility to what you are calling us to do. You are the shepherd Jesus and I ask that you would lead us in the way that we ought to go.
It's in your name that we pray.
