Greg Robinson - Now We Believe- John’s Guide to Growing Our Faith - Class 1 - Will He Find Faith on the Earth?

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1. 0:00

   This is day one of the 2025 Idyllwild Bible School. Our first period teacher is Brother Greg Robinson. His general subject is Now We believe, John’s Guide to Growing our Faith. Today’s topic. Will he find faith on the earth? It’s an article for Michelle and I Michelle and I can do between this speech.

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   They actually did 20 years since we read Idol Violence last time. That’s a long time since we’ve been here titled that is now we believe John’s guide ignoring our filth. I’m going to be using John then as the basis of growing our faith this week and as title of our class today our first class history will keep on faith on the earth recognize this not spoke from John’s but with John’s help.

3. 0:59

   Our goal is to strengthen our faith so that when the Son of man comes, he will indeed find faith on the earth. So that’s what we’re that’s what our goal is this week. So build our faith-based upon our studies that begin this week in the gospel of John and hopefully you did want as you I use the gospel of your own studies as well.

4. 1:25

   So you might be asking, what does John after you with faith? What does John have to do with belief? And the answer to that question is the word John has involved a lot to you is that I would put to you that John’s Gospel may be the best book in the Bible to help us grow our faith because John is looking for actions between Jesus and other people that come away from those interactions with their faith.

5. 2:03

   Happy Wednesday and the conclusion of those interactions. We frequently hear the phrase he believe they believe he frequently come away with the understanding that they actually came to the lead and Jesus. And one of the things that I love about them is actually see those interactions. What John does is he actually spends time with people. He has conversations with people. He says things to people that make them believe. And if you’re like me, you beat those and you think, wow, you don’t understand me.

6. 2:43

   I don’t understand why that person says that I would be or why the, the, the contest says that they would be. And you have to go back and you have to research it. You have to figure it out and what ends up happening if you end up believing almost at the same time that you’re seeing the person that you’re studying from the and you have that same aha moment of belief that they met. So I find that to be very satisfying as we’re looking at the roster.

7. 3:13

   So you might be saying, how do we know that John wrote his box book to help us believe? How do we know that that’s what they see for us. Why did John praise his nose? Well, John actually tells you’re going to reply to Saint John John. John gives us his mission statement. He gives us precise declaration of the purpose of his Gospel. He gives us this by giving us the intention that he has the writing.

8. 3:49

   So John chapter between verse 30 who been served it says and many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his examples, which are not the municipal but thieves are written which he might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing he might have liked his I I love that he gives us that I wish that in every book of the Bible have a verse a sentence like that that tells us what they’re after what they’re trying to accomplish what they’re belong.

9. 4:31

   I wish that they they happen because that was so healthy and this is this is such an incredibly powerful mission shape we have. There’s really almost nothing else. If you didn’t just figure it out. There’s nothing else. Jesus is the Christ. You have to believe that Jesus is the Christ, that he’s the anointed.

10. 4:51

    Now there were many people in the Old Testament that were anointed. There were kings, there were priests, there were prophets. But Jesus is deed anointed. He is demon that Braves people into God. And that’s what that was to say. That’s what that phrase is saying. And then the next one is even greater than that one. He says he is deed Son of God.

11. 5:18

    He’s born of the Holy Spirit. The Son of God is God’s Son because he’s developed. He’s developed the mind, and the Son is the Son because God has given him.

12. 5:34

    And John says what I want is for people to believe that and believing that you might have life. He’s talking here about life in front of them, nobody’s name. So he’s showing us that if we can believe life by that, Jesus telling us he’s going to sorry, John is telling us he’s going to show us how Jesus worked with the people, the Lord of God.

13. 6:05

    Now I have a slide here which gives us a picture of how frequent John actually uses this word, the word belief. And this this picture of this graph is I think you’re going to find very surprising if we look at all the New Testament books. So all the places in the New Testament, we find the Greek word for believe, which one has the word believe in the news?

14. 6:34

    It’s John’s. And it’s it’s by a massive amount that John talks about leaving more than uses that word, the Greek word for indeed more than any of the other books underneath destiny only asked is supposed to you think about asking is about that process of leading, expanding out beyond the word of the Lord. But John focuses on the need for us to develop that belief and helps people who actually look through that process. Well, that’s that compared with the other process. Well, it’s, it’s important here, I think for us to do just a little bit of a study on the word faith and the word belief. What we find is that the word believe and the word faith are really from the same word.

15. 7:23

    They really have the same idea behind them. What is the verb? That’s the believe. And that’s how they’re in the first column. And the other one is the noun form, which is in the second column. And that one is usually translated as faith. So if you’re thinking about faith, you’re thinking about Hebrews 11, Hebrews 11.

16. 7:43

    Now faith, that’s the noun form. It’s the substance of things put forth the evidence of things not seen John 20 verse 31, which is look at, but these things are written that she might believe the verb that Jesus in the Christ Son of God. And then believing there is again the verb form.

17. 8:04

    You might have Michael through his name. So as you can see, John, who uses the verb of his abuse gadget for faith is the mound. He uses it to believe in his gospel. That’s because he’s going to take us through the process, the verb of believing, John, as you can see from this chart, if you combine the the verb in and out those together, you’ll see that John uses the idea of believing.

18. 8:33

    That covers the idea of believing five times more than anything ever gospel. This is what John’s about. This is the idea that he might John, if John is going to work hard through the gospel to bring people to believe, the brave people have faith. And that makes sense because he’s working for something in his word.

19. 8:56

    The Hebrews tells us it’s impossible to have that He’s got that will happen. So let’s go back to the 18 just for a second, unless we complete the title of our classic thing. Nevertheless, Son of Man coming, shall he find faith on? You know, I remember the person being that person and I remember thinking of it in very general terms.

20. 9:27

    That would come in time when our faith was challenged and that the faith was some people would be challenged at that time. But it seems like today, I don’t know if it’s this way N Leisure and Virgin Unity, but it seems like today we’re hearing about more and more people losing their faith.

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    You hear people say I don’t believe. Sometimes we hear people say, you know, I never did. And often we hear of young people that decided not to become baptized because they don’t keep. So they’re not joining me, please. But I think they have the faith of all of us. It’s being challenged in the world.

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    That would be the good thing. So these words of Jesus have a real relevance to us. Yeah, there’s a there’s a good side to it when you think about the fact that this explaining thing indicates to us the concern price is near. But that’s not what it’s also a bad sign because it means that the bound is upon us. The bound is here and we’ve got to do something about fighting and so that’s our goal this week is to begin that study in John, go through the first few chapters of John looking at how John does that and to maybe give you excitement to continue on that study.

23. 11:05

    So we have to have this belief so that we’re completely convinced and that Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. Now I recommend this, we go through this so how many times the word believe is found in the gospel on. I recommend that as we go through this that you kick out a pencil, a highlight or something and you begin to highlight John all the times that you see this blooming because you’re going to see it a lot and you’re going to say, well, I never noticed that.

24. 11:34

    Maybe some of you have, but you’re going to think this is really cool how frequently John mentions this. There’s also some other some other ideas that you you’ll want to. There’s the idea of testimony for testifying because John’s going to bring information to us, the testimonies, John’s going to bring witnesses in the testimony, very solemn this morning in John the Baptist, the first witness that he brings in to say that he’s son of God.

25. 12:03

    And John says that. So we’re going to look at then interactions and I’ll give you an idea what we’re going to look at this week. Then look tomorrow. Lord willing to defend Daniel has a conversation with Jesus and he’s convinced right away that Jesus is the Son. And it’s really, as you’ll see tomorrow, it’s really, it’s amazing because you read it and you go, how did that happen so fast? And I can really defend the real disciples at the bed. And that Lord, will you meet tomorrow as well? What do you see now?

26. 12:39

    So we’re going to look at that tomorrow. See, there is a miracle that the one being turns to wine, which brings the disciples to the leader. But actually we’re going to look at the people in Jerusalem. They rather Passover, they sought Jesus miracles and they believed. But what we’re going to see there is something missing. And definitely we’re going to look then at Nicodemus. We’re going to see the Nicodemus also have faith, but that there was something missing in Nicodemus. Now we’re going to look at the Samaritan 1 and she believes when Jesus gets in her face and questions her sincerity, that begins to to convince her to take a look at herself and to to see whether or not she actually has the failure. Tonight we’ll look at the nobleman. Sorry.

27. 13:30

    Then we’ll look at the nobleman and his family. Then we’ll look at tonight the filet man that the Bethesda pool for a little bit of time. And then we’ll finish up on Friday building with this cycle to Jesus. So we’re going to go through these interactions that Jesus has with all of these people in order to learn these things.

28. 13:49

    Before we jump into this, let’s finish a minute understanding what the GIMP of belief is. So belief or faith would love those two together is the ability to see something that has not yet happened as if it’s reading Speaking of things in the future we think about and that sounds like Hebrews Chapter 11 was 1, doesn’t it? Faith gives us the desire to out as if the future is happening before our lives.

29. 14:24

    So faith brings us to action. If we have faith, things change in us. We do things differently. Our life is going to be different if we have faith and if we’re not changing, then you should ask person, where is faith and do we have faith? And faith comes from a changed way of thinking that comes from the power.

30. 14:50

    So that’s kind of a definition that we came up with. We actually had a ICC session or two on this a couple of weeks ago, and it was really helpful to finding mistakes. Here’s a little bit more technical one from westward states. They apprehends as a real fact what is not revealed to the census.

31. 15:15

    It rests on that fact, acts upon it, is upheld by it in the face of all that seems to contradict it. So. So people will do things that you look at, and if you don’t know their faith, you don’t understand what’s motivating them to wonder why they’re doing. Faith is real seeing sense.

32. 15:38

    I love that it is real seeing. That’s a division, actually. Now all of these definitions have the idea of a person’s thinking being changed, their vision being changed by something other than their senses. Then what would that be? What is that? For us to have that sense, our senses changed by something or for us, it’s the word of God. It changes the way we see everything. That’s what that’s what we’re going to see this so in the beginning, John chapter 1 post one way some some fairly difficult persons to help that we had with this morning and we’re going to follow this idea through as we’re going through this.

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    I want you to think about Sean sitting down and his mission here. His mission is to bring people to believe that’s the the intent that he had. So he gives us an introduction to that, describing for us how God has worked to do that in the past. It says in the beginning was the word.

34. 16:42

    The word was with God and the word was, you know, the primary force in bringing about faith in US Eastern world. And God says when I started, I started the word and that’s how I reached out to people uses this brief word logo. You should probably look at this before very frequent we get stuck on this verse and the verse that’s following you who they’re talking to people about God.

35. 17:12

    They want to talk to us about the Trinity. He uses the word Lotus dear. It’s a word that has a deeper meaning than just words that as we read this is words that express the mind of God. These are are words that define for us the purpose of God. So there’s much more to the words that have the powers of great faith in us than just words. And as we study the word, that becomes so clear to us that it’s actually, and I love what John does. He presents Jesus as the word made flesh. So it’s like these words are actually standing in front of us.

36. 17:53

    They’re actually standing there and having a conversation. So it takes the the power of God’s Word and it amps it up and amps it up. So it’s actually kind of a conversation which really moves people and changes people’s thinking. So next verse, verse 2 says the same was in the beginning with God and all things were made by him. So give an example of the power of God’s Word. God’s word was there because God spoke the words about in the beginning God created the earth and he spoke the words which thought about the creation of the earth. He says the same was in the beginning and all things were made by him.

37. 18:35

    You’ll notice that that I put on screen it’s instead of him and that it is God’s word. Now, if you do a bit of research that you’ll find that if you go into the brief or the word get or him as it’s there within the E James or in the ESP, you’ll find that that word him does not necessarily need to be translated as him. Now, why would they translate it as him in our lives? And most versions aren’t going to be this one. Why would that be the case?

38. 19:09

    Because most people believe in the tribute, right? And so they’re trying to underline that idea. But that’s not necessary. That’s not required. That’s not even suggested, you know. So we have to do the word of God and all things were made by it, by God’s word, and without it was not anything made that was made. But here’s God’s word, His power. Everything that he did then was by His word. Now, if we think about this moving back into the Old Testament, what we find is that in the Old Testament, God inspired the writers of the Old Testament. With God, this word of life inspired them with his word. He inspired the prophets, He inspired James, He inspired all the writers.

39. 19:57

    When when Moses asked to see God’s glory, what did God show him? Words. But God’s glory was expressed in words. That’s what he showed you. He showed him his glory.

40. 20:14

    So come to verse 4, It says in him or in God’s word was life. Life was not life’s men. Here’s something beautiful, special without the words of scripture came from an immortal.

41. 20:37

    Isaiah 40 says that because of that, the words of God themselves are immortal. He says all flesh is grass, but the word of our God shall stand forever. So the word of God is itself immortal. God’s word contains life. God’s word is the source of what you’re telling us. God’s word shows us God’s mind and in US learning God’s mind and us developing the mind and developing character, I would father we can have life as well.

42. 21:17

    And that development is belief, isn’t it? That’s just talking of. So John tells us that in the word us life doesn’t stop there. He says that that life was the light of men, that life was the light of men. That word itself contained light, spiritual enlightenment. It gives understanding. It’s it’s the light which contains eternal life. The whole bone and eternal life became a light and the understanding of it became a light man. The people that believed in the living God had the opportunity then to have your own life.

43. 22:11

    They saw everything. They believed in a completely different world. You could say that they saw everything in a completely different world. They ever use the black light. You ever turned all the lights out in the room or something, The dark room and you turned on the black light. When you see, you see things differently than you had ever seen there before in your room, right? You see all those white things that are in your room. You can all the lid that’s on the carpet. You see that light up in the room and you can see this. That’s what faith it’s like for us. It’s like turning on that black light and all of a sudden we can see.

44. 22:52

    Maybe we can see the angels in this world, we can see God working. We can see those sins that are actually in the process of God working to bring us to life. Selling it said that understanding and then believing in eternal life is the light. Then if we believe, if we can believe those things, so he saw it, that’s what God was after.

45. 23:16

    That’s what God was. But if we don’t believe, we’re in darkness and we can’t see very much of anything at all. See just what we see with the senses. What God’s abandoned was to bring people to money. That’s what Hebrews 11 is leveling up. So let’s find we can talk about it twice.

46. 23:35

    Let’s go to Hebrews Chapter 11 and see if you can see John’s ideas here coming from Hebrews 11 verse one down. Faith is the substance or the confidence that things vote for. It’s the evidence of things not seen. Yeah, we get it. That makes the most sense. It’s things we can see because we believe, which we wouldn’t have been able to see without that need.

47. 23:59

    That belief came from the word of God. We wouldn’t have had any, any vision at all, any ability to see it at all without our understanding of the word of God, he says. Now faith is a substitute for confidence that they vote for the evidence of things not seen that visibility came from my father.

48. 24:20

    For by it’s faith stalking right here the elder obtained a good report ESP says for by it people the old received their commendation. So because of old people could see by faith God wanted to give them from the life they saw that they believed and God Christ their name so that they could vote the faith by the chapter of the faith, every answer to verse 13, verse 11. It says these all died faith not having received the promises and you do having your life is God and promised it to them. But it was promised that they will lead they it says having seen them afar off, they lead in those states. They could see the light of the light of belief which came from the word.

49. 25:18

    You know, there’s a there’s a progression in them. So they’re persuaded of them. So they go from from seeing to to to now being persuaded, being convinced of them and then next and they embrace them. What does it mean to embrace? So they got to a point they, they, they put their arms around, they embraced and they crapped forward, right?

50. 25:44

    Because their belief was so strong. Those promises to them were as if they weren’t. I mean, that gave you the ability to change their life. It says they confess that they strangers and pilgrims. There were people that weren’t concerned about this one. We’re seeing some people that are studying this week and people that really weren’t concerned about us.

51. 26:08

    And they went on to bigger and better things. First John chapter 1 OK, so this is the epistle of John now chapter 1 Chow and we’re going to see this idea that John expands it in his epistle. First John chapter one in verse one, it says that which was from the beginning which we have heard something like John on the scene in the beginning was word God’s plans for eternal life. They heard it in God’s Word, and then John says, which we have seen without eyes, which we have looked upon and then flashed without weeds.

52. 26:50

    That sounds like this sense of downplaying Eurism. So why does John make that change for something that was seen in the future that they can only see with faith? Why does he change that here? He’s changing that because he’s talking about which he’s this is the man that was finally given eternal life. This is the life that that that everybody was looking for. This is the the life of life.

53. 27:17

    John 71 And he says concerning the word of life, he says verse 2, he says, and the life was made manifest. So the life was was made manifest and we have seen it talking about what Jesus wants and we testified to him and we proclaimed to the eternal. So here’s John. He’s ready one of the last posts of the Bible.

54. 27:50

    He’s one of the last people around that’s actually seen an immortal man, a man that he spent three years with probably maybe more. And he’s now seeing this man as an important there’s some wits of that. I see him touching him. I I’m telling you, he’s been one time and so the promises that God made about that are coming dreams, he says, which was with the father and was made manifest. So we have this incredible sequence that John gives us in first few 1st and John leaves chapter one. The first few verses he talks about the fact that God started out trying to help people believe with His word. He sent his word, He sent His word to all those people, all those different ways to people to try to get them beat and he met with some success, but later on to summon them up. There was really an obstacle to God’s there was an almost universal problem that God’s plan to bring to evil and that was that most people remained in Congress. Most people didn’t see for what they didn’t develop fate that was in the system.

55. 29:15

    They never thought about it from them, but it did change their they didn’t change them in any material way. So John von plus 5 back in the Gospel of John says in the light shineth in the darkness. Here’s God where shining is home of eternal life. It’s in the darkness. What did the darkness see? The darkness, the darkness didn’t see. Hold on picture God working hard to get people to see generation after generation generation from your vestment sending his life giving word from all these people. But most people, those people don’t grab hold of that thing. That is almost a perfect summary of the old lesson John is writing his father that say, but guess what, there’s more to the story.

56. 30:13

    That’s what we’re going to see to speak. You look at verse 10. It says God was in the book. It was made by his word. Verse 11 says he came to his own in Israel. He worked with Israel his own Muslim. I have why did this save in darkness. Certainly Second Corinthians shepherd, second Corinthians shepherd or gives us the reason why that couldn’t happen, didn’t happen for people.

57. 30:57

    Paul’s talking about the same thing. He’s talking about the gospel. What’s the gospel? It’s the good news of Kingdom of God, good news of eternal month. So Second Corinthians chapter 4 verse 3, it says, but if our gospel be his, they say to those it is same topic, same thing. He explains why the gospel is the next verse.

58. 31:25

    He says in whom the God of this world has blinded the minds of them, which will be Paul says there’s something he calls the God of this world which has completely blinded people left people in darkness has the ability right now to erode those people that have erode that faith that they continues.

59. 31:56

    They believe not bless the light of the glorious gospel of Christ because the huge God should shine. So what is it What is it that sought God’s word for accomplishing what it could have been called the new investment. Why aren’t there 100 Hebrews 11 chapters.

60. 32:19

    Why are they so people? Because the God of this world, in those sins, what would you say is the God of this world? What would you say for the gods this will get if they’re covered? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, Ourselves. Ourselves, absolutely. I’ve got a list here. I’ll throw them up, print them up here as we go. And this is not extensive, it’s not complete this list, but this gives us an idea of what slots they put in it. And we want to block all those people. Faith, people’s faith in the openness, ambition, coward, well position, family, sexual desires, social beliefs, science.

61. 33:07

    This is the challenge that we face is overcoming the gods of this world. So here we are. We’re a group of people that have come to Bible school and our hope is our intent is to increase our faith. Our lives would be would be so much more wonderful. We didn’t have war. We all do greetings.

62. 33:29

    And yet we have the gods of this world that stand right in the way of that ambition, that door God of the God of this book. Let’s go back to John. Sorry, Gentle 1.

63. 33:54

    You’re turning that up a little. Just talk a little bit about school. One of the things that I’ve noticed in in my life in trying to to develop one thing, it comes from the word of God, from the question about one of the things that I’ve noticed that I’ve spent time trying to build my faith and I’ve spent time in the word of God and I’ve noticed that nothing was changing. Somebody experienced that you’re actually reading the word, you’re studying the word and maybe it’s not having an impact on me.

64. 34:31

    I experienced that and I felt that and most times when I felt that what I realized they said that this that we just still on the screen. The fact this was from standing in front of my All right, so let’s go back to John. We’re looking at verse 11 now. Well, it says he that has gone came through his own. His own received him not but as many as received him. There was somebody there that he got work. There were some that were blinded to them. He gave power to become the sons of the dead, gave them out to live for him.

65. 35:23

    The word for art, I believe, he says even to them they believe Christine. He describes the process he says, which were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of God that they were born born of his living word being planted into their mouths when they believed began to bring about changing them. These people became a part of a completely new creation. These people were born again to a new friend and so upon living family that ultimately lives.

66. 36:16

    It’s astonishingly. Then the next chapter begins the chapter that we’re going to focus on. That’s John’s introduction. Then John tells us in verse 14 and the word God said his son and God’s son lived up to and God’s son showed us God son wealthy among us and we begin at the yell is the glory as a field we become with grace more than we begin looking at the word gay flesh and we’re going to look at this conversation and we’re going to watch Nathaniel have a conversation with the word gay flesh while he was thinking about the word and we’re going to see almost an instantaneous change on on the thing the news that Jesus all right, so takeaways for our class today. Our small God’s plan is the same thing. That’s his intent.

67. 37:38

    That’s what he wants to do. That’s what Jesus came to help us with. He gave us His word to help accomplish this. They give us a son. They help us. I’m kiss. But there’s a challenge. But for most the gods of this world have walked the faith necessarily or salvation. That’s the challenge we all face.

68. 38:13

    That’s what the Old Testament story is, most faceless challenge. Our challenge is to strengthen our thing to overcome. All right, I have one word for you. So what I’d like you to do the next day or two is if you would come up to me and tell me about a certain passage or a certain character of the Bible that has really helped you to develop. You maybe can tell me why that is. Just going to kind of make a list of some of those people and I’ll share that in my class.

69. 38:52

    This way he would do that and help you to put that list together. Very helpful to me and give us an opportunity to have something to to talk about and all we can do. So thank you very much.