April 3, 2026 • 25 mins
In part 8 of the Encouragement for the Way series, I’m breaking down my takeaways from John chapters 17-21. Join me as we unpack just a few of the many powerful lessons found in the last chapters of the book of John, reflecting on Jesus' sacrifice, resurrection, and the call to follow Him.
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And please don’t forget to subscribe, share, rate, and review. Together we can help more women discover practical ways to apply the power of God’s Word to our everyday stuff!
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(00:04):
Welcome to the Intertwined Life podcast.
I'm your host, Jenny Zenz. I am a wife and a mom on a
mission. I've got a passion to help women
discover practical ways to applythe power of God's word to our
everyday stuff. I truly believe that our walks
with the Lord should be seamlessly intertwined with our
everyday lives. It should affect every move we
(00:25):
make and every breath we take. So come on, let's do life
together. You've got this because he's got
you. Hey friends, welcome back to the
Intertwined Life podcast and another installment of
encouragement for the way the series we've been walking
through since the beginning of 2026.
(00:48):
And we have had some interviews and we've also been going slowly
through the book of John with some interspersed episodes where
I'm sharing some of my takeaways.
And it is so the way the Lord does stuff.
When I started this initiative, we started a Get Fit initiative
at our church locally at Rock Harbor Church in Melbourne
(01:09):
Beach, FL. And so this podcast series was
inspired by that movement and that initiative.
And I've been using this to share with my church family as
well as my podcast people. So we've been intertwining those
two parts of my life and ministry.
I had no idea when the Lord laidon my heart read through John
(01:31):
that we would be summing up the last section of my takeaways on
the first day of Passover. It makes me pause because it's
it's it's emotional just to see God working in that way.
That's just a little thing. Basically meaning this is we are
right now as I am recording thisin Holy Week, the week that
(01:54):
leads up to Easter, the week that as we follow Scripture is
remembering Christ Last Supper, arrest, trial, beating death on
the cross. And then ultimately what we
celebrate on Easter Sunday is conquering death and raising
from the grave. And so I had no idea we would be
(02:17):
reading that part of the story of John during this exact week.
It just I did not plan it this way.
I'm not that good. That was all God, but
nonetheless, here we are. So let's dive in.
Let's finish up our takeaways from the journey through the
book of John. And if you are just this is the
first time you're hearing this and you're like, oh, I didn't
(02:38):
know, start reading the book of John.
Go back. I have divided a few episodes
where I just do my takeaways. These are just simply things
that jumped out to me as I read through.
These are not like always the deepest theological deep dive
study of sections. Some we study more original
context than others. I've given you guys a few, few
(03:00):
tools like the enduring Word app, Strong Concordance, the
Bible app, Blue Letter Bible, places like that where you can
go and you can do a little deeper digging into the original
text to learn more of the context and the historical
happenings of the time. But right now we've just been
doing reading through, sitting with the Lord, Slowly read
(03:22):
through, slowly sit with the Lord.
I love to begin my time reading in Scripture with just praying
the prayer that David said in Psalm 119.
Lord, open the eyes of my heart that I might see wonderful
things out of Your Word. And I love to begin that when I
read the Scripture because the Holy Spirit, as we talked about
(03:44):
in our last session, as Jesus taught us in John 14, the Holy
Spirit is the one who teaches ushis word, who explains it to us.
He makes it make sense. He's also the one who reminds us
of the things that Jesus told usin those moments when we need
them the most. So be reading them.
So there's something for him to remind you of.
He's not going to remind you of stuff you've never given mind
(04:04):
to. So remember that.
So let's dive in here and just go through the last few chapters
of John. And here's just a few of my
takeaways, plenty more. This is just a few of the
highlights. John chapter 17 Jesus has told
all these wonderful things and then he stops and he lifts his
(04:26):
eyes to heaven and he spoke to the Father.
He spoke to the Father in this moment where all of us could
hear. And when he speaks to God and he
prays out loud in front of a crowd, because there are many
examples of Scripture where he goes off alone every day, as was
his habit, the Scripture tells us early in the morning to just
(04:46):
pray and be alone with the Father.
But there are these moments throughout Scripture where we
see him stop and pray in the presence of others.
And when Christ Himself, who is God Himself, prays to God the
Father, it is really for the benefit of those listening to
see that He is indeed the Son ofGod and the connection that he
(05:09):
has and the authority that's been given him.
So we hear these words. He says, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you. The hour has come.
He's saying it's time. My whole life has been leading
up to the moment where I would lay down my life and sacrifice
(05:30):
my life as the only perfect sacrifice to take on the sins of
the world and give them my righteousness.
And that time now has come. Jesus is about 33 years old and
he knew what was set before him,and he's saying, God, it's come.
So now, Lord, take what's coming.
Take this pain, Take this fearful, terrible death.
(05:52):
I'm about to die. But take this sacrifice of my
life laid down for the forgiveness of the sins and the
redemption of the world and glorify yourself through it.
And I love this. If we look at verse 3, so
simple, the gospel, the good news of Jesus, how we accept
(06:13):
forgiveness of sins and eternal life and the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is right here. Christ himself said, and this is
eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom you have sent. This is eternal life.
We know the words of Christ, that we believe in God and
(06:33):
Christ Jesus whom he sent. So let's move along here.
If we look at verse 9, we see that Christ is praying for
believers. Here we see God's desire for us
as believers to walk in unity, joy that we would be strong in a
corrupt world. He's sending us out as His
(06:55):
ambassadors in this world. We also see sanctification love
this verse 17. Jesus says sanctify them.
He's praying for those around him and he's praying for all of
us who would believe Jesus is praying for you right here in
this Scripture And he's saying sanctify them in truth.
Your word is truth. I love how often the Bible will
(07:15):
say something and then tell us kind of like explain what they
just said. And so there there's no space
there to misunderstand what he'strying to tell us.
Sanctify, if you've heard the word sanctification, it just
means to be wholly set apart fora specific purpose.
And so if we are sanctified, we are wholly set apart for God's
(07:37):
use and purpose. And then the process of
sanctification is becoming more and more and more like Christ.
Salvation, receiving him, believing Jesus just told us
eternal life. That is what we call salvation
is knowing Him and trusting in Him.
We receive, we at so at our church.
(07:59):
There's no specific, if you didn't know this, there's no
sinner's prayer in the Bible. OK?
There's no like say these exact words and you will be a
Christian. That's not the way it goes.
It's a heart posture before Christ.
It's admitting and realizing that I'm a Sinner.
God is perfect. I could never be perfect no
matter how big or how small in my mind my sins are.
(08:20):
I am definitely separated from aholy and perfect God, and
there's nothing I can do to fix that.
But Jesus came, lived a perfect life as the Son of God, gave
himself as the perfect sacrificefor the redemption of my sins.
So that it says he took our sinsto give us his righteousness.
(08:40):
So when we put our faith in Jesus, Lord, I repent of my sin.
I want to follow you. I want you to be my Lord, and I
give my life to you in that moment.
That is salvation. The Holy Spirit comes in US and
we are his. We are sealed.
But then the process of sanctification is that
continual, ever evolving and becoming more and more and more
(09:05):
like Him. And it can be tough.
It can be hard. Growth is not easy.
Jesus had just told us in chapter 16 that in this world
you will have trouble. But take heart.
I've overcome this world. It was never once you believe in
me and become a Christian, everything's going to be fine
and easy. That's that's a lie.
That's not true. But once you believe in Christ
and you accept the power of the Holy Spirit in you, and you give
(09:27):
him authority in your life, and you receive the forgiveness of
your sins and that reunion of your soul and your spirit with
God in the universe, even those hard things, you're going to
walk through them differently. You're going to walk through
them with peace and joy and strength.
And you've got to hold on to that faith because hard times
are going to come, but you will never be alone.
(09:48):
So the process of sanctification, Jesus says that
we would be sanctified. And how does he say that in
truth? But then he says your word is
truth. So it is by the Word of God that
we are sanctified. Meaning being in his word,
knowing his Scripture is his word, the Bible, the books of
the Bible. This is his word to us.
(10:09):
And by his words we are sanctified.
And Second Timothy, Paul reiterates this, that the words
of God are good for, for provingand for correcting and for
challenging and for growth. And he says it much more
eloquently. But that's second Timothy
chapter 3. You can check that out.
All right, so verse 18, he sendsus out.
He says, as I was sent to the world, so I send you out into
(10:32):
the world and he's praying or hesays to God, you know, I send
them because he's praying about us.
And then he says, and for their sakes, I consecrate myself that
they also may be sanctified in truth.
So sanctification is meant to happen.
We're not meant to just accept Christ and then just go on about
our lives. We're meant to accept him and
then grow in that relationship and in that life with him
(10:54):
through prayer, through reading the Bible, through spending time
through Christian community. There are ways that we spend
time making space. We don't make ourselves better,
but we make space and practice things, do things and habits of
things that allow that transformation to take place.
All right, Chapter 18, this is when Christ is arrested in the
(11:17):
Garden of Gethsemane. And some of the other gospels
fill in a few more of the time frame between what's going on.
John tells us a lot more about things that were said in the
Garden, but we can see in chapter 18 when they come to
arrest him. One thing that we often miss,
and this is just a little thing like most of us know that Judas
(11:37):
was one of the 12 and he betrayed him for money.
I betrayed him. He told the soldiers, the one
that I kiss on the cheek, He's the one you know, and he
betrayed him with a kiss. I mean, it's just terrible.
And but Jesus is like, just do what you came to do.
But what is really interesting is in verse eight.
Well, if you talk it, look it back in verse 4, the soldiers
(12:00):
come up and they've got their weapons and their torches.
And Jesus says knowing all that would happen to him, he came
forward and he said to them, whom do you seek?
And they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus said to them, I am he. Judas who betrayed him was
(12:20):
standing with them. When Jesus said I am he, they
drew back and fell to the ground.
The soldiers and the army, you know, all these who had come
with torches and weapons to seize him.
When Jesus spoke the words I am He, they were so struck by the
(12:42):
power of God that they fell to the ground.
Just sit with that. And then Jesus allowed himself
to be taken and arrested becausehe knew the cross was the way
for the ultimate salvation for you and I.
So Jesus goes, he faces Ananias,he faces Pilate, you know, he
(13:06):
goes through all the trials, thebeating.
Then we go on. We see where Peter denies Christ
just as Christ had predicted. We see where Jesus is questioned
by the high priest. And then if you look also verses
10 through 11 of chapter 19, Jesus is being questioned by
Pilate. And this is so powerful.
(13:29):
He entered the headquarters and Pilate said to Jesus, where are
you from? But Jesus gave him no answer.
So Pilate said to him, will you not speak to me?
Do you not know I have authorityto release you and authority to
crucify you? And then Jesus chooses to speak
and he says you would have no authority over me unless it had
(13:49):
been given to you from above. Make no mistake, Christ chose
the cross. This is not something tragic
that just happened to happen to him.
It was tragic and it was terrible, but it was a plan from
before the world was formed and Christ chose the cross.
(14:10):
So as we go through 19, we see that Christ is beaten and he is
crucified. We see prophecy fulfilled in
that his bones were not broken. We see clearly that He did die
and his side was pierced and water ran from his side, which
was a sign that happens post mortem.
And then Joseph of Arimathea andNicodemus, who we met earlier in
(14:38):
the famous passage of John three, they come to the high
priest and they ask for the bodyof Christ so that they can give
him a decent burial, especially because this is happening over
Passover. He is taken and he is buried and
he is sealed in this tomb and guards are placed outside.
And then we see on the third day, on Sunday morning, Mary
comes to the tomb. Jesus is not there.
(15:04):
She runs, she tells his disciples.
Peter and John go out. When they arrive, there are
things noticed, like the face cloth that had been on him was
folded. The grave clothes that had been
on Christ were still in the tomb, but the cloth that had
covered his head was folded and placed neatly.
(15:24):
And in that culture, the foldingand the neatly placing of a
cloth after a meal meant you enjoyed yourself and you would
return. And he folded that head cloth
neatly as a sign that he's coming back for us.
But chills. So there was always at the time
(15:48):
some skeptical people who are like, oh, grave robbers took
him, you know, in all these things.
But I don't know any grave robbers who would take the time
to neatly fold the head cloth before they ran out of there
with the body just one side. Little thought.
We see that when Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden, at first
she didn't recognize him. And there are a number of
(16:09):
reasons why she may not have recognized him.
But the minute he said her name,she knew she was face to face
with her Lord. Jesus knows each of us by name.
He calls us by name and he comesto us and he meets us where we
(16:30):
are. And hopefully our response will
be like Mary, that we will say, my Lord and my God.
It's also interesting, you have to note that the first person to
encounter the risen Christ and the first person commanded to go
and tell people that he had risen was a woman.
(16:50):
That's not an accident. So again there's there's so many
schools of thought that Christianity is anti female and
things like that. Trust me, God knew what he was
doing. The same God who folded the face
cloth chose to 1st show himself to this woman and give her the
charge to go and tell the 12 that he had risen.
(17:12):
Well the 12 minus Judas that he had risen.
She was the 1st to go and carry that message and she was sent to
the men. Christ was very counter cultural
in his respect and positioning of women.
And then we follow through and we see him appearing to his
disciples. We see him coming back to the
disciples so he could show Thomas he wasn't there the first
time and had said he wouldn't believe unless he saw the nail
(17:35):
prints in his hand and touched the hole in his side.
And Christ showed himself to himagain.
He's like, go for it, Thomas, it's me.
And then one of my favorite, maybe some of my favorite verses
in the Gospels is where John tells us in chapter 20, verse
30. Now Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of the disciples, which are not written
(17:56):
in this book. But these are written so that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that by believing you may have life in his name.
Wow, many more things that are not written.
I think there's a chance we willbe learning about all of these
(18:16):
things as we're in heaven. This mirrors the very last verse
of John where he tells us now there are so many other things
that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be
written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the
books that would be written. I can see us spending eternity
learning more and more about theamazing things that Jesus did.
(18:39):
Reading in the scripture and theGospel is just the tip of the
iceberg to knowing the adventures of Jesus.
And I love the last chapter where Jesus shows up on the
shore while his disciples are out fishing.
And I like to see the differencein the personalities when they
realize that it's Jesus. It is so funny to me.
(19:00):
There's always kind of been thiscompetition between John and
Peter and you can follow it throughout the Gospels and it's
comical here. They're out in the in the boat
fishing. And when John realizes because
when it says the disciple whom Jesus loved, John's talking
about himself take that. There's so many ways to take
that, but he's talking about himself there some confidence in
that. God loved him for sure.
(19:21):
But he says here when when the disciple whom Jesus loved said
to Peter, it is the Lord. Well, then Simon Peter heard
that it was the Lord and threw himself into the sea.
And then all the other discipleslike worked and rolled their way
up there. It's like somebody's got to
bring all this stuff and all thefish short Peter just like jumps
(19:42):
out into the water and swims offto Christ and had just loved
seeing we all have different personalities in different
places, but it's really fun to watch that and to envision what
that was like. And then again we go back to
that competition as Jesus is having some last words with his
disciples. And I love at the end of the
book we see Jesus after Peter has denied him three times.
(20:06):
Peter who jumps in the water, who cuts off soldiers ears, who
says no matter what, we will never leave you and betray you
and they will never take you. This Peter denied him three
times the night that he was arrested and.
We see Jesus talking to Peter inthe last chapter of John,
(20:27):
chapter 21, verses 15 through 19.
We see again Jesus asking him, Do you love me?
Do you love me? Do you love me?
And it's an ask, do you love me?And then there's a command to
action. Feed my sheep.
And it's beautiful because we see him restored in that moment.
(20:47):
Even though Peter was like, God,you know, I love you, you know,
But he's restoring this to him. And then Jesus tells him, he
says, listen, I'm telling you, when you're young, you dress
yourself. You walked wherever you wanted
when you were old. You will stretch out your hand
and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want
to go. And he said this to foreshadow
(21:08):
the death that Peter would die in glorifying God.
So Peter looks around and he sees John sitting over there and
he's like, well, what about thatguy?
I was like, basically, how is hegoing to die?
Why are you telling me about him?
What about him? So you can still always have
this little bit of comedic tension between these two.
But I love what Christ says here.
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this
(21:31):
man? Jesus said to him, if it is my
will that he remain until I comeback again, what is that to you?
You follow me and that is a message for all of us.
Our walk with Christ is personaljourney.
No one else's success takes awayfor the story He's writing for
(21:53):
you because He's a God of abundance.
But whatever your path looks like, it's yours and yours alone
and He is with you on your path.And whatever is going on around
you, whatever you see in others lives, Jesus is saying what is
that to you? You follow me because he has a
(22:14):
specific plan, a specific purpose, a specific path for
your life. He will never leave you.
He is walking right there with you.
No matter what else comes and goes, put your faith in Jesus.
And then he says, follow me. So as we wrap up our study
(22:35):
through the book of John, that'sthe question, do you believe and
now will you follow? Do you believe?
Yes, He is the Son of God. He died to forgive me for my
sins. He was risen again, and I want
him to be Lord of my life, be filled with his spirit and walk
(22:58):
with him daily. If you say yes to that,
congratulations, you are in the family of God.
You are a child of God. You have received the salvation
of the Lord. That is a one time thing done.
You are sealed with the sign of the Holy Spirit.
There is no stopping that now Jesus says follow me, let's walk
(23:20):
the rest of this life together. Let's now let every aspect of
our life be impacted and affected by our walk with Christ
that the world may know that we are his disciples by how we
love. All right, friends, happy
Easter. As you go throughout the rest of
(23:40):
this week, considering what Christ went through for us, be
sure to receive his sacrifice tohold space to sit with him and
take that in. Give him thanks for that.
And then on Sunday morning, you rejoice like crazy because our
(24:02):
God is alive. He has conquered sin, death, and
the grave, and he's coming back again.
So regardless of what's going onaround us, let's follow hard
after Him and show the world that we love because he first
loved us. All right guys, till next time,
stay in the Word, get in some great Christian community and
(24:26):
celebrate our risen Lord. Hey friend, if you enjoyed this
episode and you got some good stuff out of it, there's a few
options. You have 1 you could click that
little subscribe button. And also if you would review
this podcast, Oh my gosh, if youlike what you heard, get on
(24:46):
there. Give it a five star review.
If you didn't like what you heard, just pretend it never
happened. OK, but if you would do a review
for me, just take a couple seconds and do that.
Not only would I be crazy excited, but also, so it would
just be a great way for us to partner together, for you to
help this podcast be seen by more women out there.
And you could be a part of helping more women discover
(25:09):
these practical ways to apply God's word to just everyday
stuff. So I would love it, love it,
love it if you could help me outin one of those two ways.
Welcome to the Intertwined Life podcast.
I'm your host, Jenny Zenz. I am a wife and a mom on a
mission. I've got a passion to help women
discover practical ways to applythe power of God's word to our
everyday stuff. I truly believe that our walks
with the Lord should be seamlessly intertwined with our
everyday lives. It should affect every move we
(00:25):
make and every breath we take. So come on, let's do life
together. You've got this because he's got
you. Hey friends, welcome back to the
Intertwined Life podcast and another installment of
encouragement for the way the series we've been walking
through since the beginning of 2026.
(00:48):
And we have had some interviews and we've also been going slowly
through the book of John with some interspersed episodes where
I'm sharing some of my takeaways.
And it is so the way the Lord does stuff.
When I started this initiative, we started a Get Fit initiative
at our church locally at Rock Harbor Church in Melbourne
(01:09):
Beach, FL. And so this podcast series was
inspired by that movement and that initiative.
And I've been using this to share with my church family as
well as my podcast people. So we've been intertwining those
two parts of my life and ministry.
I had no idea when the Lord laidon my heart read through John
(01:31):
that we would be summing up the last section of my takeaways on
the first day of Passover. It makes me pause because it's
it's it's emotional just to see God working in that way.
That's just a little thing. Basically meaning this is we are
right now as I am recording thisin Holy Week, the week that
(01:54):
leads up to Easter, the week that as we follow Scripture is
remembering Christ Last Supper, arrest, trial, beating death on
the cross. And then ultimately what we
celebrate on Easter Sunday is conquering death and raising
from the grave. And so I had no idea we would be
(02:17):
reading that part of the story of John during this exact week.
It just I did not plan it this way.
I'm not that good. That was all God, but
nonetheless, here we are. So let's dive in.
Let's finish up our takeaways from the journey through the
book of John. And if you are just this is the
first time you're hearing this and you're like, oh, I didn't
(02:38):
know, start reading the book of John.
Go back. I have divided a few episodes
where I just do my takeaways. These are just simply things
that jumped out to me as I read through.
These are not like always the deepest theological deep dive
study of sections. Some we study more original
context than others. I've given you guys a few, few
(03:00):
tools like the enduring Word app, Strong Concordance, the
Bible app, Blue Letter Bible, places like that where you can
go and you can do a little deeper digging into the original
text to learn more of the context and the historical
happenings of the time. But right now we've just been
doing reading through, sitting with the Lord, Slowly read
(03:22):
through, slowly sit with the Lord.
I love to begin my time reading in Scripture with just praying
the prayer that David said in Psalm 119.
Lord, open the eyes of my heart that I might see wonderful
things out of Your Word. And I love to begin that when I
read the Scripture because the Holy Spirit, as we talked about
(03:44):
in our last session, as Jesus taught us in John 14, the Holy
Spirit is the one who teaches ushis word, who explains it to us.
He makes it make sense. He's also the one who reminds us
of the things that Jesus told usin those moments when we need
them the most. So be reading them.
So there's something for him to remind you of.
He's not going to remind you of stuff you've never given mind
(04:04):
to. So remember that.
So let's dive in here and just go through the last few chapters
of John. And here's just a few of my
takeaways, plenty more. This is just a few of the
highlights. John chapter 17 Jesus has told
all these wonderful things and then he stops and he lifts his
(04:26):
eyes to heaven and he spoke to the Father.
He spoke to the Father in this moment where all of us could
hear. And when he speaks to God and he
prays out loud in front of a crowd, because there are many
examples of Scripture where he goes off alone every day, as was
his habit, the Scripture tells us early in the morning to just
(04:46):
pray and be alone with the Father.
But there are these moments throughout Scripture where we
see him stop and pray in the presence of others.
And when Christ Himself, who is God Himself, prays to God the
Father, it is really for the benefit of those listening to
see that He is indeed the Son ofGod and the connection that he
(05:09):
has and the authority that's been given him.
So we hear these words. He says, Father, the hour has
come. Glorify your Son that the Son
may glorify you. The hour has come.
He's saying it's time. My whole life has been leading
up to the moment where I would lay down my life and sacrifice
(05:30):
my life as the only perfect sacrifice to take on the sins of
the world and give them my righteousness.
And that time now has come. Jesus is about 33 years old and
he knew what was set before him,and he's saying, God, it's come.
So now, Lord, take what's coming.
Take this pain, Take this fearful, terrible death.
(05:52):
I'm about to die. But take this sacrifice of my
life laid down for the forgiveness of the sins and the
redemption of the world and glorify yourself through it.
And I love this. If we look at verse 3, so
simple, the gospel, the good news of Jesus, how we accept
(06:13):
forgiveness of sins and eternal life and the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit is right here. Christ himself said, and this is
eternal life, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus
Christ whom you have sent. This is eternal life.
We know the words of Christ, that we believe in God and
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Christ Jesus whom he sent. So let's move along here.
If we look at verse 9, we see that Christ is praying for
believers. Here we see God's desire for us
as believers to walk in unity, joy that we would be strong in a
corrupt world. He's sending us out as His
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ambassadors in this world. We also see sanctification love
this verse 17. Jesus says sanctify them.
He's praying for those around him and he's praying for all of
us who would believe Jesus is praying for you right here in
this Scripture And he's saying sanctify them in truth.
Your word is truth. I love how often the Bible will
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say something and then tell us kind of like explain what they
just said. And so there there's no space
there to misunderstand what he'strying to tell us.
Sanctify, if you've heard the word sanctification, it just
means to be wholly set apart fora specific purpose.
And so if we are sanctified, we are wholly set apart for God's
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use and purpose. And then the process of
sanctification is becoming more and more and more like Christ.
Salvation, receiving him, believing Jesus just told us
eternal life. That is what we call salvation
is knowing Him and trusting in Him.
We receive, we at so at our church.
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There's no specific, if you didn't know this, there's no
sinner's prayer in the Bible. OK?
There's no like say these exact words and you will be a
Christian. That's not the way it goes.
It's a heart posture before Christ.
It's admitting and realizing that I'm a Sinner.
God is perfect. I could never be perfect no
matter how big or how small in my mind my sins are.
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I am definitely separated from aholy and perfect God, and
there's nothing I can do to fix that.
But Jesus came, lived a perfect life as the Son of God, gave
himself as the perfect sacrificefor the redemption of my sins.
So that it says he took our sinsto give us his righteousness.
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So when we put our faith in Jesus, Lord, I repent of my sin.
I want to follow you. I want you to be my Lord, and I
give my life to you in that moment.
That is salvation. The Holy Spirit comes in US and
we are his. We are sealed.
But then the process of sanctification is that
continual, ever evolving and becoming more and more and more
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like Him. And it can be tough.
It can be hard. Growth is not easy.
Jesus had just told us in chapter 16 that in this world
you will have trouble. But take heart.
I've overcome this world. It was never once you believe in
me and become a Christian, everything's going to be fine
and easy. That's that's a lie.
That's not true. But once you believe in Christ
and you accept the power of the Holy Spirit in you, and you give
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him authority in your life, and you receive the forgiveness of
your sins and that reunion of your soul and your spirit with
God in the universe, even those hard things, you're going to
walk through them differently. You're going to walk through
them with peace and joy and strength.
And you've got to hold on to that faith because hard times
are going to come, but you will never be alone.
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So the process of sanctification, Jesus says that
we would be sanctified. And how does he say that in
truth? But then he says your word is
truth. So it is by the Word of God that
we are sanctified. Meaning being in his word,
knowing his Scripture is his word, the Bible, the books of
the Bible. This is his word to us.
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And by his words we are sanctified.
And Second Timothy, Paul reiterates this, that the words
of God are good for, for provingand for correcting and for
challenging and for growth. And he says it much more
eloquently. But that's second Timothy
chapter 3. You can check that out.
All right, so verse 18, he sendsus out.
He says, as I was sent to the world, so I send you out into
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the world and he's praying or hesays to God, you know, I send
them because he's praying about us.
And then he says, and for their sakes, I consecrate myself that
they also may be sanctified in truth.
So sanctification is meant to happen.
We're not meant to just accept Christ and then just go on about
our lives. We're meant to accept him and
then grow in that relationship and in that life with him
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through prayer, through reading the Bible, through spending time
through Christian community. There are ways that we spend
time making space. We don't make ourselves better,
but we make space and practice things, do things and habits of
things that allow that transformation to take place.
All right, Chapter 18, this is when Christ is arrested in the
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Garden of Gethsemane. And some of the other gospels
fill in a few more of the time frame between what's going on.
John tells us a lot more about things that were said in the
Garden, but we can see in chapter 18 when they come to
arrest him. One thing that we often miss,
and this is just a little thing like most of us know that Judas
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was one of the 12 and he betrayed him for money.
I betrayed him. He told the soldiers, the one
that I kiss on the cheek, He's the one you know, and he
betrayed him with a kiss. I mean, it's just terrible.
And but Jesus is like, just do what you came to do.
But what is really interesting is in verse eight.
Well, if you talk it, look it back in verse 4, the soldiers
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come up and they've got their weapons and their torches.
And Jesus says knowing all that would happen to him, he came
forward and he said to them, whom do you seek?
And they answered him, Jesus of Nazareth.
Jesus said to them, I am he. Judas who betrayed him was
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standing with them. When Jesus said I am he, they
drew back and fell to the ground.
The soldiers and the army, you know, all these who had come
with torches and weapons to seize him.
When Jesus spoke the words I am He, they were so struck by the
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power of God that they fell to the ground.
Just sit with that. And then Jesus allowed himself
to be taken and arrested becausehe knew the cross was the way
for the ultimate salvation for you and I.
So Jesus goes, he faces Ananias,he faces Pilate, you know, he
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goes through all the trials, thebeating.
Then we go on. We see where Peter denies Christ
just as Christ had predicted. We see where Jesus is questioned
by the high priest. And then if you look also verses
10 through 11 of chapter 19, Jesus is being questioned by
Pilate. And this is so powerful.
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He entered the headquarters and Pilate said to Jesus, where are
you from? But Jesus gave him no answer.
So Pilate said to him, will you not speak to me?
Do you not know I have authorityto release you and authority to
crucify you? And then Jesus chooses to speak
and he says you would have no authority over me unless it had
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been given to you from above. Make no mistake, Christ chose
the cross. This is not something tragic
that just happened to happen to him.
It was tragic and it was terrible, but it was a plan from
before the world was formed and Christ chose the cross.
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So as we go through 19, we see that Christ is beaten and he is
crucified. We see prophecy fulfilled in
that his bones were not broken. We see clearly that He did die
and his side was pierced and water ran from his side, which
was a sign that happens post mortem.
And then Joseph of Arimathea andNicodemus, who we met earlier in
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the famous passage of John three, they come to the high
priest and they ask for the bodyof Christ so that they can give
him a decent burial, especially because this is happening over
Passover. He is taken and he is buried and
he is sealed in this tomb and guards are placed outside.
And then we see on the third day, on Sunday morning, Mary
comes to the tomb. Jesus is not there.
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She runs, she tells his disciples.
Peter and John go out. When they arrive, there are
things noticed, like the face cloth that had been on him was
folded. The grave clothes that had been
on Christ were still in the tomb, but the cloth that had
covered his head was folded and placed neatly.
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And in that culture, the foldingand the neatly placing of a
cloth after a meal meant you enjoyed yourself and you would
return. And he folded that head cloth
neatly as a sign that he's coming back for us.
But chills. So there was always at the time
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some skeptical people who are like, oh, grave robbers took
him, you know, in all these things.
But I don't know any grave robbers who would take the time
to neatly fold the head cloth before they ran out of there
with the body just one side. Little thought.
We see that when Jesus appeared to Mary in the garden, at first
she didn't recognize him. And there are a number of
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reasons why she may not have recognized him.
But the minute he said her name,she knew she was face to face
with her Lord. Jesus knows each of us by name.
He calls us by name and he comesto us and he meets us where we
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are. And hopefully our response will
be like Mary, that we will say, my Lord and my God.
It's also interesting, you have to note that the first person to
encounter the risen Christ and the first person commanded to go
and tell people that he had risen was a woman.
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That's not an accident. So again there's there's so many
schools of thought that Christianity is anti female and
things like that. Trust me, God knew what he was
doing. The same God who folded the face
cloth chose to 1st show himself to this woman and give her the
charge to go and tell the 12 that he had risen.
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Well the 12 minus Judas that he had risen.
She was the 1st to go and carry that message and she was sent to
the men. Christ was very counter cultural
in his respect and positioning of women.
And then we follow through and we see him appearing to his
disciples. We see him coming back to the
disciples so he could show Thomas he wasn't there the first
time and had said he wouldn't believe unless he saw the nail
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prints in his hand and touched the hole in his side.
And Christ showed himself to himagain.
He's like, go for it, Thomas, it's me.
And then one of my favorite, maybe some of my favorite verses
in the Gospels is where John tells us in chapter 20, verse
30. Now Jesus did many other signs
in the presence of the disciples, which are not written
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in this book. But these are written so that
you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that by believing you may have life in his name.
Wow, many more things that are not written.
I think there's a chance we willbe learning about all of these
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things as we're in heaven. This mirrors the very last verse
of John where he tells us now there are so many other things
that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be
written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the
books that would be written. I can see us spending eternity
learning more and more about theamazing things that Jesus did.
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Reading in the scripture and theGospel is just the tip of the
iceberg to knowing the adventures of Jesus.
And I love the last chapter where Jesus shows up on the
shore while his disciples are out fishing.
And I like to see the differencein the personalities when they
realize that it's Jesus. It is so funny to me.
(19:00):
There's always kind of been thiscompetition between John and
Peter and you can follow it throughout the Gospels and it's
comical here. They're out in the in the boat
fishing. And when John realizes because
when it says the disciple whom Jesus loved, John's talking
about himself take that. There's so many ways to take
that, but he's talking about himself there some confidence in
that. God loved him for sure.
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But he says here when when the disciple whom Jesus loved said
to Peter, it is the Lord. Well, then Simon Peter heard
that it was the Lord and threw himself into the sea.
And then all the other discipleslike worked and rolled their way
up there. It's like somebody's got to
bring all this stuff and all thefish short Peter just like jumps
(19:42):
out into the water and swims offto Christ and had just loved
seeing we all have different personalities in different
places, but it's really fun to watch that and to envision what
that was like. And then again we go back to
that competition as Jesus is having some last words with his
disciples. And I love at the end of the
book we see Jesus after Peter has denied him three times.
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Peter who jumps in the water, who cuts off soldiers ears, who
says no matter what, we will never leave you and betray you
and they will never take you. This Peter denied him three
times the night that he was arrested and.
We see Jesus talking to Peter inthe last chapter of John,
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chapter 21, verses 15 through 19.
We see again Jesus asking him, Do you love me?
Do you love me? Do you love me?
And it's an ask, do you love me?And then there's a command to
action. Feed my sheep.
And it's beautiful because we see him restored in that moment.
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Even though Peter was like, God,you know, I love you, you know,
But he's restoring this to him. And then Jesus tells him, he
says, listen, I'm telling you, when you're young, you dress
yourself. You walked wherever you wanted
when you were old. You will stretch out your hand
and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want
to go. And he said this to foreshadow
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the death that Peter would die in glorifying God.
So Peter looks around and he sees John sitting over there and
he's like, well, what about thatguy?
I was like, basically, how is hegoing to die?
Why are you telling me about him?
What about him? So you can still always have
this little bit of comedic tension between these two.
But I love what Christ says here.
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, Lord, what about this
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man? Jesus said to him, if it is my
will that he remain until I comeback again, what is that to you?
You follow me and that is a message for all of us.
Our walk with Christ is personaljourney.
No one else's success takes awayfor the story He's writing for
(21:53):
you because He's a God of abundance.
But whatever your path looks like, it's yours and yours alone
and He is with you on your path.And whatever is going on around
you, whatever you see in others lives, Jesus is saying what is
that to you? You follow me because he has a
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specific plan, a specific purpose, a specific path for
your life. He will never leave you.
He is walking right there with you.
No matter what else comes and goes, put your faith in Jesus.
And then he says, follow me. So as we wrap up our study
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through the book of John, that'sthe question, do you believe and
now will you follow? Do you believe?
Yes, He is the Son of God. He died to forgive me for my
sins. He was risen again, and I want
him to be Lord of my life, be filled with his spirit and walk
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with him daily. If you say yes to that,
congratulations, you are in the family of God.
You are a child of God. You have received the salvation
of the Lord. That is a one time thing done.
You are sealed with the sign of the Holy Spirit.
There is no stopping that now Jesus says follow me, let's walk
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the rest of this life together. Let's now let every aspect of
our life be impacted and affected by our walk with Christ
that the world may know that we are his disciples by how we
love. All right, friends, happy
Easter. As you go throughout the rest of
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this week, considering what Christ went through for us, be
sure to receive his sacrifice tohold space to sit with him and
take that in. Give him thanks for that.
And then on Sunday morning, you rejoice like crazy because our
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God is alive. He has conquered sin, death, and
the grave, and he's coming back again.
So regardless of what's going onaround us, let's follow hard
after Him and show the world that we love because he first
loved us. All right guys, till next time,
stay in the Word, get in some great Christian community and
(24:26):
celebrate our risen Lord. Hey friend, if you enjoyed this
episode and you got some good stuff out of it, there's a few
options. You have 1 you could click that
little subscribe button. And also if you would review
this podcast, Oh my gosh, if youlike what you heard, get on
(24:46):
there. Give it a five star review.
If you didn't like what you heard, just pretend it never
happened. OK, but if you would do a review
for me, just take a couple seconds and do that.
Not only would I be crazy excited, but also, so it would
just be a great way for us to partner together, for you to
help this podcast be seen by more women out there.
And you could be a part of helping more women discover
(25:09):
these practical ways to apply God's word to just everyday
stuff. So I would love it, love it,
love it if you could help me outin one of those two ways.
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