As we continue through the book of John, we come to another episode where Jesus is being surrounded by the Jewish religious leaders. This time it is once again inside the temple as He is walking in Solomon’s colonnade minding His own business. They were seeking to intimidate Him, but in actuality it was worse than that: they were trying to get Him to admit he was the Messiah or God’s Son so they could kill Him. And Jesus never disappoints a crowd of religious leaders, so He gave them what they wanted. He shot it to them straight, and told them that “I and the Father are one”. Deuteronomy 6:4 would have been ringing in the ears of these men as they considered just how crazy such a statement was, and then they picked up stones to kill Him. They knew He was making Himself equal with God, but Jesus kept asking them to believe the works He was doing. He had been showing Himself as the Son of God for so long, but they just kept refusing to believe. This Sunday as we gather, we will look at the lack of faith these religious people had in Jesus, and ask ourselves what are the ways that we refuse to believe when God is trying to work in our lives?