I saw that hymn in someone else's
bulletin and wanted us to sing it. It was a comfort to me. I hope it was. I hope it was to
you. Let not your heart be troubled.
You believe in God? Believe also in me. My father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself,
so that where I am, there you may be also." This is our hope. We grieve as believers in loss
of a loved one. But if that loved one is a believer,
our grief is very selfish. It's not for them, it's for us. But we grieve not like those
who have no hope. We have a hope in our grief.
And what a hope it is. What a blessing. I'm gonna ask
you if you open your Bibles with me to John chapter 7. I've titled
this message, Do I Believe in Christ? Do I believe in Christ. A couple of Sundays ago, we were
looking at verse 4 and 5 in this chapter. And I made this statement. His
brethren, the brethren that are being spoken of in verses 4 and
5 are his half-brothers and sisters. They were the offspring of Mary
and Joseph. Anyone who teaches otherwise
is not teaching the truth. The Lord Jesus grew up for 30
years in the household with siblings. They were but half siblings. His father was his heavenly father. Mary was conceived by the Holy
Spirit. We know that. But to try to protect Mary's
sinlessness by saying that she didn't have any other children
is to deny Christ his sinlessness, his glory. No, this was his brethren. And
I made the statement, his brethren did not know who he was. Though
they were there at the synagogue in Nazareth, when he stood and
read from Isaiah 61 and publicly proclaimed himself to be the
Messiah. They were with him in Galilee
when he performed miracles. And now they're taunting him.
And they're saying to him, if you are really who you say you
are, you need to go down to Jerusalem where the movers and shakers
are. You need to get out of these small villages in Galilee and
go down into Judea and manifest yourself publicly among the important
people of the world and prove once and for all who you are. And I made the statement based
on these verses that they did not know who he was. That's really
not the most Precise way to say that, not according to what we
have here. The more precise way to say it
is that they did not believe who he was. They knew who he
professed to be. There was no question about that.
He was absolutely clear in the declaration of who he was as
the son of God, but they did not believe. For there is no man, they said,
I'm sorry, verse three. His brethren
therefore said unto him, depart hence and go into Judea, that
thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there
is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be
known openly. Now that word openly is most
often translated boldly in the Bible. Matter of fact, if you
look over in verse 26 of this same chapter, but lo, he speaketh
boldly, same word. If you look in verse 13, how
be it no man spake openly of him for fear of the Jews. No
one would be bold enough or open enough or honest enough or clear
enough to be able to say that they believed on him in fear
of the consequences that would come against them. And so what
are his brethren accusing him of? You're not being bold. You're not, you're not being
You're not being open. You're not being clear about
who you really are. And they were taunting him. Verse five, for neither did his
brethren believe on him, believe in him. I do want to make a distinction.
The Bible speaks of believing in Jesus Christ and it speaks
of believing on Jesus Christ. And in the original language,
it's the same word, it's the same preposition, but the context
in which it changes from believing in him and believing on him has
to do with believing what he says versus resting your hope on him
as a person. So they did not believe what
he said about himself. They did not accept his profession,
his testimony, his witness, his claims, if you will, about himself
being the son of God. They did not believe in him. No one will be able to believe
on him unless they believe in him. And I don't want to separate
these two things because if one believes in him, they will believe
on him. But it begins with believing
in him. Faith comes by hearing. and hearing
comes by the word of God. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved, but how shall they call upon
him in whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in
him in whom they have not heard? So the distinction in the Bible
in believing in Christ is believing his word. And those who have been brought
by the grace of God, and faith is a gift from God. It is not of ourselves. It is
a work of grace in the heart that causes us to say with Paul,
I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. It enables us to say with Peter, Lord, to whom shall we
go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. We know and are sure that thou
art the Christ, the son of the living God. We believe you. We believe in you and in believing
in you, we believe what you have said, which causes us to believe
on you. His brethren did not believe
in him. So my question is, do I believe? Do I believe what he has said? Turn with me to John chapter
10. One of the things I love about
the gospel is its simplicity. It doesn't take a high IQ to
believe the gospel. It's very simple. It's very clear. It's unambiguous. It's not contradictory. We're not speaking out of both
sides of our mouths. trying to hide the real meaning
of something by using political speech. Don't you hate it when
you listen to someone speak? And the reason they speak with
vague terms is because they want to be accepted by all men. Well,
you can interpret what I'm saying by what you want to think I'm
saying, and you can interpret by what you want to think I'm
saying. And so, in an effort to earn the praise of men, we
have politicians using political speech in such a way. And boldness
is just the opposite of that. Bold does not mean loud, it does
not mean brash, it does not mean that I'm intimidating people
with my personality so that they can't respond to what I'm saying.
The Lord never did any of that. To be bold means to be clear. It means to be without confusion. It means to speak in such a way
as there is only one way to interpret what we're saying. And if you
don't understand what's being said, it's not because it's complicated. It's not because it's been confusing. It's because you don't believe
it. The gospel is simple. You know, Paul said to one of
the churches, he said, I fear, I fear, lest by any means, as
the serpent beguiled Eve in the garden, so your hearts should
be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. The
gospel is simple. The message of the gospel is
this, Christ is all and he is in all. He is all my righteousness. He is all my wisdom. He is all
my justification. He is all my sanctification.
He is all my redemption. He has done all the work of salvation. He gets all the glory. The gospel is a person. It's
a very simple message. His brethren knew what he was
saying. There was no question about what
he was saying. He was clear. He was bold. Did he have to raise his voice
to be bold? No. No, he just had to be. openly
clear and simple say what you mean mean what you say stand
true to your word that's what boldness means in the Bible John chapter 10 verse 24 Then came the Jews round about
him and said unto him, how long dost thou make us to doubt? If
thou be the Christ, tell us boldly. That's the same word. It's to
be plain, to be plain, to be simple. The simple truth of the gospel. is that we are born into this
world dead in our trespasses and sins, having inherited our
nature by our father Adam. Spiritually dead, unable to believe,
unable to see, unable to make a decision, unable to present
to God our righteousness for the hope of our salvation, unable
to obligate Him in any way, we are dead. Dead, dead, dead. That's simple. Can't save ourselves. We can't do anything to save
ourselves. The simplicity of the gospel
is that God, in His own sovereign will and sovereign purpose, elected a particular people before
time ever was. He's God. He can make from the same lump
of clay of all of humanity some vessels of honor and some of
dishonor and no man can stay his hand and no man can say to
him, why have you made me this way? He's the potter, we're the
clay. Simple. God is God. He's sovereign. He's omnipotent. He does what he wants, when he
wants, with whomever he wants, however he wants, and because
he did it, it's right. You and I have to make decisions
based on what's right and what's wrong. And every day we have
to evaluate what the best thing is to do about a particular situation
or what the best thing is to order on a menu for that matter. We have to sort through options
and make decisions. God never does that. The fact
that he did it, the fact that he said it, the fact that he
performed it, makes it right. He doesn't have to weigh things
like we do. He's God. And the decisions that
he made in eternity past to elect a particular people to save was
unconditioned by anything he saw in the future of time on
behalf of those people. He did not look down through
the quarters of time and say, well, there's one that's going
to believe on me, so I'll elect them. His election was unconditioned
on anything in us. We are dead. When the Lord Jesus
came into the world, he came into this world The Son of God
made a man. He is God incarnate. He is the
fullness of the Godhead bodily. Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit,
and she gave birth to a sinless man. A sinless man. The Lord Jesus did not inherit
a sin nature from Adam. He wasn't conceived of a man.
He was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He lived a perfect, sinless
life. Indeed, in thought, in attitude,
in word, everything about him was absolutely perfect. There was a time ordained by
God for him to bear in his body the sins of his people. And when
he went to Calvary's cross, that's what happened. He took of the cup In the garden
he prayed, Father, if there be any way this cup can pass from
me, let it be. Nevertheless, not my will, but
thy will be done. And he drank dry all damnation,
the dregs of the sins of all of his people, all those whom
God chose. The Lord Jesus paid for their
sins by shedding his precious blood and suffering the full
wrath of God's justice at Calvary's tree. God looked down from heaven
and saw the travail of his soul, and God said, I'm satisfied.
He made himself an offering to his father to satisfy divine
justice. He didn't die on the cross to
make himself an offering to us to be accepted or rejected by
man. See how simple this is? It's simple. The only reason that a person
would not believe this is number one, it robs them of
their glory. I wanna get some credit for being
saved. I wanna do something in order
to glory in my salvation. I'm not gonna be saved in such
a way that gives to someone else all the credit. And the only reason that it would
be complicated is if a person's trying to fit a round peg into
a square hole. In other words, you're hearing
these things, but you have as a presupposition, you have as
a premise of things that you believe to be true. Here's some
of them. God loves everybody. That's not
true. Jacob I've loved, Esau I've hated.
Christ died for everybody, that's not true. He laid down his life
for the sheep. God wants everybody to be saved,
that's not true. God wanted everybody to be saved,
everybody be saved. You see, people hear the simplicity of
the gospel and they try to fit it in to a false premise and
it doesn't make sense. But that's the only thing, the
only reason the gospel is complicated is because that's what's going
on. If you just get rid of all those false ideas and hear the
gospel, you'll find out how absolutely simple it is. If I'm going to be saved, God's gonna have to do a work
of grace in my heart and make me to believe. and make it in
such a way as I can't resist it. It's going to have to be
irresistible. It's going to have to be a sovereign
work of grace whereby God births me into the kingdom of God by
his spirit. And if that happens, he's going
to use his gospel to do it. God uses the foolishness of preaching
to save them which believe. So this message is the message
that the Holy Spirit uses to do that work of grace in the
heart when he births us and we believe. Believing is not the cause of
our salvation, it's the result of it. It's the result of it. As I grow in grace now after
I've been birthed into the kingdom of God, as I grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as we saw in the
previous hour, I see more and more of my need for grace. I
see more and more of my unbelief. I see more and more of my old
sinful nature. I see more and more of my need
for Christ. And as sin abounds, grace must
much more abound. In other words, God must keep
me. If I'm going to make it to heaven,
if he's going to present me before the throne of God, he's going
to have to keep me. Salvation is of the Lord. From election to glorification,
everything in between. He said, I am the alpha, I am
the omega. I am the beginning, I am the
end. He gets all the glory. That's the gospel. It's simple. And the Lord Jesus was simple.
Look at the next verse. He said, if you be the Christ,
tell us boldly, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered them and said,
I told you, and you believed not. I've made it as clear as I can
make it, but you won't believe me. And that's all on you. That's
all on you. If we've been made to believe
the gospel, that's all on God. And he gets all the glory. If
we don't believe the gospel, that's all on us. And we get
all the shame and all the penalty. And someone says, that doesn't
make sense to me. It will. God gives you grace
to believe. You'll know. I told you. You didn't believe me. Never has a man spoken as plainly,
as openly, as clearly, and as boldly as did the Lord Jesus
Christ. To believe in Christ is to believe
what he says about himself, about God, about you. Say, well, I don't feel, but
the Bible says, God looked down from heaven, Genesis chapter
six. He looked down the throat of man, man looked up, opened
his mouth into heaven. God looked down his throat and
he saw an open sepulcher, a grave full of dead man's bones. That's what God saw. And God
saw that every, imagination of the heart of man was only evil
and that continually. And a person says, well, I don't
see myself that way. Well, here's the question. Do you believe what you see or
do you believe what God sees? Because believing in Christ is
believing what God sees. And what God sees is the way
it is. It's just that simple. Simple. I told you plainly. I told you clearly. But you wouldn't
believe. Turn with me to Mark chapter
one. Mark chapter one. You see, the problem with faith The problem with having
faith is not because the gospel's complicated. As I said, it doesn't take an
IQ. It does take an I will. And I will not have that man
reign over me. unless he makes me to come unto
him. And when he does, oh, Lord, save
me. Nothing I will more than that.
Nothing I need more than a savior. Nothing I want more than to have
my sins put away, to know God, and to be saved. David said in the Psalms, he
makes us willing in the day of his power. Lord, have power over
me. Make me willing. Tell us plainly. I told you. Look at Mark chapter
1. Look with me at verse 21. And they went into Capernaum.
And straightway on the Sabbath day, he entered into the synagogue
and taught. It's the Lord Jesus teaching
in the synagogue. And they were astonished at his
doctrine, at his teaching. For he taught them as one that
had authority, boldness, power, not as the scribes. and listen to false prophets. And they'll say, well, yeah,
it's of grace, not of works. And then they give you works
to do. You can't. No, he told them that
the Pharisees sent the police to arrest the Lord and bring
him back. And the police came back empty-handed. I mean, these
were the police. Where is he? Never a man spake
like that man before. He had authority over us. We
could not arrest him. His words were too plain and
too clear and too simple, too bold for us to contradict him
or find anything wrong with him. Do I believe in Christ? His brethren
didn't. They knew what he was saying,
but they didn't believe it. They did not believe it. Here's the beauty of the Lord's
boldness. When God enables us to hear the
clear, simple, bold declaration of the gospel. It makes us bold. Loud, abrasive, intimidating? No. Confident? Yeah. Yeah, I've been taught
of God. I know. I know. The whole world can go against
what God's taught me, it doesn't matter. My circumstances can
be contrary, apparently, to me, contrary to what I believe, but
it doesn't matter. My feelings might not be consistent
with what I know to be true, it doesn't matter. It doesn't
matter. If I'm to approach the throne
of grace, I must approach the throne of grace boldly to find
help in my time of need. Does that mean that I come before
God with some sort of demanding spirit? No, it means that I come
confident that the Lord Jesus has made the way and that he
is the way and that I come before God in the person and in the
name of him. and that I believe all that he's
revealed about himself. Do I understand everything that's
been revealed? No. But I believe it. I believe what
I understand. The Bible says Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him for righteousness. What did he
believe God about? Abraham was a hundred years old.
Sarah was 90 years old. The scripture says that she was
far past the time of a woman. She went through menopause many
years ago. Angel came, said, Sarah's going to have a baby. They both laughed. And then God asked him, is anything
too hard for God? And Abraham believed. Contrary
to all of his experiences, contrary to what he saw in his life, he
believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. That's
what it is. Abraham's called the father of the faithful. God
told Noah, Noah, there's going to be a deluge and the whole
world is gonna be covered with water and that water's gonna
come from heaven. And Noah had never seen a drop of water in
his life fall from the sky. It never rained before Noah's
flood. But Noah believed God and he
built an ark. And he spent close to 100 years
building that ark, preaching the gospel, waiting and watching
for the promise of God. You see, if you wait, if you
wait until, you're just like the Lord's brothers. You need
to prove yourself. No, I said plainly, I spoke to
you boldly. I told you exactly what the truth
is. And my word is true and faithful.
You gonna believe it? Or are you gonna believe your
circumstances? You gonna believe me? Or are
you gonna believe your feelings? You gonna believe me? Or are
you gonna believe what the world says? That's what it boils down
to. The Lord came to Bethany, and
I was thinking about this when we were singing that last hymn
on the back of your bulletin. The Lord came to Bethany, and
Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. His body had begun
to decay. His sisters Mary and Martha were
grieving over the loss of their brother. Oh, Lord, if you'd have
been here, my brother would not have died. Martha? Do you believe in the resurrection?
Oh, yes, Lord, I know that in the resurrection, I know that
in my resurrection, my brother will be raised again, but that
really doesn't help me right now. I'm longing for my brother. Martha, I am the resurrection
and the life. He that believeth in me shall
never die. Well, my brother's in the grave. Believest thou this? Martha,
do you believe what I'm telling you? It's contrary to everything
you're going through right now. Though he were dead, yet shall
he live. He that believeth in me, Martha, do you believe that? Martha put away all of her fears
and all of her feelings and all of her experience and she looked
at Christ and she said, yay, Lord. Yay, Lord. I believe what you're saying.
And I believe that you are the Christ that should come into
the world. Or I've got no place else to
go. What a blessing. You see, if I believe that Jesus
is the Christ, if I believe that he is God incarnate, that he's
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that he is the word made flesh,
that he is the eternal I am, if I believe what the Bible says
about him being the sovereign uncreated, creator and sustainer
of all of life, then I must believe that He holds my life and my
soul in His hands and He can do with it whatsoever He wills. And if I believe that, then I
will believe on Him. If I believe in Him, I will believe
on Him. I will have no place else to
go if I believe what He has said. If I believe that the Lord Jesus
came to save sinners and that He only saves sinners and that
He saves every sinner, then I will come to Him for all
my righteousness and for all my justification, confessing
to him, Lord, have mercy upon me, the sinner. If I believe
in him, I will believe on him. His brethren did not believe
in him. They knew what he was saying, as many people do. They know
what the Bible says. If we believe what the Lord Jesus
said when he bowed his head on Calvary's cross and said, it
is finished. Everything that God requires
for my people to be saved, for their sins to be atoned for,
for righteousness to be established and for them to be justified
before a holy God. It's finished and I finished
it. If I believe in Him, if I believe
that, then I'm gonna believe on Him
for all my acceptance before God. I will trust Him as my atoning
sacrifice, and I will plead with God no other reason for Him to
save me than the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I have no other claim on God.
If I believe in Him, I will believe on Him. If I believe that he reigns in
heaven, not only over my salvation, but
also over the providential events of my life, that he works all
things together for good, for them that love him and for those
that are the called according to his purpose. If I believe
what he has said, then in the most difficult of circumstances,
When he sends trials and troubles into my life, I will believe
on him to help me in my time of trouble. I will flee to him
for grace and for strength and for faith and for hope. It begins with believing in him.
And it concludes with believing on him. You cannot separate the two. If I believe that this book,
as it states, men try to use archeology and history to prove
the Bible's a word of God. The Bible says it's the word
of God. All scripture has been given
by inspiration of God, and all scripture is profitable for doctrine
and for reproof and for correction and for instruction in righteousness
that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
And none of it came by private interpretation, but holy men
of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. If I believe
what he has said about his word, then I will cling to the precious
promises of God for all the hope of my salvation. And I'll not
say, well, you know, I'm not sure about that. No, this is
the inspired, infallible word of God. It is my only source
of truth in this life and in the life
to come. His brethren did not believe
what he said. They knew what he was saying,
but they didn't believe in him. What is it to believe in Christ? It's to believe his word, it's
to believe on him. If I believe in him, I will rest
the eternal hope of my life and my immortal soul on him for all
my salvation. I will say with David, although
my house be not so with God. I can't find any hope in my life,
in my family, in this world. Yet he made with me an everlasting
covenant And that covenant was ordered in all things. Everything
required to ratify that covenant was accomplished by the Lord
Jesus Christ. It was ordered in all things.
And it's sure. It's certain. It's bold. It's clear. It's plain. This is all my salvation. This is all my desire. Though
I can't find anything in my life to prove that it's growing. I've got no place else to go.
I'm shut up to Christ. What a blessed place to be. That's what it is to believe
in Christ. Believe in Him is to believe
on Him. Our Heavenly Father, oh how dependent
we are for thy divine almighty Holy
Spirit to take the words of life and give us life in Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. Tom 127. Let's stand together.