Well, we spoke about the separation
from, and there's a purpose in the separation from that there
might be a joining to. And I love to think of being
there, fancy being there in Jerusalem and seeing the Lord Jesus do
these remarkable things and hear him speak. I love to think of what he declares
of himself and his deity. If you just go back to John chapter
7 with me, I want us to contemplate him for a minute as he comes
to this place. And remember of course that the
Jews in those days were a divided religious group and all of the
Christian denominations of today were there alive. They were active. They were excited
about the Messiah coming. They knew their scriptures off
by heart. They thought that they obeyed
the law of God perfectly. They were zealous. Many of them
knew the Old Testament off by heart in Hebrew. And yet they
were divided and confused. But the one thing that joined
them all together, the one thing that joined them all together,
Despite all of their religion and all of their morality and
all of their learning and all of their traditions and all of
their history, the one thing that united all those Jews together
was a hatred for the Lord Jesus Christ. The Pharisees and the
Sadducees despised each other and fought against each other
all the time until the Lord Jesus Christ was revealed. And then
they joined hands together to put him to death, to crucify
him, to break their own law and the laws of nature in such was
their hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ. Man's hatred of Him is
an irrational hatred. They hated me without a cause,
says the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no cause in Him. The
cause of man's enmity and separation is Him, which is why the children
of God need such a glorious Saviour and such an authoritative Saviour
and such a powerful Saviour and a Saviour that comes to us where
we are because we have no But I do love it. Just quickly go
with me through John chapter 7. I want us to follow the footsteps
of this man as he gathers his people to himself and creates
this division and this opposition. In verse 14, just imagine this.
This is a huge feast with hundreds of thousands of people and all
of these Jewish leaders all dressed up in all their finery. You can
imagine what something like the Pope and all those cardinals
do in Rome. They're all parading around. doing all of these fancy
things, and he walks into that temple, into the middle of all
that, and he taught. He doesn't ask their permission.
He just marches in. He has the authority in God's
house. He says, this is my house. This
house is all about me. He's the judge. He's the judge of all. legal
obedience. In verse 19 he speaks to these
people who thought that they obeyed the law of Moses and thought
that he was worthy of death because he disobeyed. He said, did not
Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law.
He is the judge. He has all authority and he is
the judge. And then in verse 21 he says,
I have done one work and you all marvel. The one work was
a work of remarkable creation. 38 years not a muscle had moved
in that young man's legs. 38 years of cripple lying there
and the Lord Jesus Christ comes and just speaks a word and he
is healed. He is the creator. So he is.
Just in this one chapter he speaks with the authority of God. He
is the judge of all legal obedience. He is the one who creates by
a miraculous work of his and his alone. And in verse 23, he
speaks of what he's done to that man. In verse 23 at the end of
it, he says, I have made this man every bit whole, every whit
whole. He has made him, salvation is
to be made whole by the Lord Jesus Christ, perfectly whole. It's a creative work, isn't it?
And then in verse 28 he says about their religion, he says,
he says, he that sent me, at the end of verse 28, he that
sent me is true whom you know not. All of your religion has
not taught you a single thing about God. You know the words,
but you don't know him who is the word made flesh. You don't
know him at all. You don't know him. Their religion, he declares,
is empty of knowledge of God. He says he knows God, that he
came from God, that he's sent by God. He came with a purpose. He says, my hour has not yet
come at the end of verse 30. He has a purpose, this God of
ours incarnate, and the purpose was to go to the cross. And then he says, I'm going back
to my father. When I am crucified, I am returning
to my father. He can't. And now seated at the
right hand of God Almighty is the Lord Jesus Christ. And on
his body are the marks of his journey on this earth. They're
still there. This same Jesus is coming back.
And then he says in verse 34 something which should horrify
people, isn't it? He says, where I'm going, you
cannot come. There is limited access to heaven. There is limited access to the
very presence of God in peace and mercy and grace. He then makes these remarkable
promises that we've looked at over this last few weeks. He
says, he that believeth on me as the scripture said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. are all one in the very purposes
of God. We have a triune God. He speaks to these people, they
have no knowledge of the scriptures, they don't know who God is, they
cannot enter into the presence of God, and all of their religion
has not aided them in one tiny little bit. They are empty, they
are confused, They talk about his birth. Verse
41, this is the Christ, Christ come out of Galilee. Has not
the scripture said that Christ comes in the seat of David and
out of the town of Bethlehem? Remember, 30 years prior to it,
I'm old enough to know what 30 years ago was like. In 1992,
I can remember certain things. I can remember how old my children
were. I can remember where they went to school. I can remember
what sort of things I was doing. I can remember a whole lot about
it. And if I had to go back and look at the diaries and work
things out, these Jews were historians, keeping their traditions and
knowing what happened, and especially around the temple and especially
to do with the Messiah. 30 years beforehand, three remarkable,
The wise men had come from the east and they'd come looking
for a king, and Herod had asked where that king's be born, and
these men were sent down to Bethlehem. You would think someone in three
years of following the Lord Jesus Christ around and hearing these
remarkable claims, someone would have gone to Bethlehem, wouldn't
they? And said, what happened in Bethlehem 30 years ago? Someone
might have gone back to the temple records and said, what happened
here in the temple 30 years ago? The most remarkable things that
had happened in that temple for hundreds and hundreds of years
happened 30 years ago when Zacharias met the angel in the temple and
the angel spoke to him. And Zacharias was left dumb and
not able to speak for 10 months. And then John the Baptist is
born, this remarkable birth of a young man born to very, very
old women. An old woman and an old, old
man. and a remarkable birth, and then Zacharias the priest
preached the most remarkable sermon you can read about in
Luke chapter 1. You would think someone would
say, what happened 30 years ago? There's some remarkable things
that happened here 30 years ago. You see, my point simply is that
the ignorance They had a hatred. They had a
hatred of him and they had an ignorance of their own history
and they had an ignorance of who they were. So I want us to see Those who are separated from
God are 100% fully responsible for their separation from Him.
They are 100% responsible. These people had the Word of
God. They could have checked and they
had a history before them. They are without There is a division among the
people because of the Lord Jesus Christ. But as I said earlier,
and I want to spend a little bit of time looking at it, there's
a division that there might be a separation to Him. And that's exactly what the Lord
Jesus Christ came to this world for, didn't He? He came because
He had a people that the Father gave Him before the foundation
of the world. And I know it offends people.
And that's exactly what he was teaching in John chapter 6, and
it's exactly what the apostles continued to preach in Ephesians
chapter 1 and other places. When were these people given
to the Lord Jesus Christ? They were given to him before
the foundation of the world. He says in Ephesians, Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, according as he has
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. And that choosing,
that election, had a purpose. that we should be holy and without
blame before him in love, in his presence. Isn't that remarkable?
Holy, God declaring his people to be holy. God declaring his
people to be without blame before him in love. Having predestinated,
predestination's just God being God, isn't it? It's God declaring
that he rules all things, he has authority. having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, and listen to
the words, to himself. There is a division, but there
is a separation to himself, to himself. according to, what's
the basis of it? According to the good pleasure
of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein
he has made us acceptable, accepted, accepted by God in the beloved,
in whom we have redemption, we have been brought back out of
this world, brought back to God, brought back out of our sins,
through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of His grace. What's the response of man to
that? This is just a declaration of God being God, isn't it? God
having the right to do with His own as He sees fit. Wherein He
has abounded toward us wisdom in that? Wisdom and prudence. And then he says, having made
known unto us the mystery of his will according to his good
pleasure which he has purposed in himself. This is just a declaration
of God being God. It's a declaration of God having
a union with his people, being one with him. Now that's why
he came. He came because of that. He came
to achieve that. Listen to how Paul speaks of
God's salvation in 2 Timothy 1 verse 9. He has saved us and
called us with a holy calling. His calling, His voice comes
as a holy calling to His people, to Himself, not according to
our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which
was given us in Christ Jesus. The people of this world and
the people of religion are thinking in terms of their comfort and
their assurance of the things of now, aren't they? They look
into themselves and they look about themselves and they look
at what they have done and they look at what they are doing and
then they look at what they might do to try and make themselves
right. The children of God find their comfort and assurance looking
as find themselves united to the
Lord Jesus Christ and they look in the other direction and they
look beyond their life in this world, they look beyond even
their time in heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ and they look
to a new creation. Do you see how stable and how
broad and how deep is the love of God for his people? Listen
to what he goes on to say. Paul says, But now is made manifest
by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who has abolished
death. My death was died 2000 years
ago. When God's children leave this
world, they do not die. Their bodies go back to the earth,
but they do not die. They are eternal souls. He's abolished death and has
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And that's what God's people
preach. And that's what God's people teach. a division, there
is a separation, that separation was in eternity, that separation
is because of a union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And people
look on at Christianity and see it's all confused, but it's not
for those on the inside. In ten days, two weeks' time,
Kevin Thacker will be here preaching from this pulpit and you'll be
hearing exactly the same things from Kevin that you've been hearing
for the last 15 years. But as he'll tell you, you can
go to all of those churches of all of those believers and all
of those brethren, and they are one. They are one. Because God says that he will
make his ministers and he will teach his people. Is God a good
teacher? Do you think when God teaches,
people get the lesson? He is a good teacher. speak with one voice and they
speak eye to eye. And all of his people represent
the Lord Jesus Christ in this world and all of them will suffer
exactly as he did and exactly as all the apostles did in this
world. They will not be understood by this world. The world cannot
understand. These are spiritual realities
that God is talking about. But there is brothers and sisters, his family
and his bride, his body are one. It's perfectly complete. The
notion that the body of the Lord Jesus Christ is missing parts
or is deformed or on that glorious day when all things are revealed
there'll be any blemish in it whatsoever is a nonsense. He
presents all of his people spotless and holy and unblameable and
unapprovable in His sight. That's the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's the work that is the proclamation of the Gospel.
It's a declaration of who He is as God, a declaration of why
He came, a declaration of who sent Him and the mission that
He was sent on, a declaration of the success, the absolute servants are preaching a message
which cannot fail. Because God cannot fail. He will
have His bride. And that's why these simple statements
that we keep reminding ourselves of out of the Scriptures and
He repeats again and again and again throughout every chapter
of the Bible. He declares Himself to be God.
He declares Himself to have a union with His people. So there is
a dividing, but there is a dividing that he might unite his people
to himself. See, all of the denominations
and all of the activities are created by man and sustained
by man. The Church of God draws and has
its life from above, just like the spiritual life of all of
God's people. It begins with God and he continues it. The work that he's begun is the
work that he has promised to continue. And so is he able to
gather his church together? Is he able to have a successful
witness to himself in this world that does exactly what he has
purposed? Does he have the right? Does
he have the ability? See, that's the issue, isn't
it? The issue that divides is him. And he is God Almighty, ruler
and sustainer. All God's children have a unity. I keep repeating, any preacher
would have some favourite verses, but one that they must continually
go back to and just love is the fact that God says, It is written
in the Prophets, the Old Testament writes it again and again and
again. They shall all be taught of God. God will teach all these
people. Every man therefore that has
heard, heard God speak, and has learned of the Father, been taught
by God the Father, what do they do? They come to me. And if you go back into John
chapter six, he has a glorious declaration again and again of
who he is. There's a division among the
people because of him. Well, what a glorious security
we have. Every man, therefore, that has
heard and learned of the Father comes to me. Will they all come? Can a shepherd like this shepherd
not have all of his sheep? What would it be for him to lose
one? If I owned a hundred sheep, and
God the Father owns a multitude, isn't it? And I gave those sheep
into the hands of a shepherd, and the shepherd brings them
back, and there's a bunch of them missing. Do I go chasing
after the sheep and say, look here, you wicked, naughty sheep,
or do I say, the shepherd, you took responsibility for these
sheep of mine? Can the Lord Jesus Christ lose
a sheep? He is God. He is God. He is able. He's able to bring
his people to himself. He's able to bring his people
to God. He's able to achieve everything
he did and said he would do. are taught of God. All of God's
children delight in the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is
God. Isn't that a glorious thing to say? Jesus Christ of Nazareth
is God Almighty. That's exactly what Peter was
confessing, wasn't it? Christ, he has to be God. We
declare that his humanity was perfect. He was sinless. He was
unable to sin because he had a holy nature. We believe the
Bible is a book that's all about him. It's not a book of morals
teaching you how to live. It's a book of him. It's a him
book. It's all about him, who he is,
what he's done, why he came, his relationship with his people. All the Bible is about him. He
is all. All of God's people are united,
aren't they? He's all in our salvation. I
don't look to anywhere else. I cannot look to a single thing
I've done. I cannot look to a single thing that I might do. I cannot
look to preaching. I cannot look to praying. I cannot
look to witnessing. I cannot look anywhere else.
All of my salvation, all of my relationship with God, all of
my standing before God is in the Lord Jesus Christ. His righteousness,
His obedience is the only righteousness I have no matter how polished they might
seem to other men, and how much, when we hear of them, we might
feel ourselves extraordinarily inadequate when we see righteous
people, we see so-called holy people, we see devout people.
All of their righteousnesses are filthy rags, says God. There is only one righteousness
in all of this universe, and that's the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the robe that his
people wear. He unites his people as the only
object of faith. He unites his people as one in
his family, as the only reason of assurance. All of his people
believe he is all that is to be preached. He gathers his people
as he's promised. He gathers his people to worship
him and he communes with them and he opens his word to them
and the Holy Spirit fulfills the promises that were covenanted
before the world began. And the whole purpose is always
to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. We have a union, brothers and
sisters. We have a true union of hearts
and soul. God's people have an eternal
union, an unbreakable union. And there is, in this union,
something much, much deeper than a union of flesh, isn't it? The Lord Jesus, on the night
that he went and it's worth spending time
looking at it. We don't have time now, but go
and read John chapter 17 and mark the petitions that he made
to his father and mark the fact that he didn't even bother to
pray for the world. He prayed for his people. He
was going to represent them on the cross the next day, but then
he prayed for us, brothers and sisters, here now, 2022. Neither pray I for these alone,
but for them also which shall believe on me through the word,
that they all may be one. As you, Father, are in me, and
I in you, that they may also be one in us, that the world
may believe that thou hast sent me, and the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as
we are one. Listen to what he says about
them. I in them, verse 23, and thou in me, you in me, that they
may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, Father, I will. My prayer for you is that they
also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory which thou hast given me. For thou lovest
me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the
world has not known thee, but I have known thee, and these
have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto
them thy name. He's declared the character of
God, which we've been talking about. And we'll declare that
the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I
in them. There is a union of God's people
with the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a division because of
him. There is a separation because
of him. There is a separation of the
sheep from the goats. But there is a separation to
Him. It's a separation to God from
idols because the Word of God comes with power. To be divided
is to be rendered apart from. There are so many remarkable
things that the Lord Jesus Christ did that separated us and divided
us. from my sin and the only possible
way I can be separated from my sin is for the Lord Jesus Christ
to bear it in his own body and for God the Father to punish
it according to his holiness and according to his justice
for his people and his dead. from my righteousness, from any
thought that I can come to God on the basis of something that
I have done myself, even something that I might do. I need to be
separated from my works, because every time I do anything and
any time I touch anything, according to Romans 7, sin is right there
with me. I need to be separated to him
from Satan, from Satan's deception, from his darkness, world. I need to be separated
from the death that I have earned. I need to be separated from the
judgment I deserve. Where are the things, your sins,
says the Bible, have separated you from your God? Where are
the sins of all of God's children? As far as the East is from the
West. They're put in a bundle and they're
put in the depths of the sea, they're hidden behind a dark
cloud, they're hidden behind God's back. They are on, they
were on his son and they have been punished according to the
holiness of God. And God says that they don't
exist anymore. I want to be separated to a saviour
who does that for me. I don't want to be joined with
a God who tries and fails. I don't want to be joined to
a God who says, I've done the best I can do, and if you do
really, really well, you can finish the work. I want to be
joined to a God who said on Calvary's cross, it is All of my debt to God is paid
in full. All of my debt to God is paid
in full. My sins are gone. I want to be joined to a saviour
like that. I want to be joined to a saviour
like that. I'll finish by going to a remarkable
verse in the scriptures It says, in the day of salvation,
in his days, Judah shall be saved, Jeremiah 23, six. Judah shall
be saved and Israel shall dwell in safety. And this is the name
whereby he shall be called. This is the name of this one
that saves and causes people to dwell in safety. What's his
name? The Lord our righteousness. That's his name. If you turn
over to Jeremiah 33, in those days, verse 16, Judah shall be
saved and Jerusalem shall dwell safely. And this is the name
wherewith she shall be called. What's the name of the Church?
She is the Bride of Christ. the Lord our righteousness. To be joined to him is to be
joined as a wife to a husband. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank you and praise you for the finished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ, by which sinners like us, helpless sinners, Heavenly
Father, can be united to you and stand in your presence because
we come into your presence hidden in your dear and precious Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, our Father, we thank you
that he separated all of his people from their sins and from
this world and from Satan and that he finished that glorious
work wholly unblameable and unapprovable
in his side. Heavenly Father, we pray that
the blessed Holy Spirit might once again come and, as promised,
take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, the things of his person,
the things of his work on this earth, the things of him before
the foundation of the world, the things of him on the cross,
and the things of him in heaven right now. Take those things
and reveal them to us, as you have promised, that we might
find ourselves resting, relying, trusting, believing the Lord
Jesus Christ and Him crucified alone. We praise you, Heavenly
Father, that He declared it's finished and by His resurrection
all of His people are raised together with Him. Bless your
word to the hearts of your people, Heavenly Father. Give us faith
that whole I'll read it to you while our
musicians get themselves organised. We finish by singing the last
words of Jude, the last words before the book of Revelation. and to present you, faultless,
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Saviour,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen. The words in that amazing
verse of scripture that amazed me the most, with joy.