This is the work of God. Are you interested? This is the
work of God, that you believe on him whom he has sent. I love verse 45 of John chapter
six. It's written in the prophets,
and they shall all be taught of God. So God is your teacher
and God is my teacher. They'll all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath
heard and learned of the Father, what do they do? They cometh. They come unto the Lord Jesus
Christ. John makes it so clear as to
why he's written. He's written these things that
you might believe and you might believe and then keep on believing
and keep on believing and keep on believing. that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life
through his name. This book, God, is full of the
most remarkable promises, isn't it? We read about one of them
and studied it just a couple of weeks ago. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent
me, hath in their possession hath everlasting life, and shall
not come into condemnation, but is passed from death to life. They've crossed the sea, brothers
and sisters, with the Lord Jesus Christ in the boat. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you would fulfil your promise in the hearts of your people,
Heavenly Father, and cause us to believe. calls those of us
who don't believe to go away from here, seeing the Lord Jesus
Christ and seeing Him and believing. Heavenly Father, we thank you
again for your sovereignty and your rule over all things and
we praise you, Heavenly Father. For the Lord Jesus Christ coming
to take away the one thing that separates us from you, which
is our sins, May he be exalted. May we see him high and lifted
up. May we look to him as the brazen serpent on the pole and
the poison of sin and unbelief have no effect on us that we
might walk. land of the new creation. Pray
these things in Jesus' name and for his glory. So often when
we read these words we should be amazed by the words of God,
we should be amazed by the clarity of them, we should be amazed
by the simplicity of them. I was talking to my friend Todd
Nybert a couple of weeks ago and he said that John's Gospel
is the hardest Gospel in the Bible to preach through, the
hardest book in the Bible to preach through because it's so
simple. And John says such extraordinary things in such simple words that
sometimes you come away from it thinking, if I just said this
again and again and again for the next 15 minutes and then
we just went away and prayed. This is the work of God that
you believe on him that he has sent. And people might be wondering,
well, how do we know? How do we know what John said
is true? This book is a spiritual book,
we saw all that earlier before our break. But how did John manage
to write these long discourses, which John chapter 6 is one of
the longest in all of the scriptures, how did they manage to write
it all and get it all right? How can we believe what we have
written before us? In John chapter 14 verse 26 it
says, But the Comforter, the Holy Ghost, Whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. And such is the situation of
us, isn't it? We are in need again and again. This is the work of God. They ask a question which all
mankind is asking, isn't it? What should we do that we might
do the works of God? What do I have to do to please
God? What do I have to do to earn
favour with God? And the Lord Jesus Christ says,
this is the work of God. He didn't say this is a work
of God. He didn't say this is one of
the works of God. He said, this is the work of
God, the work of God. All of God's works in this world,
in a sense, are wrapped up in this one work, isn't it? Man's
works and man's ways are always complicated, aren't they? It's
always complicated. And there's a little bit of this
and a little bit of that. God's works are simple and singular. This is a work that God does,
and it has all the fingerprints of God all over it, doesn't it?
This work is a creative work. This work is a life-sustaining
work. This is a work that glorifies
God. This is a work that defeats Satan. This is a work that endures unto
eternal life. All of God's works reflect all
of His character, don't they? This is a work that reveals His
holiness and His justice and His mercy and His grace and His
goodness and His love. that you might believe, you might
believe in the one he has sent, that you might personally believe,
that you might particularly believe. Other people's believing is not
the issue here, is it? That you might believe. You personally
might believe. You and not someone else. You
with him alone in your little ship. You believe. This is saving
faith, isn't it? There are so many definitions
of faith and so many people talking about faith these days. Our king-to-be
has changed his oath of office. The queen and all her predecessors
for hundreds of years called themselves defenders of the faith.
Charles has dropped the, he's a defender of faith. What's faith?
People have faith in faith, don't they? Everyone talks about it. They're people of faith. Well,
the Lord Jesus Christ here is defining faith. He's defining
saving faith. He's defining a faith that gets
his people into heaven and comforts his people. You might recall
that great chapter of faith It speaks that faith, in verse
1 it says, now faith is a substance. Faith actually has a reality,
a substance in the words of God. It's the substance of things
hoped for. It's the evidence of things not
seen. Faith gives understanding. Verse
3 says, Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by
the word of God. God created this universe. It's
his universe. He made it. The worlds were framed.
We understand this. So that the things which are
seen are not made of things which do appear. God created out of
nothing when he creates faith. He doesn't have to find something
in you. He creates as a creator. But faith, in verse five it says,
by faith Enoch was translated. Enoch left this world like Elijah
did. And I don't know what that means. I don't have to, I just believe
what God says about it. Enoch was translated that he
should not see death and was not found because God had translated
him. For before his translation he
had this testimony that he pleased God. He pleased God. But without faith it is impossible
to please him. For he that cometh to God must
believe that he is God. and that he is the rewarder of
them that diligently seek him. What an encouragement to diligently
seek him all the time. This is the work of God. This
is the work that pleases God. This is the work that honours
God. This is the work that brings
people into a knowledge of God. It brings people to an understanding
of this world and everything in it. Not everything in it,
there's a whole bunch we don't understand, but nevertheless.
God sent his Son. Saving faith is not what you
believe about yourself. Saving faith is entirely what
you believe about God. This is saving faith, what you
believe about God, not what you believe about your doings. He
says without him we can do nothing. God must come and God must create. Saving faith is believing the
Father, and believing the character of the Father, and believing
that He sent the Lord Jesus Christ. And if He was sent, He had an
existence before He was sent. You can read about it in John
1, isn't it? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
There was a beginning, wasn't there? There was an existence
of God before that beginning. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God, and all things were made by him,
and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was
life, and that life was the light of men, and the light shineth
in the darkness. The very first words of God,
the very first words of saving faith. The very first evidence,
isn't it, is that there is a light that shines on the glory of God
in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was sent. He was sent. He was sent with a purpose. He
was sent to honour the Father who sent him. As he was about
to go to Calvary's cross he prayed, didn't he? You read John chapter
17 and again six times in John chapter 17 he speaks to himself
as the one that was sent. In John 17.3 this is life eternal,
this is it. that they might know thee, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." He's the
sent one. He says in verse eight of his
disciples, I've given them the words which you gave me, and
they have received them and know surely that I came from thee,
and they have believed that thou didst send me. At the end of this prayer, he
speaks of the glory, doesn't he? He begins his prayer speaking
of him returning to the glory that he had before the foundation
of the world, that the Father would glorify him. And then he
says, neither pray I for these alone. This is his prayer for
us, before he went to the cross. But for them also which shall
believe on me through their word. How do you come to believe on
him? You come to believe on him by
hearing the word preached. You read it in Romans chapter
10. How can they believe unless they hear? And how can you hear
unless someone is sent? You hear. That they, verse 21,
John said, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art
in me, and I in thee, that they also might 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, I in them and thou in me, that they may be
made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou
hast sent me, listen to what he says, and has loved them as
thou hast loved me. Father, I will 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 does not know thee,
but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent
me. And I have declared unto them
thy name, the Lord Jesus Christ declares the name, the character
of God. And will declare it, that the
love wherewith thou hast loved me, This I Am comes to his people
in the storm, in their little vessel, their little boat as
they cross the stormy sea of this life. And he's in them,
he's there with them. The Lord Jesus Christ speaks
of himself as the one who is sent. He says, and he came with
a purpose. He came as God and he came with
all the purpose of God. Let's listen to why. Why was
he sent? He tells us very clearly in John
chapter six why he was sent. He says, for I came down from
heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent
me. And this is, what is the will
of God? This is the will This is the
will, this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all
of which He has given me, I should lose nothing, nothing, not one. I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone that sees the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the
last day." That's why he was sent. He came to do the Father's
will. He was sent. He was sent to this
earth with a particular purpose in mind, isn't it? He came to
save the elect. He didn't come on a mission to
save every single human being, He came to save His people from
their sins. And save them He did. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me, verse 37. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. He came, He came to save His
people from their sins. Don't you love what he says?
He says in chapter 10, he says, no one can pluck them out of
my hand. No one, nothing can pluck them out of my hand. What
sort of a hand is it? It's the hand of omnipotent God,
isn't it? The thought that he could lose
one, is to deny his very deity. Don't you love what Isaiah 42
verse 4 says? He shall not fail nor be discouraged. He's not frustrated. Does he
lack any power to do what he's promised to do? Brothers and
sisters in Christ, we rest. our eternal souls on the very
words and the very works and the very finished work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. When he said it was finished, the word means
it was paid in full. Your debt to God, your debt of
works to God, your debt of obedience to God is paid in full. in every tiny little bit. I've
honoured, I've loved God with all of my heart, all of my soul,
and all of my strength. I've obeyed every single law
of God, and I did it all 2,000 years ago. That's a stun. That's the gospel,
brothers and sisters. He should lose nothing. He has
a will, our God, and he willed and this universe came into existence.
Haven't you been amazed at those pictures that are on the internet
now from that new telescope that's up there in the sky? It is remarkable,
isn't it? In fact, there are so many stars
that if you actually sort of got a proper picture of it, you
don't see anything but stars. It's just full of light. It's
remarkable, isn't it? They all have a name. They all have a number. Why is the universe so big? Why is the universe and creation
so glorious? So we would see something of
the bigness of God and something of the glory of God and something
of the creativity of God. None of those things save And unless the Lord comes to
show us himself as our creator, which is what he does, isn't
it? This is the work of God. This is the creative work of
God. This is the revealing work of God that you believe. You
believe on the one that he has sent. This is the work of God. His will is always done. Salvation,
It is finished with his cry from the cross. I have paid all of
the debts of all of my people. Every work and everything that
they owe God is now done. Payment for every single one
of their sins is gone. It's done. I love how The Holy Spirit causes us to
be reminded of this again and again and again throughout the
Scriptures that it's finished, isn't it? He says in Hebrews, Speaking
of his coming, he says in Hebrews 10 verse 9, he says, Lo, I come
to do thy will, O God. This is a quotation from Psalm
40. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second
by the which will we are sanctified. That means to be made holy. Through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. It doesn't
have to be offered again. for by one offering, verse 14,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Not that
they'll be sanctified by their activities after they have believed. Perfected forever they that are
sanctified. And then he says in verse 16,
Why doesn't God remember the sins of his people? It's not
as if he has a poor memory. They don't exist, brothers and
sisters. They were put on His Son, and
they were owned by His Son before the foundation of the world.
And God the Father put His Son to death, and God the Father,
in holy justice, punished those sins infinitely and perfectly
to the point where God says they don't exist anymore. And just
so we know that there's a completed and perfect work in verse 18
of Hebrews 10, he says, now where remission of these is, where
they are put away, there is no more offering for sin. God accepts the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. God accepts the sin bearing sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. God looks at his son and is satisfied. God causes his people to look
to exactly the same person that he looks to for his satisfaction. It's a glorious, glorious gospel
we have to proclaim because it speaks of a glorious, sovereign
God and Saviour. Listen to what he says, and this
is verse 39. This is the will of him which has sent me, that
of all of which he has given me, I should lose nothing, but
should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will
of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the sun and believeth
on him hath everlasting life. I do love the words of the Lord
Jesus Christ to that woman at the well in John chapter 4 verse
10. He said, if you knew, if you
knew the gift of God, not if you knew what you had to do to
get right with God, if you knew the gift of God and who it is
that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou would have asked
of him and he would have given thee living Everyone that sees the Son. None
of us have seen the Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh and this
is written in the context of a passage where at least 5,000
people saw him and they didn't see him. They saw and they ate
and they followed and they sought him and they still didn't see
him. How do we see him? We see him through the eyes of
faith. We see him in his word. It's the eyes of your understanding
that Paul speaks of in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 17. We have two
sets of eyes, don't we believers? We have a physical set of eyes
that looks at this world. And we walk not by sight, but
by faith. Abraham believed God. Abraham believed God. When he
had no children, and God took him outside and said, look at
the stars in the sky. That is your family. That's how many members of your
family there will be, Abraham. Abraham believed God. He believed God and was credited
to him for righteousness. We don't see him physically,
but we see him so much better as he's proclaimed in the gospel.
We see him so much better as we see the gospel in all of the
pictures that Simon showed us, the picture of the Lord Jesus
Christ in Jonah. Moses, in Hebrews 11, 27, said,
he saw him who is invisible. He saw him through the eyes of
faith, through the eyes of our understanding, through the eyes
of the new creation. We see him who is invisible. These people saw remarkable things.
Peter went up on that Mount of Transfiguration and the glorious
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ shone through his humanity. And
they were perplexed and amazed. and behaved exactly as we would
do in that situation. And Peter then goes on to say
in 2 Peter 1, he says, we've actually seen something, but
you have a more sure word. You have a more sure word. You're
not seeing less now than the apostles saw when they saw him. You are not seeing less now than
Mary when she saw him at that tomb. We see him through the
eyes of faith. He says, you believe in God,
believe also in me. He is God in human flesh. Do we believe what God says about
His Son? Do we believe the One that sent? Do we believe in the Father and
sending Him? Do we believe in who the Son
proclaims to be? Everything that God is, the Lord
Jesus Christ is. Is He Creator? Is He absolutely
sovereign over all things? Is He the One that can give,
give life? So is the Lord Jesus Christ.
For in him, Colossians 2.9, dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
in a body. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
give life to his people. Salvation is not too far away,
and salvation is not too hard. And aren't you thankful that
salvation is not about your doing, but about His doing? For any
of you who have seen what your doings are, you are so thankful
that the Lord Jesus Christ said these remarkable words. This
is the work of God that you believe. and be a receiver. When he's giving out gifts, I
want to be there, thank you very much. In my little boat that's
crossing this sea, I don't have anything to give, I'm just a
receiver. I'm in need of mercy, I'm in
need of grace, I'm in need of his love, I'm in need of his
sovereign control over all things. Salvation, according to the Lord
Jesus Christ, is all about what you believe about the Father
who sent him, and all of what you believe about who he is. He came, he came with a purpose. God sent. His only Son, His only
begotten Son into the world. It's the manifestation of His
love, 1 John 4, 9, isn't it? It's the manifestation of His
love toward us that God sent His only Son, begotten Son into
the world that we might live through Him here in His love. Not that we love God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Propitiation means that all of
the wrath that is owed is taken away and it's absorbed and there's
no longer any wrath in God for His people. He was manifested
to take away our sins. And the sin is gone and every
cause for any anger of God is gone. That's what we read in
John chapter 17. All that is left between God
and his people is love and grace and mercy and sovereign control
over all things for their good. He's working them, our great
God. Saving faith leads his people,
in the words of John 4.10, to be asking. To see, to see the
Son, to see the Son is a spiritual seeing. That's how we see God,
who is a spirit through spiritual eyes. Faith is the eye that looks
up to Christ, lifted up. It's to come, it's to come to
Him. All that are taught of God, we
read it earlier, all that come, all that see the Son, they come
to the Lord Jesus Christ. They hear and they learn and
they come. It's coming to the One revealed,
the coming to the One who is absolutely sovereign. It's not
coming to a church, it's not coming to a doctrine, a denomination.
It's coming to Him. Salvation is coming to Him. It's
believing. Not because you've seen physical
things, but you've seen Him who is invisible. Verse 43 of this
chapter of Scripture is, Be drawn by the Father. No one can come. You're drawn by the Father. Drawn
with chords of love. Drawn with powerful omnipotent
power. Drawn through the preaching of
the Gospel. Drawn by a revelation of who
He is. Drawn by the Father. We're not
dragged against our will, but His beauty and His worthiness
and His sufficiency causes His people to love Him. Verse 45,
it's to hear of Him, to hear of Him, to learn of the Father. It's to be taught of God, to
hear of Him, and the result is to come to Him. Verse 50, it's
eating the bread of heaven. This is the bread that cometh
down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die,
that his life becomes our life, that his shed blood becomes Our
life before God, our sinless life before God, the result of
being taught of God, the result of this work of God, in verse
68 of this chapter, Simon answered, Jesus, when all of that crowd
had gone and he's left there with just the twelve, And he
says, you can go as well. Will you go away? Listen to the
answer of Simon. He says, Lord, to whom shall
we go? Going is to someone else. Thou
hast the words of eternal life. God's people have nowhere else
to go and they don't want to go anywhere else. And listen
to what Peter finally says. We believe and are sure. We believe and we know for sure. that thou art the Christ, the
Son of the Living God. We sang this hymn earlier and
I'll close with these wonderful verses out of 2 Timothy. He saved us, verse 9. And he's
called us with a holy calling, not according to our works. It's
all about his works. This is the work of God that
you believe. But according to his own purpose
and grace, do you believe, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing. He's talking to people who never
saw him. He's talking to people in Ephesus
and other places, Turkey and Greece. He's talking to us. It's
the appearing, isn't it? He appears. He appeared in eternity. He appeared in this world. He
appeared on the cross. He appeared in the resurrection.
He appears now reigning and ruling and sitting on the throne of
this heaven. And He appears to His people when He comes to them
in revealing sovereign grace. The appearing of our Saviour,
Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and hath brought life
and immortality to light through the gospel. He's abolished to
death, brothers and sisters. God's people cannot die. They
just leave this body of flesh behind. The one thing that hinders
them believing and the one thing that hinders their worship of
God is gone. He's brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel, where unto I am appointed a preacher,
an apostle, and a teacher to the Gentiles, for which cause
I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed. You believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ. With a God-given faith you'll never be ashamed in this
world. I'm not ashamed. And why isn't he ashamed? You
won't be ashamed and you won't be confounded. It's not a what, it's a whom. I know whom I have believed and
am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed
unto him against that day. To commit is to have it put,
as it were, as a deposit in a bank. All of my eggs are in one basket.
And that basket is simply the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. It's simply who he is and what
he's done. I've committed. Are you persuaded? knowing therefore the terror
of the Lord, we persuade men. I'm persuaded. I'm persuaded
he is exactly who he said he is. I'm persuaded that he did
exactly what he came to do. I'm persuaded that he is reigning
and ruling over all things. I'm persuaded that this is the
sent one of the Father. Let's pray. Our heavenly Father,
we do pray that you would do that work in our lives and all
of us who do believe will cry out with that man after the episode
of the Mount of Transfiguration. Lord, I believe. Help thou mine
unbelief. Lord, save me. Lord, come and
do a work. Come and do your work. Come and
do the work. in my life and all the lives
of all those that hear us. Oh, our Father, we thank you
that our Lord Jesus Christ came with a purpose, and he cannot
fail. He cannot be discouraged. He
must have his bride. He must have his sheep in his
sheepfold. He must take all of his people
into the new creation. Our Father, we pray that you
would cause the eyes of our understanding to see your dear and precious
Son high and lifted up again and again and again. For we pray
in his name and for his glory. Amen.