So let's return to our text in
John chapter 3, and I just want to, as briefly as the Lord will
allow, to look at the second half of that verse. And I trust
that you'll find rest, rest in it. that he that doeth truth, doeth
truth, cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest
that they are wrought in God. And for most people the rubber
hits the road when it comes to what now do we do. You've told
me how wonderful the Lord Jesus Christ is. Now we must be doing
things, we must be up and doing. None of the Lord's people are
ever inactive. For a start, we must be up and
doing. Someone wrote to me accusing
me of being all sorts of heretics, preaching heresy and other things.
He says, You still have to be holy. You still have to be holy. You
still have to live a life of holiness. And you're to turn
from every willful sin. None of God's children ever want
to sin. None of God's children ever want
to sin willfully. But you do. And that's what John
says, isn't it? He said, we have an advocate
with the Father. And when you sin, we have an
advocate with the Father. So the rubber hits the road,
as it were, when it comes to what now must we do? How must
we live? It's interesting that John's
chapter goes on to talk in chapter 3 of the Pharisees. The first thing the Pharisees
want to do when they confront John the Baptist is talk about
Purification always the Pharisees always want to talk about purification
These deeds these doing of these deeds It involves all sorts of
things as we saw earlier. It involves repentance and faith
and love to God. Doing the truth involves all
of those things. It involves all of what the Scriptures
say about all of those things. In 2 Timothy 2 verse 24, And
the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto
all men, apt to teach, patient. in meekness, instructing those
who oppose themselves, everyone who's opposed to the gospel is
opposed to themselves and their own good ends, if God peradventure
will give them repentance to the acknowledging of truth. So repentance, for all the other
things that it means, repentance essentially means acknowledging
the truth. And we don't have any question
about who the truth is. I love Paul's description, you
can turn back over a page in 1st Timothy chapter 6, it speaks
of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? I give you charge in verse
13, in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, all these
people, before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed
a good confession, we read about that good confession earlier,
that thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which in his times he
shall show. This is what is shown, this is
the knowledge of the truth, isn't it? Who is? the blessed and only
potentate, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who only
hath immortality, dwelling in light which no man can approach
unto, whom no man has seen nor can see, to whom be honour and
power everlasting. One of the great challenges all
the time, isn't it, is that in religion and in our own lives,
in our Adam flesh, we're always wanting to dethrone God and we're
always wanting to enthrone ourselves. You cannot lift God too high
and you cannot put man down too low. We cannot elevate the glory
of God too high. In fact, Timothy would go on
and speak about godliness, about godliness. Godliness is reverencing
God as God. Godliness is reverencing God
as God. And if we go back to what we
were looking at, we have this entrance into heaven, don't we?
The doer of the truth cometh to the light. that his deeds
may be made wrought, may be made manifest, they'll be brought
to the light, they'll be exposed, they'll be revealed, that they
are wrought in God. They are wrought in God. The
Pharisees came up to the Lord Jesus Christ and said, what shall
we do? In John 6, 28 and 29, it's a beautiful passage of scripture,
isn't it? In 6, 28 and 29, what shall we
do? What shall we do? Right now, what shall we do? What shall
you do? that we might work the works
of God. As you go from here today, what must you do to work the
works of God as you go from here today? Jesus answered John 6.29
and said unto them, This is the work of God. This is a God-wrought
deed, that ye believe in him whom he has sent. Ye believe
in him whom he has sent. If you come to the light, you
will come out of the darkness, you will come to the person of
the Lord Jesus Christ, you will hear of Him, you will believe
in Him, you will worship Him, you will rejoice in Him, you
will find liberty in Him, you will repent and you will believe. And these deeds are wrought in
God. Is God able, is God able to bring
His sheep back into his fold. It's not for nothing that the
Lord Jesus Christ called us sheep. And it's not for nothing that
God the Holy Spirit and he designates himself as the shepherd of the
sheep. And we've read again and again
throughout the scriptures that God the Father gave some sheep
into the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ from before the foundation
of the world. If those sheep go straying and
get lost, and you're the owner of the sheep, do you go and harass
the sheep for getting lost? Or do you go to the shepherd
and say, you promised to bring them home. Where are the sheep? That's exactly the picture that
we have been presented in the Scriptures about our great God
and the glory of our Saviour, that he is able, he's able, able
to do all that he has promised. is able to keep that which was
entrusted to him. We entrust ourselves into him.
God the Father entrusted all of his name and reputation into
the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's all based on him bringing
those sheep back to himself. And if he went to Calvary's tree,
bearing them, and bearing their sins in his own body and suffering
the wrath and the curse of God upon them until God in justice
must say, it's finished, it is finished. There can be no more secure people
in all this world than those that do the truth, that come
and believe, and go on believing. That's why John's written these
things, God the Holy Spirit wrote these things, that we would believe
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by believing in his
name we'll have life in his name. He is life itself, it's all wrapped
up in who he is. Is he able to do it? Because
if you listen to people in religion, you would say, no, no, no, he
started something and it'll be finished when you do something.
I'm not for one moment wanting people to sit back and think
that it means nothing, that sin means nothing, and witnessing
people means nothing, and our testimony before the world means
nothing. It means a lot. It means enormous things. They're
significant things, aren't they? But this is the work of the shepherd
in the hearts of his people. So let's go back to our text. They're wrought in God. If they
manifest these deeds, they are wrought in God. And I don't like
talking about Greek because I don't claim to know a whole lot about
it. I know enough to be aware of
the depth of my ignorance is probably the best I can say.
Same with Hebrew. But I do love it. I do love looking
at it and studying it. But that wrought in God is in
the perfect passive tense. These deeds are perfect. The deeds are perfect and the
deeds are passive. That means that we were passive
and someone else was active. That's exactly what it means.
So no wonder the Old Testament said that you don't come to God
empty-handed, ever! No one ever went into the presence
of God empty-handed in the Old Testament. But if your deeds
are going to be accepted, Leviticus says that it must be perfect
to be accepted. It must be perfect, Leviticus
22.21. And no wonder the high priest went in on the day, and on the
top of his mitre he bears the iniquity of the holy things. I don't have time to go into
a whole lot of detail about that, but whatever you think is holy,
it's got iniquity mixed in with it, if it's touched by us in
any way at all. So the deeds are perfect. It
is a deed in which God does the working. that wrought in can
actually be wrought by God. They're wrought by God. Why are
we here today and not in a whole bunch of other places? God has
come, God has shone light, God has visited, God has gathered
and Paul's confidence for the Philippians was he's confident
of this very thing that he which began a good work in you will
perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. He won't just perform
it once and leave it up to you. He will perform it unto the day,
until the day you meet the Lord Jesus Christ, until the day the
Lord Jesus Christ comes back. Those that doeth the truth, those
that are born again, they come to the light that it's manifest
that God worked all of their deeds. He worked them in time. He worked them in providence.
He worked them in salvation. The scriptures talk about it,
don't they? It's the time of love. When it's the time of love,
Ezekiel 16, He comes to His people. I beg of you, I just beg of you
that the Lord God would strip away from you all of your good
works and you dare not bring anything to God other than the
Lord Jesus Christ. He finds perfection and satisfaction
for everything in his Son. And those that turn up with their
own deeds in Matthew 7.21, and they have great deeds and they've
spoken much about the Lord. And he says, I never knew you. I was never in a loving relationship
with you. I dare not. I dare not bring one of my deeds
to the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it will be reproved.
And that's one of the great gifts of salvation, isn't it? Nicodemus
came to the light. Everyone that comes to the light,
their deeds are reproved. Their deeds are exposed. And
they're exposed for what they are. They're exposed as falling
short of the glory of God. That means that there's sin involved
in what I am doing now, and there's sin involved in what you are
doing now. Our best deeds, according to Isaiah, are just filthy rags.
And if we look down, if we are able to look down our nose at
other people in this world and say, in the words of Isaiah,
that I am holier than thou, it's just a representation of our
flesh and our self-righteousness. See, what did Paul say of himself?
remarkable apostle he says in Romans 7 for 18 for I know that
in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing no good thing for
to will is present with me but how to perform that which is
good I find not verse 21 I find a law I find a principle of operation
Paul found this principle of operation in his life that when
I would do do good evil is present with me the greatest One of the great lies and the
great attributes of the darkness in this world is that ultimately
it all comes back to a denial of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is, a denial of what happened on Calvary's tree, that he's
done his best and he's made an offer and he's trying to save
people. If they'd only help him do it then they'll be okay. They do disservice to the Holy
Spirit who's promised to be the sanctifier of his people and
say that unless you are involved in a cooperative activity and
growing in holiness, the very notion that you grow in holiness
is contrary to the scriptures. You grow in the grace and knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ. To grow in grace is to grow more
and more aware of how sinful you are and more and more amazed
that God could look on someone as wicked and sinful and evil
as you and have mercy and love you and work all things in this
universe for your good. That's to grow in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder! They want to take
away from the simplicity we spoke of earlier that's in the Lord
Jesus Christ and make it complicated. They make it extraordinarily
complicated. When I was at Bible College, the instructions on
preaching were that you actually preached doctrine, you preached
the passage for 40% of the time, and then 60% of the time was
involved in application, which was telling you what you have
to do. People think that the gospel
is not practical. The gospel is immensely practical. It's immensely practical. It's
after godliness. It's reverencing God. It's looking
to Him. What can you bring to the light?
What do you bring to the light? What do you bring to God? Will
you bring to God what God accepts? See, all of the doers of truth,
they bring to God the very righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ because
they haven't got any righteousness of their own. It's been stripped,
it's been exposed for what it is. God requires perfect obedience. The fellow who wrote to me and
told me that we must live a life of holiness and perfect obedience
now, I don't bring that to the light. I don't bring my activities
to the light at all. I can't bring them to the light.
I don't want him to bring the light of who you are, let alone
who God is. I bring the perfect obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ to the light. I bring the fact that
he obeyed the law of God, magnified the law of God and obeyed it,
and did it with love in his heart to God, love in his heart to
his neighbour. I bring his obedience. I bring his righteousness. I
bring his faithfulness. The life I now live in the flesh,
says Paul, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loved me
and gave himself to me. Paul was bringing the faithfulness
of the Lord Jesus Christ to the light. I bring his love for God. I bring
his love for his neighbour. See, it's receiving His witness. It's receiving the witness of
who He is. The God has witnessed these works.
God the Father, now in heaven right now, has before Him God
the Son. And this same Jesus is coming
back, the Jesus of the resurrection in those 40 remarkable days when
he showed the proof of his deity, the proof of the salvation of
all of his people, the proof that all the promises of God
are yea and amen. And God the Father now in heaven
sees his Son, doesn't he? And he sees the wounds in his
Son. He sees that his son has perfectly
obeyed the law. He's perfectly obeyed it in every
command, in every tiny jot and tittle, and he's perfectly suffered,
perfectly suffered for all of the sins of all of God's people. And they are gone. When he appears
next time, it'll be without sin, says Hebrews 9. Why? Because the sins are gone, brothers
and sisters. The greatest motivation for living,
living in faithfulness and living in what people call godliness
in this world, the greatest motivation is that your sins have all been
gone and taken away. They're gone. I can now come
into the presence of God without guilt. I can come into his presence. That's what walking in this world
is about, isn't it? We walk as the apostles walk.
You walk with him. I can be in his presence because
I come, not bearing anything of my own, but him. The deeds of all of God's children
are perfect. They're perfectly acceptable
to the Father. And people might say, well, this
is new. I haven't heard that before. Let's look at a few scriptures
that speak of the very work of God in the hearts of his people.
There are dozens and dozens of them and I'll just give you a
few. Psalm 57 verse 2 says, I will cry unto God most high, unto
God that performeth all things for me. That's what God says, isn't it?
Psalm 138 verse 8. The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me. Thy mercy, O Lord, thy mercy,
O Lord, endureth for ever. Forsake not the works of thine
own hands. That's what Ephesians 2 says,
isn't it? It's by grace. Grace is a gift of God. Faith
is a gift of God. Your God's workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. Are those good works going to
happen? God's doing them. God's bringing them about. Isaiah. 42.16 And I will bring the blind
by way they knew not, and I will lead them. We read it in Psalm
23. I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will
make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.
These things I will do unto them, and not forsake them. People want to say that we now...
I was taught in Bible colleges in Sydney Both are the big ones. What happens is that the law
of God brings you to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and
then the Lord Jesus Christ takes you back to the law of God for
sanctification. Nothing could be further from
the truth, brothers and sisters. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Which is why, in the complexity of their theology,
they have to then try and take a knife, a scribe's knife, to
Romans 7 and say that Romans 7 is talking about Paul prior
to his conversion. It's talking about Paul as a
mature believer, ready to embark on his last missionary journey.
I love what happens. I love how things are put together
in the Scriptures. You know the Ten Commandments
and God's children love the Ten Commandments. I love the fact
that they reveal God as God. I love the fact that we are to
have no other God before Him. I love the fact that His name
is to be reverenced and honoured. I love the fact that there's
a Sabbath rest for the children of God. The Sabbath rest is the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. God's children love the Ten Commandments. I love reading them. I love reading
Leviticus and Exodus and all the exposition of them. We love
them. But listen to what happens after the Ten Commandments. People
think that this is all about our works. In Exodus 20, He records his name where the
gospel is preached, brothers and sisters. I will record my
name, I will come to thee, and I will bless thee. Where he records
his name, he's promised to bless his people. I don't want to miss
out on one single blessing that God's given around in this world. And if thou wilt make me an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, For if thou
lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shall
you go up by steps. And people want to make and have
for thousands of years made the Ten Commandments, steps to holiness
and steps on your way to God. You don't go up on steps. You
don't go up on steps. You are complete in Him. You
don't go up on steps that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon. The great God that we love to
proclaim is the God of peace. We saw earlier that if you doeth
the truth, then you are set free and you have peace with God.
Verse 20 of Hebrews 13 says, Now the God of peace, that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Listen to what he says. Make you perfect in every good
work to do His will. I didn't say that. God said that.
I just believe it. Make you perfect in every good
work to do His will. Working in you that which is
well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory
for ever and ever. They're the promises of God.
They're the blood-bought promises of God working in you. It all comes, as we saw earlier,
from being born again, being born of the Spirit, believing
in his name. It comes as repentance and faith
is worked in our heart. See, repentance is the acknowledging
the truth of the gift of God, acknowledging the truth of the
work of God in the lives of his people. So all I bring to the
light All that God allows for his blood-bought children to
bring to the light is his doing. I bring to the light him. I can
bring that to the light all the time, can't I? You can bring
to the light the Lord Jesus Christ, can't you? You can bring to the
light the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can bring his
righteousness. You can bring his faithfulness. You can bring
every attribute of God in the Lord Jesus Christ to the light.
And the more light that's shone on them, the better they are.
And they just bring more light. In His light we see light. Nothing
in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling. He that doeth truth cometh to
the light, that his deeds may be manifest, that they are wrought
in God. He's able, Hebrews 7.25, He's
able to save them to the uttermost, from the guttermost to the uttermost. I was talking to Ben in the break
and he said something that is so very true, isn't it? That
Nicodemus and the woman at the well in the next chapter were
in exactly the same state before God. She'd had five husbands. She was living in another one.
She was rejected by all and a Samaritan. He's able to save to the uttermost
those that come to God by him. I come to God when he comes to
God. That's what Ephesians says, isn't
it, over and over and over again. We are seated with him now in
heavenly places. I come to God only by Him. That's why the scriptures say
that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. God's pleased
with His Son. He's pleased with me. I can't
believe it, but He's pleased. On what ground do you come? On what ground do you come? Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Any sinners? Are there any sinners
in the house? He says come. He says come. He says come. If you've been bitten by the
fiery serpent, come. What is my warrant for coming? What is my warrant for believing
and it not just be presumption? This same Lord Jesus that says
come, commands you to believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. He that believeth in him is not
condemned. All the condemnation that fell
on all of God's people fell on the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore,
there is now, now, right now, no condemnation for them that
are in Christ Jesus. And people will say, well, you
keep on sinning. The sins aren't charged to us, they've been charged
to him and God can't charge them to his people and charge them
to his son and punish his son and punish the people as well.
He must do us good. He must do us well in all things. And he does it whether we see
it or not, brothers and sisters. He does it all the time. God
in Christ Jesus is the light. of how God could meet with us. God a consuming fire meeting
with us and loving us and finding us delightful. If that's not a motivation for
living righteously before men in this world and faithfully,
that's not a motivation. There is no one other than the
Scriptures. The Gospel is the motivation for God's children
always. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do thank you again for the remarkable words that you have
written, that you have signed and sealed with the blood of
your dear and precious Son, and that you have this morning caused
us to hear yet again, Heavenly Father, of the glories of your
Son, the wonder of his redeeming love. and the mighty and powerful effects
of all that Heavenly Father in all those that believe. O our
Father, we pray that you might grant us faith, grant us a sight
yet again of looking to your dear and precious Son. And might
you keep us there, Heavenly Father, and in our failings and our fallings
and in our open wickednesses, Heavenly Father, we thank you
that the Great Shepherd will gather his people and bring us
back to himself. Our Heavenly Father, we're wandering
sheep. Come and seek us. Cause us to
look to your Son and find our rest and our peace in exactly
the same place that you find it, our Father. Let us be satisfied
in what He is and what He has done. Oh, our Father, please
bring us to the light and reveal your Son yet again. We pray in
Jesus' name. Amen.