Well, let's turn back to John's
Gospel and let's look together for this time before we go to
the showrooms and have lunch. I don't want to spoil our lunch
by being too late. But in verse 12 it says, But
as many as received him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believe on His name." So here is a glorious
description of salvation in the midst of a world of darkness
that doesn't comprehend who He is, in the midst of a world that
knew Him not, in the midst of a people, a people that should
have received him and didn't, a people that this day, their unreception, their rejection
of him horrifies us in the midst of those people that receive
him not. He gave. He gave power. I love the order. of the Spirit's
writing to us. It is so helpful, isn't it? There
is, in the midst of all of this world, enmity against God. There's
a great but. He intervenes. He intervenes,
you might recall in Ephesians chapter 2 that the Lord Jesus
Christ has caused these words to be echoed for thousands of
years, isn't it? In time past you walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air. You worked according to him, the spirit
that now worketh in the children of disobedience. among whom also
we all had our conversation, no one's excluded here, in tithes
passed in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the
flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath,
even as others, but God. Verse 4 of Ephesians 2. But God. And look what the but God reveals. The but God reveals the glorious
character of God. He's rich in mercy. for His great love wherewith
He loved us. The love of God is great. The
love of God is particular. The love of God is saving love.
This notion that God loves everyone and wishes for everyone to be
saved and Jesus died for everyone is not seen in the scriptures
anywhere. It's a great love wherewith He loved us. And it's a love
that's active love, isn't it? It's the but God. Even when we
were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace ye are saved and has
raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places
in Christ Jesus. Do you believe that? Whether you believe it or not,
it's true. That's the glory of the word of God. It's not a matter
of whether I feel it to be true. God has spoken. God has spoken. In Christ Jesus. That's the critical
phrase, isn't it? In Christ Jesus. We're born again,
born from above. But God, you might recall, as
Genesis 6 says, Noah was part of that world that was living
in enmity against God and every thought and every imagination
of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. But
Noah, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. But God,
but God. It's a bit like that word that's
sometimes a synonym for it, which is nevertheless. If you read
Psalm 106 verse 8, it speaks in prior to prior verses, talk
about the wickedness of the children of Israel. Nevertheless, He saved
them for His name's sake. He saves people for the glory
of His name. That He might make His mighty
power to be known, and the end result of it is what happens
when he gathers his people. And that is what Psalm 106 verse
12 says, they believed, then believed they his words, and
they sang his praise. If these words are your words,
then you'll sing his praise, receiving him. is to lay hold
of Him, is to take Him for yourself, to yourself. Of course, John
wants us to know that this, like all things, begins with God. As John the Baptist said in verse
27 of chapter 3, a man can receive nothing except it be given him
from heaven. So the issue is our acceptance
of him is a grace gift of his. And the great issue is it's not
my receiving of him but him receiving of me. It's not what I do with
Christ. It's not people say, what will
you do with him? It's what will he do with you? My prayer is that God will do
something for us, that we might hear the shepherd's voice, that
we might be made just to receive him. We might be caused to believe
on his name. See, there's no reception of
him without a believing on his name. and there's no reception
and no believing unless he exercises that glorious power, the power
of God to become the sons of God. How does Christ receive sinners? Christ receives sinners because
the Father gave them to Him. All that the Father gave me will
come to me. Christ receives sinners because
He purchased them. John's gospel will not allow
for anything other than the glorious doctrine of particular and real
and successful redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ. He bought
them. He bought them. I lay down my
life for the sheep. Other sheep have I, I have which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring. And they shall
hear my voice and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.
They'll come. They'll come and receive Him
because the Father gave them to Him, because He purchased
them with His own blood. And the Holy Spirit will come
and teach them of God and bring them. They'll be drawn, drawn
to Him. I love John 6, verse 44. No man
can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him, and
I will raise him up at the last day. It is written of the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that has heard and has learned of the Father cometh unto me. They'll come to him. "...as many as received him."
"...as many as received him." "...as many as laid hold on who
he is." What a glorious phrase, "...as many as." In Matthew 14
it says, "...as many as touched him were made perfectly whole." As many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. For as many as are led of the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For as many as. In Acts chapter 2 it says, As
many as the Lord our God shall call. "...as many as receive Him."
That great high priestly prayer in John 17 verse 2 says, "...as
thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him." As many as. As many as received Him. Have
you taken Him? Have you taken Him to yourself? Accept, acknowledge, you welcome
him. It's to embrace him. It's to receive him. It's to trust
him. It's to receive him. I want us to note that, to receive
Him. Many people are chasing around
for blessings from God, aren't they? They're chasing after miracles,
they're chasing after all sorts of things. As many as received
Him, great crowds followed Him in the days of His flesh because
of the remarkable things He did. And yet, when He declared His
name to them, when He declared His glory to them, they went
away. They went away. You see, it's
receiving Him. What does Peter say in John 6? Where else have we to go? You alone have the words of eternal
life. Our God. Our God came. and as much as the world rejects
him, and as much as the world follows false lights, as much
as the world creates false Jesuses and worships them, as much as
the world is involved in creating idolatry of all different sorts
and using the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as a cover for their
covetousness and their idolatry, there are people in this world
who will receive him, the gift of the Father, "'To them gave
he power.'" What a remarkable thing that God is a giver and
he gave this power. The word means right or authority. See, whenever God gives, in all
of the giving in John's Gospel, all the giving in the rest of
the New Testament, whenever God gives, there's always a reception. There is no giving without the
receiving of it. It's not as if God is making
an offer to this world. He gives. And the evidence of
the giving is that there is a reception. Our God causes his people to
be willing in the day of his power. So you receive him. You don't receive notions about
him. You don't receive the opinions
of men about him. You don't receive doctrines. You come to him. And having come
to him, then all of the reality, of the truth, of the doctrines
which are so glorious in describing him and his activities, they
all come with it. But you come to him. See, it's
receiving him. gave he power to become sons
of God to them that believe on his name. And just to make sure
that we know that this is a new creation, verse 13 says, which
were born, born, born from above. That's what it is to become the
sons of God. You are born again, born not
of blood, It's got nothing to do with family ties. It's got
nothing to do with whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. It's got
nothing to do with whether you are a physical descendant of
Abraham. It's not of blood, nor the will
of the flesh. It's not of him who willeth.
It's of God who giveth power, nor the will of man. The notion
of free will is not found in the scriptures anywhere. The
notion of free will is a denial of the very thing that God says
about man, that you are captive to your nature. Our Millie found
a cooked pigeon in the fire today. And she was there in a paddock
full of them over. There were beautiful pumpkins
down there, and there are lovely avocados there, and there's beautiful
green grass there. What did she choose? She chose
a burnt chest of a pigeon that was burnt in the fire. Why? Because it's her nature. It's
her nature. The other problem with the notion
of free will is the denial of the fact that people are sinners. It's a denial of what God says
about us as sinners. Sinners don't have a free will
to exercise, they are captive of their natures. To receive him, to receive him. What is it to receive Him? To receive Him is to receive
Him as He's declared in the Word of God. To receive Him is thus
saith the Lord. So we go back. To receive Him
is to believe on His name. Let's go back and look at the
glorious names of the Lord Jesus Christ in here. To receive Him
is to receive Him as this. In the beginning was the Word.
It speaks of the eternality of the Lord Jesus Christ. It speaks
of the deity of Christ, the word was God and the word with God.
It speaks of the fact that there was a union and a communion,
that there was an existence before this existence, before this world,
and in that... We call it time, we kind of call it time because
it was before time. But there was always God, and
there always was God in three persons, and to deny that is
to not receive him and is not to believe on his name. The same as in the beginning.
What a glorious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the same.
We are nothing but changeable, and everything about us changes
all the time. And our God is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. He says in Malachi 3 verse 6,
I change not. God is not changed. He's not
influenced by this world. He influences this world. To receive him, to believe on
his name is to believe that he's the creator of all things. All
things were made by him. This is his creation. Everything
is his creation. He rules this creation in glorious
providence. To receive him is to receive
him as creator. To receive him is to receive
him as ruler over this whole universe. to receive him in the
glory of the fact that he could speak and a universe comes into
existence. In Hebrews chapter 1 he says
this universe is so small compared to him that he can wrap it up
like he can put a shawl around your shoulders. And when it comes
time for this universe to be no more and a new heavens and
a new earth to be created it is no more effort for him than
creating the first one. That's to receive him, isn't
it? You must receive him as creator. This is what John is saying,
isn't it? All things were made by him. In him was life. He has life independently. Separate from man. All life is his life. He gives life. He is life itself. is life independently. And the life was the light of
man. He is the only light into who
God is. He's the only light into who
man is. He's the only light into what creation is. You can't understand
creation without understanding the Lord Jesus Christ. One day,
science will catch up with the Bible. One day science will get
smart enough to catch up with the Bible and we'll see that
it's all created and it's all ruled by one man. To receive him is to receive
him as a light that shineth. A light that shineth. A light
that reveals. A light that reveals the character
of God just as his word is the manifestation of the mind of
God. We don't know the thoughts of
God and we can't trust a God who is not revealed to us. How
do we know the promises of God are true? Because God has spoken
them and he's sealed them with the blood of his son and a light
shines from heaven and we see the Lord Jesus Christ and him
crucified. And all of a sudden, all of a
sudden, when that light shines, he becomes precious. See, receiving
and believing and being come sons of God. We know that there
is an order in terms of what happened in eternity. But in
terms of what happens in our lives, To be born again is to
receive him. To be born from above is to believe
on his name. To be born again is to have power
that comes from our God. To be born again is to hear a
witness speak of the light. Our God will not speak to people
unless he speaks through his witnesses. Faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God, and the word of God comes from
a man. John came a witness to bear witness
to the light. As we saw earlier, he's the true
light. He's the true light. He is the
one that creates birth. He is, in verse 14, full of grace
and truth. completely full of grace and
truth. So all grace and all truth are in Him. Verse 16, of His
fullness have we all received. You receive from His fullness.
Grace for grace. In Him is the fullness of deity. In Him are all the attributes
of God revealed. Such is the glory of His fullness
that He can love every one of His children with a perfect and
infinite love and not be diminished. He can care for them. He can
care for them in all the details of their life and care for a
multitude of them all over this world perfectly and precisely
according to His perfect will and purpose. How full is the
Lord Jesus Christ! Grace and truth come by Jesus
Christ. He reveals the grace of God and
the truth of God. 18. He declares the Father. No one has seen God at any time,
but the only begotten, which is in the bosom of the Father,
He has declared Him. So any notions of God in this
world that aren't notions of God according to this Word, aren't
notions of God revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
are not the notions of Him. It's not receiving Him, it's
receiving something else. His servants, verse 23, speak
as voices. Voices crying in a wilderness. He is the one, verse 33 of chapter
1, that baptises with the Holy Spirit. So to receive him and
to believe on his name is to rest on what God's word says
about him. To the extent that you doubt
God's word, to the extent that people disbelieve what God says,
to the extent that sadly people say, well I see things both ways. I see two things in the scriptures. I see universal redemption and
I see universal love and I see particular redemption and particular
love. That's just darkness. Our God
has so written his word that if you wish to live in darkness,
the word of God will allow you, by your distortion of it, to
give you some satisfaction in that. Satan's work, always, is to cast
doubt on the Word of God. So to receive him is to receive
him as the Word of God, receive him as he's declared in the Scriptures. To receive him, to take hold
of him, means that I can't take hold of anything else. All my
eggs are in one basket. I am completely and utterly reliant
on him. I'm trusting him to carry me
into heaven. I'm trusting Him alone. That's
what it is to receive Him. To receive Him is to know, is to be assured on
the basis of His Word that all I ever need requires from me, he finds in
his dear and precious Son. We've got nowhere else to go,
there's salvation in no one else except the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 4 is one of my favourite
passages in the scripture, but Romans 4 verse 20 is a glorious This is speaking of Abraham. And being not weak in faith,
he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God. through unbelief. That's what
it is, isn't it? Unbelief is a staggering. So
many people stagger. So many of God's people stagger
in this world. I ought to have the faith of
our father in the faith, Abraham. He staggered not at the promise
of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory
to God. God is glorified by the faith
that He creates and the exercise of that faith that He creates
in the hearts of His people. Verse 21, being fully persuaded,
fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also
to perform. That was righteousness. It was
imputed to Him for righteousness. To receive Him is to believe
on His name. To receive Him is to believe
His word. To receive Him is to have nowhere
else to go. I'm a sinner. He is a sin bearer. I'm in need of light and he is
the light of life. I'm in need of life and he is
life itself. I'm in need of wisdom in this world. But of him are
you in Christ Jesus who is of God made unto us wisdom. and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. He is all the
wisdom I have. He is my wisdom. He's all the
righteousness I have before God. I have no righteousness of my
own. I have none to defend. I have none to establish. He
is my righteousness. I have perfect righteousness
before God in Him. He is my sanctification. This
notion of progressive sanctification is an absolute denial of the
perfect finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He who is
sanctified and he that sanctifies are one. They're sanctified. And here's all my redemption.
Here's my redemption in this world and here's the redemption
of the purchased possession. See, God's children are shut
up to faith. They believe on his name. God's
children receive him willingly. We don't come bargaining with
God. We're not coerced by man. It's not the will of the flesh
nor the will of man, but of God. Come, he says. Come. We receive him. Receive him. Believe on his name. I love what the Shulamite was
asked and I love the glory of her response. What is thy beloved? Verse 5,
verse 9 of chapter 5. What is he? What is he? What is thy beloved more than
another beloved? And then she goes on to say,
she gives a glorious description of the Lord Jesus Christ from
the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. She describes
every attribute of him in all of his glory. He's altogether
lovely. To receive him is to receive
him as altogether lovely. This is my beloved, This is my friend. It's to receive
him as the friend of sinners. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we pray that you might cause us to go from here, just receiving
and laying hold of your Son, because you've made him altogether
precious to us, our Father, we praise you. that we can know
You, the only true God, because of Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. And we pray, Heavenly Father,
that You would cause Him to be precious to us, that His shed
blood would be all of our salvation before you and all of his sin
bearing will be for us, Heavenly Father, that which bears all
of our sins away and his righteousness is all that we need to stand
in your presence. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that your dear and precious Son came to save sinners and to take
those sinners and by his own work and his own work alone present
them to you. in your sight. Heavenly Father, help us to see
your Son as you see Him. Help us to rejoice in the glory
of being able to be called Him, our Saviour, my Saviour, my Friend. My God, my Redeemer. Bless your words to the hearts
of your people, our Father. We pray in Jesus' name and for
his glory.