that the Lord Jesus Christ has
died. Christ crucified is enough. Somebody asked a preacher one
time, is Christ enough? I think the intimation being,
don't we have to do something? Is Christ enough? I think it
was Scott Richardson that said, if he's all you've got, he's
enough. And that's something to think
about Christ is enough, but Christ
plus is not enough That's not enough if it's Christ plus you
that's not enough Well Let's read our text this morning in
this God to bless us. It's in chapter 19 of Luke Luke
chapter 19 And I'm going to begin with verse 1, though we've looked
at verses 1 through 7 already, you'll remember. And we'll briefly review those,
but then verse 8 will be the beginning of our text this morning.
But look at chapter 19, verse 1, the book of Luke. And Jesus
entered and passed through Jericho. And behold, there was a man named
Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was
rich. And he sought to see Jesus who he was and could not for
the press because he was little of stature. And he ran before
and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to
pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place,
he looked up and saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make
haste and come down. For today I must abide at thy
house. And he made haste and came down
and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying that he was gone to be guessed with a man
that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said
unto the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to
the poor. And if I have taken anything
from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. And Jesus said unto him, this
day is salvation come. to this house, for so much as he also is a son
of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to
seek and to save that which was lost. Let's pray together. Our gracious God and Father,
thank you, Lord, for your word. A sure and certain hope that
we have in the one who comes to abide, who comes
to stay, who comes to save, who comes as our righteousness, who
gave himself for our sins, who's with us this very moment,
who keeps us every step. He's all of our salvation, all
of our comfort, all of our peace, all of our understanding, all
of our righteousness, and life. May we be truly thankful in our
hearts and worshipful, Lord, and grant that we might worship
him who alone is worthy. This morning in his precious
name we ask it, amen. Now in the first verses of this
chapter, the Lord entered and passed through Jericho, which
we saw is the place that God cursed in the Old Testament.
It pictures the curse. In the story of the Good Samaritan,
the man went down from Jerusalem, double peace, to Jericho, the
place of the curse. And here it means the same thing,
the place of the curse. It represents the curse of God
against sin. And the Lord Jesus had to enter
that place and pass through it. Nobody else can do that but him.
And he takes some with him when he does. We saw that. And Zacchaeus,
it says in the next verse, was a rich man. He was the chief
among the publicans. We saw in the scriptures how
that a publican was equated with sinnerhood. They were the most
hated, despised, notoriously corrupt and evil people. politicians. They were tax collectors. A group of people that was characterized
by their wretchedness and he was the chief of them. And we
thought about how Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners. He
had grace on me. The chief of sinners. And he
did on Zacchaeus too. And it says he's a rich man,
and the Lord, just in the very context of this, in the previous
chapter, while he's heading to Jericho to do this, he encounters
this rich man, and the end of that story, the culmination of
all that happened there, was that the Lord said a rich man
can't be saved. Not with men, but with God. How hard it is. A camel will
pass through the eye of a needle before a rich man will be saved.
And then what did he do? He went and saved a rich man.
He only saves those that can't be saved. That's the only ones
he saves. And then Zacchaeus sought to
see Christ. Who he was, that's what we gotta see. We don't need
to hear about him. We don't need to hear what example
to follow. We need to know who he is. But
he couldn't because of his stature. There we are by nature. Because
of our stature before God, we're not ever gonna see God. You gotta
be born again in order to see the kingdom of God. And Zacchaeus
climbed a tree. But he had to unclimb that tree,
didn't he? Well, you say, well, okay, now everything's gonna
be fine. Now he climbed a tree. Now he'll be able to see the
Lord. No, he had to unclimb that tree when the Lord met him. All
of your efforts to know and see God have got to be undone. Everything
you do is sin. Your righteousnesses, the scripture
says, are filthy rags in the sight of God. Your good stuff
is bad. Salvation is Christ coming to
you and doing something for you. It's not you doing something
for him. The Lord said, come down from there. What's he coming
down from? His best effort to see God. Without his grace, our fleshly
efforts are all counterproductive. What we call worship, God said,
I can't stand it. In Isaiah chapter one, I can't
even look at you. Shut up with your oblations and
your prayers and your solemn meetings, get out of my sight.
He doesn't need us to do something for him. We need him to do something
for us. That's why we're here this morning.
Zacchaeus thought he could get to God by going up. No. If you're ever going to know
God, you're going to have to come down. And he knows how to bring
you there. Aren't you glad he does? The
flesh ain't coming down on its own. It ain't doing that. Well, the sycamore tree is a
type of fig tree. And this is symbolic. It was
fig leaves that Adam and Eve sewed together in the garden
in order to try to cover up their nakedness before God. Their shame,
their guilt. So this is another symbol of
how Zacchaeus and man's efforts to cover sin or to get to God
or to see God are futile. Got to come down out of that
tree. The Lord came where He was though anyway. The Lord came
right where Zacchaeus was. He came right to that tree and
said, hurry up and get down here because I must. Remember when
Simon Peter kept saying, I will, I will, I will not, I will. And
the Lord said, I will. You won't, but I will. Oh, that's salvation. I must
abide at your house today. Salvation is something that Christ
must do. Jonah said it this way, salvation
is of the Lord. When he got out of that, he got
out of that whale's belly, it wasn't for his efforts that he
got out. The Lord told that fish to spit
him out and he did and Jonah knew it. And you know what he
called it? He said, I was in the belly of hell. That's probably
what you'd have been saying too if you spent three days and nights
in the belly of a whale. He said, I cried out of the belly
of hell and the Lord heard me. And then he said, the salvation's
of the Lord. Oh, can we say that this morning
from our hearts? That's the testimony of every
believer. Salvation is what he did. It's him and what he did. Well, when Christ comes and saves,
he comes to stay. He said, I'm coming to abide.
That word means remain. And look, I understand in the
context of the story, he didn't stay at Zacchaeus' house forever. That probably meant he was going
to stay the rest of the day, or he might have stayed a couple
of days with Zacchaeus. I don't know how long he stayed. But
the key is the word stay, remain. It's a picture, isn't it? Spiritually,
he comes to stay. Mickey and I were talking about
this this morning. We are never without him. Never. When John Chapman preached at
our conference this year, it was him. I've quoted this already
and I probably will several times. I may, you know, before too long
just act like I came up with it and you all will forget that
he said it. But He said when He comes with 10,000 times 10,000,
when He comes back to this earth to get us, He's coming with all
of His saints, it says. Why would He do that? He's never
leaving them anywhere. The way He said it was, He's
not even going to leave them back home. They're coming with Him. We are
never without Him. He is here with us this morning.
He's in us as believers. He's with us. He knows how many
hairs are on our head. He comes and he stays. He remains
when nothing and nobody else does. And think about this. I must come and live with you
at your house now from now on. That's what he said now. And
he understood that to be the rest of the day or whatever in
the context of time. But that's what he says to us
spiritually. And listen now, in some pictures of salvation,
Christ opens blind eyes, and we see what that means. You know,
we can't see God. He said to Nicodemus, without
being born again, you're not gonna see the kingdom of God.
You can't know who God is, you can't see, you can't understand
his word. You can't know anything or see
anything. We get there, that's a beautiful picture, clear picture.
And raising somebody from the dead, that little girl, he took
her hand and said, I say unto thee, arise. And she did. She
rose from the dead that day. That's a beautiful picture. We
understand what happened there. In this miracle, oh, wait a minute. Chris, there was no miracle here.
He didn't heal Zacchaeus. Salvation come to your house?
That's not a miracle? That's the biggest miracle that
the Lord ever does is when he brings salvation to your house.
Because the way he does that is by living for you and dying
for you. That's how he can say that, that
salvation just came home to your house. because he lives and dies
for you. He purposed from eternity to
say, he never did a miracle greater than that. But what's the result
here of this one? In the healing of the blind man,
he can see now. In the healing of a leper, now
he's clean. In this one, what's the result?
I'm with Christ now. In a way, that's the clearest
one of all. That's what salvation is. It's being with him in a
sense that you never were before. He comes and says, I gotta live
with you from now on. Boy, that's better than being
able to see it. Well, it all is the same thing,
isn't it? There is no better, it's all
the same thing. But here it's pictured this way.
He's with me. He lives in me and with me. Christ himself is salvation.
And all you need is him. I've said this to you many times.
You think, well, I got to go to work tomorrow. No, you don't.
You probably should. And I hope you will if you have
a job. Do a good job. But you don't
need to. You have one need. Well, I got to eat. No, you don't. No. Got to have some water. No,
you don't. If you don't ever take another
drink, if you have Christ, you'll be fine. You have one need. One need. There are some things
that are important physically, and I get it, monetarily, and
all of that. Socially, things that are important. One thing is needful. And the Lord's still teaching
us that, isn't he? One thing is needful. And the folks around said he's
going to be the guest of a sinner. They thought that was a bad thing.
You know who thinks that's a good thing? Sinners. Oh my. Not too long ago in our
study in Luke 15 too, we read where the Pharisees and the scribes
murmured saying, this man receiveth sinners and eats with them. Every point of this message,
the stuff that I talked about in review here, and what we're
starting to talk about now, every point in this passage is showing
us how God saves sinners by Christ Jesus, His Son, and what He did
on Calvary. Every point of it. It's all pointing
the same way. Everything. It's not a series
of points. It's the same thing. said in a different way. The
Bible says a lot of things. It says one thing a lot of different
ways. It doesn't say that much. It
just says one thing. It just says it a lot of times. Christ accomplished what we cannot
on Calvary. He satisfied the law of God.
He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Righteousness
by his obedience unto death and propitiation. The word propitiation
in the scripture, he has set forth him to be a propitiation
through faith in his blood. It just means a sin offering.
There's got to be payment for our sin. That's why he's called
the Lamb of God that takes away sin. And that's what happened
at Calvary. He was a sin offering for somebody,
a successful sin offering, a satisfactory unto God sin offering. And as in our story, he came
to do that for certain people. He said, I've come to live at
your house, Zacchaeus. There was a lot of other people
there that day. At the pool of Bethesda, there
were impotent, deformed, sick, diseased people laying all over
the place. And he came to that one and said,
how about you? But thou be made whole. I must abide forever with this
one and with that one. He comes to certain people. He came to seek and to save that. We'll talk about that a little
bit more in a minute. And he came and prepared a place for
them by living and dying for them. And all of this is pictured
in every point of this passage. And in verse eight, look at verse
eight. This is where we're kind of starting this morning. Zacchaeus stood and said unto
the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor,
and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation.
You see, that's how these horrible tax collectors would extort money
from people. They would falsely accuse them
of things that weren't true. And because of that's true, you
owe this. And it wasn't even true. They
made stuff up. Horrible. He said, if I've done that, and
he's not saying if, he's saying in any particular case that I've
done this, I'm going to restore him fourfold. He was rich. He had a lot. He'd have had to
to do this, wouldn't he? He said, I'm going to give half
of it to the poor, and I'm going to take the other half, and I'm
going to use that to pay back everybody I stole from and ripped
off and cheated. and extorted. And what's interesting on the
very surface of this is that this is exactly what the rich
young ruler in chapter 18 verses 22 and 23 could not do. It's exactly, he could not give
up all of his stuff for Christ's sake. The Lord said, go sell
everything you have, give it to the poor and come follow me.
All you need is me and all you're going to have is me. And he couldn't
do it. The Lord didn't ask Zacchaeus, he didn't command Zacchaeus to
do that, but he did it. He said, how can I even live
with this stuff that I stole from everybody? When salvation's
a person, it's a whole nother story. With men, if it's up to
you, religion loves to say, God's done all he can do and now salvation's
up to you. Well, we see that in the rich
young ruler. When it's up to you, what happens? You go away
sorrowful. lost, hell bound, and deserving
it very richly. When it's not up to you, we see
that in Zacchaeus. When he comes to your tree and
says, get out of there, come down now, come now and let us
reason together, saith the Lord. Then of your own free will, you willingly lose everything but Christ. What
did Paul say? I've suffered the loss of all
things and I count them but done that I may win Christ. That's what happened to Zacchaeus. I've got him now. He lives with
me now. How can I even spend this money
that I stole from other people? How can I do that? Is that gonna
honor him? Now listen to me carefully for a second. Works have nothing to do with
salvation. By grace are you saved through
faith. And even that faith is not something
you did. That faith is not of yourselves. It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. By the deeds of the law shall
no flesh be justified in the sight of God. It's free justification
through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, Romans chapter
three. If it's grace, then it is no
more of works. Otherwise, grace is not grace
anymore, Paul said. Work what you do, what you don't
do, what you have done, haven't done, will do, won't do. Any
of it has nothing to do with salvation. But let me say this,
and it's not really a but, it's an and. And works have a lot
to do with saved people. You see the difference? It has
nothing to do with salvation, but it has a lot to do with saved
people. You know why? Listen to that passage I just
quoted, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. again. For by grace are you saved
through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, faith. Christ is the author and the
finisher of our faith. It's not of yourself, it's God's
gift. Not of works, lest any man should
boast. But don't stop reading there when you read that passage.
For we are his workmanship. Salvation is him doing something
for us, to us, in us. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus under good works. He just got through saying our
works have nothing to do with salvation. But when he saves
you, works has something to do with that. That's his salvation
too. He gets all the glory for that
too. If you came to worship him this
morning and not just go to church and be spiritual, you know, and
do something for God, if you came honestly because God has
done something for you and you want to worship him because you
love him, that's him doing something for you. We are his workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. If you ever stumble around in
this world and accidentally do something good, you'll have to
give him the glory for it. He ordained it from, are you
gonna get any glory out of that? I don't see how. Do you want
any? Not if you're his, you don't. Verse 9 in our text. Anyway,
that's what happened to Zacchaeus. How are you going to spend money
you stole from somebody when the Lord's living with you? Now
if you just made a decision for Jesus, you know, and He's up
there in heaven looking down on you, you might do all kinds
of stuff. But if He lives at your house, how are you going
to spend money you stole? How are you going to do that? It's His presence, it's His salvation,
it's Him that makes us what we are now. Does that make sense? It's Him. And Jesus said unto him, this day
is salvation come to this house. Isn't it interesting that He
waited to say that until after Zacchaeus said, That's the evidence of it, isn't
it? Faith without works is dead. Everybody's looking at Zacchaeus
like, what in the world? And you notice he's talking about
Zacchaeus now, not to him. Salvation coming for as much
as he also is a son of Abraham. I suspect it's because everybody's
sitting there going, what? This IRS agent that's cheating
everybody? and stealing their money and
extorting and probably was killing people. I suspect then that that
was not uncommon for people to be put to death. They just couldn't
pay and you know or rebelled against it. It'd be hard not
to, wouldn't it? And he's saying, I'm going to
give it. I'm going to give it all away. I'm going to give it
all back. And what I don't owe, I'm going to give away. And everybody's going, what? And the Lord said, salvation
just came to this house. That explains it, doesn't it?
That explains it. For as much also, now listen
though, when he says salvation has come to this house, he says
it after what Zacchaeus said, and I think there's something
there. But also, he ignores what Zacchaeus did when he's given
the two reasons why salvation came to his house. What Zacchaeus
did is not even mentioned. Salvation came to this house
today because he's a son of Abraham. And because that's why I came. Now listen to this. He said salvation has come to
this house. It almost sounds like that the
Lord Jesus Christ went home with Zacchaeus that day and saved
his whole family. I'm not sure. Doesn't it kind
of sound like that though? He's done that before. Let's turn to Acts chapter 16. I just want to delight in this
for a minute. I'm not even sure that that's what happened here.
But he said salvation came to this house. He didn't say to you, but he
said I must abide with you. It's clear Zacchaeus now. Salvation
came to Zacchaeus for sure. But listen to Ag, this just got
me thinking about this. I'm not saying dogmatically that
that's what happened, but it got me thinking about this, and
I'll tell you something, this is worth thinking about. Acts
chapter 16 verse 25. And at midnight Paul and Silas
prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them
and suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations
of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were
opened and everyone's bands were loosed and The keeper of the
prison, awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open,
he drew out his sword and would have killed himself, supposing
that the prisoners had fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice
saying, do thyself no harm, for we are all here. And then he
called for a light and sprang in and came trembling and fell
down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, sirs,
what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house. Now, a lot of people say, well,
see, there's salvation, you know, there's this thing of covenant
theology, I think is what they teach. I'm not even sure. I don't
care what, I don't care that much about lies, do you? I'm
not going to study lies. I'm not that interested in it. But they say, well, God saves
households. He don't always. David said, although it be not
so with my house, yet he made with me an everlasting covenant. But I'll tell you this, he can.
But how does he do it? Is it just because of Paul? Because God saved this head of
the house that he felt obliged somehow I guess to save? No,
listen. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord unto all
that were in his house. You know how he saves sinners?
Not because they belong to a family. He saves them by the preaching
of the gospel. That's how he does it. And I
don't know if Paul knew the Lord told his apostles things that
he didn't tell, he don't tell common believers. And Paul may
have already known, the Lord may have told him in the prison.
He may have told him before that, I'm gonna save that man's whole
family. He very well might have, and Paul may have known that,
that might be what he's saying. Or he may just be saying this, if
you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, he'll save you, and if
your family does, he'll save them too. He'll save you and your whole
house. If you believe on Christ, you'll be saved. I'm so glad
to be able to say that this morning. And look, he preached the gospel
to all of them. That's how God saves sinners.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe. And he took them, verse 33, the
same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized
he and all his straightway. They wanted to confess Christ. And when he had brought them
into his house, he set meat before them and rejoiced, believing
in God with all of his house. He says, by the preaching of
the gospel, by grace through faith, by believing on Christ. Why was the whole family saved?
They all believed on Christ, that's why. You see that? It
wasn't because they were a family. It's because they believed on
him. He saves whoever he wants to
save. And I don't know if Zacchaeus' whole family was saved or if
he even had a family. I don't think we know that. But
he said, it's come to this house. And I like it. I like it. I'll
tell you this. Salvation came to Zacchaeus.
He didn't come to salvation. Salvation is come right where
you are. That man in the story of the
Good Samaritan, that would have been his testimony too. Salvation
came right where I was, laying in that ditch, and I was a goner.
And salvation came where I was. Sinners do come to Christ, but
you're not going to come to him until he comes to you. No man
can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.
And you know how he draws him? He comes to you. And he draws you to his son.
And this whole transaction, whatever Zacchaeus did, whatever the Lord
did, the whole scenario is summed up by Christ this way. Salvation
came to you. And the Lord added this, he's
a son of Abraham. Two reasons are given now, he's
a son of Abraham. Now you think a son of Abraham,
well that's a Jew, right? There was a whole lot of Jews
around there that day. There was a great multitude of
people. That's why Zacchaeus is trying to climb up a tree
to see the Lord, there's a great throng of people, they followed
him everywhere he went. And how many of them you think
were Jews there? I suspect there were quite a
few, but he's a son of Abraham. Now I could read a lot of scripture
to you about this, and we could spend an hour talking about how
that both Jew and Gentile, all nations, he saved his people
when he died, lived and died for them, out of every kindred,
tribe, nation, and tongue under heaven. That's the song of glory
in the Revelation. Worthy is the lamb because he
redeemed us to God by his precious blood out of every kindred, tribe,
nation, and tongue that are in heaven. He calls them all his
spiritual Jews. And the reason he does that is
because the earthly nation of Israel in the Old Testament pictured
his elect throughout the world. And so I just want to read you
two scriptures that are clear about that. And then we'll move
on. But the Old Testament nation
of Israel is a type of God's elect of every nation. And they're
called spiritual Jews, inward Jews. People get very confused
about this, but there's really no reason to. So listen to these
two verses of scripture, and I probably should have you turn
there, but if you can turn quick, turn to Romans 2.28, and then
Galatians 3.29 will be next. And let's look at these, because
I want you to see this. Romans 2.28. And Paul in chapter 2 of Romans
2 is talking about how sinners are just in the sight of God.
Those who had the law, the Jews, and didn't keep the law, are
sinful and wretched in the sight of God. They're lost. But those
who didn't have the law, the Gentiles, how are they going
to keep the law? They didn't even have it. Well, they're gonna keep
it through Christ, that's how. And Paul said, that's the only
way the law is kept anyway. They're righteous in the sight
of God, without the law. And here's the explanation for
that in verse 28. For he is not a Jew, which is
one outwardly. He's not a Jew, which was physically
born of the lineage of Abraham. That's not a Jew to God. That's
not what it is. The promises of God are not to
those people who are outwardly Jews. He is a Jew which is one
inwardly. But look at what he said, which
is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision which is outward
in the flesh. That's not what he's talking
about. That was a symbol. That was a sign of the covenant
that he made with all nations in Christ. but he is a Jew which
is one inwardly, verse 29, and circumcision is that of the heart,
in the spirit, it's a spiritual. The outward circumcision is just
a picture of that. True circumcision is something
God does in your heart. And so he gets the glory for
it. Look at the rest of it, and not in the letter whose praise
is not of men but of God. He's gonna get the glory for
it because it's a work he does on the inside. What a man does
outwardly, you can symbolize that and can point to Christ,
but Christ has gotta do a work on the heart, and then he gets
the glory and not you. Galatians 3.29. This is so simple,
but it says so much. Galatians 3.29, and again, if
you wanna read the context of this later and see what he's
summarizing in this. Galatians 3.29, and if you be
Christ's, That apostrophe S is huge. If you belong to the Lord, what
does that mean? Christ's sheep. He said to the
religious Jews, you don't believe on me because you're not my sheep. This is not them right here.
Even though they were Jews, they were very religious and devout
Jews. But he said, you're not mine. You're not my sheep. My sheep hear me. They believe
on me. They know me, they love me, they
follow me. If you be Christ, Christ's sheep,
Christ's elect, chosen before the foundation of the world,
Christ's little ones that he refers to, Those that the father
gave him, John chapter 17 and other places, that would be his. If the father gave them to him,
then they're his. Christ, if you be Christ's, then
you are Abraham's seed. Well, wait a minute, I'm his,
but I'm not a Jew. Yes, you are. According to God you are. You're
a spiritual Jew. You're Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the promise. People make the mistake of applying
the covenant promises of God to an earthly nation. It's not
so. Just look at them. Of course
it's true of some. Look at this nation. It doesn't
apply. This is a Christian nation. Really? There's some Christians
in it. It's not about nations. It's
about His people. It's about His elect. It's about
His sheep. Chris, I don't know about all
this. I don't know if I'm elect or not. Do you believe on Him? Believing God is not something
you should even have to think about. He's God. And if you be Christ's, you're
a son of Abraham. And Christ came to Zacchaeus
and said, this one's mine. And this is why I came. The second
reason given that salvation came to Zacchaeus' house. And this
is a backward tracing now. This is a backward tracing. He's
a son of Abraham, and I came to save sons of Abraham. That's the reason he came. He
spoke of this in another place now, and I wanna expound on it
with scripture. Scripture sheds light on scripture. Why did Christ come? He said,
I came to seek and to save. He didn't say I came to seek
and to give a chance, or seek and do all I can do. He came
to save. And he either saves or he don't
save. Now that'll sneak past you if
you're not careful. Well that's so simple, that's
self-explanatory. No it's not. It's God-explanatory
or you're not gonna have it. You're not gonna get it. He came
to save and he either saved or he didn't save. I guarantee you
whoever he came to save, they're saved. Listen to that in John
6.37. Turn there and I'll close with
this. In John 6.37, He came to seek
and to save His lost ones. John chapter 10 would shed a
lot of light on this too. It's the whole message of the
Gospel. The Son of Man has come. Well, we could preach on that. That one verse could be a whole
series of messages. We could spend this whole year
in that one verse, couldn't we? The Son of Man, let's talk about
Him for a couple of months. And then let's talk about how
He came. He came, it behooved Him to be
made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God. And we'd be just getting started
then, wouldn't we? My goodness, John 6, 37, and
all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. You know why he can say that?
Because it's not up to them. If it's up to them, how's he
going to say that? He said, no man can come to me
except the Father which hath sent me draw him When God does
something, you don't have to wonder whether it's gonna happen
or not. He just does it, and so he's able to say, everybody
he gave me is coming to me, because he's the one that does it. And of course, I will in no wise
cast out. I will in no wise cast out, for
I came down from heaven. This is why I came. Not to do
my own will as a man. Of course, it was his will. His
will was the Father's will. He said, I do always those things
that please my Father. But what he's saying is in his
office and status as the son of man, as a man in this world,
he came to do the will of God as a man. He's God doing the
will of God as a man. but the will of him that sent
me. And this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing." So it's
the Father, when he gives them, they're coming. It's something
the Father did, but it's also something Christ did. I'm not
going to lose a single one of them. He said, no man can pluck him
out of my hand, and no man can pluck anybody out of my father's
hand. But should raise it up again
at the last day. Verse 40, and this is the will of him that
sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on
him may have everlasting life. Same ones. That's our experience
of it. We see him. And we say, that's
the Son of God. And we believe, and we bow, and
we follow, and we love. We serve. May have everlasting
life. And I will raise him up at the
last day. And then the Jews murmured at
him because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.
They murmured. Think about what he just said,
and they're still murmuring about something he said way back in
the previous context. You think they got any of that? That's why people don't know
who he is, because we just don't have ears until he gives them. He said, I'm the bread. And they
said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and
mother we know? How is it then that he said,
I came down from heaven? Well, maybe it's like he said
it was going to be through the whole Old Testament, that he
would be born of a virgin and he would be born in Bethlehem.
He laid it all out. And they studied the scriptures
and he said, you think you have life because you've studied the
scriptures, but they testify of me and you won't come to me
that you might have life. Jesus, verse 43, therefore answered
and said unto them, don't murmur among yourselves. They're over there going, you
know, this guy, you know. He said, just shut up. That's
pretty much what he said. Quit murmuring among yourselves.
Nothing you say is going to help you or anybody else. Stop it and listen. That's what
God says when the gospel is preached. Stop it. Be still and know God. No man can come unto me except
the Father which hath sent me draw him. And I'll raise him
up at the last day. That's what happens when the
gospel is preached. It pleased God by the foolishness
of what I'm doing right now to save them that believe. And this
is why Christ came. He's going to save somebody.
He has saved somebody, they just don't know it yet. And this is
how you'll know it, by the preaching of Christ. And you'll see Him,
and you'll believe on Him. All that seeth the Son and believeth
on Him. And they're gonna have everlasting
life, and I'm gonna raise them up again. Thank God for Christ
and His gospel. Let's pray.