Let's turn in our Bibles to John
chapter 9. John chapter 9. Let's read in verse 4. This is
Christ speaking. And He said, the works of Him that sent me
while it is day. The night cometh when no man
can work. I want to do something a little
different this morning. I want to talk to a particular
group here. I want to speak particularly
to our young men. And this will apply to everybody.
You just get in where you fit in. But this is particularly
a word to the young men. Yesterday, I sent Will out into
the yard to rake a little small section of leaves. about 2 feet
by about 30 feet. Not many leaves, just some leaves
that had blown over from Miss Ackerman's yard over to our yard.
And it wouldn't take more than probably 10, 15 minutes to rake
those leaves. But he didn't understand what
I was telling him when I told him he heard Miss Ackerman when
I said those leaves that blew over from Miss Ackerman's yard.
He heard that And so he went to Miss Ackerman's yard and started
raking her leaves. And she saw that he was out there
raking her leaves. And Will came in the house and
he said, Dad, he said, this is going to take me two or three
hours to do this job. He said, can I have that backpack
blower go out there and blow these leaves? Because this is
going to take forever. And I thought, yeah, I'm just talking about
a little section of leaves right there by the road in our front,
you know, in our yard. And I thought, okay. I went out
there and got the backpack blower for him and started it up, put
it on his back. Well, Ms. Ackerman pulled out
of her driveway and rolled her window down. She'd seen Will
over there raking her leaves. And she said, she called Will over
to the window. And she said, Will, if I pay
you $5 an hour, will you rake my leaves, get my yard all cleaned
up? She didn't have a lot of leaves,
but she did have quite a bit from that big oak tree. And so
Will agreed to it. $5 an hour, he's going to rake
her leaves. And she drove off, and he turned
around to me, and he said, Dad, he said, well, did you mean you
wanted me to do her yard or our yard? I said, well, I just want
that little B section right there in our yard. That's it. And I
said, that's all I want it done. And he said, I was going to do
that and then go up and play with my friend. He said, this
is going to take me forever. I said, well, you agreed to it.
You told her you'd do it. So now you've got to do it. And
so he went over there and started at the upper end of her yard
and did the whole yard. blow the leaves down into the...
It only took him 30 minutes to do it. I told him he made $19.80
an hour. That's what he made. He only brought home $10. That's
what she gave him up front for two hours work. But it only took
him 30 minutes to do it. Made 33 cents a minute. And I told him when he came home,
I said, I'm more proud of you for doing that. than I would be if you'd have
scored the winning touchdown in the biggest championship football
game there is in the world. You'd have wanted to score that
winning touchdown. You didn't want to rake those
leaves, but you did it because you gave your word you'd do it.
And I'm more proud of you for that than anything else. We live in
a world now where the Lord said men will be lovers of pleasure
more than lovers of God. And we want to play sports, and
we want to be in entertainment, and we want to do everything
that's fun. And work's not fun. And so nowadays, it gets this
way every generation. It goes a little further and
a little further every generation. Men wait now to be 35 or 40 years
old before they become responsible. Don't do that. Some of you here are young men,
and it's time to get a job, get your house, pay your bills, and
quit mooching off mom and daddy. And your mom and daddy are torn
on it because they about halfway want to strangle you for not
getting a job and doing that. But they love you too and won't
provide for you. But it's time for some of you
to do it. Don't wait. Don't wait. Become responsible. And that's what the Lord said
here. He said, I must work. Why? Was that a good thing? Was that something he, you know,
anxious to do and something that was just easy for him to do? No. No. He was coming to lay
down his life. He was coming into this world
to give his life. He was coming into this world
to shed his blood. He said, I must work. I must
work. Why? He said, I must work the
works of Him that sent me. His Father sent Him. His Father
sent Him. He gave Him a people and He gave
Him a work to do. To go into this world and to
lay down His life for that people. Because the only way to put away
our sin, the only way to redeem us from the sin we fell into
by our own willful rebellion against God, the only way to
redeem His chosen people from that sin was for God to send
His own Son to do the work to make His people totally righteous. put away all sin. And the only
way to do that was for Him to go to a cross and to be made
His people. I mean to be made His people.
He took on Him the nature of Abraham's seed. The nature. Took on Him the seed of Abraham.
He became all God's elect. That one elect chosen child of
God. There He was in human flesh. He was made flesh. And He had
to go to the cross to be made sin. He had to be us. Be us. He had to stand there
as His people and have God pour out wrath on Him. Pour out justice on Him. Because
that's the only way for God to uphold His justice. Fully, totally fulfill the law. And at the same time, justify
His people from our sin. The only way it could be done.
And that's why He said, I must work the works of Him that sent
me. God sent Him for that work. He
sent Him for that work. You know, when you go to do a
job, you start that job, and you look at it, and you don't,
there's nothing about a big, hard job that you have to do
that makes you go, well, I really want to do this. It's hard on
you. You look at it, and you think,
that's going to be a burden. But if you have some decency
about you, you know, this is what I'm given to do. This is
my job. I have to do this." Well, there's
none that was so righteous as Christ. He came into this world
and looked at what He must do, and He did it without any reservation. There was no sin in Him looking
at this work. There was nothing about Him to
look at this work and say, I'm not going to... He said, I must
work it. My Father sent me to do this
work. I must work this work. And He
came And he wouldn't rest. He said, I must work. That was
the number one reason. He said, my father sent me. I must work the works of him
that sent me. And then look at the second thing.
He said, and I must do it while it is day. Because the night
cometh when no man can work. You see, the second reason he
must do this, the first reason is his father sent him. His Father
gave Him this people. His Father gave Him this work.
His Father sent Him. He's upholding the glory of His
Father. He must work this work. His Father
sent Him to do it. But the second reason is this. He's the only one who can do
this work. When He leaves this world, light's leaving. He's the light. He's the day. He's the one that can do the
work. And the night's coming, he said,
when no man can work. You know, when you go out to
do a job, you have to do the job in the daytime. If it's that
kind of job where you're working outside or something, you've
got to have light to do it. He's the light, and he's the
only one. He came into this dark world, and he's the only one
who could do the work. And when he left the world, that
light that he is, in a sense, left. When he was in the world,
he's the light. When he left, the light left.
And he was the day. He was the light. He's the one
that could do the work. And he had to do the work because
he said night's coming when no man can work. And here's the
truth of the matter. You can't work the work that's
going to please God. You cannot work the work that's
going to please God. I can't work the work that's
going to please God. Only Christ could do that. And
He came and He worked that work. He worked the work that pleased
God. No sin in Him. Nothing but a perfect obedience
to God. Even to the death of the cross.
Even when He's got the sin of His people laid on Him and He's
suffering God's rejection of Him. which is justice. He's suffering that for His people,
living that on the cross. While He's suffering that on
the cross, He was perfectly faithful to the Father. Perfectly obedient
to the Father. That was His obedience. To be
made sin and suffer the forsaking of His Father in justice and
yet never cease to be faithful to the Father. Never cease to
look to the Father that when he was satisfied, when God said,
that's enough, I'm satisfied. He trusted that when that time
came, God would raise him from the dead. And so he gave himself, he laid down any sort of right
that he had. I get so sick of hearing us talk
about our rights. If we had what was our rights,
we wouldn't want it. Because our right is hell. That's all. But he's the one who had a right. He had a right to heaven. He
had a right to God's favor. He had a right to God's presence.
He had a right to God's delight constantly. And he forewent that. He laid that down. To be forsaken
in justice. Why? I must work the works of Him
that sent me while it is day. The night comes when no man can
work. He's the only one that can do it. And so He did that
for His people to totally save His people from our sin. And
He did it. You know, I told Will yesterday
when he came in, he was tired, and he came in from that, and
I said, he said, my back hurts. You know, he's carrying that
blower, and it's, Joshua did it. Joshua did my backyard. And
Joshua's back there with it, and he's a little bigger, and
he handled it pretty well. When Will came in, he was pretty,
it was heavy to him. That blower was heavy. And he
came in and he said, my back hurts. I said, but I said, tell
me this. What do you feel like right now? You finished that
work. What do you feel like right now?
He said, I feel good. I said, don't it feel good when
you, you look at a job, you're going to start it and you look
at it and it's a burden to you. But when you finish it and you've
done a good job and you look at it, don't you feel good? I
finished that job. Our Lord came here. And he didn't
rest, he didn't stop, till he finished the work. I mean, he
dotted every I of that law, and he crossed every T of that law,
and he did everything, fully, to satisfy the Father. So that
the Father said, I'm satisfied. That work is, it couldn't be
done better. That's what Christ meant when
he said, it is finished. It could not be done better.
There's nothing you can add to it. There's nothing I can add
to it. There's nothing any sinner can
do to add to that work. And God won't allow you to add
to it. Do you know how stupid it would have been if I went
out there yesterday after he finished that job and I went
out there and said, now I'm going to blow this yard. I'm going
to blow the leaves off this yard. They were gone. There wasn't
any leaves there. It would have been stupid for
me to go out there and say, now I'm going to do something to
this too. I'm going to add to this work. It was finished. The sins are gone from all God's
people. And when He calls you and shows
you what He's done for you, I showed you this Thursday night, when
He imputes to you righteousness, He doesn't do it because He's
just treating you like you are. He doesn't do it because He's
just treating you like you don't have sin. He's doing it because
you don't. The sins are gone. And you're
completely righteous. Because Christ finished the work. And God says it's done. It's
finished. It's accomplished. Now turn over
to Philippians. Philippians chapter 2. I want
you to see something here. This is important too. This is another problem we have
with work. Work's got to be something that Nowadays, you know, work's got
to be something to where you can go back to your 10-year reunion,
everybody will praise you because you got the coolest job. It don't have to be the best
job. If it's just a menial something
that this world looks down on and says, that's pathetic. If
it's honest work, it's good. He's good. Now look at this work. Philippians 2 verse 5. Let this mind be in you which
was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought
it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. Here he is. He's God. I mean,
you talk about somebody that's worthy to be praised. He's God. He's the second person in the
Trinity. But He made Himself of no reputation. He didn't come to be praised
and exalted by men. He made Himself absolutely the
lowest among men, despised and rejected of men. Look at this. And He took upon Him the form
of a servant. A servant. And this is the worst
thing right here, look at this, "...and was made in the likeness
of men." That means he was made like a fallen sinner, like a
maggot. That wasn't an honorable thing,
to be made in the likeness of men, because we fail in sin and
rebel against God and hate God with every fiber of our being
by nature. He was made in the likeness of
men. He came and took on Him, the likeness of man, and took
the form of a servant. Now look at this. And being found
in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself. And He became obedient
unto death, but not just any death, even the death of the
cross. You see what a lowly place He
took? Why? I must work, He said. My father sent me, and my people
can't do the work. And this is the place he's put
me in. This is the place I must take.
I must take the lowest place, the lowest possible place, and
work the works for my people. And you know what he did by that?
You know, when I started this, and I said to you, when Will
did that job yesterday, I told him I was more proud of him for
doing that work than I and when I see him score on the soccer
field or on the basketball court or anything like that. You know
why? He honored me. He honored me
with what he did. You see, when you do something,
whatever you do in this life, you're going to honor or dishonor
your father and your mother. Everything. Everything you do,
you're going to either honor them or you're going to dishonor
them. And the fact of the matter is, you're either going to honor
God or you're going to dishonor God. If a thought, word, and
deed either honors Him or dishonors Him. One of the two. Well, everything Christ did honored
Him. And if you want to constantly
honor the Father, there's one way to do it. Trust His Son. Cast all your care into the hand
of His Son. That's the only way we can honor the Father. But
Christ totally, thoroughly glorified His Father in everything He did. When He walked this earth, when
He went to the cross, when He suffered that shameful death
on the cross, He was honoring His Father. Everything He did honored His
Father. And look at this. Next verse right here. Philippians
2 verse 9. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him, and given him a name above every name. He was highly exalted in his
Father, and God also has highly exalted him. He arose from that
grave, he sat down at the right hand of the Father, He's given
all the reigns of the universe and all the reigns of the earth
to work everything that's coming to pass right now. He's doing
it all for the sake of His people. Calling His people out, conforming
His people to Him, and He's going to not lose one of His people.
That's the glory God gave Him because He highly exalted His
Father. God tells you and me that He's
called, He says, work. Not to earn a righteousness.
I'm not saying that. You can't do that. Just erase
any thought of that from your mind. You can't do that. I'm
talking about just whatever God's put in your hand to do. He says
you do it. And you do it as unto the Lord.
glorify Him for what He's done for you. That's what He tells
His people. And that's what makes His people
want to glorify Him. That's what makes His people
want to honor Him. I'm going to be completely honest with
you. I don't feel like being here today. I don't feel good
at all. But you know what? I must work
the works of Him that sent me. He gave me something to do. And
I must do it. And I must do it depending on
Him to give me the strength to do it. I must do it looking to
Him as I do it. I must do it for Him in every
way. Trusting Him, looking to Him,
asking Him for the grace and the mercy and the strength to
do it. But I must do it because He put it in my hand to do it.
And if God's put something in your hand to do it, He said,
whatever you do, Do it as unto the Lord. Do it not unto men. That boss may be a scoundrel. He may be a thief and a rotten
cheat. He may be the sorriest man on
the planet and treat you like the sorriest man on the planet.
Don't do it for him. Do it as unto the Lord. Whatever
you do, do it as unto the Lord. And this is the truth of the
matter. Christ is so exalted, and He so honored the Father.
You may listen to what I'm saying today, and you may say, I don't
care about what He's saying. That don't matter to me. Listen
to me. This is where it's going to happen
one day. Look down here at verse 10, Philippians 2.10. That's
the name of Jesus. Isn't that going to be something
when God says... You see these shows, you know,
like an award show or something, Some guy, everybody will come
out and say some good things about the person that's coming
out next, and they'll say their name, and that person walks out
on the stage, and everybody applauds and stuff. Just imagine, and
we're all gathered. God's elect, redeemed people,
and the rebels, all gathered. And God says, here He is, Jesus
Christ, my Son. You know what's going to happen?
Look at this. At the name of Jesus, every knee
shall bow. Of things in heaven and things
in earth and things under the earth. And every tongue shall
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. You know why? He finished the
work. He said, I must work, and he
finished the work. And he glorified God, and he's
going to get the glory from God, all the glory from God. When
you and I have finished this day, and the night comes, and
the night's coming, you're going to die, I'm going to die, we're
going to face God. We're going to be one day in
God's presence. When that day comes, everyone
that he redeemed, everybody that he gives faith to cast all their
care on him, He's going to say to each one of you, as He says
this to His Son, for the sake of His Son, and in His Son, and
solely for the glory of His Son, but He's going to say to each
of His people, well done, my good and my faithful servant. Well done. You've done the work.
You've finished the work. We're going to say, We didn't. What did we do? We didn't do
anything. You did everything. Yeah, but
He so represented His people that we did the work. And all
those that stand there and hate Him and despise Him and left
this world lazy rebels against God, God's going to say, You
never did anything to honor Me. You never did one thing to glorify
Me. All you ever did was take everything
I gave you and consumed it upon your rotten flesh. Depart from
me, you workers of iniquity. I never knew you." I want to be in that number that
he says, well done, don't you? The only way is to bow right
now to Christ. Cast all your care on Him. Trust
Him to represent you to the Father. I pray you give us grace to do
that. All right, brethren, let's stand together. Our Father, we thank you. Thank you for our Lord Jesus
Christ. Thank You that You gave the work
to Him and that You sent Him and that He did it and finished
it. And that You made us to behold
Him that the work's finished. And Lord, for His honor, for
His glory, make us to do whatever You've put in our hands as unto the Lord. Make us honor you. Make us glorify
you. Nothing in us is good, nothing
in us is glorifying to you by nature. Make us, Lord, to glorify
you. And make our young people to
hear this message. First and foremost, cast a care
on Christ. And Lord, make them to see and
have a real motive in their heart to understand what everything
in this life is about is the glory of your Son. Without Him,
we're just a bunch of ships floating on the sea with no direction
and no rudder and no No wind to even push us along, we're
just drifting. Make us have a motive, make us
have an aim, and make that aim to be Christ. Forgive us our
sins, Lord, we ask it in Christ's name. Amen. Rejoice! Rejoice to know that
Christ is Lord! Rejoice in all he does!