As on the cross of Christ I thought
it seemed I heard one cry Is all this nothing in your eyes
you knew this day passed by? Is not such suffering greater
than that which you've seen before? And was there ever any man who
grieved or suffered more? I looked again, and what I saw
I cannot fully tell. It seemed within his very bones
there raged a viral fell. What caused you grief, I asked
the man. What crimes could you have done? My God, Jehovah, struck you down
and left you all alone. His answer cut my heart like
steel and left me void of breath. Tis for your sins, this pain
I feel for you, I go to death. Your soul before my father's
throne could find no place to hide. This is the way I can be
just and you be justified. Jehovah's mercies never fail. Each morning they are new. ? Great is His faithfulness and
love ? ? Therefore we're not consumed ? ? Jehovah God in Christ
the Son ? ? Shall all my portion be ? ? My soul shall therefore
wait for Him ? ? And live eternally ? You would turn to 140, the
next page. Behold the savior of mankind. 140. Behold the Savior of mankind,
knelt to the shameful tree. How was the love that Him inclined
to bleed and die for me? For Cal, he groans while nature
shakes, and earth's strong pillars bend. The temple veil in thunder
breaks, and solid marble rends. Just on the precious ransoms
paid, Receive my soul, he cries. See how he bows his sacred head,
He bows his head and dies. But soon he'll break that siren
chain, and in full glory shine. O Lamb of God, was ever vain,
was ever love like thine? Good morning, everybody. I'm
going to be reading out of Luke and picking up in chapters 11,
starting in verses 1. The Lord's teaching his apostles
how to pray. Luke chapter 11. Now it came
to pass, he was praying in a certain place. When he ceased, that one,
One of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray,
as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, when you
pray, say, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who
is indebted to us. and do not lead us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one. And he said of them, which
of you shall have a friend and go to him at midnight and say
to him, friend, lend me three loaves for a friend of mine has
come to me on this journey and I have nothing to set before
him. And he will answer from within and say, do not trouble
me. The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.
I cannot rise and give it to you. I say to you, though he
will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet
because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many
as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it
will be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock,
and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives,
and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will
be opened. If a son asks for a bread from
any father among you, Will he give him a stone? Or if he asks
for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask him? Lord, we're thankful this morning
for the encouragement you give everyone. that asks, Lord, and
you're faithful to give generously, Lord. We ask for your spirit
this morning, Lord, to direct our hearts to Christ, Lord, comfort
us in him alone. We ask that you'd give your servant
Eric the words to say, Lord, and give us hearts to hear, Lord.
And we pray for your churches everywhere this morning that
are gathering, Lord. We pray for ours, you know, we pray for
ours. For those who couldn't make it today, Lord, we pray
that you look out for them and give them care and encouragement
as well, Lord. In your name we pray, amen. OK, turn with me to John chapter
5. John 5, verse 17 through 27 is
our text. And here, the Lord Jesus Christ
declares some things about himself. And we can only draw one conclusion,
that he is God, that he is one with the Father, and therefore,
he is equal with God. He's made himself to be God. In Colossians 2.9 it says, in
Him, in Christ, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. So He is fully God in the flesh
and therefore fully man. He doesn't diminish one from
the other. He is the God-man mediator. But
our Lord, He's speaking to Jews, Jews who were ready to murder
him. They despised what he was saying. And he stands right before them
and declares these truths that we'll be looking at today that
only solidifies what they heard him saying and doing. And he's declaring that he is
God. And they wanted to murder him
because he had healed a man on the Sabbath day. and it says
that they sought therefore to slay him. All right, verse 16.
Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, based on that man who
was healed, that certain man who was healed by Christ on the
Sabbath day, based on that testimony, they sought to slay Jesus because
he had done these things on the Sabbath day. So there they are
on the Sabbath day, working themselves to figure out how are we going
to put this man to death. That's how great of religionists
they were. But they become even more zealous
as they begin to speak with Christ himself, more zealous to murder
him, to put him to death, because he declares his oneness with
the Father. And they well understood what
he meant by that. They understood, even in all
their flesh, they understood this man, by making himself the
son of God, makes himself equal with God. He's declaring himself
to be the great I am." And they hated him for it. But what we
see here in this text, as we get to the end, not only is he
declaring to us his Godhead, that he is God, but he is that
promised seed of woman that was to come in the flesh to save
his people. He's telling them, I am the son
of man. And when he says, I'm the son
of man, he's saying, I am the servant of Jehovah, whom he promised
to send to save his people from their sins. And we know that,
that text well, where it all began back there in Genesis 3,
15, when our Lord said to the enemy, to the serpent, he said,
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
his heel. And now here stands Christ, that
very one, in fulfillment of this prophecy, before the enemies
of God." the Jews who hated Christ, who hated his Christ, and therefore
hated the Father, and declares to them, I am the fulfillment
of that promise that he made to your father, the devil, in
the garden when he told him how that he would redeem and save
his people. All right? And because of this
promise, all the believers, all the children of God throughout
the Old Testament, they They had hope. They looked with hope
that this child might be the promised Messiah whom God spoke
of back in the garden there, right? So it began with Eve,
right? With each of her first three
sons, she thought, Is this the promised seed that should come,
right? Cain, and then Abel, and then Cain slew Abel, so that
knocked them out, and then she had Seth, right? And she was
hopeful that he might be that one. And then we have Abraham,
right, who went up to slay his son according to the word of
God, and when asked, Father, where's the sacrifice? We have
the wood and the fire, where's the sacrifice? And he said, believing,
God himself shall provide a lamb. himself. God's going to send
the one that will redeem us. And even the psalmist in Psalm
80 verse 17 proclaims, let thy hand be upon the man of thy right
hand, upon the son of man, the son of man whom thou madest strong
for thyself. Alright, so this passage here
is It brings forward to us, if we had any doubt so far based
on the healings and the miracles and what he had done, if there
was any doubt, Christ tells us plainly here in this text, right?
In declaring to them, but he's telling us. He's declaring for
everyone, right? It's not in a secret, it's not
behind closed doors. When he would go off with his
disciples to say more fully who he was, he's telling all the
world, I am the son of man. And therefore he's saying, I
am that promisee that should come to restore that which I
took not away, to restore and reconcile to my father, his lost
children. Now I've titled this because
he is the son of man. because he's the son of man.
All right, so let's see these declarations of our Lord who
is showing us that he's one with the Father and therefore that
he is God, all right? And so the first thing we see
here is that he's one with the Father in the works of our redemption. Christ is one with the Father
in the works of our redemption, of our purchase of God. Verse
17 says, Jesus answered them, my father worketh hitherto and
I work. My father works and I work. So that regarding the triune
God, right they collectively they all were engaged in the
covenant of grace for our salvation our redemption and we know from
the scriptures that this work was both begun and finished in
the degree in the decrees and the purpose of God. In Romans
8, 29 through 30, it reads, for whom he did foreknow, when he
created you in his love for you, when he chose you back then before
the world began, whom he created, or whom he did foreknow, he also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son so that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, determining that you should be formed in
the image of his son, whom he did predestinate, them he also
called. And if he called you, he had
to do something for you. Whom he called, them he also
justified. That's why he could call you.
And whomsoever he justifies and calls, them shall he also glorify. God's done all this from before
the foundation of the earth. As Hebrews 4.3 tells us, the
works were finished from the foundation of the world. The
decree and the purpose of God was already finished from the
foundation of the world. Here, our Lord, as our Shorty,
because it's the decree and purpose of God, He now comes in the flesh
to work all that out, to fulfill all those details and everything
that had to be done according to the purpose of God. Here He
is in the flesh there to accomplish all that God had purposed for
His people in their salvation. And we have a testimony of that
in 2 Timothy 1, verse 9 and 10. It's glorious, two verses here
declaring what our Savior has accomplished. It says that He,
our Lord, hath saved us and called us with an holy calling. And that means that our salvation
was done in holiness, in perfect righteousness. And our calling
to that salvation is all done in perfect holiness. It's righteous. What God has done, it's righteous.
There's no fault in what he's done in our salvation. That is,
it's not according to our works, right? And it wouldn't be holy,
but it's according to a holy calling, a holy salvation, right? But according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior,
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel." All right, so we
see when Christ came, he accomplished everything. All right, and so
he says, my father worketh hitherto. He worked out all the details
in the decree and purpose of God in eternity. He worked it
out, and here I am now to do that work. I'm here to fulfill
it. All right, that's what he's saying there to these people.
We understand he and the Father are fully engaged in one purpose. They're united. They're doing
that which they've purposed to do in eternity. And the Jews,
they understood what he was saying. He's saying, I am equal with
God, thereby making himself God. He's making himself equal with
God, and therefore he is God. Verse 18, therefore the Jews
sought the Moor to kill him, because he not only had broken
the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself
equal with God, right? So here it is the Sabbath day
when no man's to work and yet they're working after they accuse
him of healing a man and here they are working to slay him,
right? Trying to figure out, all right,
how are we going to do this? How are we going to pull off this
stoning of him now? How are we going to kill him,
all right? And the reality is that if any man or woman, young
or old, is healed They're healed in the Sabbath day. They're healed
in Christ, who is our Sabbath. Whether it's a physical ailment
that you're healed of, or it's your disease of sin and death,
you're healed in that Sabbath day, every time. because we're
healed in and by the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Sabbath rest
of his people. All right, so it's always gonna
be on the Sabbath day. It's always gonna be in the Sabbath
that this work is done. All right, now, in response,
the next thing that we see, in response to these murderers,
our Lord declares that he and the Father are one in will and
in purpose. Look at verse 19. then answered
Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son
can do nothing of himself, but what he seeeth the Father do.
For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise."
All right, now that's not saying that Christ is somehow restricted
or limited in his humanity, in the flesh there, but what he's
saying is that he is in perfect union. Everything he does acts
in perfect union or unison with the Father. They're of one purpose,
one will, one mind, in their purpose of salvation for the
people of God. So, our Lord, therefore, as a
servant, that's why he's spoken of as a servant because He's
doing the will of his father. He's one in purpose and will
with the father. So he comes to fulfill all those
covenant engagements that had to be fulfilled for us, for us
to be saved, for us to be reconciled to the father. And he did that
as a servant to secure your salvation and mine. Everyone that is revealed
to be a child of God through the faith that God has given
them, looking to Christ alone, he had to do it. So he's one
in will and purpose with God. So he did this. He assumed our
nature. He took upon him flesh, a weakness
of this flesh that he should be the fit sacrifice, the perfect
sacrifice to fulfill all our righteousness. Everything we
owe to God in perfect righteousness, your Lord and Savior fulfilled
it perfectly on your behalf. He did everything necessary.
you should know him he satisfied the justice of God when he purged
your sins by the death of himself shedding your blood to cover
those sins to make atonement and to reconcile you to the father
stands that you stand before him now justified perfectly righteous
in him Hebrews 9 12 says by His own blood, He entered in once
into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." And
just as a side note, that's why we don't do as the Catholic Church
so-called does, when they crucify afresh, every time they meet
in Mass, they crucify to themselves the Son of God again, and again,
and again. But here, according to the Scriptures,
it's once. He entered in once to obtain
eternal redemption for his people. So trust him, rest in him, declare
the glories of his name. So Christ is telling all men
here that I'm the mediator. I'm the one who stands in the
gap between you and the Father. I'm the one who reconciles you.
Look to me. I'll bring you safely to the
Father. That which you what you want and desire in salvation,
in glory and honor and praise, that's all accomplished by me
for my people. All right. And so third thing
we see now is that our savior has, has a perfect knowledge
of God. He has a perfect knowledge of
God. And if he has the perfect knowledge, if he's one in knowledge
with the father, then he is, he's equal with, with the father.
He is God. John 5.20 For the Father loveth
the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth. And
he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. So by showing him all things,
Christ has knowledge of all that the Father is doing. He knows
exactly what the Father intends to do to save his people. He
has that knowledge and that means that He's as omniscient, all-knowing,
as he is omnipotent, all-powerful, right? He knows all things and
can do all things. I mean, even here, he's omnipresent,
even here. He's upholding the world with
the word of his power, even as he's here in the flesh, ensuring
the preservation and the peace of his people, all right? So
he has perfect knowledge, and we're told that It's by this
perfect knowledge of God that he saves us. In Isaiah 53 verse
11, it says, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify
many, for he shall bear their iniquities. He knows exactly
what he needs to do to put away your sin forever and to deliver
you to himself, all right? Next, fourthly, we see that Christ
declares that he is one with the Father in sovereignty. God
the Father, we know God is sovereign, so is the Son, He is sovereign. Verse 21, for as the Father raiseth
up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom
He will. So our Lord, He's able to, He's
divinely sovereign in healing whomsoever He wills. And by healing,
I mean not just physical healing, but your sin affliction, your
death according to your sin in this flesh, Christ is the one
who heals that for whomsoever he's pleased to do it for. All
right, so we saw him right in the last time when we met there,
there was many people in those porches surrounding the pool
of Bethesda, right? Many people were gathered there.
Lots of people were gathered there for a long time as well,
but there was a certain man certain man who had been sick and had
that infirmity for 38 years, a certain man whom the Lord chose
out of all of them and he healed that man and only that man and
left all the rest in their sickness, right? So he's able to heal,
give life to whomsoever he wills. And that's exactly what he told
Moses, right? When Moses asked to see his his
glory, and he said to Moses, I will make all my goodness pass
before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. I'll pass before you, Moses,
and I'll proclaim my name before you, Moses, and I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will
show mercy. And that's what Paul was writing
out there. Romans 9, speaking of the sovereignty of God, the
sovereign will of God to save whomsoever He will. Our God is
sovereign. The Father is sovereign, the
Son is sovereign, and He saves whomsoever He wills. Alright,
and so the next thing we see is that He's one with the Father
in worship, in praise, and in honor. Whatever honor, praise,
and worship is due the Father, that same worship, honor, and
praise is due the Son. And He does this, God does, the
Father does this by showing honor to the Son. He gives honor to
the Son before us so that we know the Father honors this one. He's sent him. He's come in the
name of the Father to do the will of the Father, to save us.
And so, John 5, verses 22 and 23. For the Father judgeth no
man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should
honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth
not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. Our Lord. Our Lord here, he's
going after anyone who would claim that they love God, that
they serve God and worship God, but despise the Son. They reject
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's saying, you that reject
me, you don't honor the Father. You're despising the one who
sent me. By not honoring me, by not looking to me for your
salvation, the one whom God sent to save you, you despise me and
you reject me. You're dishonoring me, and if
you dishonor me, you're dishonoring the Father who sent me. So, all
who don't believe on Christ, they may be religious, they may
worship some god of their imagination, they may do many good works,
but if they dishonor the Son, whom God said is your salvation,
don't look anywhere else but Him, then you are actually dishonoring
the Father. And that's because you're calling
Him a liar. I hear what you're saying, but I don't hear it.
I don't care. I'm gonna do it this way. This should be good
enough for you, and I like it, so deal with it." And God's gonna
say, no, you're gonna deal with your punishment now and sin for
your rebellion and dishonoring of me. All right, now, next thing
here, we see that our Lord declares His oneness with the Father in
His ability to give life to the children, right? He gives life.
He gives eternal, life to his children. Verses 24 through 26. John 5 there. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him
that sent me, hath already everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation, but has passed from death unto life. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is when the
dead, those that are spiritually dead, is what he's talking about
here, They shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that
hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in
himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself."
And so here we see the power of our Savior, who by His voice,
that when He speaks into your heart with power, He comes with
glory. He destroys the shackles, He
destroys the bondage that you're in, He scatters the darkness
with His light, He opens that prison door which is keeping
you shut in and rips off that veil of your heart and your eyes,
showing you that He is God. Showing you that it's by His
power that you are delivered now and believe Him. And He's
glorified in your eyes, all by His voice, the voice of the Son
of God, alright? We hear and understand by his
voice, shaking the very nature of this flesh, right? He shakes
all that is not stable, all that cannot last. He shakes it with
the power and glory of his voice. And we know I'm the sinner. I've
trespassed against the law of God. I cannot make myself righteous
before him, but here is the Savior, the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world. he does all that with his voice
in the in the hour that he pleases to do it for his people all right
and then we see here finally we see that he declares his oneness
showing that the father committed the judgment to the son of the
things of the last day right he's committed that judgment
to the son on the last day verse 27 and hath given him authority
to execute judgment also. And then he includes this very
important detail which colors for us very nicely the whole
of the passage. Because he is the son of man,
I am the one, he says, that was promised. to reconcile the people,
to restore, to make restitution for the people, to deliver those
that were lost back to the Father, back to the safety of the Father,
who loved you, who decreed your salvation, who purposed your
salvation in eternity, here I am, showed up in the flesh to accomplish
your very redemption all by Himself. So we see that He is the Son
of Man promised by the Father. Those Jews, when they died, if
any there yet died in their sin, not being covered by the blood
of Christ, they woke up in shame. They woke up to a shameful, horrible
confusion and death there. And then they'll soon awake again
in that final day when they're raised up in the flesh to stand
before Him whom they despised and rejected and refused and
would not hear and they dishonored Him and pushed him away, but
they'll see the glory of the son of man. They'll see him seated
on the throne of God as the judge and the one who accomplished
the will of the father perfectly for his people. And so that the
comfort for us is that that evil which seeks to prevail over you,
right? That evil in our day which seeks
to conquer you and to subdue you and keep you from the glory
of the Father, it can't prevail. Christ prevails. The will, the
desire of evil for you shall not be fulfilled. It shall come
to nothing because Christ has accomplished your salvation.
and you shall know it, you shall be called, and you shall hear
his voice, and you shall believe on him, and be sealed with the
Holy Spirit, being kept unto the end. All right? The Father
says, blessed are the faithful, and therefore you shall be faithful,
you that he's purchased with his own blood, you shall believe.
And so, our Lord, he walked this earth in the flesh, being hated,
despised, rejected, mocked, spit upon, cast off by this world
and this world's religion. They stumbled over that stumbling
stone, that capstone, the perfect one that the Father provided
for His temple, for His people, but all those that condemned
Him and rejected Him, they're the condemned ones, and they'll
be gathered before Him soon, one day very soon in that day
of judgment, that at the name of Jesus, Every knee should bow
of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the
earth. And that every tongue should
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. So I rejoice in that declaration
of our Lord where he made it plain for you as people. He declared
it to all the world. It wasn't hidden. It's not just
revealed to the disciples. He said it plainly. but you hear
it and you believe him and so rejoice bless his name and glory
in him all right brethren let's close in prayer our gracious
lord we thank you father for your mercy and your grace and
your power lord we thank you that we have heard your voice
Lord, if any of us are doubting, if any of us are forgetful, Lord,
let us hear your voice which delivers your people out of darkness
and bondage that nullifies sin and death, makes it powerless,
emasculates it, empties it of all its hold upon your people. Lord, deliver us. Help us to
stand in the righteousness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Help us to glory in Him. Make us to be glad and hopeful
and rejoicing in what our Savior has done. Help us, Lord, to remember
those things which we stand in need of, and that we may see
how that you provide them fully, abundantly, freely, in grace,
in your Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man whom you sent, whom
you promised from the foundation of the world, and have sent him,
and he has accomplished everything that needed to be done, Lord,
keep us. Reveal that faith in us and then
seal us with your Holy Spirit that we stand faithful in Christ
unto the end by your glory and power. It's in Christ's name
that we pray and give thanks. Amen. All right, brother. Let's stand and sing a closing
hymn. Complete in D, 133. Out of your softback. Complete in D, 133. Complete in Thee, no work of
mine may take, dear Lord, the place of Thine. Thy blood hath
pardoned, bought for me, and I am now complete in Thee. Yes, justified, O blessed Thou,
And sanctified salvation wrought, Thy blood hath pardoned but for
me, And glorified I too shall be. Complete in thee no more
shall sin, thy grace hath conquered rain within. Thy voice shall
bid the tempter flee, and I shall stand complete in thee. Yea, justified, O blessed dawn,
and sanctified, salvation wrought. Thy blood hath pardoned, bought
for me, And glorified I too shall be. Complete in Thee, each want
supplied, And no good thing to me denied, Since Thou my portion,
Lord, wilt be. I ask no more complete in Thee,
Yes, justified, unblessed Thou. And sanctified salvation wrought,
Thy blood hath pardoned, bought for me, And glorified I too shall
be. Dear Saviour, when before Thy
bar All tribes and tongues assembled are, Among Thy chosen will I
be, At Thy right hand complete in Thee, Yea, justified, O blessed
Thou art! and sanctified salvation robe. Thy blood hath pardoned but for
me, and glorified I too shall be. Thank you. What was that radio? Was it 70
or 72? Pardon? The radio. The radio that I owe you. 70.
70. Yeah.