John chapter 7. I say often, look to the Lord. Run to Him. Cling to Him. Take your burdens to Him. speak
with him. That's what we're going to be
looking at in Genesis. The Lord spoke to Abraham, as
we're all familiar, and he said, you go outside and you look up
that Milky Way. I saw it the first time when I was in New
Hampshire. And I thought, what is that? I'd seen some stars
before, nothing like that. And it wasn't in the noonday
sun, was it? Abraham was up there. The Lord
just said, I'm your shield. I'm your exceeding great reward,
Abram. That's me. And then Abram finally
opened up to him. And he said, you promised this.
When are you going to show me? When is this son going to get
here? You promised me. He just laid it all on the table,
didn't he? In the middle of the night. Middle of the night. The moon won't smite him. The
Lord was with him. But I tell people, take your
burdens to the Lord and leave them there. We're saying that,
don't we? You got trouble? Take it to the Lord. Well, this
is big. Take it to the Lord. This is
small. Take it to the Lord. What if he don't know what I'm
talking about? You ever feel alone? There ain't
nothing nicer than someone that's been through the same thing you've
been through. If you've been in the military, or you've had
children, or you've not had children, or you've had a job in this kind
of arena, whatever it is, if you had some similarities, some
common shared experiences, that's comforting. You got something
to talk about, don't you? You got any unbelieving brethren
of the flesh? You got brothers and sisters,
or mothers and fathers, or children, or good friends, or cousins that
hate God? Like you used to? I do. Like I used to. Well, how could
I take that to my Lord? Has He touched that field of
infirmity? Yes, He is. Yes, He is. There's nothing too small or
too great that the Lord can't handle. You take your burden
to Him and leave it there. I hope we can see that this morning.
Here in John 7, we'll begin reading in verse 1. It says, After these
things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Jewry,
that's Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the Jews'
feast of the tabernacles was at hand. That was on the 15th
day of the seventh month. It was required that they had
this feast of the tabernacles and it was time for this regularly
scheduled feast. Verse 3, And his brethren therefore
said unto him, Depart thence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples
also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that
doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known
openly. If thou do these things, show
thyself to the world." We just saw a whole bunch of people leave
your ministry. Your church just shrank. Your
following just shrank. And they said, why don't you
go out and stand on a soapbox somewhere and let the whole world
see. Now does that mean people in
South America and Antarctica? No, of course not. Let Jew and
Gentile. His brethren said, get out there in public. Go on, here's
some good ways to build your ministry. Show thyself to the
world. Why did they say such a thing?
We see how the soul, when we meet the Lord's Word, if He makes
it effectual to us, it'll make us take a deep swallow on it.
Why would they say such a thing? Verse five, for neither did his
brethren believe in him. And Jesus said unto them, My
time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. Your time
of revealing, your time of being seen of men is always. That's why you're here for. The
world cannot hate you. What strong words. They hateth
me. But me it hateth, because I testify
of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up into the feast. I go not yet into the feast,
for my time is not yet full come." When he had said these words
unto them, he abode still in Galilee. But when his brethren
were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly,
but as it were, in secret. He said, y'all gonna observe
these days? Go on. Go ahead. You want to go church?
You want to play religion? You want to play church? Have
at it." And they left. They went. They left God Almighty
in human flesh. Their kin after the blood of
this old nature. Their kinsmen after the flesh.
And who was God in the flesh. And they left Him so they could
play church. He went too, but he went secretly
because his time was not yet come. And he said, your time's
always come. You're always seeking the high seats in the synagogues
and seeking your titles and all this other garbage. Have at it.
And they did. They went right after it, didn't
they? What caught my attention in this passage is verse five.
It says, for neither did his brethren believe in him. What
frightening words. What frightening words. Oh, shake
each core. What brethren is He talking about?
That's the first thing I want to know. He's called us brethren. What brethren? What's this Word
speaking up here? What's God the Holy Spirit talking about?
I want to know. Do you? Do you want to know what
He's talking about? We know there's still some people
with our Lord here in addition to those twelve. The Lord just
looked at Peter and them, the twelve, and said, y'all going
to leave too? Because it says many there in John 6, 66. For
that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more
with him. The bulk of them left. And so he looked to that inner
circle, those twelve, and said, you going too? He chased them
out of the parking lot begging, did he? You going to go? He said, you need to go play
church somewhere? And Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? To
whom shall we go? But those still followed him,
physically. Those still with the twelve, following our Lord.
Some of the old writers and some of the old scholars, they said
this was his national brethren. These are his brethren after
the flesh. These are Jews. We know the Jews
followed him everywhere, didn't they? They always sought to kill
him. They always sought to entangle him in his words. Set a snare
for him. Paul would ask about those, spoke
about those after his own flesh. His national brethren too, didn't
he? those after the flesh. He said in Romans 9, I have great
heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart for I could wish
that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen
according to the flesh. He qualified it, didn't he? He
said for those people born of the same nation I am, those people
I grew up with, I've cared for them and if it were possible
that I'd be accursed that the Lord may save them, my kinsmen
after the flesh. All the seed of Abraham, they
called each other brother and sister. Hello, brother. Hello,
brethren. Most of the people I talked to
was either my family or you all. And I thought if I had to be
on an airplane and we're going to land in 10 minutes, I'd come
on and say, brethren, we're going to be landing. I can't keep from it. But they
spoke to one another that way. There's one tribe inside that
tribe. And they would say, hello, brother.
Hello, sister. And then to the other tribes, hello, brother.
Hello, brethren. Others have said that the Holy
Spirit was talking about here was through John, was that these
unbelieving brethren, it was speaking about Joseph, after
him and Mary were married, he had another marriage. I labor
these things on purpose. He'd had another marriage and
had some children from that spouse. Some said it was Christ's cousins.
First cousin, that's it. It was a close relation. They
would call him brother or brethren. Lot called, was called brother
by his uncle, Abram, wasn't he? This is his brethren after the
flesh. Our Lord had half-siblings. He had half-siblings from Mary
and Joseph. There are a lot of people, maybe
some here today, that could get very angry at me for that. That's
a fact. It's in the scriptures, isn't
it? People get fighting mad. They'll spit nails over that.
What are you talking about? I've overheard some people speaking
last night at dinner. It's not good to compare what
man thinks and I think. That's what heresy means. I think.
Well, I think. Well, what's your heresy? Why
don't you spit that out? If we compare scriptures to scriptures,
you're fighting the Word of God, ain't you? You're fighting a
man. You're fighting an ideology. You're not fighting a doctrine.
You're fighting the Word of God. I heard some folks last night
at dinner. They were speaking about the Virgin Mary. And it's
prevalent in our area. It wasn't where I grew up, but
it is so here. There's a religion that promotes an eternal virgin,
a perpetual virgin. This woman that was just innocent
and wonderful and she's so pure and still is, and they worship
her. That ain't right. That's wrong. Our Lord had some
siblings through her. It says so, I'll show you. She
was a sinner saved by grace just like anybody else was. What a
beautiful picture that is. Here's an earthen vessel. Born
of Adam. Sin. Deserves death and hell
and Christ is formed in them. And it's revealed to her. What
a picture. That's how we're saved isn't
it? Any different than you? It's the same man. I went to Catholic school for
a year and a half. They spoke about a woman that was born innocent
and never knew a man before she gave birth to our Lord. And that's
true. That's true. But she's no different than anybody
else. It says in Luke 11, it came to pass as he spake these
things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and
said unto him, blessed is the womb that bare thee and the paps
which thou hast sucked. Oh, blessed be your mother, they
said to our Lord. And he said, yea rather blessed
are they that hear the word of God and keep it. How many people
have heard the word of God? A whole mess of them. We can
put it on TV, we can put it on the radio, and we can drown people
in it. But if they hear it and keep it. God gives them ears
to hear and they hold on to it. Because they have to have it.
Because he's life. That's the blessed one. No matter
who physically gave birth to one to another. David said that
didn't he? The Lord confused them Pharisees. Boy he got them.
They thought they was going to bound him up. And he said, let me ask
you something. How did David say, thee Lord
said to my Lord, set thou on my right hand? Because that would
have been his lineage. That's one of his grandchildren,
great-great-great-great-grandchildren or something. You don't bow to
him. You don't call him Lord. That's your underling. That's
your descendant. And the Lord said, how'd that
happen? These physical things don't matter as much, does it?
But Mary and Joseph, they had other children after our Lord
was born. When that angel came to Joseph, And he spoke to him,
he said, A virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth
a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, which is being interpreted,
God with us. Almighty God's coming through
a virgin. And Joseph, being raised up from sleep, did as the angel
of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife, and he
knew her not. He's going to put her away privately.
He was an upstanding man. And he says, She's with child.
I'm going to get rid of her before we even get married. They were
engaged at the time. And he's going to put her away privately.
And the angel came and spoke to him. And he said, that's the
Holy Ghost doing. That's going to be Immanuel,
God with us. You will call his name Jesus for he shall save
his people from their sins. And it said that Joseph knew
her not till she had brought forth her first son. He knew
her after that. He knew her intimately after
that. Turn over to Matthew 13. We'll see the result of that.
Matthew 13. Verse 54, Matthew 13, 54. And when He was
coming to His own country, Matthew 13, 54. And when He was
coming to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue
insomuch that they were astonished and said, whence hath this man
this wisdom? and these mighty works. Is not
this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?
And his brethren, James and Josie and Simon and Judas, don't we
know him? And his sisters, are they not
all with us? Don't they live in the same town
we live in? Whence then hath this man all these things? And
they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet
is not without honor, save in his own country and in his own
house. Even these people of Christ's
own country, they were witnesses of Him. A child could read this,
and he'd say, who is the Lord's brothers? And they'd say, well,
James, and Josie, and Simon, and Judas. Did the Lord have
sisters? Did Jesus Christ, our Lord, God in human flesh, walk
in this earth? Did He have physical sisters? Yes, it says right there. Weren't they with us? These men's
agreeing to it, isn't it? But they were testifying here
something special. What seemed just like a fact or a minor offhand
lineage. This is a testimony to the Lord's
humanity. His humanness. It says, is not
this the carpenter's son? We know his dad. We know who
his dad is. We bought furniture off of Joseph.
He's repaired my son room. He's worked on our house. They
watched him grow up. They knew his mother. They knew
his brothers. They knew his sister. This guy's just like everybody
else. He's a human, no different. He's a man, just like me and
you. Who's this fella? It's his humanity. He grew up
on a construction site. He'd been hired by some of these
people, speaking of him, to work on their homes. Could you imagine
that? You think he did shoddy work? You think he built a table
for somebody and said, well, that's close enough? The table's
probably stood a lot longer than them people did, didn't it? He
worked as unto the Lord. The Lord worked as unto the Lord.
What a work ethic. He brought a dinner bucket to
work with Him. He ate food in the hot sun with those people
as He set in the shade. He drank water when He got thirsty in
front of them. He sweat. One day He'll sweat great drops
of blood, but water come out of His forehead, didn't it? He
slept at night. He got tired. He was weary. Went to bed. He was just like
everyone else. In His humanity, He was made
like unto His brethren. The Scriptures say He came unto
His own and His own received Him not. They might have denied
everything else about Him, but they knew He was made a man.
He was made a man. That's what John was fighting
in 1 John the whole book about the Gnostics. And they're still
in our day. Well it's as if he came because we don't want to
hurt God's glory. God was made a man. He had brothers and sisters.
And he ate lunch. And he worked. He had a job.
He was a man. Why? I'm a man. I'm a human. You're a human. What a wonderful
thing. My representative was made as
I am. He was made a human being. Do
you know how important that is for our representative to be
one of us to the Father? You've got to have luck for luck.
A substitute must be luck for luck, isn't it? But how sweet
that is. How necessary that is for the
Father. How sweet that is for you and I who believe. How relatable
that is. The condescension of Him. He's
a friend that's closer than a brother. These are His brethren after
the flesh. He's closer than a brother. One we can come to. One we can,
like John, lay our head on His bosom. Snuggle up to Him and
cling to Him and hold to Him. Rejoice with Him. Cry with Him.
He does everything with us, don't He? It's close. He was as much
a man as if He were not God, and He was as much God as if
He were not man. I don't have to reconcile the
two. He's the great God-man. The God-head. The Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost manifested in a human body. A body has He
prepared for Him. That's what He did. That's important.
That's important. They spoke to His humanity, but
they also spoke of His divinity. His God-ship. They didn't know
it. They'd admit to some things. That don't mean they believed
it and leaned on it and relied on it, but they spoke to His
divinity. Look at verse 54 again. Matthew 13, 54. When He was coming to His own
country, He taught them in their synagogue in so much, He got
up and preached to them, in so much that they were astonished
and said, whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty
works? Could you imagine hearing God
Almighty preach? If He's here, I'd hush. I'd say,
I'll tell you to listen to Him anyway. Look to Him. Oh, if He
was there to speak, to preach in the synagogues. He's a man,
but look at these mighty works. They admitted it. They were astonished
by him. No man has ever spoke like this
man. No man ever has done what he's
done. He gets up and preaches. He's
got a holy heart. You can't get away from him.
And you'll either bow to him and praise him and worship him
or you're going to try to tune him out and fight him. But your
ears ain't going to get away from his words. He's effectual. How can He make these men see
that we're born blind? We've seen them. We've known
them their whole life. They've laid out there. We've known them since
they were two years old. They're blind. They can't see
nothing. And now they can see. What about that one that was
lame from his youth? He never could walk. I mean, it's deformed
looking. The man's stiff. Even if I'd sit down for 30 minutes,
I'd stand up. I've got to wiggle a little bit. He got up and walked.
How did that happen? They're astonished by these things.
These mighty works. Even His enemies had to admit
it. They admitted His humanity and they admitted His divinity.
He's God Almighty and they knew it. I thought of this too. You think about how humble and
patient our Lord was in the flesh. That first miracle He performed.
He turned water into wine. That ought to take a teetotaler
and put them inside out. That's the first thing he did.
He turned the water into wine at a wedding. He was 30 years
old. 30 years he walked this earth. Can you imagine being
the son of God, having all the desire, like he said there at
12 years old to his mother. He said, I must be about my father's
business. From conception until 30, you wanted to perform the
will of your father. You knew who you was. You knew
who he was. You knew who your brethren were after the Spirit.
You knew all things. It must be about his father's
business, but he denied himself for 30 years, waiting to that
time until that appointed time for his public ministry to start.
Why did our Lord submit to his earthly mother and father for
all those years? Why did he work in a carpenter
shop? God Almighty down there swinging
a hammer. Why? Why did he wait for all
those years? Because his hour was not yet
come. It says in verse 57, Matthew
13, 57. A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country
and in his own house. That brings us to our text. He
spoke that, and his brethren after the flesh, his brothers
and sisters, those half-brothers, half-sisters, they didn't believe
on him. Here's the prophet, capital P, prophet. Here's the preacher. God Almighty and those ones that
had half a DNA running through them didn't believe on him. Didn't
believe on him. I labored that heavily because
he had no honor among his own brothers and sisters of his own
house. Imagine if he was grieved. about the unbelief of other people?
How much more than his own siblings that didn't believe? If he was
grieved over sinners and he was amazed, he was astonished at
their belief and at their unbelief. That's the only two things Christ
was ever in amazement at. A man's faith, the centurion,
and their unbelief. If he mourned over someone not
believing that was just a godless sin, what about his own brothers
and sisters? Imagine that. I have siblings
after the flesh that do not believe. Many of you do. There may be
several here that have parents that don't believe or children
that don't believe. Does that bother you? You who
believe, does that bother you? Does that trouble you in the
heart? Is that heavy on you? Have you ever talked to those
you loved about what mankind is, what our nature truly is?
You didn't choose God. You don't want to. You ain't willing to.
Your heart ain't nothing but wickedness and filth and filthy
rags. It's all your righteous, your
good deeds. And God's holy. And the only way to be reconciled
to Him is through the work of His Son and His Son's blood.
And they say, hush. I don't want to hear it. Get
that out of your mouth. I don't want to. Don't talk about
it. Don't. Or, much worse, they may get
mad. I've had some get mad at me.
Or much worse, they make light of it. That's what his brethren
here did. Why don't you just go out and
stand on a soapbox? Let's get a TV broadcast for you. Can you
do that? We need to increase your ministry. Maybe you ought
to start, maybe don't say these things so much. Let's talk about
personal growth and interpersonal relationships and training kids
up. You can be good parents. Why don't you teach about those
things? You can get a bunch of people. Then you can preach gospel to them, but get them
in the house first. Bait the hook. Get them in there. They
made light of it. The God of glory is standing
in front of them. Who can we lean on? When we're in those
times when people make light of it, when people get mad, who
can we lean on? Who can we lean on? The very one tempted in all
points, like as we are. I was tempted by those things.
I was hurt by those things. Wounded by those things. He was
too. He was too. You know what that does? Does that... Do y'all get weird
hearing that? I'm taking every stone I can
out of that road. That's a stumbling block to run
and to cross that refuge. Come to Him. Run to Him. Well, now he just ain't felt
like what I felt. Yes, he has, too. His word's true. He's been
tempted, everything like you've been tempted. Run to Him. Well,
I just don't know if I, maybe I'm bad enough. Hogwash, that's
self-righteousness. Run to Him. Well, I ran to Him
when I was 14 because I was a good little kid. Nonsense, run to
him today. I ran to him when I was 14 too.
And I need to run to him today and if the Lord keeps me alive
tomorrow, I need to run to him. Run to him. He had unbelieving countrymen. Those are the same nation he
was born into. He had unbelieving extended family members, cousins
and nieces and nephews and whatever. And he had unbelieving immediate
family members. And he bore those burdens because
he's closer than a friend, closer than a brother. A friend that's
closer than a brother. What a wonderful thing. What
compassion, isn't it? John 7, verse 3. John 7, verse 3. His brethren
therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that
the disciples also may see the works that thou doest. They saw
it. They saw the works he did. They said, Let them other ones
see you do it. Do some magic tricks. For there is no man that
doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known
openly. For thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For
neither did his brethren believe in him. What does that tell us
about whenever his closest kin didn't believe on him? His brothers
and sisters after the flesh didn't believe him. Our natural birth
has nothing to do with our salvation. Who your mommy and daddy is doesn't
matter. My grandfather knew the Lord.
and the Lord took him home. That doesn't matter to me. My
dad knew the Lord and the Lord took him home. My mother knew
the Lord. She believed on Christ only and trusted Him and nothing
else. I forsook all. And if you want to go to church
with her, good. But if that hurts your feelings too bad, she's
going to go worship God. None of that. The Lord used it,
the means to impact my life, trained me up. Does that mean
I'm a shoe-in? No, it doesn't. Birth don't matter.
National birth does not matter. Proximity don't matter. Well,
I'm in the right church. I'm in the right place. This
is where, logically, we can read our scriptures, and I'm a lawyer,
and this is what this means, and this is the right place to
go. This is the most accurate. Proximity don't matter. You think
of his brethren, James, and Josie, and Simon, and Judas, and all
of his sisters, their entire life, he was the eldest, he was
the firstborn, their entire life, all the family stories, that
they told were about the angels coming to sing his praises when
he was born. Could you imagine that? I can
tell you things that happened to my family a couple years before
I was born. I heard them stories my whole
life. It was like I was there. I wasn't born yet, but I know about them.
They heard about those angels coming to sing his praises. They
heard about Simeon taking him up in his arms in that temple
and blessing him and praising the Lord and said, I can go home
now, Lord. I've seen thy salvation. I've
held it in my hands. They were told about that. They
knew he wasn't like everybody else. They knew he was a man.
He looked like them and probably held his coffee cup the way they
held it. But they knew he wasn't like everybody else. They were
brothers. They watched him grow up and
they knew he wasn't like them. He was different. When they saw
his public ministry begin, they saw him preach, they heard him.
And they watched him perform all these miracles over and over.
They saw it with their own eyes and they did not believe him.
All the outward evidence, they had it. All the experiences,
they had it. They checked all the blocks,
and that won't save us. Watching an experience won't
save us. Watching a show won't save us. Watching a miracle being
performed won't save us. Being in the right church won't
save us. But that's where it's going to happen. It's going to
be the preaching of the truth that saves His people. The Lord
used preaching, that's the means He chose to use to call out His
people. Not the preaching of a lie, the preaching of Christ,
the preaching of the truth is what He'll use. But God must
do the work in the heart. All those things, His providence,
He ordains and controls every bit of it to bring somebody right
where He wants them. And then He does the work in the heart.
He must. People all over the world, they
talk about Jesus and they talk about He was born of a virgin
and He performed miracles. And this is true, isn't it? But
talking about Him and reading about Him and knowing facts about
Him will not produce life. He must produce life. He uses
outward means and there's going to be evidence. We'll know of
it. Preaching the gospel, turning from idols. Paul said, I know
you're the Lord's elect. Here's why. Loving the body of
Christ. Those that He gave His life for.
Having a love for those that aren't yet in that body of Christ.
There's believers driving around this county right now. Somebody
that the Lord is His and they don't know it yet. Christ hasn't
been revealed in them yet. He hasn't saved them yet. I don't
know who they are. The Lord saved you people. Allow me to be a witness in this
place. As we, I'll not forget that,
as we walk through this life, I've told you this multiple times,
people look at us, people watch us, whether they're at the store,
or they're at the school, or they're at the gas station, or
wherever. People watch you, and how you interact with them says
a whole lot about the God you believe. And I know what I am,
and I know how fearful I am, I know how complaining and murmuring
I am, and I want to be a man that believes God in this community.
I want to be an example of the gospel. I don't want to bring
reproach on Christ and Him crucified. He must produce life. He must
sustain it. It shows us here that faith is not produced by
flesh and blood. And it's not produced by physical
experiences. Look, turn back one page in John
6. The earth, whenever the Lord
created it, it was void and without form, wasn't it? I thought that
yesterday. I was driving down our road. Look at them mountains.
And there was nothing on this earth. It was empty. It was void. There was nothing
there. There was no rocks. There was no plants. There was
no mountains. There was no birds. There was no animals. There wasn't
no worms and there wasn't no woolly mammoths, from the littlest
to the biggest. There wasn't nothing, unless
He spoke it. He said, let there be an elephant.
Let there be fish in the sea. Let there be light. There's light.
He had to speak it. He commanded it, and that's what
happened. That's how all this stuff we have on this earth is
here. God said so. He commanded it,
and it was. What's different between that
and faith? Absolutely nothing. To believe Him solely, to trust
Him, to have a heart that needs Him, God must give it by command. His word must be spoken. He must
do the work. It says there in verse 29, John 6, 29. Jesus answered
and said unto them, This is the work of God. Show us, what's
the work of God? What's His doing? What's His occupation? What's
He performing? This is the work of God, that
ye believe on Him whom He hath sent. How are we going to believe
on Him whom He's sent? God's about to work. He's about
to do something. He's about to speak and command
it to happen. Same as it was in creation. He must do the work.
He must produce the faith and the heart. Why didn't the physical
siblings of Christ believe on Him? Their hearts were just like
yours and mine before the Lord worked in them. It was no different. Just like every child born to
Adam, the heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Well, I don't think so. And who
can know it? You don't even know it. That's how wickedly deceived
it is. We don't think it's that bad. God must speak to the heart.
And it will be through means. It will be through the means
of preaching. That's what He's ordained. In His wisdom. What a thought. But like these, so many others,
like myself, they sat underneath preaching of the truth and didn't
hear. Their whole life. Walked with Him. Ate dinner with
Him. Right there. Listened to Him preach. Watched
His miracles. They didn't hear. They didn't hear. Turn over to
Ephesians chapter 1. What kind of work, what kind
of power does it take for a person born of Adam to believe on Christ?
To have saving faith? It's the same power it took to
raise Christ from the grave. The power of God. Here in Ephesians
1 verse 19. Paul writes in Ephesians 1 verse
19, And what is the exceeding greatness of His power to usward
who believe? How do we believe? According
to the working of His mighty power. It takes the power of
God, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead
and set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. the
same power it takes to raise Christ from the dead, which he
raised himself, he said, I lay my life down, I have to have
power to take it back up, because him and the Father is one. In other
places it says the Father raised him. The same power that took
for the Almighty God to lay down his life willingly for his people,
to bear their sins, and his body on the tree, to bear that guilt,
that shame, pay that debt we could not pay and for him to
go in the ground and be risen again. What power that took. The same power that takes is
what God has to speak for a child of Adam to believe. Almighty
God has to come down and do a work. These physical brothers and sisters
didn't believe. They were not hated by the world
and they departed from him. He said, go on. He said, why
don't you do something in public ministry? Let's get your name
out there. He said, you want to go to church? Go on. You want
to go play religion? Go play. And they went. They
went. They left him to observe physical
religion. You who believe, do you say with
Peter, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. How can I go to a form, a function, a routine or something?
Well, that's what everybody else did. and leave you. It's not
as appealing here where you are. I don't care if it's appealing.
What are we going to drink? You know what the children of
Israel said? What are we going to eat? He's the bread of life. You're living water. I need to
be with you. Who makes that the difference? What was the difference
between these physical brothers and sisters and Simon Peter? The Lord made them different,
didn't He? He put that heart of flesh in their hearts. You who believe on him. You who
say of Peter, to whom shall we go? You who the world hates.
Who your family just either tolerates or makes light of or picks on
you. Employers don't have nothing.
Oh, you're doing that silly stuff this weekend. I forgot. Paul wrote this to the church
of Philippi. Being confident of this very thing. He that which
hath begun a good work in you, you start believing on him. You
need Him today? What about tomorrow? I'm prone
to wonder. I'll run. I'll go do some routine. I'll get mad because we sang
two songs in one song instead of one song in two songs. I'll
get all puffy and out of shape. He that begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. until He
returns. He's begun faith in you. He authored
that faith. He's going to finish it. He's
begun that good work in you. He's going to perform that work
in His power, in His might, until the Lord comes or you're with
Him. That's whose hand we're in. I pray we can put away all
of our experiences, all of our religion, all of our comfort,
all of our routine, and that God would work in us in His power
and keep us clinging to Christ as He promised He's going to
do. I ask Him to do what He said He's going to do. And that's
the promise of the Lord. It's precious. It's precious.
I got all this out of Abraham. That's where we started. I didn't
read it. There in Genesis. The Lord came to Abraham and
her and He said, I'm going to make a great nation out of you.
All my people are going to come out of you because Christ is
going to come out of you. And he said, all right, Lord. And then he
went up to Heron, didn't he? It was over five years. And the
Lord said, I'm going to show you a place that you're going
to be and all your people are going to inherit this. And he
took him down to Canaan. And he got up on a mountain. He said,
you see all this? All your people are going to believe it. The kid
promised him. Same thing, wasn't it? Took him down to Egypt, brought
him back up, had Lot go, had Melchizedek come to him. I'm
going to make a mighty nation out of you, Abram. And Abram
at night, crying, weak, afraid, said, Lord, when is this going
to happen? You know what he said? You see them stars? That's how
your nation's going to be. Did he have Isaac in his hand
right then? No! There's a whole lot of time left, troubles left,
isn't it? And he said, you see them stars?
That's how your seed's going to be. And Abraham said, you're
right, Lord. I believe. Every time we see
the promises of the Lord, that he works in his people, that
he shall keep them, he will give them faith, and if he gave you
faith in his son, it ain't going away. You may not see it. But
he's prayed for that faith. That it fail not, because it's
his faith. He's promised, but I don't feel like it today. Well,
Abraham didn't feel Isaac in his arms either. Was it any different?
Was it not going to happen? I pray we can see his promises
and believe him. Amen.