Well, in the context, our Lord
Jesus has healed a man who was born blind. And we know he was
healed because we get down a little further in this chapter. In verse
seven, we read that the man obeyed the commandment of our Savior.
He washed and he was made so he could see. What a gift sight
is. This man sat in misery. for a
number of years, blind from birth. And our Lord Jesus passed his
way and he granted mercy to him and healing grace. The last statement
of the previous chapter needs to be looked at before we go
any further. It's verse 59 of chapter eight. Would you look at it with me?
Then took they up stones to cast at him. Our Lord has said to
them, I am, before Abraham was, I am. And in his declaration
of his deity, that he is the great Jehovah, that he is the
great I am, with that declaration, they were pushed to be furious
toward him. And verse 59, they took up stones
to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself and went
out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so, watch
this, passed by. Now that very expression is also
used in the first verse of the next chapter, did you notice?
And as Jesus passed by. The Pharisees who were quibbling
and arguing about everything the Savior said, the Pharisees
had no interest in the Lord Jesus Christ. They were ready to kill
him when he identified himself as being the everlasting Jehovah. When he identified himself as
the I Am, the same way that the Lord revealed himself to Moses
out of the bush that burned but wasn't consumed. And when our
Lord said before Abraham was I Am, they were so angry. They picked up stones, they were
gonna stone him to death right then and there, but our Lord
passed by them. He passed by in judgment. He had no words of kindness for
them. He had no words of grace for
them. He would not spend any more time
with them, they despised him. And he walked away. The scripture
says the Holy Spirit had John put these words in here and Jesus
passed by. He passed by them in judgment. And immediately after he left
them, he passed by another person. But this time he passes by with
healing in his heart. He passed by in mercy. He passed
by in wonderful, marvelous grace. And he granted sight to this
man. Now, he gave him physical sight.
But toward the end of the chapter, we find that he not only gave
him physical sight, he gave him spiritual sight. Our Lord found
him in the temple. He had been excommunicated from
Judaism because he kept telling them in response to their question,
who healed you? Who gave you your sight? And
he said, a man named Jesus. And this further infuriated them. They were already angry with
our Lord. They were already ready to stone
him. And now this man says, the one
that you were ready to stone, he's the one who healed me. And
they said, you're out of here. You're not a member of our church
anymore. Don't ever come back in this
church again. And so he left the temple and
our Lord Jesus found him. because the Savior finds all
of his lost sheep. And he found him and he says
this. Look over toward the end of the chapter at verse 38. I'm sorry, verse 35. John 9,
35. Jesus heard that they had cast
him out, excommunicated him. Name erased from the rule book.
We don't even acknowledge you anymore as being a living. Even
his family couldn't have anything to do with him anymore. This
is the most severe punishment that they could put upon anybody
who is a member of the temple. So when Jesus heard they had
cast him out, he found him. And He said, dost thou believe
on the Son of God? My, what a question. And I would
direct that question to each of you. Dost thou believe on
the Son of God? Do you believe who He is, the
God-man? The Lord from heaven who came
to this earth, do you believe He's the only Savior? Do you
believe He's Jehovah? JOINED TO OUR HUMANITY? DO YOU
BELIEVE ON THE SON OF GOD? WATCH HIS RESPONSE. HE ANSWERED,
WHO IS HE, LORD, THAT I MIGHT BELIEVE ON HIM? I DON'T EVEN
KNOW WHO HE IS. AND JESUS SAID UNTO HIM, VERSE
37, THOU HAST BOTH SEEN HIM, AND IT IS HE THAT TALKETH with
thee." And there was something about
the word of God. It did a miracle in his heart. Remember, the one who is speaking
to this man who had been formerly blind is God himself. And he said, you've seen me and
I'm talking with you. And verse 38, and he said, Lord,
I believe. And the evidence of that is,
and he worshipped him. He worshipped him. Oh, it was
a blessing to receive his physical eyesight. But this is a greater
blessing here. to be given a spiritual eyesight
to cast His eyes, to cast the eyes of His soul upon the Son
of God who loved Him and who would give Himself for Him. He
looked on the Savior. He said, Lord, Lord. And the Savior gave Him spiritual
eyesight. So he's healed of his physical
blindness and now he's healed of his spiritual blindness. But
I want you to go back to verse four because now I'm gonna leave
the context and I apologize for that. I'll deal with this perhaps
in the future, God willing, but I'll tell you what caught my
eyes, something in verse four. The Savior said, I must work
the works of Him that sent me. I must work the works of Him
that sent me. Which leads me to bring you this
message on works that Christ must do. He had some works that
He had to do. You see, salvation is by works,
but not by your works. and not by my works, it's by
his works. And the Savior said, I must,
I must, this is a necessity. And in this message, the word
must is a key word. I must work the works of him
that sent me. And I'll direct you to a few
verses of scripture now, back up to John chapter three. And
the first work that I want to draw your attention to that he
must accomplish is the work of substitution. John chapter 3. And you'll recognize this passage
because our Lord is speaking to Nicodemus. And he reminds
this master teacher in Israel of an historical event that happened
years and years before this. That was when the Israelites
were murmuring against God, and our Lord sent fiery serpents
that bit the people, and people were dying. And the people cried out to Moses,
Moses cried out to God, oh God, the people are dying. Lord, spare them. Lord, heal
them. Lord, save them. And God said,
make a serpent of brass, put it on a pole, and then tell everybody
who's bitten, if you want to be healed, here's what you do. Look. Look to that brazen serpent. and you'll be healed. You say,
that's a really interesting story from Numbers chapter 21. Well,
it's more than just an interesting story. It's a gospel story. And our Lord gives the true understanding
and interpretation of that passage here to Nicodemus and to you
and me this morning. John chapter three, verse 14.
The Savior said, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, and you know, the wheels in the mind of Nicodemus
began to turn. And he can remember that real
well. He's taught that oftentimes in the seminary to priests and
the students that he had. So he knew exactly where the
master was talking about. Numbers chapter 21. And as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must, here's
a work he must do, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life. For, or because, God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Now here's the teaching of that
story in Numbers chapter 21. It's about a deadly poison. The
people were bitten with fiery serpents. Listen, we have within
us a deadly poison. It is a poison much worse than
the poison of a snake. It is the poison of sin. And you may rest assured of this,
and James tells us this in James chapter 1 about this thing of
sin when it is finished. If the work of sin is not interrupted
by Almighty Grace, if the Lord Jesus doesn't wash you from this
deadly poison that is part and parcel to you, James says, when
sin is finished, it bringeth forth death. It always does,
unless something is done about it. It's a deadly poison. I know sin, it doesn't instantly
bring pain and misery, but over time it will. There's an interesting verse
of scripture, you can mark it down if you haven't read it,
Proverbs 23, 32, talking about sin. At last it
biteth like a serpent, and it stingeth. like an atter. Be sure your sins will find you
out, is what our Lord said. There's a poison within us. Well, what's to be done about
our sin? Is there any cure for our sin?
Well, thank God there is. And most all of you know, and
you who are watching, you know what the cure is, you know what
the remedy is. The remedy is a Savior who's
lifted up to die. That's the only remedy. It may
very well have been when the Israelites were bitten with fiery
serpents and they're getting sick and they're dying, it may
have been somebody said, you need to try grandma's cure. You
know, there have been snakes throughout this wilderness journey
and when we're bitten, you know, grandma had a cure and you just
cut that thing and somebody sucks the poison out and then put this
on, you'll be all better. No, you won't be from this. Poisoned. There is no cure except the cure that God Himself
has provided. Remember, God sent the fiery
serpents. That's right. God sent the fiery
serpents. And He had Moses raise up a brazen
serpent and people only needed to look. And the word look really
there in Numbers chapter 21 is the idea of fastening your attention
on it. And now our Lord Jesus, he gives
us a true understanding of what happened then. As Moses lifted
up that serpent in the wilderness, I must be lifted up, he sang.
That's a work he had to do. And what it is, it's a work of
substitution and satisfaction. You can try every cure that men
have come up with for the poison of sin, none of them will cure. You will surely die in your sins. It doesn't really bother me.
I know I've done a few wrong things, but I can't imagine sin
is that bad. It's far worse than you can ever
imagine that it is. It will result in your eternal
death unless God, by His sovereign, almighty grace, comes to you
in saving mercy and gives you a bath in the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh, God, cleanse us. You see, God provided the cure. And our Lord Jesus, he is the
cure. So often he said to his disciples,
and this is recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He told
them, he said, the son of man must suffer many things and be
rejected of the elders and the chief priests and scribes and
be killed and after that be raised again the third day. That serpent
was made of brass, a common metal. It represented our Lord's humiliation,
his loneliness. He made himself of no reputation
and took upon himself the form of a servant. Why must Christ be the substitute
for his people? Why did he have to do this work? And I know the old writers, and
those of you who enjoy writing or reading the Puritans and the
forefathers and so forth and so on, many of them talk about
Christ's active obedience during his life, his passive obedience
being his death. Well, I disagree with them. His
death was not a passive thing. I know He was obedient to death,
even the death of the cross, but He was active and that was
a work. He was battling the forces of
evil. He was bearing our sins in His
own body on the tree. There's nothing passive about
that. He is enduring in His own soul the very wrath of God. And
the only reason believers will not die and perish due to the
wrath of God is because Christ Jesus himself was our substitute. Learn that truth. He was our
substitute. He had to do it to satisfy God's
justice and put our sins away. And our work right now is to
lift him up in preaching. That's my job. That's my work. I've got to be out of town preaching
next Lord's Day. Alan will be preaching in the
morning. Ron will be preaching at night. That's their job next
Sunday. To lift up the Savior. That's
what we do. That's really my reason for living
and existing is to lift him up. Lift him up so you can hear of
him and by faith maybe God will be pleased to give you a saving
look at him. Look and live. That's what Moses
went around to the people. Hundreds of thousands of people
went around saying, look and live, look and live. That's what
Moses said. And I bet you Aaron said, you
go that way, I'll go this way. And we'll tell people, look,
look at that brazen serpent and live. And this is what all of
God's preachers say. Look to the Lord Jesus Christ,
the smitten lamb of God who died for the poison of sin. Look and
live forever. Ain't that something? It's not
work. It's not labor. It's not turnover
and you leave. It's not climb so many stairs
in a religious establishment. It's not give so much, it's not
join this, it's not be baptized. Can you look? Can you look? And I'll tell you, Peter says,
to whom we still look. Excuse me, Paul does in Hebrews
chapter 12, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of
our faith. The first work is substitution. The second work
is resurrection. In John chapter 20 and verse
9, John chapter 20 and verse 9, and we often read this about
our Lord's resurrection and hear the disciples. They knew, but
they didn't know. They heard, but they didn't.
He told them time and time again that he'd have to He'd suffer
and bleed and die and then be raised again. Sometimes, as preachers, we get
a little... upset with people because they
don't really hear what we're saying. These men didn't hear
what the Savior was preaching. I guess we shouldn't get too
upset teaching a Sunday school class. Did everybody get that? Well, I hope they did. Well,
our Lord told his disciples time and time again, he must suffer
many things and be killed and then be raised from the dead.
And they didn't hear that part. And so here we are in John chapter
20 and verse 9. For as yet they knew not the
scripture that he must rise again from the dead. He must. You say,
well, the father raised him. That's very true. You say the
spirit raised him. That's very true. But he raised
himself too. The whole Trinity's in on this. Because the Savior said back
in John chapter 10, He said, I have the power to lay my life
down and I have the power to do what? Take it again. That's a work He had to do. You
see, His work of resurrection, that power that was in Him that
raised Him from the dead, that was a necessary work. to indicate
that the substitutionary sacrifice he offered, God accepted it.
God was pleased with it. By the way, that opening passage
that we read out of the bulletin, it said, according to the power
that worketh in us, that's the same kind of power that raised
Christ from the dead. And I'm telling you, if you're
to be saved, if you're to be regenerated, If you're to be
quickened, if you're to be born again of the Spirit, the same
kind of power that our Lord Jesus exercised in raising himself
from the dead, he gotta raise you from the dead too. We got
a real problem with dead and trespasses and sins, but not
to worry, because Christ said, I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live again. Our Lord is our life. His work of resurrection was
a must. It proved him to be the Son of
God with power. It showed his full victory over
sin. He put it away. It showed his
full power over Satan. He crushed his head. It showed
his full power over death. He conquered it. He conquered
it. That's the work he had to do.
And then number three, turn back to John chapter four, and all
of these are in John, by the way. John chapter four. John
chapter four. And here's another work that
he must do. He must be our substitute. He
must be raised from the dead. And number three, he must do
the work of conversion. John chapter four, verse four,
you know this story. The scripture says, and he must,
he must needs go through Samaria. And we naturally ask the question,
why? Well, because there was a woman
there that he needs to meet. He's gonna meet her at Jacob's
well. And he being a man, a real man, the God man for sure, but
he's thirsty, he sat down at the well. But there was another
motivation in him meeting this woman, because she's one of his
lost sheep. And not only the woman, but some
other people in the city of Samaria. So he must needs go through Samaria. Because there's some people there
that He wrote their names down in the Lamb's Book of Life before
the world began. He knows them all by name. He
knows them in and out. He knows everything they've done.
He knows every sin they've ever committed. And He knows that
they're His sheep, but they're His lost sheep. And as I wrote
in the song, out as it were on the mountain steep, wandering
around, And now's the time of love. Now's the time when he's
gonna find them. So he must needs go through Samaria. He must needs do the work of
conversion. And he's going to fetch this
woman unto himself. And he's gonna give her water
that she never dreamed of. It's the water of life. And then
she's going to go back into the city and tell several people,
I have found the Messiah. I found the one predicted and
prophesied in the Old Testament. He is the Christ and you've got
to come see him. I want you to meet him. You see,
people who meet and fall in love with and believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, they want others to meet and fall in love with
and believe the Lord Jesus Christ too. This is another work he
had to do. And let me tell you this. I don't
know whether you're interested or not. You may not be interested
in what I'm talking about this morning. Well, you won't get
interested God gets you interested. But I'll tell you this, if you're
one of his sheep, he will track you down. Now that's for sure. You may be like Zacchaeus, he
may find you up a tree. Who was it? Stan was telling
me about seeing a groundhog climb up a tree. Well, I'll tell you,
there was a sinner who climbed up a tree, and the Lord knew
exactly where he was. I've never seen a groundhog climb
a tree. I've seen them dig holes and
go in their holes, but I've never seen them climb up a tree. But
sinners climb up trees, and the Lord trees them, too. He goes
after them. He finds them. He saves them. This woman's set by Jacob's well. She was at Jacob's well, rather.
He's sitting there. She comes to draw water. He might
meet you at a well. But I'll tell you this, if you're
one of his, you may not have been interested before, but when
the master comes to you through the preaching of the gospel like
you're hearing right now, when the Lord Jesus Christ comes to
you in power, you'll get interested just like that. And you're not
gonna get over it. You may have run from him for
years, but I assure you, if you're one of his, he will overtake
you. He will overtake you. You can't
run fast enough. You can't outrun the power of
God. Because when it's time for conversion,
he must pass your way. And the fourth thing is, go to
John chapter 10. John chapter 10. The fourth work that he must
do is to draw people to himself. And this kind of goes along with
what I just talked about. John chapter 10, verse 16. Our Lord said, and of the sheep
I have, which are not of this fold, them also, here's our word
again, them also I must bring. He must because it's written
in the covenant of grace. He must because the shepherd
must find his sheep. I must bring them. I must bring
them to the Father. I must bring them to heaven.
Why must he bring these to himself? Because it was written in the
covenant of grace. Because Christ came to save his
people from their sins. He must because Isaiah 42 says
he cannot fail. He shall not fail. And then one
last verse. This is my last passage, I want
you to turn. John 3. John chapter 3. John chapter 3. Verses 30 and 31. I'll tell you
who the preacher is, it's John the Baptist. Are you interested in the last
words of people? If people are not medicated too
heavily, if they still have a degree of sanity, you know? I'm interested
in reading of the last words of people. These are the last
words of John's last recorded sermon. That's enough to get
you interested, isn't it? And in the middle of these last
words, he says this, of Christ. He must increase. Here's the
must of his exaltation. He must increase. And here's
another must. And I must decrease. Notice what he says in verse
31. He that cometh from above is above all. He that is of the earth is earthy
and speaketh of the earth. And then he repeats it again.
He that cometh from heaven is above all. This is the work that
he must do. He must ascend to heaven and
take his seat upon the right hand of God. He must increase. Remember what our Lord said.
There in John chapter 9, he said, I must work the works of him
that sent me. And one of them is he must increase. He must increase. John said he's
above all. And I'll tell you, he is so high
above all of us that he's at the right hand of God. He's so
high that He has all authority, all power over everything throughout
God's universe. He's so powerful that He is directing
all things to the end that He Himself ordained back before
He created anything. That's how high He is. That's how exalted He is. And
yet, though he is exalted so high, he condescends to save
sinners like us. Now that is amazing. That's amazing. And John finishes out his sermon. Look what he says down in verse
35. The father loveth the son and
hath given all things into his hand. He must be exalted. Now
watch this. He that believeth on the son
hath everlasting life. That's that looking that I was
talking about a while ago. He that believeth on the Son
hath right now, not you're going to have, not one of these days
you will have, but you got it right now. You got everlasting
life. However, there's another part
to that verse. And he that believeth not the
Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on Him. I say to every believer, every
unbeliever, you're in imminent danger. You're in grave peril. If you don't believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, if you don't look to Him, wrath of God's hanging
over your head. God the Spirit made me to realize
that one day I fled for refuge, for refuge for my soul to the
Lord Jesus Christ. May God enable you to run to
him right now too. Christ must do the works of him
that sent him. Look and live, look and live. Get your songbooks, we'll sing
a closing song here. And number 199, we'll sing the
first and the last stanzas. 199, Christ receiveth sinful
men, and women, and boys, and girls. Christ receiveth sinful
men. 199, let's stand. First and last
stanzas.