Welcome to the Reign of Grace
radio broadcast. My name is Bill Parker. I'm the
pastor of the 13th Street Baptist Church in Ashland, Kentucky.
This program is sponsored by the members of Eager Avenue Grace
Church in Albany, Georgia, located at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany,
Georgia. I'll be bringing you a gospel
message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ from God's holy word. And now, the message. Welcome to our program. Today
I'm going to be preaching from the book of John, chapter 13,
and the title of the message is, True Disciples of Christ. true disciples of Christ. Now
we need to understand here that the Lord Jesus Christ, our Redeemer,
He's been speaking to His disciples, He's begun His private ministry
in the upper room to His disciples, leading up just prior to His
arrest, His trial, His suffering unto death on the cross. And
he's giving them some instruction and some truth that they must
hear, truth that will be used by God in a sovereign, gracious
way to sustain them through all the things that they were about
to face in the Lord's execution and afterward. Now, we must remember
that these men, these apostles, these disciples of Christ were
just men. They were sinful men, sinners
saved by the grace of God. Paul said that we have such a
great treasure in the gospel of Christ, but we have this treasure
in earthen vessels. That's breakable clay pots. And
the best of men, the best of preachers are only sinners saved
by the grace of God. And we need to understand that.
And here he is speaking to his disciples. He's giving them this
great truth of the gospel. He'd washed their feet. He illustrated
his own cleansing power by his blood on the cross in the washing
of their feet as Christ, the humble servant. He had told them
that it was for them to follow him and to follow his example
in humility to serve one another. He said, you are all cleaned
except one. And he mentions one. who is a
false disciple, and that's Judas Iscariot. He starts off in verse
18 of John 13. He says, I speak not of you all. That is, when it concerns the
blessings of grace and humility and love that they were to display
in serving one another as his true disciples. He said, I speak
not of you all. He says, I know whom I have chosen. Christ chooses his disciples.
Now, people today They think salvation is a matter of their
own free will choice, a decision that they make. But let me tell
you something about faith now. True saving faith is the gift
of God. And faith is not a choice you
make. Faith is a persuasion that God
brings you to by the power of His grace, by His Spirit. And it says here, He said, I
know whom I have chosen. It is true that they chose Him,
and it's true that those who follow Him choose Him, but only
as He has chosen them. Salvation is a matter of free,
sovereign grace. It's of the Lord. And Christ,
in His finished work, is not a pedestal upon which men can
stand and boast of their own goodness and their own free will
choice. If left to ourselves, we would
not choose Him. You say, well, I can't understand
all that in my mind. It doesn't matter. You're to
seek Christ. You're to seek the Lord. You're
to seek salvation His way. But the fact of the matter is
salvation is by the choice of God, not the choice of men. And
he says, I know whom I've chosen, and he says, but that the scripture
may be fulfilled, he that eateth bread with me hath lifted up
his heel against me. Now he's quoting here from the
Psalms. which is a prophecy of the betrayal
of Christ through a false disciple. Now, Judas was a disciple in
name only. His profession was a false profession. The Bible teaches that Judas
was the son of perdition, he was an evil, unbelieving man,
and we don't know all that entered into Judas's mind, but we're
told in the scripture here that Satan entered into Judas and
that he betrayed the Lord. We know that it was all according
to God's sovereign will in order to bring Christ to the cross. And we know that God overruled
even Judas' evil to bring good out of that, because it was by
that way that Christ was arrested, went to the cross, and that's
how he redeemed his people. That's a principle in Scripture
from the book of Genesis, how God overrules evil. to accomplish
his good. God is not the author of evil.
God is not the creator of evil. Evil is not even a created thing.
But God is sovereign, and he overrules evil. And listen to
me now. If God does not overrule evil to accomplish his purpose
and his good, then there's no hope for any of us. And you might
as well never quote again Romans 8, 28, which says, work together
for good to them that love God, who are called according to His
purpose. You see, the only way that can
take place is by a sovereign God who overrules all things
and reigns over and disposes over all things for His glory
and the good of His people. Joseph, you remember the story
of Joseph, when his brothers in a wicked way captured him
and sought to slay him, but changed their minds and then sold him
into bondage. And when Joseph confronted them
years and years later, he told them this, he says, you meant
it for evil. You meant it for evil and you're
totally responsible and accountable for what you meant to do. But
he said God meant it for good to save much people. And that's
the way it is with the death of Christ. Judas was totally
accountable and responsible for what he did. But God meant it
for good to save much people alive, to save his people from
their sins through Christ. Now, in verse 19, he says, Now,
I tell you before it come, that when it is come to pass, you
may believe that I am. Now, in your King James Version,
it says, I am he, the he's in italics. This is another great
I am statement of Christ. He says, I'm telling you these
things before so that when they come to pass, you'll understand
even further that Christ is God. He is the great I am. He is the
sovereign God of this universe, the creator, the redeemer, the
sustainer of his people. And he says in verse 20, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send receiveth
me. and he that receiveth me receiveth
him that sent me." Christ sends forth his disciples, his witnesses,
his ambassadors to preach the message of the kingdom, the message
of salvation by grace, the message of redemption through the cross
of Christ, the message of justification before God based on his blood
and righteousness. The gospel is a command for sinners
to seek salvation God's way in Christ. And he says here, in
this passage here, he says, if I send them out and you receive
them, he says, that's the same as receiving me. They are ambassadors
of Christ. So that when a preacher of the
gospel, a preacher of Christ goes out and preaches the message
of grace, those who reject that message and that preacher are
in essence rejecting Christ himself. You see, this is the issue. We
who preach the gospel from the Word of God, not just everybody
who stands up and claims to be a preacher and reads their Bible,
but all who stand and preach the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ, salvation by His finished work alone, those
who receive them in their message receive Christ. Those who reject
them in their message reject Christ. And that's the problem
with Judas. He was rejecting the Lord of
Glory and His truth. Verse 21 says, "...when Jesus
had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and
said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray
me." Now, Christ in His humanity, you have to understand, the Lord
of Glory is God and man in one person. And in his humanity,
he was subject to all the infirmities of the flesh without sin. He grew tired and weary. He was
hungry. He wept. He sorrowed. He suffered
under the burden of the weight of the sins of his people charged
to his account. And those were all infirmities
of the flesh. Now, he was not a sinful man.
He was a sinless man. He's God-man. God and man in
one person. But as to the weaknesses that
the flesh has to experience in this life, our Lord experienced
them. And here he sorrowed. Here he
was thinking about, I believe, his impending sufferings that
he would go through. And he said, one of you is going
to betray me. And in the flesh, in his humanity,
that was so hurtful and sorrowful to him. Yet as God-man, he endured
unto the sufferings of the cross." And it says in verse 22, then,
the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. They
didn't know who he was talking about. They had no indication
up to this point that it was Judas who would be the one to
betray him. And it says, now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom
one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. Most commentators believe
that that's John speaking of himself. He wouldn't name himself,
but that's who he's referring to, and I agree with that. Then
Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him that he should ask who
it should be of whom he spake. Peter wanted to know, who is
this that's going to betray you? And Christ said in verse 25,
He then lying on Jesus' breast, saith unto him, Lord, who is
it? And Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop,
or a morsel, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the
sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. And after the
sop, Satan entered into him, Satan entered into Judas, because
you see, Satan promotes unbelief. That's how Judas, a false disciple,
he's not a true disciple of Christ. And it says, Satan entered into
him and then said to Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. Whatever you're going to do,
go do it quickly. Now it says in verse 28, Now no man at the
table knew for what intent he spake this unto him. They didn't
know really what was going on as far as his speaking to Judas.
In other words, at this time they didn't know that it was
Judas. For some of them thought because
Judas had the bag, that he was sort of like the treasurer of
the disciples and held the bag of money, that Jesus said unto
him, buy those things that we have need of against the feast,
or that he should give something to the poor. He then, having
received the sop, went immediately out, and it was night." So now
there we see a false disciple, a false disciple. My friend,
in the church, in the visible church here on earth, All through
the ages of this church age, there have always been wheat
and tares. The wheat refers to the true
disciples of Christ. The tares refer to the weeds
that are the false disciples. How do you know the difference?
Who is a true disciple of Christ? How do we know that we don't
have the spirit of Judas, the spirit of Satan? You see, this
is what Judas did. He actually took side with Satan
against Christ. He was energized and motivated
by Satan. And so he was a false disciple.
Well, you know the Lord back in John chapter 8, in verse 32,
he talked about the truth shall make you free. And he said this,
he said, he said, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples
indeed. Now the continuing in his word
there is not a work that men do or a condition that men meet
in order to become his disciples. The continuing in the word there
is an evidence that they are true disciples. They know and
believe the truth of Christ and Him crucified, and they continue,
persevere. And the only way that we as sinners
can persevere in the truth is by the preserving power and grace
of God. I hear these people talking about
salvation as if it's something you can have and then lose. You can gain it because of your
faith, and you can lose it because of your sin. My friend, that
is not salvation. That is not the gospel. that
is not grace, that is opposed to the Word of God. First of
all, if salvation could be lost by any of us, it would be lost
because we're still sinners. Only two types of people in this
world, sinners lost in their sins and sinners saved by the
grace of God. If God saves you by His grace,
based on the shed blood and imputed righteousness of Christ, salvation
cannot be lost. He saved you. He will keep you. He will bring you to glory. Christ
said that in John chapter 6. He said, Of all that the Father
giveth me, I should lose nothing. He said, No one can pluck them
out of my hand. I and my Father are one. It's
impossible to lose salvation if God saves you. So if you continue
in the Word and are shown to be a true disciple of Christ,
It's not owing to your goodness or that you're better than other
people or to your will or your power. It's a testimony to the
grace of God who saved us and keeps us. The Bible says Christ
is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him.
You're not able, I'm not able, but Christ is. Over in the book
of John chapter 2, it speaks of those who were at one time
of us, with us, and who went out from us, in 1 John 2, 18
and 19. And John says there, or rather
the Holy Spirit through the Apostle John says there, they went out
from us, for had they been of us, if they had been true disciples
of Christ, They would no doubt have remained with us, but they
went out from us, that it may be made manifest that they were
not all of us." That's what happened to Judas here. The only way the
disciples, the true disciples, knew that Judas was a false disciple
is that Judas went out from them. But now look at verse 31. It
says, Therefore when he was gone out, when Judas went out, Jesus
said, Now is the Son of Man glorified. and God is glorified in him."
Now this is exactly what I was talking about before, how God
overrules evil to accomplish his purpose and his good, the
good of his people. Judas going out to betray Christ. Christ himself said, now is the
Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. What does
he mean? Well, he's saying now the wheels
are set in motion. The time has come. You remember
back in verse 1, he said, his hour has come. It's time for
him to go to the cross. Before this, it wasn't time.
But now it's time. And you see, this is just a few
hours before he goes into the Garden of Gethsemane and prays
that prayer and agonizes over the impending suffering that
he would have to go through in his humanity to pay for the sins
of his sheep. And he says, now, when Judas
went out and set those wheels in motion now, and Judas, for
30 pieces of silver, was going to bring the Roman army to arrest
the Lord of Glory and take Him and try Him under trumped-up
charges, and then condemn Him and bring Him to the cross to
die. The hour of His glory now is the Son of man glorified refers
to the hour of His completing and finishing His redemptive
work on the cross. He's going to be glorified in
his suffering, glorified in his death, glorified in his burial,
glorified in his resurrection, because in all of that, you know
what he's going to do? He's going to make an end of
sin. He's going to pay the debt for all his sheep, their sin
debt. Everything that they owe to God's
law and justice is going to be paid. He's going to bring in
an everlasting righteousness, a perfect righteousness that
will stand the test of God's holy law and justice and enable
God to be just and justify the ungodly. And it says, and God
is glorified in him. In the suffering unto death of
Christ, his people would be saved and God, the Godhead, would be
glorified. The Father, the Son, and the
Holy Spirit would be manifested and glorified and honored in
all that the Son would do to save his people from their sins.
You see that? In him dwelleth all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, and you are complete in him. So in the
salvation of a sinner, God is glorified in every way, in every
attribute of his character. Now, he says, And in verse 32
he says, "...if God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify
him in himself, and shall straightway, or immediately, glorify him."
Now what he's talking about is this. If the Godhead, the Father,
the Son, the glory of the Father, the glory of the Son, and the
glory of the Holy Spirit, are all manifested and identified,
distinguished and honored in the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ on the cross to save His people from their sins.
If that takes place, then the Godhead will glorify Him. Now,
how would God glorify Him in the cross? Well, do you remember
it? You see, when Christ went to
the cross, He suffered unto death. And on the cross, on all that
experience, the Father upheld Him with His love. And on that
cross, the Spirit upheld Him, filled Him without measure, and
the glory of His own deity as the Son of God was there to sustain
Him. And then on the cross, when He
finished the work that He was given to do, When he made an
end of sin and finished the transgression, when he established righteousness
and he said, it is finished, and he died, you remember what
happened? The sky was darkened and the
veil in the temple, you remember in the temple, that veil that
separated the holy place from the holiest of all, that veil
was split in two, torn in two from top to bottom. And that
was a testimony of the Father and the Spirit. to the glory
of the Son and the glory of the Godhead." That means he finished
his work. And also, there were many who
were resurrected, who were literally raised from the dead in Jerusalem. Many of God's people who had
died were raised from the dead, just like Lazarus, when Christ
gave up the ghost. That was the Godhead honoring
the Son. And then he was taken down from
the cross and buried in a tomb or placed in a tomb in three
days' time. And then ultimately the most
telling evidence of the finished work of Christ came forth. Christ
was resurrected from the dead. He arose. And that was a testimony
of the Father and the Spirit that the Son had finished the
work and he was glorified. He also was glorified later on
when he ascended unto the Father. and took his place at the right
hand of the Father and sat down to make intercession for his
people. He says, look at verse 33 of
John 13. It says, Little children, yet
a little while I am with you. You shall seek me, and as I said
unto the Jews, whether I go you cannot come. So now I say to
you. The work of Christ to redeem
and justify his people on the cross, His obedience unto death,
His burial, His resurrection, His ascension into glory. This
was a work He had to do by Himself. He could have no help from sinful
men. The aid of men would do no good
here. This was a work He did by Himself. The Bible says that
over and over again in the book of Hebrews and in other passages.
that by his one sacrifice, he by himself, as the one mediator
between God and sinners, you see, took care of the whole problem
of sin for his people. He alone, he walked the winepress
alone. Nobody else could redeem sinners,
only Christ. And so it says in verse 34, a
new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another, As
I have loved you, that you also love one another," and then he
says in verse 35, "...by this shall all men know that you are
my disciples, if you have love one to another." Now there he
describes a true disciple of Christ. First of all, the foundation
is laid in His work, His finished work. That's the ground of our
discipleship. That's the ground of our salvation.
You see, we do not make ourselves to be disciples. Christ makes
disciples. And He made His disciples, you
see, when He went to the cross and finished the work and redeemed
them from their sins and justified them by His righteousness. God
chose them, Christ redeemed them, and the Holy Spirit comes in
time and He calls them in the new birth. He sheds abroad into
their hearts the love of God, which is in Christ. And this
is a love that we do not have by nature. This love here is
a love that is the gift of God, just like faith is the gift of
God. This love that he's talking about, it's a specific love.
It's not just a general love of everybody. It's a love that
binds the disciples to Christ and together. It's a divine love. It's not based on emotion. It's
not in us by nature. The Bible says herein is love,
not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his Son
to be the propitiation for our sins. It's a love that loves
the glory of God first and foremost. It's a love that does not desire
to exalt self, but desires to exalt Christ. It's a love for
his truth. You see, Judas didn't love the
truth. He loved Satan's lie. But Christ's disciples love his
truth, everything about him, who he is, what he did, why he
did it, where he is now. It's a love that promotes the
good of the brethren. It's a love that promotes the
salvation of sinners. Therefore, it is a love that
must tell the truth and must stand by the truth, for it is
by the truth that sinners are saved." Christ said, I am the
way, I am the truth, I am the life. No man cometh unto the
Father but by me. It's a love that binds his disciples
together with him and causes them to take sides with each
other against the world. You see, this love does not side
with Satan and the world against the church, against Christ. This
love is first and foremost concerned with the honor of the Son and
the good of the church. And he says, by this shall all
men know that you're my disciples. Now that doesn't mean that the
world will look at you and your love and determine that you're
of God. But it will look at you and your
love and determine that you're a follower of Jesus, a follower
of Christ, whom the world hates. whom the world does not recognize. Therefore, as John said in 1
John chapter 3, this is a love that loves Christ and loves those
whom the world hates. You see that? It's a distinctive
love, love of the truth, not a natural love, not a self love,
and not a selfish love. It's love which is the gift of
God, which comes by His Spirit as we see the glory of God revealed
in the face of Jesus Christ. And my friend, if you have this
love at all, to any degree, you must thank God for it. If you
didn't have it in you, He gave it to you. Love the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Bible says, if any man loves
not the Lord Jesus Christ, he is none of His. And then as our
Lord said here in John chapter 13, by this shall all men know
that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another,
true disciples of Christ. I hope you've enjoyed this message.
If you'd like to get a copy of it, listen to the announcer as
he gives you the details. The title of this message is
True Disciples of Christ. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We're glad you could join us
for today's message. If you would like to receive
a copy of this message or if you would like more information
about Eager Avenue Grace Church, remember we are located at 1102
Eager Drive in Albany, Georgia. You can call us at 229-432-6969. or visit our Reign of Grace website
at www.rofgrace.com. Thank you, and may the Lord be
with you.