Alright, let's turn to the second
letter of John. Second John. There are a lot of good tiny
little morsels in this letter that gives me the opportunity
to teach some things Both exegetically, that means out of the text, and
contextually, that means within the text, in the whole of the
text, and then also topically, as it relates to the text. For those of you who know how
I love exposition going through the verses one by one, you know
that dealing with doctrinal things that are not necessarily taught
in that context are troublesome. Why? Because I am a scatterbrained
mess. That's why. I do not do well
with no margins and no fences. I just like to run, and we might
not be going anywhere in any direction of any purpose. We're
just running like Forrest Gump. We're just running. We're not
going anywhere. By the Lord's mercy, though,
as we look at this text, there are several things, just like
on Wednesday night this week, we're going to be dealing with
a little bit of things that sometimes we just overlook. We just overlook.
And John's first letter is a little bit more robust. It's got more
words, right? He's got more stuff, and we can look and see that
he's explained some things, he's taught some things directly,
like this is the point of love, God is love, he loved us first,
so he's teaching some things. Second John, there's not a whole
lot of teaching there, there's really not. There's encouragement,
there's recapitulation, reminder, there is a lot of rejoicing,
and there's a little bit of an admonition there. But most of
all, the occasion of this letter requires us to have some prior
understanding. So while it's not necessarily
the way you do every type of preaching, it's the way that
this letter requires us to do it because we need to know what
he expects his readers to have already known. You might think,
well, who are you to decide what we should and should not know?
Well, that's the cool thing about writing. The author of the letter
already wrote what he wanted them to see and to understand
and be reminded of. And so if he doesn't describe
it there in that writing, then we must figure out what it is
that he's trying to say. And if we don't know, then we
need to use the context of the letter to know. And then when
we can't find it in the context of this letter, knowing that
he's repeating himself thoroughly as a way of reminder because
of his first letter, we can just go there. And we can look at
John's gospel. We can look at John's writing.
We can look at John's writing just like we do with Paul's.
When we see Paul use a phrase just sort of like in passing,
he turns it over like a, you know, like a lick on a horn or
whatever. And you go, I've heard that before. You know, when I
listen to musicians, especially saxophonists, historically, I
don't know about these contemporary people, but I am so in tune,
pun intended, with certain types of phrasing and breathing and
things of that nature. When I hear a specific saxophone
playing, I can tell you who it is, if I'm familiar with that
player. And when I hear, you know, non-professionals
like myself and others who just play, I know who they listen
to. I know who they listen to. Because I can hear the phrasing.
I can hear the breathing. I can hear the turns. I can tell
how they're moving into a certain transition or a certain chordal
progression. I go, I know who they listen
to. I can tell when people don't listen to anybody. It's very
unique. And they usually sound like their high school band teacher.
You know? They adopt that. The same thing
with the timbre of voices. You can hear when you sing If
you have a wide view or a wide interest in certain types of
music and you're not taught to sing, you mimic the sound that
you hear in your voice and your ears with your voice and you
tune inside your inner ear to sound like what you hear with
your outer ear. And so some people, you hear
them sing, you go, you listen to this person, don't you? Oh
yeah, how do you know? I can hear it, how you pronounce the
words. You don't say that when you're talking, but when you're
singing, you pronounce it that way. I know who you're listening
to. The same is true with the scripture. The same is true with
the literature. If you were to, I mean, most of us, if we were
to listen to just a few phrases, we could tell if it, if we're
familiar with Robert Frost, we could tell it was Frost. If we
were to listen to a few sentences of prose or some descriptive
prose from Dickinson, for those of us who are familiar with her,
we would be able to say, oh, yeah, that's Emily. I'm familiar
with that. Just like when we are familiar
with the Word of God and when we hear Paul writing, we know
Paul is writing. When we hear people quote Paul,
we say, hey, that's very Pauline. When preachers say certain things,
we go, that sounds like an apostle, because that's who we're reading.
We're not wise. People always say, say that again.
Don't ever ask me that. You might be lucky if I, like
in the middle of a conversation, if I'm just talking, but if we're
connecting, if we're collaborating, don't ask me to repeat myself
because I probably don't know exactly how I said what I just
said. And what I said is not wise or
prolific or incredible or... I'm just repeating what God's
apostles have said. It's not just new wisdom. There's
no such thing as new wisdom. There's no such thing as new
ideas concerning the gospel. I mean, Solomon even says that,
right? There's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing new.
There's no new idea. There's no new desire. There's
no new nothing. There are new objects. There are new variations
of idolatry. There are new variants of thinking,
if you will. In other words, how we get there.
In other words, people are always creating uniquely designed and
decorative doorways to get to the same old trash. It's like saying, hey, I want
to renovate my house. And they just put you a new doorway in the middle
of it. Well, it's a brand new house. You walk into the same
old room. I love this place. because you're just so accustomed to
not paying attention, we just, we look at the gate, we look
at the way, we look at the manner in which we take stuff in and
we think, wow, this is, I'm pretty creative. I remember first coming
to start to, I mean, I used to, and I still do this, I write
down things. When I read stuff, and I've been
reading a lot of things related to epidemiology lately, so I
don't understand what the word is, so I write it down, and I
look at the context, and I try to figure it out, and I create
a vocabulary. And I remember creating vocabulary
in my early days of ministry as I began to unfold the discussion,
or if you will, the theological philosophy of what we would call
the doctrines of grace, or historically, Calvinistic doctrine. And I remember
coming to terms or creating certain terms and coming to places where
I was writing down, I like this. I literally thought in 2004 that
I created the phrase particular redemption. I'm like, that's
the best way to say this. You know, we can read John, we
can read Paul, we can quote these things. Well, what does it mean?
You know what, this is what it means. Another one, definite
atonement. And you start using these phrases
and you think you're just, wow, I'm seeing this stuff. I'm making
a new way of describing the same old gospel. Hot dog, I'm gonna
write a book. And then you realize there's
a thousand already written. And then you realize you don't
need to write a book because you've got a Bible. And that's the problem with our
world today. We want a new door to get to where we need to be.
And sometimes a preacher is the door through which you think
you can see Christ, and that's wrong. Sometimes a set of theological
propositions is something that you think you can be born again
through these things, but that's wrong. You gotta go straight
to the door. Who is the door? Jesus Christ is the door. So
as long as you are meddling in the mindset that your philosophical
assumptions and apprehensions and endorsements of certain things
are your hope, you are lost in your shoes. You have not been
born of God. If you think the wisdom that
flows out of your philosophical work from the gospel is your
assurance, you are lost in your shoes or in your bare feet if
you don't have shoes on. Because when God shows you the
truth, he shows you his son. And when preachers preach the
truth and they're preaching the truth, they preach the son. They
preach who He is, they preach the efficacy of His work, they
preach the conditions met by Him alone, and they preach the
promises of God through Jesus Christ alone, period, for the
elect, alone, for all of eternity. These are not gospel maturities. These are not things that we
can grow into knowing. These are the realities of saving
faith that is granted to us to see and, more importantly, rest
in the truth of Christ. who is the eternal life. See,
that sounds like John, doesn't it? Because that's how John says
it. As we translate John's words
into English, of course. John didn't speak in English.
He didn't write in English. He had no idea about English. He
wrote in Greek. And so this morning, when we
look, and we looked at verse three last week, and we'll look
at verse three again this week. You think, how many weeks can we
preach on that? I don't know, some of you have been around. You know some
of these introductions to these letters can take months if we're
careful with them. Now I don't need to sit here
and, I almost made a joke. Will be, I don't need to, look
at the verse there. It says, grace, mercy, and peace will be with
us from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father's Son
in truth and love. And I almost made a joke, I said
I don't need to deal with the verb will be, but actually it's a very
important expression. And I talked about it last week,
but that's not even, I don't need to deal with the word in,
but actually in is a very important preposition. It's the manner, it's the efficacy,
it's the purposes, it's showing us a lot of things. Some of you
say, well, we don't need to deal with the
word we, but we is a plural pronoun, right? It defines an audience. Paul considers himself part of
this church. I mean, John does. Timothy, it
doesn't matter. Zacchaeus. Don't listen to who
I say, just stick to the text. My brain is running off in left
field and the ball is this way. So we want to deal with it. We
don't need to deal with conjunctions, and we don't need to be grammaticians
and systematicians and syntactical experts. But beloved, it does
help to have a little understanding of how language works. It does
help to grow ourself, and if we can't read, if we can't read,
we can listen. I'm gonna tell you, there's some
people, believe it or not, who don't read well. That's okay,
listen. And if you live with someone who doesn't read well,
read them the Bible, please. That includes children. The greatest
time of worship that we can ever have in my house is when I sit
at the table and I listen to my wife read the Bible. I think in heaven, I'm gonna
hear her voice. You see what I mean? That's how I want to receive
it. I'd rather hear her, and she's driving up now, oops, I'd
rather hear her read me scripture than say anything
else. Because I can absorb it when I hear it a lot quicker
than when I read it. Why? Because there's no boundaries
there. There's a lot of white space
on 2 John. You know what that means? James'
brain is working. This is my place. This is where
I put my notes. But I bring it back to the point
that I'm trying to make is this. The knowledge of Christ is not
an endeavor of the human will. The knowledge of Christ is not
the endeavor of human wisdom. The knowledge of salvation and
faith is a divine work of God and a divine gift of God. And
the Bible alone in its context, in the New Testament, in the
writing of the apostles sufficiently in themselves. John's writing
is sufficient without anything else. Paul's writing is sufficient
without anything else to teach us what they're trying to teach
us. Knowing Christ. If we went to 1 Corinthians,
if we looked at that, text and we saw about wisdom and things
of that nature. And I'm going to be in 1 Corinthians
a little bit today, but if we look, when you think about wisdom,
you should be thinking several things should pop into your head.
First, what is wisdom? You know, I've often said, you
know, knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, not a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing not to put
in a fruit salad. And that's really silly, but I, you know,
I don't know, fruit salad with a tomato might taste good, depends
on the tomato. There's a billion different varieties. See, now
we're talking about tomatoes. You never thought that. But wisdom
is knowing something. Wisdom is settling to something. Wisdom always relates to not
just facts that we know, but to the impression that it places
upon us through which we can work, live, and be. Ontologically,
we can exist. That means our being in wisdom. Hey, I got $1,400. What are we
gonna do with that? Wisdom knows what to do with
that. The knowledge of the money is there. You see, I got a STEMI. All right, let's go spend it. That's okay. Wisdom will say
how it's spent. You see what I'm saying? But there's wisdom in knowing
Christ. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, and you don't have
to turn there yet, When Paul writes to the Corinthians, because
we're teaching out of 2 John 3 this morning, but we're going
to explain it by going to other places in the Bible. And this
is dangerous for you. It's dangerous for you because
you have to take my word for it to some degree. But you better check me. You
better test me that what I say Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians
or what David says and said in Psalm 49, which is where we'll
be, in its context has what I'm saying. It's the example that
some people see in John 3 or some people see in Philippians
4. You know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens
me. or people who would pray the
Lord's Prayer as a recitation. What's the context of the Lord's
Prayer? Jesus teaching them the manner
in which they should pray. In and of itself it is not a
prayer to be copied and recited except that you are praying literally
as you say the words what you're saying. You see the difference?
It's not about rote resuscitation. It's not about the practice of
just saying the same words over and over. It's about the nature
of what Jesus says a prayer should have, the composition of true
prayer. Paul starts out his letter to
the Corinthians. As we know, 1 Corinthians, Paul called by
the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus and our brother,
Sosthenes. So Sosthenes is with Paul and
Paul's writing the letter and they're collaborating and talking
just like when Paul was with Timothy and many times he posed
Timothy in there just like Paul when he was with Barnabas and
he would talk about Barnabas and Epaphroditus and a lot of
different places and a lot of different people, a lot of different
things, a lot of different names are in these letters. They are
personal. These are not academic. These are not letters to be held
up as some type of seminarian type mindset. These are personal
letters dealing with doctrinal purity and dealing with the wisdom
that comes with understanding who Christ is and what He did.
Therefore, I need you to live in a certain way. I need you
to think in a certain way. I need you to speak in a certain way.
Therefore, I need you to understand things. This is the impartation
of wisdom by Christ. and Christ indeed is our wisdom. That's what he says there. Paul talks about a lot of stuff,
about sanctification, about the purity of what God has done.
So he addresses people in his letters and he addresses the
saints. John has addressed the saints
in this letter. He's not talking to lost people. He says it very
clearly, those who are the elect. the bride of Christ, the lady
of Christ, the elect, and those who are with her, those who comprise
her, those who are her, the body, the members, the sheep of the
body. And I love in truth, we dealt with that last week, and
not only I, but also all who know the truth. So we as the
body of Christ are all together because of the truth that abides
in us and will be with us forever. This is not a prayer, this is
a promise. It is a certainty. Christ is
with us and we talked about this is review. Grace, mercy and peace
will be with us. It is a promise. This very teaching
establishes something that would make God a liar if it were not
so. So when John writes these words,
when Paul writes his words, when Peter writes his words, and James
writes his words, and all the other writings that we have,
they're making God to be a liar if they say that which is incorrect.
And say, thus saith the Lord. So here, we need to understand
what it means to know Christ. what it means to have wisdom,
what it means to understand the grace and mercy and the peace
of the Lord Jesus Christ as Christ himself. You see, maybe, this
is week three, but in the first two weeks, maybe some of us have
come to the conclusion that we've really been, we've really taken
Jesus and we've put him into parts. We've taken Jesus and
we've sort of swabbed his head and swabbed his fingernails and
we've put him in petri dishes and watched him grow, and we're
looking at the results of what Christ has done rather than Christ
himself. We've piecemealed God the Son into some type of figure. We've established in our own
eyes a different Christ altogether than the one revealed in Scripture.
We've differentiated the idea of the truth and Jesus. Let me ask you this, what door
have you come to for your eternal life? What gate have you entered
in for your salvation? What wisdom do you stand before
the Father and say, I got it, for your redemption? If the answer isn't Jesus, then
the answer is wrong. So if the answer is Jesus, then
the question is, who is this Jesus? He is the one who is grace,
mercy, and peace. He is the one who gives grace,
mercy, and peace. He is the one who effectuates
grace, mercy, and peace. He is the one who personifies
grace, mercy, and peace. He is the peace of God. He is
the mercy seat. He is the grace of God. He is
the glory of God. He is all these things, but John
wants to remind his readers of the same occasion that he wrote
his first letter. He wants to remind them very
clearly that he is the man come from God, God the Son eternal. The one that came from the Father,
sent by the Father. And so see, All of this that
I've said thus far this morning should have you in a state of
mind of just wondering where this dragonfly is going to land.
Atop what piece of grass is this thing going to lie? Or are we
just gonna run him over and he's gonna get stuck in the radiator?
What is happening here? For our non-Southern friends
that are thinking, what? We'll send a picture later. Ultimately, it's this. Jesus
says, I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody I know denies
that. But yet, by their understanding
of who Christ is, they deny that. People say, well, the Trinity,
the very term Trinity, yeah, that's like the very term baloney. It's like the very term hypochondriac. I don't know why that popped
into my head. The very term saxophone. These
things, I mean, you know, Adam wasn't going around, hey, I wonder
what a saxophone is. I've got the word in my head. Are you
a hypochondriac? No, I'm a sinner. You know. We don't have these. So what?
We have to define things. We have to come up with terms
in our own vernacular. We have to know that in our language,
when I say, let's go eat dinner, what do you think I mean? Some
of you think it's noon, some of you think it's seven, or six,
or 11. But if I say breakfast, that's
usually before 10.30. Why? Because that's when McDonald's
stops serving biscuits. I can't eat breakfast after 10.30,
that's just odd. But yet, 24 hours, huddle house,
wobble house, Reese's spoons. Did I bet pancakes at three o'clock
in the morning before? And lots of them. Yeah. Trinity is not something that's taught
in the Bible by term. Trinity is the revealed God of
the Bible. I want you to hear that. I want
you to hear that because there are some things that we need
to realize that the disciples, that the apostles were working,
dealing with. And one of the things that John
is dealing with in his writings, in these three letters specifically,
is that people were saying Jesus was not resurrected in the flesh.
Some people were saying Jesus had not come in the flesh. And then others were saying that,
wow, if He were in the flesh, He'd be sinful. And then contemporary so-called
theologians, so-called shepherds of the church, of the evangelical
cult that we have today in our world would say, it don't matter.
It's just Jesus. So when I say it is all Christ,
it is all Jesus, I'm not saying it's just Jesus. Just believe
Jesus. You believe Jesus? Yeah, I believe
Jesus. Who is he? And this is one of the reasons
that John writes this little teeny tiny note. He's already
expanded on that. He is light. He is righteousness.
He is the holiness of God. He is God in and of Himself.
And we're going to go through some of those things today. But
one thing that John makes clear is that the grace and the mercy
and the peace that is with us and will always be with us comes
from God the Father. Distinctly. And comes from Jesus
who is the Christ, the Holy Anointed One from God, who is the Father's
Son literally in truth and in love. Now let me take those last
two things, that's next week's sermon, but let me take those
last two things and glue them together for you real quick.
If Jesus Christ is not, as we would call it in our systematized
way, the second person of God, If He is not eternally the Son
and if He is not incarnate and He is not right now the glorified
God-man, then you and I are all fools. And we should find something
else to do on the Lord's day and stop wasting time playing
with myths. Some people don't say that, and
I'm not here to indict people when people reject the truth
of who Christ is and some people are deceived. Listen, it's sneaky.
It's sneaky the way folks come in and try to say, well, maybe
Jesus is the Father. Maybe Jesus becomes the Spirit.
There's all sorts of nonsense out there. And they'll say, well, it's not
important. Well, it's not important. Why are you teaching it? If you really don't care how
much salt I put in my grits, then why are you standing there
with the salt shaker over the pot waiting for me to turn and
go, do you put salt on my grits? No. Why do you care? Because it's
important to those who are deceived. And the perpetuity of deception
is the Lord's work in deceiving the nations and God's going to
have his way and purpose in deception and he's going to continue to
continue to bring people who Cognitively say, hey, I'm in
the gospel. And then all of a sudden, they
start stepping sideways. You ever fallen? You ever stepped
in a hole walking? I have. When Katie was eight
months old, I'm out there in a suit with a video camera. We're
filming some area of land we're about to clear and put a building
on. And I'm holding her in my left
hand and the video camera in my right hand. And I step in
a pothole up to my knee in the grass. And I'm like, mm, $1,000
camera, mm, child, what do I do? You see? So I decide, save them
both. And I hurt myself really badly. And I twisted my ankle, I twisted
my knee, twisted my hip, twisted my spine, twisted my shoulder
blade, and my nose bone, and my head. I twisted it all up,
but I landed straight back on my back, both child. And camera
intact. And it was all on video. I should
have saved that. That was 1998. That would have been hilarious.
I'd have made some money on that one. What's the point? I wasn't
in the ditch. I wasn't digging ditches. I wasn't
leading off the path. But I stepped in a hole at that
moment and it caught me off guard. Sometimes Christians step in
theological holes. And the brothers and sisters
go, brother, you all twisted up with a camera in your hand.
Let me get that baby out your way so you can climb out. I mean, it
was so amazing whatever I did and hurting myself that everybody
stood there with their mouth agape. Wow, do it again. I mean,
do it again. I'm not doing that again. But there's a difference in when
we step in holes as believers versus those who are in the ditch
already and walking in the ditch saying they're on the road with
us. You get the point? So you can come along and listen
to a caulk and listen to a conversation. You know, I don't know that Jesus
is really in the flesh. Maybe, philosophically, it does make
sense. And then we correct each other by what? By the word of
God. And you go, yeah, that's silly.
And we move right back up on the road. I'm not talking about
people who step in potholes every now and then. I'm talking about
people who have a consistent, lifelong teaching of error, and
they double down on it every single time they're confronted
with it. And some of you know some people like that. Some of
you are in some circles that we have in our peripheral ministry
in that context, and you think, wow, so-and-so, pastor so-and-so
is being a little harsh with this guy. Well, we don't know
the 15 years that they've been fighting with this man to come
clean about the undercurrent of his heresy. So I'd rather
him not come and sit like a brother or sister amongst the assembly
when I know for a fact he's teaching error. Uncorrectable. In John 17 3, Jesus is praying
this high priestly prayer and he says, this is eternal life.
Everybody knows this verse. that they know you the one true
God and that they know the Son whom you have sent." So right
there we see Jesus say that eternal life is the knowledge of God
which is inclusive of what? The knowledge of the Son who
was sent in the flesh by the Father to do the will of the
Father and the redemption of the elect. It's a very, very
important phrase. Well, you get all that. That's
a lot. The whole book of John tells us all that. The study
of Christ, Christology, the Christological teaching, the teaching of who
Jesus is and the doctrine, the teaching and doctrine of Christ
being God is so prominent in John's Gospel that you can't
get away from it. And not only that, but it is
so prominent to see that Jesus is distinctly human and a distinct
person from the Father and from the Spirit in John's Gospel that
you can't get away from that. So knowing Christ is eternal
life. Knowing is not of man's doing. Knowing is of the Lord. Now let's
turn out of 2 John for 30 minutes and let's go back to 1 Corinthians
and let's go to chapter 2 and I want to read some stuff there. Remember how I like to phrase
this, is that saving faith is resting in the knowledge of the
divine work of God and redemption through Jesus Christ. Saving
faith is resting faith. We are settled. We are at peace. And the knowledge of God, the
knowledge of Jesus Christ the Son is a work of the Spirit.
John 3, we know that. Let's just start chapter chapter
2 verse 1 and I when I came to you brothers Did not come proclaiming
to you the testimony of God with listen lofty speech or wisdom
for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ
and him crucified and I was with you how in weakness and what
else and in fear and in much trembling and And my speech and
my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. Now there have been some ignorant
people who have told me before, man, you're just so eloquent when
you teach. No, I can pronounce words 90% of the time. That's all it is. And sometimes I think, wow, is
it the power of God? I want to be like Paul. I want
to be in a position where that I am not bringing a message in
my wisdom with plausible speech, but in Christ, in trembling,
in weakness. Look, verse 4 of 1 Corinthians
2. And my speech and wisdom and my message were not of implausible
words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power in
order that, so that, verse 5, your faith might not rest in
the wisdom of men. That's what I've been talking
about for the last 25 minutes. that your faith would rest in
the power of God. Faith that is real rests. Faith that is false rests. The
question is in what does your faith rest? In the power of God
and the salvation through Jesus Christ for his people or in anything
else that sounds good, logical, wise, fitting, palatable, You might think, well, what's
the point of all this? Your joy is the point of all this. Your
redemption is the point of all this. Your life is the point
of all of this. The power of God. Verse 6 is
where I want to be right now. Yet among the mature, we do impart
wisdom. We do talk about things. We do
inquire. We do invest. We do teach. We do grow to understand
and to live. But even then, he says, although
it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age.
Why? They are who are doomed to pass
away. You understand that no part of
salvation will pass away. No purpose. No nothing. The shadows
that point to Christ have passed away. The true is here. We see
it. We have it. The record of the
testimony of God concerning His Son is written and saved. and preserved for us and by the
Spirit of God alone we see it. It is not about how smart we
are or how eloquent we are or how much we've studied or how
much we know. It is about God teaching us very
clearly with childlike faith the necessity and the efficacy
and the power of the work of Christ. because the wisdom of
this age are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret. Now see, this is so funny, because
some people, oh, I've got a secret. God told me. God didn't tell
you anything that he didn't tell me in his word. And if it's not
in the word, contextually, you lie. You say lies about my father. We impart a secret and hidden
wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory,
None of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they
had, they would have not crucified the Lord of Glory. Now that phrase
right there, I'm going to emphasize a lot today. The Lord of Glory. But as it is written, What no
eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him. These things God
has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches
everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's
thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?
So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit
of God. Now we have received not a spirit
of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might
understand things freely given to us by God. Now let's stop
there. How is it that we're to understand
the Gospel? By the Spirit of God. How is it that we're to
know we have the Spirit of God? That we understand the Gospel. Why does God give us His Spirit?
To show us the Gospel. To reveal to us the Gospel. And how do I get that knowledge?
By God's desire. When we say free and sovereign
grace, this is one of the texts we should use. Freely given us
by God. Nothing you can do. God gives
it. Verse 13, and we impart this
in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit. interpreting spiritual truths
to those who are spiritual. Now we got to think about John
3, right? How do you know you're spiritual? If you're born of
the Spirit. If not, then you are still dead in your flesh. How do I know I'm dead in my
flesh? Well, your flesh is dead, but have you been given the grace
to rest in the finished work of Jesus Christ who died in your
place? You have been crucified with
Christ. The penalty of death has been satisfied. The life
of Jesus is yours to your account. The death of Jesus counted for
you as a substitute, and the resurrection of Jesus is a promise
that God cannot take away from you, even if he wanted to, because
God cannot lie. So he wouldn't want to. You see
what I'm saying? That's called hyperbole. It's not teaching that God can't
do what He wants to do. So the Spirit of God interprets
spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. How does He do
that? In the simple context of the revelation of His Word. Verse
14, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit
of God. Now what does He mean by the natural person? The person
who is not born of the Spirit. The person who does not have
the Spirit. The natural person does not accept,
they do not receive, they do not understand. Because the spiritual
things, the things of the Spirit of God are foolishness to that
person. And he is not able to understand
them because they are spiritually discerned. Some people say this,
well see now I've grown in my discernment. No you haven't.
You have the Spirit of God who is spiritually discerning. What
does it mean to be spiritually discerning? That the Spirit of
God has shown you the truth. Not that you have found it. Not
that you have grasped it. Not that you have apprehended
it. Not that you have worked it through and now you got it.
That's the whole point of it. Things that are spiritually discerned
are only visible to those who are born of the Spirit. And so
the natural man tries to see spiritual things and the first
place he goes is where? His own understanding. The second
place he goes is to the wisdom of others. The third place he
goes is to the philosophical thoughts of the perimeter of
his brain in which he runs in and out of trying to make sense
of that which makes no sense to him. Then he writes a book
or five. Then he gets a pulpit. Then he
has a big church. Then he retires and then people follow him to
hell by the will of God. Unless you are born again, you
cannot know the truth. I see some people are like, wow,
now I'm scared. You shouldn't be scared. What's
happened is some of you who are born of the Spirit have stepped
in a pothole. And you step in a pothole because you are looking
through the lens. It's amazing how this illustration
just all of a sudden popped and worked. You're looking through
the lens. Instead of looking with your spiritual eyes, you're
looking through that natural, that man-made lens with the zoom
on it. You're looking through it. You're
trying to see, am I right? Okay, I know. That made some
sense over there. Let me look. Maybe Jesus isn't
God. Maybe the Father and the Son
are the same. Maybe the gospel is like that. I mean, look. And
you're stumbling. And Paul says, brothers, who
do you think you are to propagate this continued foolishness in
your fleshly thinking to establish some confidence before the Father
that you are His? How silly is that? I could say,
like saying to my children, you are my children. Well, I'm just
not so sure. And they can come up with all
evidences that they want. They can come up with all arguments
they want. They can come up with anything they want. But I was
there when they were born and I don't care what they say. I don't care what they say. As
parents, we know who our children are despite their stupidity and
their foolishness. The father knows who are his.
and we are the sheep by the spirit, we hear the voice of our shepherd
and we know, we know, we rest. It doesn't mean that we don't
have deception try to twist us away, but that does not catch
us, beloved. We don't change our doctrine,
even when we play with it. Why? Because the Spirit of God
will not allow the testimony of lies to plant seeds, to root
into our soul. How do we know? Because you were born in the
Spirit. Romans 8, 16, where the Spirit of God testifies to our
spirit that we are the children of God. What does that look like? How do I know? Do you approach
God as your pop? As your father? As your daddy? Who's prepared a place for you?
Who's established a promise for you? Who has power over you?
Who is providing everything for your joy? And who has secured
you in the finished work of Christ forever? See, what happens in
our philosophy? We start to figure out how we
can apply this. Faith. Rest in it. Spiritually discerned things
are not understandable to those who are not born of the Spirit.
Verse 15, the spiritual person judges all things. But he himself
to be judged by no one for who has understood the mind of the
Lord so as to instruct him. We have the mind of Christ. We have the mind of Christ. And
I talked about that last Sunday night. Somebody asked a question,
what does it mean to have the mind of Christ? I don't know if I
answered it thoroughly, but I answered it for over 20 minutes. And the
scripture just shows us the mind of Christ is the reality of what
Christ did, the reality of who Christ is, and the fact that
he humbled himself to such a way by taking on humanity and by
living as a human and by dying as a human. being raised as a
glorified human who is also God to the praise of his glorious
grace that we may be with him one day to share in his glory.
Paul said, I write these things for your glory. So we have the mind of Christ.
But yet the Corinthians were stepping in potholes, weren't
they? They were tripping all over the place and tripping over
each other on the way. And he says, but I brothers,
look at chapter three, verse one, but I brothers could not
address you as spiritual people. He did not say you are lost.
Anybody who reads that can't read. I'm not saying that to
be derogatory, but what you're doing is you're reading a verse
rather than the letter. I can't address you as spiritual
people. but as people of the flesh as infants in Christ. So see it's not my opinion, it's
God speaking this truth. These are baby Christians who
are tripping up bad and they need correction. They are brothers,
they are saved, they are redeemed, and anyone who says anything
otherwise makes God a liar because the totality of this letter establishes
there is no one in the witness of this letter that Paul is referring
to as apostate or reprobate. None. So we correct them. That's what John's doing in his
writing. That's what Paul's doing in his
writing. That is the reason all the New Testament letters are
written, so that the saints of God can walk in the peace of
Christ and the understanding of the gospel, and that as we
go through life, we can do so by the mercies of God, remembering
what Christ has done for us, who is the Son from the Father. So, verse 8 of chapter 2 of 1
Corinthians, of glory. This establishes something. It's also there in 2 John. He is God. In John 1 we see what? In the beginning was the Word
and the Word was God. And the Word was with God. And the Word became flesh. The
Word created all things. The Word became flesh. And we
have seen all that God is. What does it say there? We have
seen all that God is. That's what it means to say we
have seen His glory. That means all that He is, everything
that He is, we've seen it. Everything that He will reveal
to us about Himself, we've seen it. And we've seen it in the
face of Christ. We've seen it in the person of
Christ. The only God, verse 18. So Jesus is eternal life. Eternal life is knowing Christ.
Knowing Christ is wisdom. Paul would go on to say here
in 1 Corinthians that Christ is our wisdom. Christ is our
sanctification from God. Christ is our righteousness.
He puts a good argument in the first few chapters of showing
that there is nothing that man can do to come to realize or
to receive the power of God that God has not already applied to
His people through Christ Jesus so that nobody can boast. That's the point. Nobody can
boast. So knowing Christ understands and rests in His person and His
work and knowing Christ includes the fact that He came in the
flesh as the Son of God and as the Son of Man. Now, I could
go to Daniel and we could talk about that, but it would take
several different hours. It's not necessary. You don't
have to know Daniel to understand the gospel. It's just an encouraging
thing to parallel. Don't read commentaries on that
text, please. Makes my job hard. You know why? Because it's interesting. Everybody
likes an unsolved mystery. Oh, everybody loves prophecy.
When the shadows are done, Christ is here. Hallelujah. Let's look
at the real and quit looking at the prophecies. The prophecies
indict unbelievers. You know that, right? That's the point. The law indicts,
reprobates. So knowing Christ understands
this. Jesus is, let's talk about Jesus, the Christ who is the
Father's Son, in truth and in love. So if the love of God and
the truth of God is Jesus Christ, and the work of Christ is truth
and love, and the love of God for his people, period, and alone,
establishes their salvation and their eternal life through Christ,
then the person of Christ and what God says concerning him
is of utmost importance. You don't have to have Trinitarian
theological knowledge, but you do have to receive Jesus is God,
eternal, and He is the Son of God, distinct from the Father.
Why? Because the Bible teaches it. It's not a historical theological
invention. As Peter would say, it's not
a myth or something that has been carried along. This is the
truth of who God the Son is. God the Son is God in the flesh.
He came from the Father. Jesus is the eternal God who
became flesh. In John 1.18, I've already said that, the one and
only God, the unique one, is a better way
to translate that, that sits at His side. No one has ever
seen God, but the one and only God, the unique God, who sits
at God's side, makes Him known, exegetes Him. We see that in John 1, we see
that in John 3.16, that God sent the Son. We see in John 6.38,
He comes to do the Father's will, He comes from the Father. This
unique one, Jesus, is the eternal God. He is the Son of God who
is man and who is God, not just fully, but truly. At the same
time, He is always truly God in His person, and He is always
truly the Son of God in His person, and the Triune God, and He is
always truly human in His person in the Incarnation. You understand
that? The Incarnation is just as important
as the cross, because without the Incarnation, the cross is
stupid. Without the virgin birth, the
cross is powerless. The mystery, you see this? There
is no way in our understanding in the flesh that we can sit
around and go, oh yeah, I got that, let me write a thesis on
it. Now you're gonna write a thesis on your own stupidity. You wanna write a thesis that's
worthy of the courts of heaven? Read the scripture. Hear the praises of who this
Christ is. The Son who is truly God and
truly man from the Incarnation at all times and forevermore.
Jesus is the one who came from God. And God distinguishes His
person as the Son from the Father and from the Spirit. Now what
do I mean? They're distinct. Even in the baptism of... and
I could go everywhere, it doesn't matter. You know. If you are
spiritual, you know. You see how amazing that is?
Well, teach us, pastor. I'm showing you. I'm not just
making weird claims. I'm not making, you know, apologetic
claims. I'm not having to do that. I
can just show what the scripture teaches and then God will teach
us. The Spirit shows us that there are three persons who are
God, who are the one and only God, and they all work together
in redemption. They're persons. Jesus distinguishes His person
from the Father, especially in salvation. Our God saves us. All three distinct persons actively
operating as God in salvation. The Word was God, with God became
flesh. No one has seen God. The one
who is at His side, the one and only unique God has made Him
known. We see Hebrews 1, we see Colossians 1, everywhere you
go in some of these first chapters of some of the Pauline writings,
we can see the Christological, the push of Jesus being distinct
as God, the Son. How is that so? Well, He's Creator
in Hebrews 1, in John 1, in Colossians 1. We see just in those three
areas, we see that He created the world. In John 1, it's easy,
right? The beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning,
and that phrase there, in the beginning, Henarche, is that
when time began, He already was. He is eternal. He was in the
beginning with God, and all things were made through Him. What things? All things. Anything that has
ever been made. And without Him was not anything made that was
made. And more importantly, the creation account, as we've already
talked about, is to reveal the shadow of the creation of a people
for the glory of God to save His distinct people out of the
world. So if God created the world to
show His creation of His elect, of His body, of what we would
call His church, through His Son, we better pay attention
to the fact that the Son is the God who is Creator. and he became
a human being. That's what verse 4 and 5 talk
about in John's Gospel. And in Hebrews chapter 1 we see
the same thing. Many times in many ways God has
spoken to our forefathers, to the prophets. But in these last days, verse
2, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He, God, appointed
to be the heir of all things, through whom also He created
the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, in this
phrase, and the exact imprint of His nature. That means as
God is, Jesus Christ is also equally God. And He, God the Son, upholds
the universe by the word of His power. And what does He talk
about? The universe, all this creative
power, this powerful, this omnipotence of Jesus Christ, God the Son.
Now all of a sudden, what is He emphasizing? The glory of
God revealed, not in creation, though it shadows it, certainly. The work of His hands, things
of that nature, pun intended. but he says purification for
sins. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
having become much superior to angels as the name he has inherited
is more excellent than theirs. So the Son, Jesus Christ, is
God the Creator. He is the pre-existent One who
was with God the Father before the beginning. He is eternally,
He is eternally thus worthy of all worship. Look at verse 6
of Hebrews 1. Verse 5, for to which of the angels did God ever
say, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Which of the angels?
None. Or again, which of the angels did God ever say, I will
be a father to him and he shall be a son to me? None. And again,
when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let
all God's angels worship him. Verse 6 of Hebrews 1 is an amazing
text. And then if we go on, I mean
I don't have time for today, but if we go on we can read,
God himself says of the Son, you laid the foundations of the
world and you are eternal, but everything that you've made shall
perish. And God the Father calls God the Son Lord. So when Paul
says the Lord of glory, oh, I just got chills, running up my whole
body. Let me tell you something about this. Paul understood Judaism. He understood the essence of
who God was in his academic ability in a small way. Imagine the breakdance
fit that Paul had when he got up blind off the ground in Damascus
when he could see Jesus for the first time. I mean that's just
me. I'd probably done like Carlton
on the Fresh Prince or something or whatever. I mean, I'd have
torn up some chairs. Just the excitement of it, you
know? And I'm not saying to emphasize how we feel, but think about
that for a second. The Lord of Glory? You don't think Paul understood
what the prophets were talking about? You don't think he saw
all of a sudden the connectivity? Remember we talked about singing
voices and hearing things? When you're familiar with it,
even in your dead, blind state, when you start to see it, And when God opens your eyes
and grants you faith, it all starts to make sense. So when Paul says the Lord of
Glory, he's even remembering that the prophets, that God said
that Jesus Christ the Son is His Lord. All the angels shall worship
Him." Now you understand that that's a violation. To worship
anyone but God Himself is a violation of God's righteousness. What's
the first commandment? What's the second commandment? You can't have any other gods.
There is no other God. You cannot have a graven image.
You cannot worship anything else. So for God Himself to call the
Son God and to command all creation to worship the Son would be a
violation of His very nature and would make Him no longer
God. By the way, the word God means highest of all. So you
can't have plural gods. You can't have equivocal gods. Highest of all, highest of all,
highest of all. No, that's stupid. You could
say three high things, but there's always going to be something
higher. The father, son. He shares Jesus
Christ in His humanity and His divinity, all the prerogatives
and the attributes and the power and so forth of God. He is greater
than all things. He is before all things. He is
the King of all things. He is the Lord of all things.
He is the Christ. He is the fulfillment of all
the shadows that bear His image. All of them. Everything. If we go back to Hebrews, I think
it's in chapter 7, we see... Let's look there. He is... Yeah, there we go. He
is all-powerful. He is an eternal high priest. Chapter 7, verse 22. This makes Jesus the guarantor
of a better covenant. The former priests were many
in number because they were prevented by death from continuing. He
holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.
Consequently, he is able to save, listen to this, beloved, to the
uttermost. those who draw near to God through
him since he always lives to make intercession for them."
Now think about that for a second. Jesus Christ is the eternal priest
who intercedes for his people and he's also the Lamb of God.
He's unchanging. He's eternal. And in His humanity,
He became the Lamb in order to represent His people as a substitute
for their sins. Isaiah 53 teaches that. John
10 talks about laying down His life for His sheep. And then
He rose from the dead, bringing Himself back to life because
the work that He did was finished. He put away sin. He became propitiation. For Jesus to be human was necessary. For Jesus to be God was necessary. For the qualifications of this
transaction of justice and righteousness and wrath and vengeance and holiness
to be good. I read Psalm 49 at the beginning
of our service but specifically When David writes this psalm
in verses five through nine, listen to the words here. Why
should I fear in times of trouble when the iniquity of those who
cheat me surrounds me? You ever felt that way? Those
who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their
riches. Verse seven, eight, nine, listen to this. David says, truly
no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his
life for the ransom of their life is costly and can never
suffice that he should live on forever and never see the pit
of death. You know what that means? There is no man, woman,
or child who's ever been born except the one born of the seed
of the woman, the one promised by God in the garden, Messiah,
the Christ, who would take the sins of his people on himself
and satisfy the wrath and the justice and the righteousness
of God for them. There's no human being who can do anything but
die for their own sins. And they will never pay for it. Your death will not pay for your
sins. It surely won't give you eternal
life. But yet that's what you get. That's what the world gets.
That's what unbelievers get. That's what the non-elect get.
They get the wage of their due. That's due them. Which is death.
And even then it What? It can never just afford them
to come back to live forever, to be with Christ forever. No,
it's justice. The wages of sin is death. The
free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. So the
death of Jesus required the life of Jesus to be human in order
for Him to be a substitute for the people that belong to Him. So without getting into all of
this stuff for next week's message, we know that Jesus is the satisfaction
of God's wrath. He is propitiation. He is justice. He is righteousness. His life
completed the work of redemption and His death and His resurrection. Thus, His life is forever ours. And He was raised alive in the
flesh, the glorified God-man. He is perpetually The God-man,
interceding for us. Who He now is, is what He's promised
us we shall be. The death of Jesus displayed
the love of God in power. The death of Jesus, the life
of Jesus is our justification. All the different terms that
we all know. Jesus came in the flesh and He died in the flesh.
and his death secured and effectually saved a people for himself. I
want you to understand this. Without an effectual, definite,
and incarnate atonement, there is no gospel. Let me give you those terms again.
Without an effectual, definite, and incarnate atonement. Effectual. Christ's death satisfied God's
wrath for a specific people. That makes it definite. There
are a people who are atoned for by the death of Jesus. It is
not a blanket death. That's silly. It makes no sense.
You know what? I paid off your mortgage. If
you don't know, they're going to take it from you. That doesn't
work. This ain't 1940. It doesn't work. Christ paid for
the sins of his people. They will know that one day.
They will rest in that one day. The wrath of God is satisfied
against the elect in the death of Christ. Okay? It is definite. It has a particular
object. Objects. His body. And it atoned
for them. And that atonement is an incarnate
atonement. It is a fleshly atonement. It
is the substitution of Jesus and His human body for the human
bodies of the elect of God. And if Jesus is not human, then
there is no gospel. If Jesus is not the second person
of the Godhead, there is no gospel. If Jesus is not God, there is
no gospel. But there is good news because
of who He is. Because without Christ and all
that He is and all that He accomplished, we can never see the Lord. strive
for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which you
cannot see the Lord. Do you think that's you? You
think that's your life? You think that's Paul saying
you better get your life together so you can stand before the Father
going, look what you've done in me! No! It's the Christ. It's Jesus Christ. He is the
one who has done it all for you. He accomplished the work. It
is a finished work. So rest. And when we fall in
a ditch, or we fall in a hole, or we act up, then we'll lovingly
give each other grace and we'll correct one another. We're not
looking to prove anything to God. We are a people of His own
possession, for His own namesake, for His own glory. And Jesus
Christ, as the second person of the Trinity, is the one who finished it. In Him alone do you live. So
think about that. The God of the world gave His
body for us, shed His blood for us, and rose from the dead for
us. Does that make you feel special? Who's the real special one here?
He is. Because it was done in grace
and in mercy and in love when we don't deserve one second of
it. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for the truth of your gospel. And I pray that as we close our
time today, Lord, that we would be aware of just what an amazing
love that you have for your people. of who your son is. Father, there's
there's so much more to say. And so we will gather again and
we will talk more about Jesus. We will share more about who
he is and what he did. And all the glory goes to you.
All the glory goes to him. And we share in it all. So Father, as we prepare to remember
the death of Christ, let us remember for whom He died that we would
not hold in our hearts animosity or fear or unforgiveness toward
those who are our brothers and sisters in the faith. And Lord,
that we would set the record straight in our own conscience
this moment because we are not under condemnation, but Father,
we are under grace and we are free. We are free because the
Son has set us free. And so I pray, Lord, that as
we continue to worship this morning, that we would do so from the
position of grace, mercy, and peace, and truth, and love from
you and from your Son, Jesus the Christ. And I pray these
in the name of Christ. Amen.