John's Gospel, chapter 18. As
we continue in that narrative of Jesus' arrest and trials,
according to the evangelist John. We've looked and seen Jesus'
arrest. We've seen the power of God in
him, the proclamation that he declares, he is, I am. We've
seen his willful subjection to the authorities who illegally
arrested him. We've seen him do what no man
could do, and that is to be submissive to the will of the Father who
sent him. We've seen him do all these things that he might establish
for his people His everlasting covenant, this promise, this
plan, this contract that God made with himself that Jesus
Christ would fulfill all righteousness and fulfill all the legal demands
of the law for his people alone. So that when Jesus says in some
short chapters, it is finished, we can truly stand upon that
reality, it is finished. Yet in our culture, in our day,
in this very moment, especially in our present time where people
are extremely concerned about cleanliness, sanitization, disease. Maybe we could utilize this for
just a minute to recognize just how emphatic the Jews were in
their picture of holiness as it related to cleanliness. And I could show you in the Old
Testament the dietary laws, why were they there? For the health
of the nation. The cleanliness laws, there for
the health of the nation. But when we start seeing the
holiness of worship, we begin to start to see things that sometimes,
if we're not careful, we will catch. We will think that there
has to be certain precepts in which If we don't follow, we
might dishonor the Lord. If we don't sing the song a certain
way or have a certain version of the Bible, we might offend
God. If we don't do things exactly
like they were done in Grandpa's church, it might not be as holy
as it should be. And in the end of it all, we
need to recognize that true holiness is being in Christ. And that is not a license to
live the way your flesh wants to live, but it is a manifestation
and an encouragement for you to recognize who you are and
what you have become and that your flesh will be at war. And that your only hope is in
the finished cleansing of Jesus Christ. It would have been perfect
providence had today been the day where we talked about feet
washing. And we think of feet washing.
Why was feet washing a thing? Because people's feet are nasty.
And they were not covered. They did not bathe often in this
time. And when you sat down Indian
style, sort of, not really, but that's sort of how they, their
feet were near the food and you would pass things to your right
and you would pass the food around and you don't want people's feet
on your food if they're dirty. That's the point. And only slaves
would wash feet. And never would a Hebrew slave
wash feet, because it was beneath them. So when Jesus washed feet, it
was horrifying. It was horrifying to those Jewish
men in His presence. And He says something to Peter
there, remember that? Peter's like, you shall absolutely not
wash my feet. And Jesus says, if you don't
let me wash you, you have no place with me. If I don't wash you, then you
have no place. So then Peter, in Peter tradition,
goes, then wash all of me. Wash my head, my feet, my fingernails,
get it good, Jesus, because I'm in you. And now what we see the
last week, what do we see? Peter denying Jesus. So we go from zeal, wash me all,
because I'm in you, to I don't know him. I am not his disciple. And if you remember, this is
what we're seeing here in John 18. We're seeing John contrast
Peter's trial with Jesus' trial. Peter's responses and answers
to the questions, and Jesus' responses and answers to the
questions. And it's over for Peter. Why? Because he said, I'm not one
of his disciples. And that's it. That's all he
can do. That's all that Peter can do. That's all that natural
man can ever do when confronted with the conflict, with the dichotomy
of living life in the world with some comfort and being counted
in Christ without a divine work of God the Spirit. Man will always
say, I choose comfort. I choose fear. I choose retirement.
I choose the bank account. I choose the better job. At the
cost of their spiritual maturity, health, focus, and family. They will always do that. We
will always do that. But Jesus, the God-man, did not
do that, could not do that. He is impeccable. The impeccability
of Christ is the word that we use to describe His inability
to sin. Jesus could not sin. He would
not sin. He did not sin. He was never
personally guilty of any sin. The guilt of His people was imputed
to Him. And His perfection was imputed
to us. And here He is at trial. Peter
has given everything he's got for Jesus. Aren't you one of
his disciples? No, I am not. And we see there in verses 19
through 24, just as a way of reminder, they asked Jesus about
his teaching and Jesus says, you've heard me teach. Your own
people have heard me teach. I'm not hidden anything. I'm
being the same I was now to where I've been the last three and
a half years. I've taught my disciples the same thing you've
heard me teach. You make the judgment. You make the judgment. And then we see the guard slapping
Jesus and then Jesus saying, how are you slapping me without
a trial? What do you, you've judged me, if you've judged me
against any error or sin, then make the case, then try me, find
me guilty, bring the sentencing, but you don't get to bring the
sentencing midstream. That's why police brutality is
such a wicked evil. Such a wicked evil. Because they
become the judge and the jury and the executioner all in one
sitting. So then they sent Jesus down
to the high priest, and that's where we are this morning. Verse 25. Oh, no, no, no, no. That's not where
we are this morning. I'm sorry. Now, verse 28. He talked to the high
priest, and now he's going to the governor's headquarters.
Verse 28, chapter 18. Then they led Jesus from the
house of Caiaphas. to the governor's headquarters.
It was early morning. They, who are they? The chief
priests, the Pharisees, the temple guards, Jews, they themselves
did not enter the governor's headquarters. Now I want you
to think about it for a second. Now keep listening. So that they
would not be defiled. You want an hour sermon? There's
one. but could eat Passover. So Pilate
went outside and said, what charge do you bring against this man?
And they answered, if this man were not doing evil, we would
not have brought him to you. And Pilate said to him, take
him yourselves and judge him by your own law. And the Jews
said, it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death. This was to fulfill the word
that Jesus had spoken to show about what kind of death he was
going to die. I may get into some more, but
right now let's pause. This is a narrative and as I've
told you weeks after week after week after week for years, narrative
is not easy if we're not careful. It's easy if we're creative.
It's easy if we misapply. And if we misunderstand application
in the context period, but what is happening here is vitally
important to the nature of Jesus, to the nature of his atoning
word, to the nature of God's sovereignty. So here are the
Jews who have found him guilty without trial. You notice that
they found him guilty of blasphemy, which was not a crime of Rome.
It wasn't a crime in Rome. They didn't care what God you
worshipped as long as you didn't curse Caesar. And they take them,
they take Jesus to Pilate because Pilate is this little mockery
of a governor overseeing the Jewish province as an arm and
an extension of Rome, of Caesar. And so by the mere implication
of the fact that they couldn't handle their own courts, and
of course they couldn't sentence anyone to death. We see in Acts
chapter 6 and 7 when they killed Stephen, they actually took things
into their own hands. At this time in Jewish history,
they did not have a court outside of their little kings. And everything
had to be approved in some way by the governing force of Rome.
But that's not really why they dealt with Jesus the way they
did because Pilate says there, doesn't he? Why don't y'all just
find him guilty in your own courts and send him to jail, we'll deal
with it. You bring the charge, we'll lock
him up for you. Put him in jail. But what do they say? We don't
want him in jail. He's gotta die. We want you to
do what you do. And that's the ending phrase
there. We want you to kill him. That's the point. He was guilty
in their minds. He had to die in their minds.
Caiaphas had already said that. Remember in John 12? He says
it is better for one man to die than the whole nation to perish.
And then the writer John says, he did not say this of his own
accord, but he prophesied. Jesus is being handed over to
Pilate. But their engagement there speaks
a lot about them. For people who are highly religious,
for people who claim to hold the oracles of God, for people
who for millennia had been called God's elect, for people who knew
the law and obeyed and lived a certain moral standard, a very
high moral standard, one of the highest that's ever existed in
the world. I would say that the Pharisees made the Puritans look
like hellions. Then they became legalists, just
like them. And they're concerned about not
defiling themselves. They're concerned about not dishonoring
God. They're concerned about giving glory to God. But Jesus
has already identified the God that the Jews worship, and it
is the devil himself. that although they use the Bible
to imprint in their own hearts and consciences some divine being,
the divine being that they recognize is not the revealed one of Scripture,
but the enemy of God, a created angel who had fallen. So beloved, Jews are not our
cousins in the faith. World religions are not our cousins.
Evangelicals who believe this crazy stuff about the gospel
are not our cousins in the faith. And they're certainly not our
brothers and sisters. They are apart from us. They are not holy. The Jews were very concerned
about interacting with things that were not holy. Those people
who were not circumcised, they called the world. They used the
phrase the world. You've got Israel, God's elect,
and you've got the world. This is the context in which
the world is used in John's Gospel. John 3 coming to mind for sure. They hated everyone that was
not them. And then even amongst themselves,
they had this ranking in their own minds, who was greater than
the other. The Pharisees saw themselves
as these pious religious leaders who held, as we see in the synoptics,
burdens over the people that they themselves could not keep,
yet they thought they kept them, and that they would lock people
out of the kingdom of heaven because they would not preach
the grace of God. And these people, as Paul testifies
in his epistle to the Philippians, these people, what does he say? Had zeal for God. And they use
the Bible to undergird their zeal. It sounds so much like North
America to me. It is the dominant reality of
North American so-called Christianity. It is the point that is happening
right now in our day concerning righteousness. And people would
rather take offense and save face in the fame of their ministry
rather than stand and be counted in Christ, because that's what
the human condition brings. And if we can't establish our
own view of tearing down grace, Jesus Christ, if we can't find
a way to massage Him into something more palatable for the culture
in which we live, we will blame someone else by offering what
we believe to someone else who is in a better position of authority
that they might approve of our theology. Just like the Jews. All the while
saying, see, look how holy we are. Look how righteous we are.
Look how good we're doing. Look how awesome the truth is. If you were to. Take just a couple
of days of emails that I get. And you were to look at the comments
and the thoughts that people have around this country concerning
the grace of God, it would blow your mind. at all the different
iterations of arguments. I cherish those letters. I don't get as many letters as
I used to in California used to get a lot of letters. Now
I think anthrax, what's got me? You know, y'all know what that
is, right? Can you put coronavirus in a package? No, but I used to get this. I cherish
those letters, postcards, emails. social media messages, not so
much because they just get lost and you never see them again.
I cherish those things that are exalting to Christ and in Christ. That are exalting him. That say
to me, Pastor James, the word of God was real to me and I thank
you for that. Thank you for helping me understand
this grace. It is awesome. But they are far
and few between. They are far and few between
because Most of the time, as we know, I think being triggered
is the new American dream. I think being upset and aggravated
is the new fuel of life. It is the tree of life to be
triggered and angry and hostile and opinionated. To be the backseat,
no, to be the car deck pundit, trying to tell everybody where
it is and what's going on. Car deck trunk, I'm trying to
think trunk, what is it called? And that's what we like to do.
So we always are going to get the naysayers, the frustrators,
as we'd say, the haters, the liars. And there's one thing
that's always common amongst many of them, well I heard what
you read out of John, but my pastor, or this theologian, or
this book, or this source, or for 600 years, I don't care what's
been happening for 600 years. I care what's being said right
here in this text, right now in its context. And I have an
open door. and any man, woman, child, lizard,
dog, snake, or coronavirus who wants to sit down and contextually
open the Word of God with no notes, no cross-references, no
study Bibles, and talk about what is said, I will do it. And you should too. We do not hide behind anything. We stand boldly with Christ as
our banner and nothing can shut his mouth until he wants it shut. But there's always an authority
ready to argue. And you know what I've learned
to do in the last three years? Not discuss anything but scripture. And you know how long my arguments
are? These religious people were so
positive that they were pure, not just in their arrest of Jesus,
but they were doing pure things for their false God. They were
so sure that they were pure that they were scared. They were scared to defile themselves. They were scared to break the
law in any way so that if they showed up for Passover, you know
what happens if you're defiled? How would you become defiled?
If you associated with a Gentile. If you ate with a Gentile. If
you came in proximity and touched a Samaritan. If you were counted
in the assembly of a Gentile. If you violated the Sabbath,
if you struck a match, if you walked to your neighbor's house
and it was too long and there wasn't a string connecting the
properties, if you spit upon the ground, if you didn't wear the right
clothes, if you didn't pray the right prayers, you were defiled. If you got near a leper, if you
were near a woman during a certain time of the month, you were defiled. And in their minds, that defilement
was evil. And I find it very ironic that
if the governor himself, Pilate, was evil, then why would they
ever subject themselves to his authority and not see it evil? Yet they weren't concerned with
their subjectivity to Him and submission to Him as their Lord. They were concerned about being
seen coming out of His house. That's what self-righteousness
looks like. We're more concerned with what people see us doing
and how it looks than what we actually are. Now we should be
wise, we should be above reproach. We should not just throw caution
to the wind to eat with sinners for the sake of their souls and
put ourselves in a place of reproach. But we should not concern ourselves
with those accusations of reproach when we're following the truth
of Christ. Let them come. Let them come. Let them accuse us. So they would
not, I want to know this, who knocked on the door? Because
you know they were thinking, alright you're the rookie here,
when we get up here, I'm not walking on the property, somebody's
got to knock on the door. I think the door, what do you
think? And they probably had a little theological elders meeting.
Well is touching the door, is it defilement? Because the door
is the barrier, what do we do? And I mean this is awesome, this
is just for the fun of it. This is what I envisioned yesterday
as I was just walking around thinking of this. What was it
like for these people to be there? Did they draw straws? Did they
cast lots? That was a very common thing they would do. Or did they
yell outside? Like sometimes people will do
at my house. They'll just pull up in the front and just blow
the horn. I mean, and that works when you
live in the country. out in the middle of a field, and you hear
a horn blowing, there's a horn. I live in town, 6,000 cars a
day drive by my house, right in front of the high school.
I'm like, honk, honk, honk, honk. And then the person honking thinks
that I'm supposed to distinguish that GMC horn from the other
five I've heard today. And they get out and ding the
doorbell. Did you not hear me honking? Yes, but I didn't know it was
for me. Maybe they did that. Maybe they
rang a bell. Maybe they yelled, Pilot, are you up yet? Because it was early in the morning,
right? That was their day. They wanted to get this thing
going. They wanted to make sure that before the sun went down, before
the sun set on this Friday, that Jesus was a condemned man and
done. They wanted it over because they did not want to be defiled.
In their efforts, they didn't want to be defiled in their objectivity
and their image. They did not want to be defiled
in the actions of even seeing this man crucified. So they did not enter the governor's
headquarters. Because if they had entered in, then they could
not eat Passover. Passover. See, I started preaching
about Passover in John 6. You remember that? I started
dealing with Passover over in John 6 because that was the occasion.
That was the Passover. All these people were gathering.
They were there to eat the Passover meal to remember the Lamb of
God that saved them from death by the mercy and the grace of
God in Egypt. To remember the power of God who led his people
out of captivity. with signs and wonders and majesty
and rule and authority, who Jude says was Jesus the Christ, the
Son of God. And now they're here to eat the
same meal to remember the power of God's redemption for their
people historically, which the sole purpose was to do what?
To show God's sovereign and free grace in Jesus Christ. That's
the only reason that it existed. That's the only reason Israel
ever was. That's the only reason captivity
was over and over again their song. So they're here. And they don't
want to be defiled, but yet they want to be pure. But the very
thing that is impure about them is their heart. The very thing
that is impure about them is their motives. To the impure. All things are defiled. Remember
Paul saying that? But to the pure, all things are
holy. How is it that you can have a
pure heart with pure motives? Faith alone in Jesus Christ. And then again, oh goodness,
couldn't we have a theological elders meeting with every decision
we make? Couldn't we try to find some other anchor than faith
to hold us to wisdom? In the book of James, where James
tells his Jewish brothers in Christ, he tells them if they
lack wisdom to pray, God graciously gives wisdom. And that when God
gives wisdom for they to stand on that wisdom and not be tossed
to and fro like a leaf in the ocean. but to stand, for the
double-minded man can guarantee he will receive nothing from
the Lord." Don't be double-minded. We ask
for wisdom. Beloved, double-minded is stitched
into the tag of our DNA. You know, you got tags on clothes,
you know, tells you what's in it, where it was made, and how
you're supposed to iron it, or temperature, or dry clean, or
whatever, and all the ingredients. Well, the ingredient, double-mindedness
is in our flesh. We'll see what to see, we'll
know what to know, we got it, and we'll stand up from that
moment and go, yes, this is the will of the Lord, and we go,
oh! We just, I mean, you ever gotten out of your chair and
then changed your mind, or wondered? That's why the means of grace
of fellowship is so important. Because together we are much
wiser than alone. Together we are much safer than
by ourselves. Together we will not all go down
in the pit at the same time. But we will. And that's the point. The Christian life lived in isolation. And I'm not just talking about
proximity. There are a lot of people who cannot be in a fellowship
right now who submit to the teaching of the Word of God through our
elders here. And you know them. And they long to be in intimate
fellowship. But what they've done inadvertently
is they've found intimacy even though they have no proximity
to the best of their ability. So even in that, we find a collective
wisdom that keeps us in the Word of God, that keeps us straight,
that keeps us focused, so that when we think we're walking in
a way that is so pleasing and honoring to the Lord, but yet
we're pushing away the grace of God, we're sticking Jesus
over here as sort of like a lapel pin, rather than being found
in Him. We have brothers and sisters
who will call us to the carpet and bring us back to correction.
And that is the number one purpose and mission of the Church of
Jesus Christ, to live together in a manner that is fitting to
His glory so that we could help each other and bear each other's
burdens. That's what we talked about midweek in Galatians 6.
That's what we talked about. That's why we're here today.
The preaching is important, but it has a purpose. It is to help
you be encouraged and equipped and established in the wisdom
of grace and seeing the finished work of Jesus Christ, even the
narrative that's 2,000 plus years old of people who walk with Him
in the flesh, so that you might know also the power of Christ
in your life this very moment, that you could live together
as a family. I won't preach to a camera and
nobody else. That doesn't make sense to me.
If I pray all week, you are in my prayers. Your names, your
faces, your lives, your circumstances, the unknown. God, I don't know
what's going on with these people. They don't talk to me as much
as they should. I don't have a clue, but you know all things.
So in this preparation, in this feeble and weird and fleshly
attempt to be a shepherd, would you God the word that you've
given us this day for the sake of those souls who are my life? It's not about teaching. It's
about being a body. So much more than just hearing
truth. If the truth isn't yours to hear,
it's not powerful enough for you. So Pilate meets them because
they're too holy to go into his house. But yet they are evil
to the core. And he went outside and he asked,
what do you bring against this man? What accusation are you
charging him with? What is the charge here to wake
me up early? To come into my house and make
me come out here in my bathrobe and subject myself to this silliness. I mean, that's what I see here.
Take him yourselves, he'll tell them. But what do they say? They
don't even tell him what the charge is. They actually are pretty tricky.
It reminds me of how the enemy tempted Jesus. And they say to
Pilate, if this man were not doing wrong, evil, sin, we would have not have delivered
him to you. We would have not given him over to you. He is
guilty. He is evil. He is wrong. He's a threat to us. He's a usurper. And you'll see next week how
they get Pilate's attention. He said he's the king. He's above
Caesar. He thinks He's better than everybody
else. They are the ones who are evil.
They are the ones who are doing evil. Do you recognize this,
beloved? To accuse, arrest, and deliver Christ and have Him crucified
is wicked. Evil. Evil. What Judas did was demonically
evil. What these Jews are doing right
now is demonically evil, but it was done by the sovereign
decree of God. The picture of Joseph, somebody
brought him up this morning about 630 in a conversation, but the
picture of Joseph being cast away from his brothers, by his
brothers, sold into slavery, told his father he was dead,
And what does the Scripture say concerning the way Joseph was
treated? That which men purpose for evil,
God uses for good. That is a picture of Christ. That is a picture of the Gospel.
That is a picture of Jesus, who is God, who did not take His
equality as God, something to be made much of, but He became a slave, obedient
unto death on a cross, counted amongst the guilty, the evil,
though he was not. And Pilate will tell you in chapter
19, I find no fault with this man. See, he had no dog in the
hunt. He didn't care if the man was
guilty or innocent or not. He was looking at the law. He
was looking at the logical argument of laws. This man, he'll say,
as you'll see, has done nothing wrong. But these people, he's done evil
and that's why he's here. Do something about it. Stop him. They were powerless to stop Jesus. They were powerless to arrest
Jesus. Jesus submitted himself to them. And Pilate says then in verse
31, take him yourselves, judging by your own law. Judging by your
own law. It's not our law, judging by
your own law. And I find it very interesting
that they never argue the charge, they never argue the trial, they
never argue the judgments according to their law. They just answer
in this way. What is it? It's not lawful for
us to kill him. Why wasn't it lawful for them
to kill him? Did Moses not prescribe the instrument of capital punishment
for blasphemy? Saul surely executes it soon. They sure do bring it back. How
is it that it is unlawful for them to kill him? Because they
are subject to Rome. So they're charging Jesus by
their own interpretation of law that they don't even have the
authority to exercise because they are bound by the law of
culture, the law of the usurper, the law of the, what do you call
that when people, the occupier. You won't let us kill him. You won't let us kill him. It's not lawful for us to put
anyone to death. We cannot obey our law because your law doesn't
let us. So it shows you right there where
they are. They're already taking the law
of God and just letting it go. Yet they think they're following
it. Beloved, I want you to remember something. It's not as clear
in a narrative as it is in a teaching like a letter. where theology
has just pointed out argument after argument after argument.
But friends, they're guilty in every turn. They were guilty
of being defiled even though they didn't defile themselves
by entering in the governor's property. They were defiled anyway
because they didn't keep the law. They couldn't even exercise
their authority as the rulers of Israel. Beloved, we are not
Law keepers. We are not obedient servants
and obedient children. We give forth a great effort,
but any person, and I'm going to say this very clearly and
very dogmatically, any person who claims to be in Christ, who
thinks that their life is an obedient life, is a liar, and
the truth is not in them. Now you may have a lot of good
steps, You may have a lot of, quote, righteous living or practical
sanctification in your life. You may be getting a lot better
in dealing with certain types of temptation, but watch out. Watch out. Because the minute you think,
I have truly grown in my faith. If you belong to the Lord, he'll
slam you like a football in the end zone, right on your face. And for some of us who are driven
in some way of self-glory in our flesh, He never lets us go,
sometimes get too far away from that thorn. If I could just get
this out of my life, man, I would be on fire for Jesus. And the
Lord's like, yeah, but I bought you and I'm not going to let
you ruin your life by thinking you've got it. Another reason why the assembly
is a means of grace. If we gather together and we
have no concern for each other's burdens, spiritually, physically, we're not maturing. We need to be taught these things.
We have to be taught how to love. We have to be taught how to serve.
We have to be taught to understand the implications of grace. We
have to be taught these things, and I have to be taught these
things, and you have to be taught these things, and we together
have to learn them. So y'all think I'm just this guy that
knows all this stuff. I had a nightmare Friday night. It wasn't last night. I stand
up here. It's packed. There's a lot of
people I don't know because all the churches are closed there.
Everybody shows up, and I'm freaking out, you know. trays back there
with Lysol. That's not in the dream, but
I could see it happening. But what was in the dream is I go
to John 18 and I look and there's verses in the middle of where
I'm preaching that I've never seen before and I don't know
where they came from. Now, you might think this odd,
but I have tried forever since that time to go back in my mind's
eye and see, because I read them, I read them out loud and I want
them back, because I want to see what it was that was so crazy,
but I could, I've never heard it, I've never read it, I didn't
know how to teach it, I don't have a clue what's happening
here, and all of you were going, what's wrong with him? But in
reality, I don't, how do I know this stuff, because I'm learning
it this week. I may have been studying and teaching John's
Gospel, for a long, long time, and so the gist of it, the context
of it, the theology here is great, but you forget all the intimacy
of this until you're in it. You can't outline that stuff.
You cannot teach that stuff in a sterile environment. It's gotta
be real. It's gotta be organic. It's gotta
be messy. And so I'll learn, and then I
get just a couple of days ahead of you, and then I teach you
what I've learned. And sometimes when I get really excited, maybe
you can figure this out. You can ask me next time. I've
learned something just that moment. And then I share it and I'm going,
I've got to go back and think about that. Especially in the sense of implication,
what is this to do for us? Beloved, we are learning. We
are learning that there is no righteousness in us. Because
if we are not perfect keepers of all the righteous requirements
of God, we are perfect criminals. We are perfect criminals. It's
all or none. And the crazy thing is that we
are really good and our American mindset to think that we're doing
better. Even if we don't trust in it,
we think we're doing better because of the things that we don't do.
But yet we miss all the things we should do. And I hate using phraseology
that has become cliche, but the sins of omission. Are we really in the word of
God or are we binging on Netflix? Are we playing games? Are we
going to sporting events? Are we saving money for a vacation? Are we teaching our children
the Word of God? And this is not a guilt trip.
This is the reality of it. that by the teaching of the Word
of God together, we will grow, not in a way that we are scared
to death, freaked out, trying to be like Peter, chopping off
ears, doing everything that we can do in our power to get everything
back in line. We're not supposed to get everything
in line. Christ has put it all in line. Let's just rest in Him.
That's the reality of the good news of Christ for the believer.
Rest in Him. He will make our path straight.
And my path and your path has one unique, always, never detouring
line, and that is faith in Jesus Christ alone, our righteousness. But yet then all the separate
lives, sort of like tentacles, they sort of go like this, don't
they? But they're all in that highway of grace. We're all on
the same road. We're all in the same boat. We're
all in the same stream. We will never be lost. We will
never be cast away. Christ finished the work. He
was accused and counted with the wicked so that he could make
us his righteousness. It's not in us. Because many people who have
not been converted, who had not been born again, who claim the
moniker Christian, if you really get under the surface of that
of that proclamation, yeah, I'm a Christian.
And you start to see what they think concerning righteousness
and sovereignty and grace. and what it means to really have
imputed alien righteousness given to us by the mercy of God and
that faith alone is an active, decisive, divine, powerful thing
that God grants and gives. It's a gift. Until you see that, you don't
know how to parse out who's what. And so the only other way that
people feel like that they can prove they're on the same road
is if they act the same way, if they live the same life, if
they like the same food. I mean, if you ever go to Chick-fil-A,
everybody in there is praying. I've had people get up in Chick-fil-A
and pray over my wife. I'm going, I'm trying to eat
some chicken. Everybody assumes you go to Chick-fil-A,
you go to Chick-fil-A, You're Christian. And I remember in the 80s hearing
an evangelist one time say, if you think going to church makes
you a Christian, you go in the garage and make you a car. And
I thought that was the dumbest thing I've ever heard. But there's
a better one. If you think going to Chick-fil-A
makes you a Christian, I mean, you know. But I mean, really,
it's funny, but it's not because that's the affinity. That's as
close as people get to having an affinity as Christians in
America. We shop at Hobby Lobby, we eat at Chick-fil-A, and we
get together for the Super Bowl. I mean, we don't watch the halftime
show. I'm not going to be defiled. You see? Bumper sticker, embroidery,
Jesus stickers, Christian rap, Christian country, oxymoron,
no such thing. That's a joke. But what does
it really mean to be in Christ? That we trust in Him. He has
given us the vision. He's given us the faith. He's
given us the sight. We know Him. He knows us. We've
been given to Him. We can cry out to God our Father
and call Him Dad. It's not disrespectful. It's
the words of the Scripture. We've been adopted. We've been
snatched out of darkness. We've been transferred to the
kingdom of light. We've been purchased by His blood. We've
eaten of the bread of life. We've drunk of the living water. It's not in us. We judge by our own law and we
fail. We try to relegate the law of
God to the life of the Christian in any certain way of assuring
them that they are in the faith, then we've just become a Pharisee.
We've just become subject to the enemy. The one who occupies
the world, the prince of the power of the air, who is symbolically
listed here in my mind, was not the intention, but in my mind
you can see that Rome were the occupiers of Israel. They overtook
the beauty of holiness. They overshadowed the law and
its purpose to reveal Jesus. And long before Rome came in,
Israel had laid down grace. So that it was just easy for
Rome to just walk in. It's just easy. I absolutely,
and I've told some of you this recently, when Robin reads the
Word at home, I love to hear it. I hear myself read the Bible
all day long. I like to hear her voice read.
And over the holidays, when she was reading the woes of Matthew
23, I wept. I wept. And it became uncontrollable. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees
and hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the
plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence,
you blind Pharisee! First, clean the inside of the
cup and the plate, and the outside may also be clean. Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed
tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full
of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. You, so you also
outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full
of hypocrisy and lawlessness. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate
the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in that
day of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them
in shedding the blood of the prophets. Thus you witness against
yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Fill up then the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood
of vipers. How are you to escape? being
sentenced to hell. Therefore, I send you prophets
and wise men and scribes, some of whom you kill and crucify,
and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from
town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood
shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood
of Zechariah, the son of Bariach, whom you murdered between the
sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these
things will come upon this generation, and then they're doing the exact
thing that he told them they would do by delivering Jesus
the Christ over. to the government of Rome. What are you to do? There was
no hope for them. They were not God's people. Judgment
had been sealed. And I am in that number had it
not been for the grace of God. That's what kills me. I'd love
to say, Oh, I just weep so hard for these Pharisees and I do.
But my deeper weeping is the truth that I could be in them.
I could be the sons of murderers, the sons of slaves and not the
son of promise. It is not lawful for us to put
to death anyone. Verse 32, John says, this was
to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show about what
kind of death he was going to die. See, in all of the ministry of
Jesus and all of the 11 plus Judas, Jesus continually talked
about his demise, his death, his persecution, his arrest,
but specifically always pointed to his death. A seed goes into
the ground and it dies and it yields much fruit. It must die
first before it yields fruit. The picture there that they understood
very well. the Passover, the very nature
of death itself coming by the judgment of God against the enemies
of God. And that the only escape of that, that God would bring
death upon all the people here, all of them. It didn't matter
if you were the victim or not. You deserve death too. So I'm going
to kill the firstborn in all your houses. And the only escape
is my mercy. And my mercy prescribes this,
that the blood of the lamb be put by faith on your doorposts.
And if it is there, if the blood of the Lamb is there, if the
blood of the Lamb is on your home, I will not kill your firstborn
children and your firstborn animals. But if it is not there, you will
see the wrath of God. What is that? Jesus Christ, the
blood of the Lamb. Jesus Christ is the one who must
die. The disciples could not see him
dying by crucifixion because it was only given to the worst
of the murderers of society. That's why I don't preach that
there were thieves on the cross with Jesus. The scripture says
that they were morbidly evildoers and they were part of the party
of Barabbas who was a murderer. I think they were murderers.
Doesn't matter, they were sinners convicted to death. It doesn't
matter, but I don't want to loosen it. Jesus died by the will of God
who put him forward as propitiation. to be received by faith, propitiation,
again, is to satisfy the wrath of God. Though it is evil that
He was done this way, it was the will of the Father that through
this evil, God would purchase Himself a people and justify
them. And the only way anyone can believe is that they were
counted in Christ on the day He died. and that the Holy Spirit, through
the hearing of the Word of God, causes them to believe it. And beloved, we need to teach
our children this gospel. We need to live with the implication
of knowing that around us many people say, ah, hey brother.
You know, down here people call pastors brother. Brother James,
Brother John, Brother Jim, Brother Joe. It's always brother. I call everybody brother, sister,
whatever, it's just southern of me. But in the scheme of it
all, if you are in this gospel, if this gospel is yours, if you
have faith in this God's gospel, you are brother and sister. But if you are not, and the majority
are not, you are not. And the only escape is Christ.
And the Spirit of God, through hearing this proclamation of
this explicit, myopic, dogmatic good news, and its implication
and its application to an explicit people, this is the only way
that you will ever, by the Spirit of God, be shown the truth. But
men fight it, religious fight it, quote, Christians fight it,
because it takes away all authority. It takes away all of our law,
it takes away all of our being, it takes away all of the constructs
of our narrow lives that we know that we're running in the right
direction and it subjects it to another who ran for us and
that's Jesus the Christ. And we need to see that and we
need to hold fast to that and we need to pray according to
that so that we do not stray. Let's pray. Father, would you
bring your sheep to faith?