I am the way, the truth and the
life. No one comes to the father except
through me. If you had known me, you would
have known my father also. From now on, you do know him
and you have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show
us the father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have
I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the father. How can you say,
show us the father? Do you not believe that I am
in the father and the father is in me? The words that I say
to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father
who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the father
and the father is in me or else believe on the count of the works
themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me
will also do the works that I do and greater works than these
will he do. But we're not going to get through all of that. Of
course, we've done several weeks already in some of this text.
But today I want to pull a few things that are easy to miss,
but not hard to find. They're easy to miss because
there's so many things at work here. Jesus, as we know, is in
one of his last dialogues with his disciples. He's just sent
Judas out to do the betraying that he was destined to do, that
which Judas desired to do in his own heart. And he has already
seen now that, or he's already said now that Peter would deny
him, the very one that supposedly had the greatest zeal and love
for Christ was going to deny him. And when we look at this
text, sometimes it's very difficult to find what application is normative. What is it that we're supposed
to read out of this? What are we supposed to take
home with us? Well, at this point, you've already heard several
sermons from this text, and the main idea is that Jesus is the
very Son of God. He is God the Son. And everything
that He has purposed to do and everything that He has said would
be done is absolutely certain. He is going to lay down His life
for His sheep. He is going to die. He is going
to see and prove that He is the way, the truth, and the life.
Everywhere you look throughout history, If those of you who
like to read literature, like to read history, like to read
fiction of any kind, you know that there's always been, as
long as we have written history, a desire to see the divine. Everywhere you go. And even in
our day, it's very easy for us to think, if we could just see
this great sign from God, my faith would be strengthened.
Isn't it? I mean, it's why people flock
by the tens of thousands to healing services. God can heal, but God
has not given any human being this day the gift of healing. He does not do things out that
are contrary to His nature, and He does not change with time
and dispensation time. He doesn't change. So God healed
in His apostolic season, of ministry to verify the what? The message. Jesus healed few people, very
few people. As a matter of fact, as we remember,
if we go to the earlier parts of John's Gospel, we see where
Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda. And what did he do? He healed
one out of thousands and then vanished from among them. He
hid himself because there were many there in need of healing.
Jesus' ministry was not to come and take the body and make it
whole. Jesus' ministry was not to come and give new eyes to
those who couldn't see. Jesus' ministry was not to make
the lame walk. It was to show that in these
things He was the Creator God of the universe. And that all
of the infirmities of our lives, whether they are healed or not,
will end in death, for the wages of sin is death. But He alone
is the gift of God that brings eternal life. Christ is the exact
image of the invisible God. He is the visible image of the
invisible God. He is the exact imprint of the
nature of God. In essence, all that God is,
Jesus is, because Jesus is God and completely and always God.
But He is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son. These
are distinct persons of the same Being. Jesus came, and Jesus has promised
to do that which He came to do, to seek and save the lost, to
die in the place of sinners. The substitutionary work of Jesus
Christ is at the core, the Gospel. And friends, even today, as we
sit together as family, and we have been going for over two
years in John's Gospel thus far, we have learned a lot, and we've
been edified, and we've been encouraged, and we've been equipped.
But it doesn't erase the natural human tendency to want to see
more, to want to experience more, to want to do more, to want to
have more. I mean, most of us at this place in time say, man,
if I could just have walked with Jesus. Well, here are the men
who walked with Jesus, one of them the devil and the other
11 now utterly, ridiculously exposing how weak their faith
was. How weak their faith was. And
so one of the applications you need to take from this is that
even those closest to Jesus in his life, as you'll see, don't
necessarily have the strongest of faiths in the flesh. Because
even in the strongest of fates, friends, it is the faithfulness
of Christ that matters, not how strongly we believe in Him. That
we believe in Him is a gift of God. And that gift is something
that is necessary. Because without the divine work
of God, there is no hope for eternal life. There is no work
for eternal life. There is no sacrifice for sins.
I often wonder to myself after many years out of the status
quo, evangelical, Americanized church, what it is that appeals
so much to so many people about that lifestyle. What does it do on Friday or
Saturday that gets you excited about wanting to get ready to
go into the services that so many people go to? Because they
don't hear the truth. They don't see the inevitable
glory of God. They don't sing the truth. They
don't pray intimately for each other. There's always something
else to experience, something else to do. I wanted to bet you
last week, and this is a little gripe and then I'll get back
to that which is divine. I wanted to bet you last week
that congregation after congregation after congregation usurped the
glory of the majesty of God Himself by having some type of memorialized
opportunity to remember those who fail and fall on 9-11. In Romans chapter 1 it says that
people know the truth of God but refuse to give Him glory,
to thank Him, to worship Him, but instead worship the creation.
That's exactly what memorial services are. They're idolatry. So you want some application
out of John's Gospel? You know what? When you hear and teach
and learn these things and teach these things, you are worshiping
Christ. And at this moment, when we gather
together for this 90 minutes every Sunday morning, you are
able to, for a short season, put away the world and everything
in it and focus fully on that which is most glorious and most
beautiful and most worthy and most captivating and most astonishing. as if nothing else matters. And
then when we say amen in the beginning and the end, and it
is so be it, it is done, it is true, and then go out into the
world, it only takes just a little bit of the breeze outside to
blow a bug right into our face, or our mouths, or our drink,
or whatever it is may I have, and the glory of all of that
is gone. But for this moment, when God's
power is effective through His Word, we get to escape and have
a taste of what it's really like to be in the presence of God.
And the lights will not dim, and the music will not get soft,
and we won't stand and quote the same thing over and over
again until you feel some type of cycle, babble, hogwash in
your body to the point where you just sort of don't know what's
going on. But you may experience God in
the fullness of truth, for Jesus says, I am the way and the truth. So the experience of God is only
done in the hearing of His Word, and even then, it is a divine
work. A hundred of us could sit here,
ninety-nine of us could say, well, I enjoyed the teaching,
and one of us could meet with God. And it's only through the
same means. by the will and the pleasure
of God. Beloved, many people get very little out of the teaching
of Scripture for the primary reason the disciples in this
narrative, as we'll see, got very little out of the truth
that Jesus was teaching. It's because God had not granted
them the eyes to see. It doesn't mean they were lost. They just could not comprehend.
Do you know the knowledge of grace is cultivated? Your depth
and understanding God's grace is cultivated. It grows. That's why we must be disciplined
to be together. That's why we must be disciplined
to be in the what? In the scriptures. One of the
primary reasons it seems stale or redundant when we come together
on Sundays is because we are not individually in the Bible. And there is no amount of counsel,
there is no amount of routine, there is no amount of working
out some programs or some gatherings that can make a greater difference
than you being in the Word of God. Let your hearts not be troubled.
Believe in God, believe also in me. Christ is saying in verse
2 there, let's just review, I'm going to heaven and one day you'll
be with me. I am the way that prepares you.
You understand that the way to God is a preparation of the man. How did Christ prepare his people
for heaven? He died for them. He satisfied
the wrath of God for them. He imputed his own perfection
to them so that we are counted as righteous because of the righteousness
of Jesus. If it were not so, would I have
told you that I was going to do this? Jesus is explaining
very clearly that what He is doing is the way. And Thomas
says, what in verse 5, we don't know where to go and how can
we know the way? You see the point there. And I feel like
sometimes verse 5 of chapter 14 is the commentary of today's
culture, of Christianity, of evangelicalism, of denominationalism. We don't know where we're going. Jesus says, I'm going and you're
going to be with me. I'm going to come back and get
you and you'll be with me. And Thomas goes, we don't know
where you're going, but Jesus just said, you know the way. I mean, it'd be like me saying,
all right, at 12.05, we're all getting in our cars and we're
going there. So y'all just get there, we'll see you. You know
the way, and you're going, where are we going? I can't, I know
the way, but to where? You gotta give me a destination.
And Jesus wasn't leaving it up for guessing. It's not a guessing
game. Well, you better get where you're going. But see, eternal
life is what Jesus is talking about. Not just the location
of heaven for heaven is a temporary holding. Eternal life is the
restoration of the entire cosmos, the world and everything in it
restored to perfection and the presence of Christ, who is its
light, who is its life, who is the way, who is its truth. But Jesus says, you do know the
way. And Thomas goes, I don't know where you're talking about.
How can we know the way? Where are we going? Where are
you going? And I mean, I could I could pull
out of the scripture right here and do a whole lot of soapbox
preaching about it. I mean, does the church even
know her way? Do you even know the point of being in the Word
of God? What are you looking for? At
the end result, what are you looking for? To see God face
to face. That's what you're looking for.
That's the point of the Bible. You want to see what happens
as a parent and how you're supposed to parent your children? It's
that you, by the mercies of God, see the face of God every moment
you open the Bible. So when you see Paul exhorting
fathers and mothers not to cause their children to be angry on
purpose, it is because you've seen the face of God in Jesus
Christ. And you know that you've stared
at the face of God through divine favor and mercy. And we're not chastised or punished
because Christ has paid your penalty. No, but sometimes we'd be Far
more impressed if God would just answer our prayers to cause our
children to grow strong and smart and successful. When Jesus was
saying in the synoptics that that is the recipe for destruction. For most, all people who gang
the world die in reprobation. God does not give His sheep the
world at large. He does not make them famous
and popular. They're despised of all men.
I promise you this, beloved. There's no such thing as a famous
Christian. Except that if God were to save
them, they would lose all fame. They don't know the way. Sometimes
even as believers, we get lost in the midst of figuring out
what we're supposed to be looking toward. Jesus has told us He's
the way. And so if Jesus is the way, if
Jesus is the truth, and if Jesus is the life which is the ultimate
end of it all, then why do we look to anything but Christ?
Think about it. We've got to have a spiritual
GPS. We've got to figure out what
we've got to get right in this life that we may get where we're
going in the next. It's a one dot map. There's no roads. There's no
turns. It's the cheapest GPS you can
buy. I'm looking for eternal life. Look to Jesus. There's
no U-turn there. There's no left, there's no right,
there's no up, there's no down, there's no faster, there's no
slower. There is sitting still, doing nothing at the foot of
the cross of Christ, knowing fully by the divine work of God
alone in your mind and in your heart that Christ is all you
need. Jesus is the way, yet in our
lives, beloved, we will look for everything, won't we? And
we will look to everything about everything and we have compartmentalized
our faith to be that which we deal with on Wednesday nights
or Sunday mornings or in that rare occasion where we have some
spiritual conversations in relation to that. Some people
treat the talk of Christ and the Word of God like surgery.
Surgery's necessary, surgery's neat, surgery's good and beneficial,
and surgery is extremely interesting to some people, but not at suppertime.
Don't talk about your surgery at suppertime, you see? Don't
watch, you ever been to a restaurant and they had like a surgery channel
on? That doesn't work. Open heart surgery is amazing,
I think it's amazing. I just don't wanna look at it
when I'm eating a steak. I don't wanna look at some ocular surgeries
while I'm eating. Don't want to look at it. We
treat our faith that way. Oh, no, no, no, no. Let's keep
that Jesus talk to church. Oh, no, no, no, no. Let's don't
do that. Let's don't talk about, man, why you got a Bible? This
is a business meeting. I don't know. You got a belt on? You
got pants on? You got underpants on? We're prepared for everything
but the Lord. We're prepared to be intimate
with every aspect of our lives, but Christ, but Christ is within
us. Why do we push him out to the corners of the segments of
our lives? It should not be beloved, but
it is going to be the forever war, isn't it? It's going to
be the struggle that we have constantly. It's going to be
that thing that we're always like, where are we supposed to
be going, Lord? You're supposed to be sitting with Christ. You're
supposed to be standing with me, he would say. You're supposed
to be looking at me. You're supposed to rest in me. I am your way to where? Who cares? I am the life. Isn't that where
you're coming? So you're coming to me and I'm the way to get
there. And for those of you who have
been granted understanding, that makes perfect sense to you. And no amount of illustrations
or practical applications or points or life lessons or illest
or anything will help you grasp it any better. But even though this is that
this is where the truth really starts to hit us on an application,
look at that. Jesus says in verse six, I'm the way, the truth and
the life. And no one comes to the father except for me. So
we see there that life is where the father is. And this we understand
that we've already learned that this high Christology, this doctrine
of Jesus as the Christ, it makes him equal with God in every sense. That's why Jesus continues to
teach this and reiterate this. They understand that, but they
don't really understand that. He says in verse 7, if you had
known me, that's the past tense there, you would have known my
father also. Now see, that sounds a lot like
what he says to the Jews often. If you knew the Father, you'd
know me. Because as I've said earlier,
and did not finish the thought, throughout all of history, of
written history, we've seen the desire of man to look into the
divine. To look into the supernatural, to look into these places that
are unknown and mystical. And the more signs, and I mean,
it makes me ill. Not as in angry ill, as in, I
pity these people. Who spend their entire lives
studying the paranormal, spending millions of dollars of grant
money, So they can hear this, once a year in a while, somebody
spoke to us from beyond. It's laughable at best. It's
ridiculous. People seeing visions, hearing
things, I mean, for the love of all things, ridiculous. There
are people who have iconized pieces of bread because they
supposedly see the face of Jesus upon it. I always find it interesting
that it's the white man Jesus to Uncle Billy. Everywhere you look, the veneration
of mortals as if they are divine, as if they have a ear to answer
requests for prayer. This is demonic blood. But yet
it is the innate issue of almost all humanity, even those who
would say that they believe only in the cosmos and the science
and the physics of what they can see and measure with their
hands. But there's still a mystical portion of that that cannot be
comprehended beyond the measure of all of it. So even these atheists
are looking for that natural, supernatural meaning of life. That's why so many false converts
preaching a false gospel can say, you know, that's the thing
that we need to let people know is that everybody's got a God
shaped hole in their life. We just got to show them how
to fill it. They've filled it already. And it's not a God shaped hole,
it's a God made hole. For the wages of sin is death.
We are eternally separated from God as human beings. We are born
into iniquity. We are depraved without the possibility
of having the freedom of our will. There is no volition to
come and find God. Though we may seek after whatever
God we think we can find, until we look to Christ as He has revealed
Himself in the Word, we are looking into the enemy, who always poses as an angel
of light. You understand that? Historical perpetuity and critical
mass is not a test for authenticity and truth. I mean, just because
people have thought this way and listen to this way and said
these things and believe this way for all these years and so
many people believe it, that, according to the scripture, is
a test of falsehood. The minority will truly be given
sight. Broad is the path that leads
to destruction. Most people will find it. Narrow
is the gate that leads to righteousness. Few will find it. What is the
gate, John 10? Jesus Christ is the gate. What are you looking for this
morning? If you'd known me, you would
have known my father also. That seems like an indictment.
But it's not an indictment. It's just a statement of the
truth. If you'd known me, you'd known the Father. If you had
understood what you think you understand about me, you would
understand the Father. If you want to see the face of
God like Moses, you're looking at it. The Father has a face and it's
Jesus. And we know that by what verse
6 tells us, from now on, you do know him. And from now on,
you have seen him. You see what he's doing there?
He didn't back up from the table and go, Oh my goodness, I spent
three and a half years with these idiots and they still don't get it.
Because he knew he was the way. And that he would grant them
passage. He knew that he was the truth
and he would reveal to them all truth. And he knew that he was
the life and he in himself is their life. So it's not about
the ferocity of their faith. It's not about the strength of
their faith, or the grandioseness, or the zeal of their faith. It's
about the awesomeness of Christ. And he told them, and they still
didn't get it. You know the Father from now
on, and you have seen Him. And look at verse 8. Philip,
Oh Lord, they're thinking he's saying he's about to show him.
You have seen him and you do know him. And Philip said show
us the Father and it'll be enough. Oh just show us the Father and
we'll be at peace. All these questions we have,
they'll be gone and I mean we won't feel frustrated. Our hearts
will surely not be troubled. Peter will not, even though you've
already said he's going to deny you, he will not deny you. Just
show us the Father and I can imagine If Jesus had my sense
of humor, I'd have rubbed my hands together a little bit and
I'd start breathing in there, praying in Arabic or something,
and looking up at the sky, and I went like this, and I'd watch
carefully. Ha! I mean, you know. Here's the Father, or here's
the face of the Father. I mean, Jesus had done that. He taught
them that to see Him was to see God, because He is God. And they have seen God and they
know God because they do know Christ. But they know it in such
a way that it's just not clicking yet. Why? Why is it not clicking? Because it was not in the timing
of God for it to click. This is not salvificly. This
is not salvificly. Listen to me. These disciples were not lost,
unconverted, until they got this. They were Christ's. He had granted them life. He
had granted them faith. He had given them faith. But
it was an infantile, as Jesus would say, little faith. They
didn't fully see everything. Now, people will argue that with
me. I'm not even having that conversation. I won't debate
that. I won't answer a question on
my theology on Carltonite about it. I'm not going to debate when
people try to tell me that the apostles were unregenerate throughout
their ministry. I'm not debating that. Because
the timing of God for his exposure of their grasping the depths
of what it was that Jesus had been teaching is in God's economy. He makes it worth or he makes
it work when he's ready. They believed in Christ. And
I'll be honest with you, I think it's a fool's errand. And I also
think it's a little bit of an arrogance to try to figure that
out. When salvation is all of Christ, when Christ says, I'm
the way and the truth and the life. And we try to figure out
when people obtained it. The better thing is, are you
believing in Christ today? Through the, through the divine
work of God, has he granted you faith to exhaustively trust in
the work of Christ? Even if you don't grasp all the
depths of it, because you don't belove it. And I would say to
most people who love to study, sometimes our knowledge gets
right in the way of faith. Saving faith includes an understanding
of the truth who is Christ, a cognitive ascension of going, okay, these
propositions, these facts, yes, but it's still not salvific.
There is a divine part there in regeneration where in the
subconscious of a man he becomes aware then consciously that he
has an unreserved trust in these things who are Christ. A trust in Christ. And we do
grow in these. It'll be enough if you just show
us the Father. And Jesus answers, have I been with you so long?
And you still don't know me, Philip? You see how he answered
that? Show us the father. I've been
with you so long and you still don't know me. Now he's not saying
me and the father are the same person. He's saying I am the
fullness of the glory of the father. I am God and I'm showing
you all that can be revealed about God. Do you not believe? Well, excuse me, whoever has
seen me has seen the father. How can you say show us the father? Do you not believe that I am
in the Father and the Father is in me? The very nature of
Christ, this is why the cults who have a very poor Christology
can't stand to do contextual work. Reading the English here. Because it's very clear that
Jesus is God. This is sonship language, this
is divine language, this is something that especially first century
Jews would have grasped to the point that they would try to
stone Jesus for making himself God every time he spoke like
this. The greatest expression of divinity is for someone to
say, I am. For Jesus to say, I am, And for
Jesus to say in John 8 to the to the Pharisees, unless you
believe that I am, you will die on your sins, was to make himself
absolutely God eternally. Because that was an expression
only used by God to Israelites. Father is in me. I am in the
father, the essence of The divine nature is us, we are God. And he goes on to reiterate what
we've already learned in chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. How can you say, show us the
Father? Do you not believe that I'm in the Father and the Father
is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my
own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. So Jesus is reminding them of
what he said in John chapter 5 to the Pharisees. I am the
voice of God, not a prophet. I'm God. Believe me that I'm in the Father
and the Father is in me. So right there, Jesus commands
all of a sudden, believe me. Believe what I'm telling you.
Put your trust in what I'm saying to you right now. and take it
to the bank. Now this is different, it's not
believe in me like he's been saying, but it's believe me,
believe what I've just told you, understand what I'm saying and
grasp it. The words that I speak are the
Father's words, the works that I do are the Father's works.
In reciprocal fashion, the words that the Father speaks are the
words of Christ. And the work that the Father does are the
works of Christ. God works and God is not divided, though he
is triune. He's one triune, three in one,
three persons in one being. And if you can't just believe
that I say this to you, believe on account of the works themselves.
know that only God can create, only God can transform, only
God can do the things that I have done. So I must be God. I am
the divine one. For the very first miracle that
these men saw was to turn the ceremonial washing water to wine
and such good wine that. The bridegroom got glory for
it. And it's not just enough to believe. That he is doing the works of
God, but I want you to see verses 12 through 14. Truly, truly, I say to you. Whoever
believes in me will also do the works that I do. I think about
that for a second. And we'll unpack this a little
bit more next week as we move into chapter, move into verse
15. But this is an area here where
it requires somewhat of a polemic. That means it requires an attack
on certain misapplications of this sentence out of its context. Many people would say, okay,
Jesus healed the blind, gave the lame legs, raised me from
the dead, so this is what Jesus is promising all of us that we
will do. Jesus has just said, I speak
not on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me speaks,
and I do his work. So in the same way, the words
that I speak and the work that I do, you shall do these things
also if you are in me. So as I am in the Father and
the Father is in me, then when you are in me and I am in you,
you will continue the work that I do. That's what Jesus is saying.
It's very clear. So how do we continue in the
work of Christ? How do we continue to see the
words of Christ? I mean, are we all waiting? See,
this is what some people are doing. They're waiting for some
miracle to take place, for something supernatural outside the normal
realms of just studying the Word of God. I mean, what would impress you
more, that some voice came over the loudspeaker, said, this is
God, gave us some message? It better
quote something out of the text or we're going to pull the plug. Or if the sky opened up and a
pillar of fire came out and began to speak, would you believe in
God then? I would suggest you wouldn't. You won't believe in
God unless you believe in the words of Christ. You won't believe
in God in a way that you're required to believe in God for life unless
you believe in the eternal life who is Jesus Christ. Unless you
believe in the written word of scripture. Given to us, revealed
to us, preserved to us. And no, the King James is not
the authoritative English Bible. There were many before that were
Fine. We've got to get off that kick.
It's fine. Read it. No problem. But we continue the work of God
because we continue in the Word of God. We continue to see not
only that people here and that the church, that the congregation,
that the assembly of the saints are growing in the knowledge
of grace through the scripture. But we are reading it ourself.
We are intimate with God, with the scripture. And then everything
in our life, every aspect of our life is infiltrated by the
divine work of Christ. As employees, we have, as under
the Lord, the requirement to work as if we were working for
Jesus. and the job that we've been given as husbands and wives
and parents and children. We are required, according to
the scripture, to live and act accordingly as if we were living
and acting and speaking and rolling our eyes as if it were Jesus. But the worst thing we could
ever do is live in a manner of peace and morality and never
proclaim the works of Christ to those around us. If we think
that we're supposed to segregate our eternal gift of life from the very being of our person,
we've misunderstood the works of Christ. The disciples, of course, would
continue to do the works that he did. They would continue to
authenticate the words that they taught. So that as, well this, of course
this was written long after they were all dead. But after Jesus
ascended, they would continue to see the power to do miracles,
but it was not them doing them, it was God doing it through them.
It was Christ working through them. When we preach the word
of God, it is Christ working through the teaching. If the
teaching is contextual, if what we say about the text is driven
from the text rather than creativity. Creativity, though it is God-granted,
has no place in the teaching of His Word. You ever heard somebody
preach one time, and, man, I wish I could see all that, and, I
mean, it's just, and you look, and you look, and you can't find
it anywhere? I mean, there's a logical inference that we can
take out of things, but that's not doctrine. Doctrine is clearly
tall. And unless a rhetorical device
is used in the grammar, in the syntax, in order to draw out
that inference that's obvious, then creativity has no part in
understanding Christ. We understand Christ because
we read it. What is it that he's saying here? It's very simple.
It could have been a five minute sermon. Jesus Christ is God and he's
telling you that he's God. But what difference does it make?
See, that's where we're at, isn't it? That's where we really sit
today. What difference does it make
that Jesus Christ is God for you? It gives you surety for
your salvation. It gives you surety for your
redemption. It gives you surety for you being justified. It makes
you certain and confident that no matter how strong or weak
your faith is or how good or bad your life's going, that Christ
is sufficient for your eternity. and that His word and therein
is where you will find solace and peace that surpasses all
understanding. The scripture alone is the only
place where you can take your mind off of the temporal things
of this world and put it on the eternal things of Christ. When Paul was being beaten over
and over again, numerous times, and imprisoned, and when he was
being harassed, and he was being maligned, as we see in Philippians
where he was being taken advantage of by charlatans, What kept him going, where he
never complained. You ever see Paul complaining?
Other than the sin and the weakness of the church? And he's just
really chastising. What kept him going without complaining
is the fact that he kept his mind on the doctrines of Christ. That's it. He kept his mind on
the doctrines of Christ. He kept his mind on what the
Holy Spirit had taught him. And then he wrote it all down.
And now we can read what the Holy Spirit taught him, what
God has taught him, and now what God is teaching us, and we can
put our mind on that. I've used this illustration several
times over the last few weeks in different settings, but I'll
use it again in here just to remind us. Many people go, well,
I just cannot, I cannot pay attention to the scripture. Yes, you can
when you are disciplined to do it. My five year old knows hundreds
of songs. It's crazy. There'll be some
random playlist or something playing in the car and the next
time I look in the back, there's a sweet little tiny voice singing loudly.
How does she know this song? Because in a dozen trips to the
grocery store four miles away, she memorized it. Familiarity. Disciplined eating. At the beginning of the summer,
you see all these ads about swimwear and beachwear. And for those
of you who know men's health type magazine stuff, they inundate
email addresses about how to get your six-pack ab on before
the first day of summer. And they'll sell you all these
pills, and they can sell you all these things. They can make you do
all these exercises. Here's the bottom line about
body fat percentage. It's 130% nutrition. That's it. You can work out every day of
your life, all hours of the day, and until your nutrition is perfect,
your body fat is going to maintain. That's the way it is. Yet we want the same, we want
instant results of spiritual maturity, we want instant results
of without any problems, but yet we think that the very thing
that Christ has said for us to do is the last thing we should
do. And what has He told us to do?
Abide in Him. He is the Word of God that became
flesh and dwelt among us. It is Christ that is revealed
through the text of Scripture. And I know the last two weeks
it seemed like I just continued to preach the same message about
being in the Bible. But beloved, when you are in
it, God will not purpose it on my heart to continue emphasizing
it. And so I do this because it is what God the Spirit has
continued to emphasize in the context here. Here are people
who were with Jesus every day for three and a half years, and
yet they couldn't see it well. So even when you're in the Word,
beloved, and some of us could say, well, I've been in the Bible
and I've been trying, I've been trying, I've been trying. Don't
try, just continue to do. A try starts with the opposition,
with opposition. A try insinuates I'm not going
to make it, but if I do, I'm excited. Do it. What are you trying to do? Are
you trying to believe in Christ? Are you trying to stay focused
on Christ? Are you trying to be disciplined in the Word of
God? Great! Or are you trying to get all the answers? The answers
will come by the will of God. The answers will come and the
peace will come and it'll ebb and flow. You're not always going
to have everything at all times in all ways concerning your peace
and your understanding. Because if that were true, there'd
be no reason for Paul to have written these letters. The greatest
experience of a believer is typically told in their lives the season
of conversion. Not the point of conversion,
because that's not necessary, but the season of conversion
where they first came to know the truth. You know, in circles
20 years ago, we started to hear something called cage stage.
You know what a cage stage is? That stage in your faith where
you're so excited about it that you're like a Tasmanian devil
and he puts you in a cage. You know, you're pumping gas
and You're talking to the gas pump about the gospel. And of
course, there's been many other uses of that term, just like
the word boy means a lot of things, until somebody says it with the
wrong tone, and that's degrading. But there's never been a season,
usually for most believers, is when they first came to the knowledge
of truth. They look back on that with fondness, and they say,
man, if I could just have that zeal again. But look at Peter's zeal.
What did Peter's zeal get him without the divine work of God?
It got him his flesh, which did what? I don't know Jesus. Get
away from me. I never knew that man. And this
is hours away. This is hours from when he said,
I'll lay down my life for you, Jesus. It's when Thomas is like, how
do we know the way? We don't even know where you're
going. Can you show us the way? I am the way. Oh, I get it, but I
don't. Just show us the Father and then
we'll be at peace, OK? You've seen the Father. You know
the Father. You know me. Do you know Christ? And this isn't a call to believe
the gospel, though it is always a call to believe the gospel
for the saints. We believe the gospel every day by the will
of God, by the power of God. But it's a call for us to stay
disciplined to the very thing, to the means of grace that God
has given us, which is the Holy Writ. to know that as we learn and
as we grow, here's the other section of how people always,
if we want to see God, but now when we see God, now when we
understand that God is with us, now that we hold fast to the
person of Christ, what else then do we do? We always find ourselves
falling into this category, don't we? I wish I could do more for
Jesus. Right? I just want to see Jesus, now
I want to do more for Jesus. I want to do more for the Lord,
I want to do more for the gospel, I want to do, and great! You should
have that desire. But what is there more to do
than what the scripture has called us to? And as we started out
our service today, there are many of us who are very busy.
And so we think we're not fruitful for the kingdom, but we are fruitful
for the kingdom. You think these disciples were not fruitful for
the kingdom? How about when they went fishing,
were they fruitful for the kingdom? How about the Christians in Corinth,
were they not fruitful for the kingdom? Ephesus had a strong legacy until
John's apocalypse. And we see Jesus speaking directly
to them and saying, remember what you did before. Change your thinking right now
and go do the things you did before. What were they? Being
in love with Christ. You've forsaken your first love.
Be in love with Christ. Be intimate with Christ. Be in
a relationship with Christ. Hold fast to Christ. And all
these other things will work themselves out in the person
of Christ, in the time of Christ, by the power of Christ, by the
authority of God. You will do the works that Christ
has done, I promise, beloved. You know what Christ did more
than anything during His earthly ministry? Prayed. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
and you know, sometimes people have mixed feelings when I share
my shortcomings and my fears, my stresses. Some of the people
are like, man, I'm so glad that you're real because it helps me understand
I'm not alone. And other people go, you know what, pastors shouldn't
tell these things. But I'm going to tell you something, the hardest
thing for me to do in my life, the hardest thing for me to do
in my life is to pray. And almost daily, at least twice
a day when I pray, I spend the first third of my prayer praying
for me to be able to pray. And that if you don't help me
pray, Father, I'm not going to pray. My mind, I'm telling you
right now, if I looked up at the ceiling, if I didn't have
people to talk to in here, if I looked at the ceiling, I would
just go off into some la-la land. And it's not attention deficit,
anything. It's the flesh. And when I'm tired, I don't care
if my house is on fire, I'm going to sleep. If God didn't have the body to
be built with adrenaline to wake you up and get you that fight
or flight response, I'd burn to death in a burning building.
If I'm tired, I go to sleep, like in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Stay and pray, beloved. Jesus prayed. He was faithful
to pray. We must also recognize that our
strength comes from the Father and His faithfulness. And not
only will we do these works, look at the latter part of verse
12 and then we're finished. and greater works than these will
he do because I'm going to the Father. And then verse 13. See, I ran out of time, but verse
13. And whatever you ask in my name, this will I do. So see, even when we are teaching
and living and ministering the work of Christ as it's shown
in scripture, not as culture dictates, then we are praying
and Seeking the power of Christ because it is Christ doing the
work through us. That's the point. That's next week's sermon. In
our understanding of prayer. And then the next week we'll
understand what it means to obey Christ. And in all of this, beloved,
I want you to be encouraged. I want you to be encouraged to
be in scripture, to be in prayer. And beloved, be honest about
your spiritual walk. Be honest with someone in this
congregation. You know what? My faith is in
the toilet. Unless that's a term of endearment
for you, it's usually a place of not very good. In the trash can, in the gutter,
whatever. I need encouragement. I need prayer. My faith is waning. My time in the Word is waning.
And maybe some of you need to get together on Facebook or on
the phone or in person and just read the Bible together. Are
you reading Colossians? It's important to me that you read
Colossians every day. Because this month's almost over
and then we're going to start unpacking that. And if you aren't
reading Colossians every day, you're going to be left out.
But it's okay. It's such a short 13-minute read
or listen. I know many of you men, you all
like to listen to it. It's such a short thing. You
can just start. You haven't missed anything.
Just start now because I want us to see as a congregation just
what the Word of God can teach us individually. Without sermonizing,
without commentary, just reading. And you're going to be encouraged
by this, I promise you. It is important to me that you
read Colossians. It is important to each other
that all of you are reading Colossians because if you want to be a body
and you want to be healthy, you need to be all eating together.
And it's not about fellowship meals, which is past due time
to have some. With that being said, let's pray.
Father, we're thankful for being able to hear your word, Lord,
and I pray that as I've just sort of belabored these things
and in some sense rambled a little bit over the last few minutes,
Father, that your word is sufficient. It's hard sometimes, Lord, for
me to separate my pastoral desires from what the text may be directly
trying to show us. But father, I pray that it would
be a blessing for us to see the meshing of these things today. And Lord, I continue to lift
up those that we prayed for at the beginning of our service.
Those who are sick, those who are hurt, those who are suffering
loss, those who are traveling or continue to pray for the marriages
of our congregation, for our Children, for intimacy is a body. for all the things that are necessary
for us to have the fullness of joy. Lord, as revealed in the
scripture, Father, give us a heart to love your word so that we
might love you and love each other as we see your love for
us. And as we close out our time this morning, remembering the
crosswork of Christ, Lord, I pray that it will be a blessing to
us and it would be giving honor to you. In Jesus' name, amen.