On the 18th of May, we will have
an all-day extravaganza on the Holy Spirit. It is a plenary conference. What
does that mean? Some people have asked me what
that means. Well, that means a conference of teaching, speaking. So we are going to have that
day six sessions concerning the person, the deity, the work,
the attributes of God, the Holy Spirit, according to the text
of scripture and also according to, or not just according, but
according to the text of scripture and also as illustrated in the
patristics in the early church, the first century church. And then the next day we will
have church as normal and we will have bring your own lunch
day and we will stick around and then have a panel or two
related to the understanding of error that comes about the
Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians, in the lives of the true church.
There are some things that we don't always get right. And then
we'll also look at how other cults and world religions and
non-Christian religions deal with looking at the Holy Spirit
and then we'll give opportunity to ask questions of the gentlemen
who are going to be helping teach this. I pray that you all will
plan on being here. It's going to be a wonderful
time. It is It is not evangelistic. A lot of people say, well, can
I bring all my lost friends? Sure. But the purpose of teaching,
just like on Sundays, is not to reap the harvest. It is to equip those who have
been saved. And so we are to do the work
of evangelism in our lives as we share and proclaim the gospel
of grace as often as we have opportunity and as often as the
Lord permits. And then when we come together,
it is for the edification of the church and for the growth
of the church. As a matter of fact, if you look
at the Great Commission, as it's called, it is a commission of
urgency to teach those people around us what it means to be
a disciple of Christ. And so, of course, that's inclusive
of the good news of Christ, but there's a distinct difference
in the context of sharing the faith and growing in the faith.
One, maybe that's just semantics, but one is often confused as
the same. The church assembly is not for
reaching the lost. So we are gathering together
to learn And by the Lord's mercy, I pray that it will be beneficial
to all of us. You'll learn a lot. We're going
to look at the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit
in the New Testament, what redemption looks like by the power of the
Spirit, what regeneration looks like. We're going to discuss
the errors and the misnomer of sanctification and what it really
is. We're going to look at sealing
of the Spirit, all the different things. So that's May 18th and
then Sunday, May 19th, will be in John and then we'll have those
opportunities to discuss together after lunch on Sunday. But this
morning we are finishing up the first 16 verses of John chapter
11. And I want to revisit the totality
of all these verses in context so that we can grasp a couple
of things. But before I read, I want to
emphasize several points in this text. One being that Jesus says
in verse 4, this illness does not lead to death. It is for
the glory of God so that the Son of God may be glorified through
it. Number one, remember we learned last week that the glory of God,
actually it was week before last midweek, that God's glory means
to see him as he is. So for Jesus to be glorified
is to see him as he is. The second thing I want you to
see is that the motivation of Jesus, this is just to renew
or remembrance, is the love that he had for the Father, for the
mission of the glory of God, and the love that he has for
Lazarus and his family, is the motivation for which Jesus stayed
two more days. Then, when he decides to go to
Judea, this particular text is where we'll focus our emphasis
to wrap all this up today. Jesus says, let's go to Judea,
and the disciples are upset, and he rebukes them, and says
that they're not 12 hours in the day. If anyone walks in the
day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
And then in contrast, Jesus says these words, But if anyone walks
in the night, he stumbles because the light is not in him. So keep these things in mind
as we continue in this text. So now let me read all 16 verses
together and let's put it into context. Now a certain man was
ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister
Martha. It was Mary who anointed the
Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose
brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent to him saying,
Lord, he whom you love is ill. But when Jesus heard it, he said,
this illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of
God so that the son of God may be glorified through it. Now,
Jesus loved Mary and Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus
was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then
after this, he said to the disciples, let us go to Judea again. The
disciples said to him, Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking
to stone you, and you're going there again? And Jesus answered,
Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the
day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.
But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light
is not in him. After saying these things, he
said to them, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. but I go to
awaken him. Now the disciples said to him,
Lord, if he's fallen asleep, he will recover. Now Jesus had
spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking
a rest and sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly,
Lazarus has died. And for your sake, I am glad
that I was not there so that you may believe, but let us go
to him. So Thomas called the twins, said
to his fellow disciples, let us also go that we may die with
him. Okay. I probably could squeeze
several more weeks out of this portion of text, but I think
for the sake of clarity, it's enough. And so today, as we close
it out next week, he will be in Bethany and he will be at
the tomb of Lazarus. There's several things in Way
of Reminder related to what we're doing today that we need to recognize. What is the motivation of Jesus
to do what he's doing? The motivation of Jesus. Well,
Jesus was motivated in many ways, and I've already stated what
they are, but just as a review, Jesus was motivated by his love
for the glory of the Father. Everything that he did, was because
that his sufficient fulfillment was to fulfill the will of God
who sent him. Everything he desired was wrapped
up, was packaged in the love that he had for the Father's
glory. So therefore, there is nothing that Jesus did in word
or in deed that had anything to do with what, or had anything
to do outside of God's glorification. Nothing that Jesus said or did
had anything to do with anything except God's glory because everything
that He desired was related to the glory of the Father. Now
this might seem obvious to us, but there has been times in many
of our lives and maybe some of those around us, our family,
our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, who talk of Jesus,
who speak of Christian things, but they don't have the gospel
of grace. They just have a caricature of
Jesus who's a loving man, a martyr, much like the Jews of the New
Perspective, as N.T. Wright would say, who just looked
at Jesus as the example to follow and in their own obedience can
do likewise. Jesus is not the example to follow.
Jesus is the righteousness of God. And so Jesus does everything
that is motivated for the glory of God. Friends, to learn Jesus
in any other way is to blaspheme His name. It's to blaspheme His
self-revelation. It's to blaspheme the Word of
God. It's to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. And it's to blaspheme
the Father who testify of the Son and what He came to do and
who He is in essence and in desire. So Jesus is motivated first and
foremost by the love of the glory of God. Secondly, in this text,
Jesus is also motivated in a secondary way by His love for Lazarus.
Jesus loved Lazarus, so therefore he waited two days to make sure
that Lazarus was surely dead. And it wasn't so that Jesus would
know he was dead, because Jesus is God, and without any report,
Jesus is aware that Lazarus has already died, as you see in this
narrative. He's aware that Lazarus has already
died after the two days had passed. So people say, was that not a
conflicting thing, to love the glory of God above all things,
and then also Jesus being motivated by His love for Lazarus? No,
because His love for Lazarus rests in His love for the glory
of God. He loves Lazarus more than Lazarus could ever recognize
the love that Jesus had for him, because Jesus loved Lazarus in
a great way, because Jesus loved the glory of God ultimately.
So the love that Jesus has for the sheep, for His people, for
the elect, for the chosen, is bound to His love for the glory
of the Father. Now where do you hear that? Beloved,
you hear it everywhere, if the Bible is taught accurately. As
a matter of fact, any sermon without that as its main point
is really missing the point, and there is no point. The love
that Jesus has for His people is that He loves the glory of
God. He is to be revealed to them,
and He is to reveal the Father to them, and He is to reveal
the Father's mission for them, and His finished work of redemption
on their behalf. So, in that line of thinking,
the final motivation that we see for Jesus, or with Jesus,
or of Jesus, is that He has a love for the divine work of God. He
has a love for the redemption of God's people. We talk about
the gospel, we come to fellowship together as church, we church
together, we don't come to church, we assemble, we gather. And yet it's very likely that
some of us will just miss the point of teaching, miss the point
of preaching, miss the point of gathering, miss the point
of prayer, miss the point of singing. It is for our mutual
benefit. God has established the body
and every congregation thereof that are truly regenerate people,
who truly have the gospel of grace. He's established them
for His glory. And in doing so, He's established
them to be together as He has, hard word, commanded them. And
that they are to worship as He has commanded us. and they are
to be about His divine business as He has revealed to us. So
we're not coming to learn something academically. We are coming here
today together to be equipped spiritually so that practically
we live our lives together as a people. It was just a couple of Sundays
ago where I couldn't get Abigail to go to bed. Well, she was in
the bed, but she would not go to sleep. And it was every three
minutes, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, and you walk in there and what
you want to do is, I don't know, throw her in the toilet, give
her a swirly. Quit calling me. Only if it's
an emergency. So then there was a spider somewhere
in the house. She couldn't tell me, but it was there. So it was
an emergency. And one thing led to another.
I said, Abigail, if you don't go to bed, daddy's not going
to be able to go to sleep. And if I don't get good rest,
I might oversleep and I won't make it to church. And she's
just like that little scowl on her face. And then her eyebrow
went up. She goes, then nobody will have
church if you don't show up. And I said, you're right, Abigail.
And then I taught her some ecclesiology that she could not comprehend. I said, Abigail, your absence
in the fellowship tomorrow is more important than mine. The pastor has no more obligation
to be in the fellowship of the saints than each of you. And
if something goes awry, if I just don't show up, no call, no show,
What spiritually is taking place in the lives of each other when
you know call no show? Just some thought. Some ecclesiology
that we might not understand. But we better start teaching
our children now. You don't go to church. You are. And if I
woke up this morning, my left leg was missing, you better by
golly know that I'll recognize it. God has established each
of you for the sake of one another. Not for yourselves. This life
is not for us. This life is for each other,
for the glory of God. Jesus understood that as a human
being. His divine nature, of course,
taught him these things, but he also learned these things
as he learned the word of God as a child, as a teenager, as
a young man. And so he loved the divine work
of God and he's established us as the body to live in a way
where we continue to learn the divine work of God. It is a recapitulation
every single day of the grace and the mercy of God. We live
in an opportunity. We live in an opportunist society
where everybody wants to see something powerful. And they
want to see healing and they want to see salvation and they
want to see miracles and they want to hear a voice and see
a vision. And friends, those are the things
that condemn us in our conscience. There's nothing greater than
the miracle of the work of God in the lives of his people. There's
nothing greater than the miracle of the redemption that is found
in Jesus Christ. Our tagline, as we could say,
we have one, is we want to be a people for His glory by His
grace. Well, beloved, we have been created
to be a people for His glory. The question is, can you see
it? I didn't say, are you born of
God? Can you see it? Can you see the glory of God?
Is the glory of God in your daily walk? Tomorrow morning when you
go to work, with much obligation and with much zeal. Is the glory
of Christ the only thing on your mind? Probably not. For we live in a world that prohibits
that type of constant attention. As a matter of fact, if we steal
away from Paul's teaching to the Thessalonians, we know that
we must be also about other types of work. However, everywhere
we see the instruction to the elect, In that vein, we see what? We see that we are to be about
the Father's business even in our business. When we satisfy
our entertainment hungers, it should be about the Father's
business. When we are busy about what? About our work. We're not
serving our master, we're not serving our boss. Matter of fact,
most of our bosses are unconverted pagans who will say they're Christians,
but they have not the gospel of grace. They believe in themselves
and their good work and their benevolence. They will confess
to being Christ. But yet the Bible says when we
obey them, we're actually obeying Christ. And so we look past the
job we do and we're laboring for Jesus. We look past the irritating
neighbor or in-law or outlaw and we love Christ. It is for the glory of God and
His divine work that we live. And it is because of the glory
of God and the divine work of God that we are alive. Everything
we do is bound to what Jesus was sent to accomplish. Everything
that we are is bound to what Jesus was sent to accomplish.
And what was that? The divine work of God in redemption
for His people to glorify the Father by being glorified as
God. That's what's about to happen
here. in this narrative with Lazarus. So the mission of God
is to save his people from their sins and that's why Jesus came.
And that is not a personal experience that remains private. That is
an individual experience that is for the sake of the body. So that's the motivation of Jesus
that we see in this text. It's clear. But what do we typically have
in the lives of those around us? And you have to forgive me
if I seem cloudy and very sleepy. But there's a misapplication
of the disciples' understanding of Jesus' motivation. They couldn't
grasp what Jesus was really trying to do. They couldn't see it fully.
They were converted, all but one of them. Now, of course,
that's debatable because men in their academic pursuits think
they have the divine eye to be able to see who is and who is
not converted based on the appearance of their lives. Well, if that
were the case, then Judas would have been the epitome of conversion.
Judas would have been the model Christian. Not only was he concerned
with preaching and teaching the truth of the gospel, but he was
empowered to do miracles. He was also very frugal for his
own benefit. Don't spend that, don't pour
that, don't waste that. I might need it later, you see. And we know that looking back,
but the disciples didn't know that. But not just Judas, because
Judas knew better to rock the boat, but we see Thomas, we see
Peter, we see others. We see how they misapply the
understanding of what Jesus is doing, the teaching of Jesus,
every turn, because in their flesh they had not been given
inerrancy by the Holy Spirit at this time. Just like us, they
were mere men walking with Jesus, illuminated by the Spirit of
God, but still walking with the flesh at war. And many times,
even in the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane, we see where Jesus
says, the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And beloved,
that's the point. of this, not only physically
for us today and spiritually for us today, but divinely for
us forever, is that the flesh is weak. It is without ability. It is unable to come to see. It is unable to understand the
things of Christ. It is unable to grasp and be
motivated by the things of Christ. So the mission of Christ, though
it is misapplied by us every single day, will not fail. And
we spoke about that last week, that nothing that God has ordained
will fail. No plan of man, no will of man,
no choice of man will ever thwart the plan of God. But what is
it that the disciples thought? How did they misapply this? Well,
they feared the death of Jesus. See, after two days, He said
to them, let us go to Judea again. And the disciples say, but teacher,
They want to stone you. Why do you want to go there?
They are fearful of the death of Christ. See, often times we
misapply the gospel by being fearful. by being fearful that
maybe if we share our faith, or maybe if we live our faith,
or maybe if we hold fast to Christ, that if we don't do something
else, then everything that we could have will fall away and
fall apart. Friends, there is nothing that
you can or cannot do that can stop God's sovereign plan. And
God is not waiting on you to learn it and to do it in order
for His purposes to be fulfilled. Nothing. And that motivates us
to be about the work of Christ, to be in the Word of God, to
learn and to enjoy that intimacy and the truth of the rest that
we have in the Gospel of Jesus. We do not belong to ourselves.
We belong to Christ and each of us His body. But the disciples were fearful.
They were not only fearful of the death of Christ, but they
were fearful of the failure of the ministry. You know, if Jesus
dies, then where does that leave us? Who's going to listen to
us? Jesus is our, I mean, he's our
foreman. He's our front guy. He's, he's
the man everybody wants to hear from. I mean, it's good enough.
I mean, it's good that we are Jesus disciples, but I mean,
come on, if he's gone, then what does that leave us? Targets? Hated people? We're not on board, Jesus. Don't you understand? You're
not thinking straight. Your zeal has overcrowded your
wisdom. And you're wanting to go to Judea,
and you're going to die. And that frightens us. And we
don't want to see the ministry fail. There's too many people
to reach. If I don't do this, then God's
will will not be done. That's a crock. That is a joke. That is a lie. God's will is
done. And it must be what we seek. But they feared wrongly. Why
did they fear? Because they could not fully
see. See what I ask, do you see the glory of God? Can you see
the fullness of Christ? No, of course not. But is God
revealing to you the depths of this fullness more
and more every day. If not, I can predict. And not just predict, that might
not be the right word. I can assume. I don't have to seek
divine wisdom. I don't have to peek into your
lives. I can tell you you're not in the scripture. And I can
tell you, you're not in gospel conversations with the body of
Christ. And I can tell you that you aren't
longing to know intimately more and more
the reality of Christ. It's a symptom. So Jesus was motivated in this
way and the disciples misapplied this motivation in this way and
then we continue to see in this 12 hours in a day, this is sort
of review, what Jesus' mission really was all about. He says,
those who walk in the light do not stumble. Now there are people who have
taken this text and made it an apologetic for sinless perfection.
It has nothing to do with sin. Those who walk in the light do
not stumble. That means they're not tripping.
They're not failing. They're getting where they need
to go. They're not walking around blindly. They can see clearly. Because the light of the world
is clearly visible. Jesus is the light of the world.
Jesus says, I am the light of the world. See me. Don't just
look at me. See me. And see what I'm trying
to do. And that's really a bad statement.
See what I am doing. Jesus has never tried. He's always
done. A try is a failed attempt, by
the way. Because if you try and do, you
did, you didn't try. You notice that? We only say
try when we didn't. I'll try again. No, do it. Then
you can say when you didn't, oh, well, I tried. Well, then
do it again. Because when you finally succeed, it's not a try,
it's a do. Jesus wasn't trying, Jesus was
accomplishing. Jesus was doing the work of the
Father. And He's saying, see what I am
doing, and in seeing what I am doing, you will see who I am.
And He said many times over, you will see who the Father is.
You will know the truth. He will tell Martha, I am the
resurrection and the life. Do you grasp that? Do you know
that Abraham, when he took his son on the mountain to kill him
by the command of God, that God never intended for Isaac to die. But Abraham didn't know that. It was never God's plan for Isaac
to be sacrificed, but it was God's plan to show Abraham something. To strengthen his sight. And
Abraham got up early the next day and set off to kill his precious
son. But the reason he did it is because
he could see clearly that God had promised him a blessing to
all the nations through Isaac. And so whether Isaac died or
he didn't die, he knew that God would bless him through Isaac.
So he obviously understood that God could raise Isaac from the
dead. And that's not just my interpretation,
that's exactly what Paul says in Hebrews. Verbatim! You never read that? I suggest
you read it. Abraham, who by faith believed
that God could even raise the dead. His disciples couldn't see it.
Lazarus is dead. Oh well, here we go. I guess
Jesus is going to go mourn his friend and do some counseling
and we're all going to die. That's what Thomas said. Let's just do it. But Jesus is
like, see me and see what I'm doing. See me for what the Father
has sent me to do. See the work that I am accomplishing
for you. My light is the life of you. Sound familiar? John 1. The very
introduction to this, 93 sermons ago. All things were made through
Him and without Him was not anything that was made. Anything made
that was made. In Him was life and the life
was the light of men. My light is the life of you. And you will not fail, you will
not stumble, you will not walk in blindness, you will not walk
in despair, because the light of the world is visible to you. Look at me and know this truth. That's sort of what Jesus has
said throughout His ministry. But He contrasts that with there
is darkness. The light of the world is visible,
But those who are in darkness are blind. But the darkness... I could just turn back to John
1. What does it say about the darkness? The light shines in
the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. See, the
light of Christ by the Holy Spirit shatters darkness. It shatters
it. When a light comes on, darkness
is dissipated. It's gone. It does not exist. So we are not walking in unbelief
except by our own lack of disciplines to hold fast to the truth of
the light of Christ. And even when we're unable to
do that, Paul would say that God the Spirit prays for us and
brings us back to the place where we are constantly trusting. That's
why the apostles say that faith is a gift of God. Sight is a gift of God. Darkness is shattered by the
light. Darkness is shattered by the gift of light. The grace of God. Darkness is
shattered by the divine work of God. And this is the mission
of Jesus. This is the motivation of Jesus.
This is what the disciples misunderstood and misapplied. They could not
see it fully, yet they were His elect. All but one. Saul was also elect. And we see in Acts chapter 6
where his zeal lay. But he was also unconverted at
the time. Once he saw the light, he was blinded physically. For
a moment. When he thought he could see,
he was really blind. And then when Christ showed him
the truth of his light, he was physically blind. because he
was spiritually able to see. I want you to understand, beloved,
that the truth of the light of Christ is the foundation of our
hope. Because there will come a day
when even the answers to prayer will cease in the way we want
them. If we were to get what we want
apart from God's purposes, it would be a disaster. What good
is living a hundred years on earth and not seeing the light
of Christ? What good is it to live a long
life with lots of children and grandchildren who are all healthy
and not exult in the glory of God in Christ? That is the point
of life. And if we are not in Christ,
the point of life is that we are awaiting destruction, and
we are living our best lives now. But that is not you, beloved.
This is not about your darkness. Because there is no darkness
in you. Because it has been shattered by Christ. It has been overcome
by the work of God. This is an encouragement to you. Because when we stand accused
in our own mind, when we stand accused in the voice of the enemy,
it's very easy to just bow our heads and resolve to giving up. But Christ's work never failed. Christ never gave up. He finished
the work of redemption and the light is ours to embrace because
it's been given to us. Jesus says that the light is
in us. Those who cannot see are not
filled with the light. Those who can see are thus filled with
Christ. And they know the truth and they
are surely free. So what does this mean? What
is all of this narrative and all of these little things trying
to show us? Well, it is the message of Jesus.
What is the message of Christ? What is this message? Clearly,
Lazarus has fallen asleep. In other words, he has died.
That's clearly what he's telling them. They figured it wrongly. Why? Because they could not see
Christ fully. And you might say, well, how
am I going to see Christ fully? We're reading this. We have the Spirit of God. We've
been made anew. We've been converted by the gift
of grace. Now we have the Word of God to show us what? To show us the truth. Christ is revealing Himself to
you this very day. He's the light of the world.
He is the resurrection. He is the life. He is God. He
has redeemed His people. He's proving that the work that
He was sent to do is guaranteed and that He can bring someone
from the dead by His command, thus He can command His own life
back. He's already said that. In John 10, I lay my life down
of my own will and I will take it up again. Jesus says, Lazarus has died,
and I like this. He doesn't say, we're going to
go wake him up. He says, I go to awaken him. I'm waking Lazarus up. You all
can talk to him, you can beat his corpse, you can massage his
shoulders, you can tickle his feet, you can do whatever you
want to do, but only I can wake him up. You can preach the gospel. You
can love people, you can share your testimony, you can do anything
you want to do and everything you want to do to a corpse, but
only when the Spirit of God says, get up, will it get up. Jesus is the only life giver
in the room, brothers and sisters. And if we're not preaching Jesus,
we're not preaching life. And if we're not preaching Jesus,
we're actually preaching darkness. Even if what we're preaching
stands right up next to Jesus in context. That's why pragmatism
is the devil's workplace. Can you see Jesus is saying,
I'm gonna go wake him up. Now what would you think? What
would you think? You see, it's hard for us to
even theorize this because we have the scripture, we know that
resurrection is true. But imagine having never heard
of the resurrection of Christ and someone has passed and somebody
in this church says, well, I'll just go, I'll just go resurrect
them. Just let me just go, I'll just go wake them up, bring them
back from the dead. We're thinking, call somebody
quick. Brother so-and-so has just flipped
out. I'm wondering if that's what
they were thinking. They obviously didn't think Jesus
was going to survive the trip. But then Jesus says, look at
this, I'm glad that I was not there. Verse 14, for your sake. I'm glad that I was not there.
Jesus is now teaching that He is going to shine brighter because
of Lazarus' decomposition than He's ever shone to them before. They've followed Him for three
and a half years, He has one week left in His earthly ministry,
and now He's going to shine in a way that He's never shone.
They've seen miracles. They've seen healings. They've
heard teachings. They've seen Him just vanish
in front of their eyes. They've seen Him walk on water.
They've seen Him calm the sea. There's a lot of things they've
seen Jesus do. And they're thinking, okay, Jesus is powerful, but
He's not immortal. As long as He's alive and safe,
we continue to do the work of God. But the work of God was
to crush His Son for the sake of the elect only, so that all
of our sins are forgiven in Christ. So there is no condemnation,
for we are in Christ, for Jesus paid the penalty of our sin,
and God is no longer angry, because in His economy, we are no longer
guilty before Him. Because Christ has paid it all. Jesus was about to be the light
in their souls in a way they could not even grasp. I mean,
even though they were probably talking about it, we see some
semblance sometimes in John, like in John four, where they
talked amongst themselves about who gave him food. They say,
here, master, eat, you need to eat. And he says, I have food,
food that you don't know about. And that little brief moment,
we see the narrative say, and they discussed among themselves
who gave him some food. And Jesus answers, My food is
to do the will of the One who sent Me. I don't hunger for bread. I hunger for divine glory, which belongs to My Father. And
He will hunger for My glory, which is about to be revealed.
And I did this so that you could see it. And you're going to see
it. It's going to blow you away. And you're not going to know
what to do. And then I'm going to leave. And what does Peter
say? You don't have to die. And he
says, get behind me, Satan. So just because they could even
see in this miracle doesn't mean that they could even see completely. Or that they could even see in
a way that they wouldn't doubt and fear. Friends, if you're
looking for the day that you're not doubting and fearing, that's
called glorification. And if you think it's going to
come before that day, You're on a fool's mission. What we want is to mature and
to be disciplined, to be in the word and to be with our body
so that we can pray for one another and encourage one another so
that when the hammer falls again or the shoe, whichever euphemism
you like, your fear and your doubt is short lived because you believe in the resurrection
and the life who is Jesus Christ. Jesus was about to be light in
a way they could not grasp. I'll ask the question again.
How do you see Jesus? Do you see him as someone who
gave a ticket of possibility for your eternal life? Or do
you see him as God who has secured your eternal life? Are you looking
at your own life and weighing yourself against the holiness
of God? Lo and behold, if you do and
you do not see yourself wanting, you have not seen rightly the
fullness of God's glory. And if you do measure yourself
against the holiness of God and you recognize exactly who you
are in your flesh, you are more than wanting, you are undone. Isaiah's words are very clearly
my own many days when I reflected the nature of God's perfection
and impeccability of His holiness. And I see and hear Isaiah's words
in my own heart. He says, Woe is me, I am undone. You know what that
means? That Isaiah broke into pieces.
He was crushed in his spirit and his mind. He was unable to
comprehend the reality of what was before him. He could not
think rightly. He could not speak rightly. All
he could do was scream, I am an unclean man with unclean lips
amongst a generation of unclean lips. He says, Oh God, wash me, cleanse
me, propitiate for me, have mercy on me, crush me. No one can see God and live unless
he is first made alive and see the light of Christ. How do you see Jesus today? What infantile prayers do we
continue to murmur in the midst of our mundane lives as if they're
going someplace but the grave? When the ineffable glory of God
himself is revealed to us in the person of Christ Jesus, what
longing is there in our soul? Beloved, this is the work of
Christ. And one day, even that longing
will be perfect. But for now, even though we're
not walking in the darkness and we're not stumbling, we do stub
our toes very often. And that is a hurting thing.
So the onus is not on us to be determined and dedicated to resolve
to be better in love with Jesus. The reality is that Jesus is
ultimately and perfectly in love with us. And because He loves
the Father's glory, and because God the Father sent Him to sufficiently
and perfectly satisfy His wrath for us, we have nothing but an
immeasurable and inexpressible joy of going, Hallelujah! Thank
you God, for I am something that I cannot even imagine. I am undone,
but I am yours, and you are mine. Does the light of Christ blind
you? See, we always talk about how
the light of Christ undoes blindness, but there are some things that
we as believers are now blind to, and we're blind to unbelief.
We can't see how someone can't see the truth. It's to show us
that dead men cannot be made alive except by the divine work
of God. We are blind. We are blind to
unbelief. We are blind to ignorance. We are blind to death. We will
not see it. We will not see destruction.
We will not see condemnation, for Christ was crushed for our
iniquities. And even after the resurrection
of Lazarus, get this, the disciples still failed in their hope. So what is our hope? The light
of Christ. Our hope is the gospel of grace.
Christ's finished work is your hope, beloved. There is no other
hope. Christ's finished work. The disciples, even as they saw
Lazarus come out of the tomb and heard Jesus say, unbind him
and let him go, they could not fully grasp what He was trying
to show them. They were only partially seen
because they were learning Christ. Are you learning? That's my prayer. Are we learning Christ? And have we already learned Christ,
but are we still learning Christ? Friend, our culture is full of
people who are well-meaning, loving, benevolent, kind, Our
culture is inundated with people who claim to be in Christ, but
if you try to ask them these things, they cannot articulate
what you're speaking of. There are a lot of ignorant sheep
in the world, and there are a lot of false sheep in the world. The difference is in how they
see Christ and if they learn Christ. For their profession
will be that of Christ alone. The Spirit would impart wisdom
and knowledge to the disciples, but they were still thinking
about culture. They were still dealing with
traditions and the foolishness and the fodder and the silliness
of the fight of the day. They were still concerned with
the issues that plagued their present season of life. They
were still concerned about whether or not they would survive or
what happened to Jesus. We've walked away from everything,
but even in the end, we see the revelation of how they thought.
For Thomas says it very clearly, let us go also. Jesus like, I'm
going to wake up Lazarus, he's dead. so that you may believe. And somewhere in the midst of
all that, Thomas goes, let's just go die too, with Jesus. Jesus is gonna go wake up Lazarus,
they're gonna put him in the tomb with him. And then we're
gonna all be going, wait a minute, and they're gonna put us in there
too. It's gonna be one big happy funeral of 14 people. That was
their mindset. Let us go, hey guys, let's just
follow Jesus. Let's do what Jesus wants to
do, even though it's not going to work. Even though it's not
going to come together. Even though we're probably going
to suffer and die for it, let's do it. We've given up our lives
this far, what do we have to lose? It's only been some months before. where Jesus has, or some chapters
before, where Jesus is teaching that He has given His life for
the sheep, that only those who the Father gives Him will come,
and that they must be snatched out of death by the Father and
given to the Son. And no one could grasp that. And 5,000 men plus others walked
away from Jesus. They had followed Him for months.
They said, this teaching is too hard. Nobody can tolerate it. Nobody can listen to it. Is the
teaching of the gospel of grace hard? To some. To most. But not to we who have been given
understanding. To begin to like. The problem is we want to get
to the nitty-gritty and say, okay, now what? Now what? Rejoice.
That's what. Rejoice in the fullness of God's
salvation, who is Christ. Teach your children this truth. Teach your children that Jesus
Christ is the Creator of all things. He is God. And He came,
and He created a woman named Mary, after He created the world
and everything in it, and He created a body for Himself, and
He birthed as a human being, but He was still also God and
also man. and that He obeyed and He died
on the cross to satisfy God's judgment for His people. And
teach them about the resurrection. Teach them that God proved that
eternal life was ours by vindicating Jesus and raising Him from the
dead. He was not guilty of sin. He
took on guilt. This miracle that will give them
belief, it will not give them full understanding. They still
had to grow. And for our sake, God the Holy
Spirit gave inerrancy to the apostles in their teaching. I want you to listen to that. And
only the apostolic writing and the prophets, only the scripture
is inerrant. My preaching is not. My commentary
is not. My understanding is not. My application
is not. But the Word of God is. So as
we learn and see more clearly, we're in good company when we
feel a little weak at times, wondering if we're really ever
going to fully understand this. Are you understanding now the
basics of the gospel? Is your hope in the finished
work of Christ? Thomas says, let's follow Jesus
because he couldn't fully see. Peter soon to deny him three
times to save his own life. Thomas then refuses the truth,
doesn't he? The resurrected Christ has met
with some of the disciples. He's met with others in the upper
room. And they keep going to Thomas
and saying, Thomas, you'll see it in chapter 20. Thomas, Thomas,
come on. Jesus is with us every afternoon.
He's back. And I'll explain this when we
get there, you know, 10 or 12 years from now, but we'll see
that there is a function of the syntax there, of the grammar,
where Thomas is saying, there is not a possibility I will believe.
I will not, absolutely will not believe. Sort of even if I see his hands
and feet inside. You're not going to tell me.
Thomas comes in spite. And Jesus walks through the wall. And if you know anything about
the resurrected Christ, nobody could recognize Him. That's Jesus. Until He revealed Himself to
them. So Jesus walks into the upper
room. This is important here because Thomas is speaking here
with his zeal. Through bolted doors, through
walls, And he stands before Thomas and he says, Thomas, see my hands,
my side. And Thomas does not take him
up on the offer, but he falls to his face and he says these
words, the Lord of me and the God of me. That's a far, far stretch from
I will not, with any possibility, believe that Jesus is alive.
I will not believe He can raise Lazarus from the dead. I will
not believe. Period. Let's just die with Him. That's a far change, isn't it? And Thomas was in that upper
room in obstinate doubt. And Jesus saved him. The woman
in Sychar, John 4, arguing her position, arguing her tradition,
arguing her theology, arguing her heritage, trying to link
herself to Jacob, our fathers. And then out of the blue, she
just says, our only hope is that Messiah will teach us this. how
we're to worship, and how we're to understand the truth, and
how we're supposed to stand righteous before God. Only Messiah, only
Messiah. She comes from argument, and
apologetics, and polemics, and every other ics and everything
else you could come up with, and she just concedes, it's all
about Messiah, He alone will tell me. And Jesus says, the
one of whom you speak, I am. And she runs back to Sychar and
says, Behold, I met a man who told me everything I've ever
done. Could this be Messiah? And many
were converted in Sychar when most rejected Him in Jerusalem
just the day before or the week before. So where is our hope? See, you
preach a sermon like this, it's very easy for me to say, okay
church, here's where the rubber hits the road, you better get
serious about your faith. You better have your butts in
the seat if you're committed to Jesus, which I want to say so
bad. It's not just your loss, it's
my loss. It's everyone in here's loss. If you want to know the truth,
you better study hard. If you want to be sure that you're
sure that you're sure, that you know, that you know, that you know, you better
get your life right. No, I'm not going to say those
things because that's not what Christ is teaching. Now, could
this instruction be helpful for you? Yes. Guard your heart, beloved. Guard your mind. Be disciplined
in the things of the Lord. Read the Word of God for your
own joy, for the sake of your ministry to one another in this
room. But even when you don't, The
darkness will not overcome the light of Christ. The darkness will not overcome
it. And these disciples after the
death of Jesus, one of them had already denied Him and soon to kill himself. Peter denies him. Thomas forgets
about him. Everybody else goes back to their
jobs, back to their homes, with their head hanging low, and everybody's
going, ha ha ha, I told you this Jesus was a fraud. Ha ha ha,
you gave three and a half years of your life, you fool. You're
so dumb. You had an education on the books. You had a business on the books.
You had a great family. Your wife's already left you, man. Your kids
are laughing at you. They just go back to doing what
they only know to do, which is to work. To fish, or to build
tents, or to sand wood, or whatever it is that they do. But one didn't. One did not leave. Only one disciple
was at the foot of the cross. Who wasn't? This gospel writer
right here. Only one disciple was there. And he wept at the death of Jesus. He was at the grave of Jesus. And why was he there and the
others weren't? You ready? Because God had given
him an extra understanding of the light of Christ that he would
soon give the others. And beloved, if he tarries, he
will soon give you. That's what we want. So let us
trust in the work of God. And trust that one day we will
see fully, because we will. But until that time, though we
can see what is revealed to us, each one of us is growing differently. And I find it the less, listen
to this, this is going to blow your mind, but I find it the
less studied academically are the more spiritual in their grasp
of the work of Christ. Because it's very easy to become
technically minded when it comes to the gospel of grace, and there's
no room for technical mindedness. and the redemption of God's people,
for God has put forth Christ to satisfy His wrath. So, as
we study, let us not become heady. And let us recognize that what
God does show us will first and forever come from the Scripture
more than anything else. And if what we are not doing
is reading the Word of God when we study other things or hear
other preaching, it will not work for us because it will not
line up with what God has revealed to us. But beloved, you do not
have to worry. You just have to rest. You ever
worked so hard you couldn't move another muscle? You feel like,
I am so labored, like I feel right now, I'm hurting very badly.
Because I'm so fatigued. And I think, oh goodness, I could
barely pick up my cup of coffee when I first tried to pick it
up this morning. Just so exhausted. And after a while, when you're
trying to do something, whether it's dig a hole or pick up a cup of
coffee, and you just give up, and you go, I'm through. You
just sit there, into the chair, and you go to sleep. And what seemed like five minutes
was an hour. And you wake up and guess what's
happened? The world has continued to move you by. Your body's still
tired and everything that needs to be done is still undone. But
for that moment, we were at peace and we weren't labored and we
weren't worried. In the same way, spiritually, we need to
rest in Christ more, more than we work for Christ. And that
will be shown when we see Martha working and Mary listening. Are you listening? Are you seeing? Labor in the grace of God, beloved. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for just the gift of life. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.