This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. Congregations, very little unity
inside our own homes. Of course we can unify around
certain aspects of things. We can unify around the places
we like to eat. the things that we enjoy entertaining
wise, entertainment wise. We can be in unity around our
love for our children or our vacations, our pets. We can be in unity about where
we go to church or what Bible we might read from, etc. But there's very little unity
in the gospel. Culturally speaking, from a world's
point of view. And it's not new. It's not because
things are getting worse. Things are not getting worse
in the culture. Stop telling yourself that. Things are not
as bad as they were during the end of the Roman Empire in the
context of morality. They're not anywhere near that
bad in that level of relative comparison. And of course, that's
all subjective. Depends on what you've been exposed
to. Depends on what you've seen. In 21 years of ministry, I have
seen a lot. I've heard a lot. I've heard
people tell me things that in the beginning they would say,
oh, pastor, I'm ashamed to tell you this. And they tell me that. And I sort of shrug my shoulders
and go, well, where's the horror? Where's the shock? I've heard
it all. I've seen it all. There's nothing that surprises
me when it comes to the nature of the fallenness of humanity.
There's nothing that surprises me when I look in the mirror
of my own heart and mind and I see just how incredibly dark
and evil it could definitely be if the Lord Jesus did not
continue to press me by the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures
to see the Gospel and believe. If we are left to ourselves If
we are not born again by the Holy Spirit, if we are not brought
by the Father and given to the Son, there is no hope for us
eternally spiritually. And then as God's people, as
we traverse this world, as we traverse this life, as we live
day to day to day, we are going to face trials at every breath
and at every turn. I said this at the beginning
of our service last week. before the teaching, before the
singing. Many of us were not even in attendance yet, but I'll
say it again for the sake of our joy and our understanding
together, because that's why we're here, to learn together
that which is needed for us to live together. We learn together that which
is needed for us to live together for the sake of the name of Christ
and the unity of the faith. Friends, the point I want to
say is that we who are looking for a reprieve in the suffering
of this life are looking for something that is not promised
to us by God. We will suffer. And so think
about the suffering that you're going through right this moment.
Think about the persecution that comes from people who hate the
faith. Think about how your faith intersects
in a negative way. And I say negative from the way
it causes people to treat you or think of you. Think of how
it intersects in a negative way in your life, in relationships. how people begin to have a lesser
view of you because your desire to give glory to Christ, your
desire to be in the fellowship of the saints, your desire to
grow in your knowledge of grace. Think about what the world does
and thinks. Think about how many times a
day you consider your faith versus how many times a day we
consider the suffering that we're in. The remedy of the word is that we don't put our focus
on the suffering. Because if we throw a pity party,
a lot of people show up. I remember one time years ago,
Katie was an infant and there was, I don't even know what it
was that we were hosting, but we were hosting some type of
party at my house from some direct sales company. Could have been,
I think it was Tupperware or something. Everybody wants BPAs
to eat that up. And nobody showed up but the
hostess, but the whatever person she was called. Nobody showed
up. That was before we had online
parties. There was no internet that you could just, I mean,
all social sphere was chat logs and bulletin boards. That was about it. Nobody showed
up. But you know who did show up?
When Robin made known to all of the friends she invited, nobody
came to my party and I'm so hurt that people begin to have a,
they begin to show up then and have a pity party with them.
People will come to our pain to relish in it. It's like I
tell some brothers in the faith and some others who I'm not so
sure they are brothers, who love to watch things burn in a social
sense. They love to poke the dinosaur
or poke the dragon or stir the hornet's nest. They love to do
things in such a way that it will cause a reaction so that
they can get a lot of people involved in standing behind them
as they watch the swarm sting. Good Samaritans, as ironic as
that term is in our day, do not exist holistically. But yet witnesses,
for the sake of watching what we would call rubbernecking on
the highway, Oh, there's an accident. Let's look. We're all guilty
of it. But it's that innate desire to
just be involved in getting all the information about something,
not necessarily involved in someone's life. We want to know all about
it, but we don't necessarily want to be involved with it.
And if we are involved, we want to be involved at the level that
keeps us out of responsibility, but puts us in the knowledge. That is part of our flesh. which
has been crucified with Christ. That is part of the world that
we live in. And friends, it's easy to seemingly deal with suffering
in this life by gathering people to relish in our suffering when
the Scripture says for us to relish in the grace and the mercy
of Christ. If we're going to focus on suffering, let us focus
on the suffering of our Savior. Let us focus on the illegal and
immoral and unethical and unjust actions toward Jesus, who took
the place of a murderer and took the responsibility of dying in
place of Barabbas in a judicial way because it was the will of
God to crush His Son so that He would be the just by forgiving
those who have faith in Christ Jesus. He would be their justifier. because he crushed his son in
their stay. He would be just by saying, you are my beloved
children. He would be just in saying, well
done, thy good and faithful servant. What kind of life do you have
to live in order to hear those words? What level of morality
is required of us? What established The presence
of spirituality and maturity is necessary for Christ to say
those words to us. And see, we all are on bated
breath in a sense to want to know, what is the answer to that? Well, here is the answer to that. In order for us to hear those
words, we must be counted as absolutely impeccable, having
never sinned, having never failed, having never disobeyed, having
never been a pity party thrower, having never complained, having
never fought with our spouse or our children, having never
had an evil thought in our lives, in order for us to hear, well
done, thy good and faithful servant, we must be as God is, and that
is absolutely divinely perfect. So which of us, in the measure
of our own lives, will hear those words? None. That is why we will not be measured
by our lives. We will be measured by the life
of Christ. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. The Word of God is the medicine
to our souls. It does heal our wounds. It does give us an energy and
a passion to rejoice in our spirit, in the midst of pain. And it does cause division. It does cause division. I was
tagged in something on YouTube yesterday that broke my heart. I never get tagged on YouTube
for anything. And I saw this and thought, who's sending me
something here? And I looked at it. And I won't give any details,
but needless to say, what I saw displeased my soul. Someone dear
to me has turned their lives over to the enemy, and they are
purveying wickedness with their talents. And some 10 to 12 years ago,
15 years ago, even I would have thought that this young man would
have been a soldier for Christ. Now, he's just another ignorant,
blind reprobate. And I see these things and I
wonder to myself, what good is it? What good is it? We have discipline issues we
have to deal with. What good is it? We have suffering
we have to deal with. What good is it to continue in
the faith? What good is it to continue as
a body? What good is it to continue to teach and study and fight?
You know how hard it is to prepare to preach. I will tell you this and I'm
not exaggerating. I would rather have three root canals without
anesthesia than deal with the labor that it takes to have to
struggle over preparation for preaching the Word of God. It
would be easier on my conscience and easier on my body to do the
root canals than this. It is a very laborious struggle. It is a fight every moment, because
believe it or not, when you take seriously the Word of God, and
the Word of God speaks to your heart and speaks to your mind,
and every face in this fellowship is on my mind and my shoulders
and my heart every single moment. And all I can think is if I had
nine hours, I could not teach this directly enough to help
you find the joy that is yours in Christ Jesus. And then lo
and behold, I have to face my own sin, my own failures, my
own attitude, my own hatred, my own murderous heart. And then
I have to face the trolls and the dogs and the wolves and everybody
in between. And I still have to pay my taxes. And all I want is for God to
just, for one month, just go, all is peace. Woof, woof. And then we just sit around with
our happy little singing and our happy little preaching and
our smiles on our faces and nobody's calling that are sick and nobody's
calling that's sad and nobody's calling that's just turned upside
down. Nobody's struggling in the faith.
Everybody's happy. We sing Kumbaya till the lights
go out and then we start over and do it again just for 30 days. That's a utopian foolishness. For there's not one day in the
life of the apostles that that ever existed. There's not one
day in the life of the church of Jesus Christ, the true church
that's actually in love and intimate with each other in the faith,
that will ever, ever, ever see an entire day that that's true.
There is not a day that that's going to ever be true until the
Lord Jesus, the King of kings, puts his foot upon all things. And we see this teaching in John's
gospel. And I'll tell you what, beloved,
it's not going to get anything but darker as we move. We're
almost halfway through. Three weeks, we'll be halfway
through with the text in number. Doesn't mean we're halfway through
in sermons. But just in the chapters, there's
20. What are we going to do after
we get through with all of this? Well, actually 21. What are we
going to do when we get through with all of this? Are we going to
say, well, we're done with John's Gospel, now what? We're teaching
today for your joy. The reason we gather is that
you might be prepared to do the work of the ministry. Where is
the ministry? It's sitting in the seat. Right there where you
sit. We minister to each other, we minister to oneself, we preach
the Gospel, we're reminded, we pray for one another. This is
why we come together, so that you would be equipped by learning
to focus on that which the scripture reveals, which is the gospel
of grace. It is easy, it is easier to give
up than it is to stand firm. It is easier to just wash our
hands of everything aggravating and exchange it for more. thinking that this new aggravation
is not as bad as the old aggravation. But it's just like a new car.
We polish and wipe and keep the good smell. The first time we
spill something in there, we lose our minds. And the second time, we're like,
well, I'll clean it up. The third time, I'll get it later.
Fourth time, it's still there. The suffering we have is not
going away. And the more we rest in the gospel
of grace, the more intense it will become. Because God, our
Father, who loves us deeply, keeps us in the faith. And part
of the way He does that, and the way we experience it, is
by the pressures of life being real. that He permits and sends as
the author of this suffering the prescription for the enemy
to come into our lives and to work in our lives as He has ordained
so that we would experience this suffering as children in the
same manner that Christ experienced this suffering as the Son. We will be glorified with Him, Paul says in Romans 8, We will be glorified with him.
That is, if we suffer with him, we will be glorified with him.
If we suffer with him, what does that mean? We should look for
suffering. I don't think we should be ridiculous. Well, I'm not
suffering to let me go stick a hornet's nest, but we will suffer with him that we may also
be glorified with him. Because what does the suffering
do in the life of the elect? What does it do in the life of
the believer, the true spirit-filled, regenerate child of God, you
who profess to be in Christ? What does suffering do? It aligns
us and identifies us with the suffering of Christ, who in every
way was tempted, in every aspect realized in his physical body,
in his physical mind, every temptation known to humanity. But he sinned
not. Then he was condemned. Innocent
man, innocent, perfect human, righteous son of God. And he
was destroyed by the will of God. And in that destruction, the
scripture says he looks beyond the suffering to the glory. And
that's what we're supposed to do. The expectation also, as we get
into this text this morning, is that it seems very exponentially,
let's use that term, more frustrating when we're trying to share the
joys of the Gospel, we're trying to share how God is bringing
us through suffering, preparing us for more that we might rejoice
in Him, that our mind and our focus and our heart and our passion
and our affections are being groomed by the Holy Spirit, are
being matured by God in a way that we then long for Christ
more than the world. This is a grace that God gives. But then we come to the place
in our lives where we're coming to that wonderful, blissful end
where in the midst of it all, we're going, you know what, it's
all about Christ. We're able to share that. And we share that. And
then what happens? Things are a little better. We're
able to receive because in the midst of this, we have a partnership. And where did I start this? A
unity in the faith where other people agree with us. Yes, yes,
me too. The Lord is good for me and with
me and in me and for me. My testimony is, well, we are
together rejoicing in the glory of Christ and His sufficient
power to bring us through these things. Then all of a sudden
we're sharing that with someone and they look at us and they rebuke us or they mock
us or they disagree with us or they say, well, that's just,
I don't think God would want you to suffer. And they pour
the proverbial gallon of water over the fire of joy. And all we're left is sort of
soggy and steamy and damp. And we share it with someone
else. And they rejoice. And as they rejoice, all we can
think about is this one person who doesn't. This one person
who thinks we're foolish. This one person who doesn't listen.
This one person who rebukes us. And maybe it's someone we love
and we want them to experience the joy of Christ. We want them
to understand the gospel, but we share it with them and they
don't see it. And we then labor and become downtrodden and we
fall into despair because they won't see that which we want
them to see and that we can see. This text right now, today, will
show us that it's not a promise that everyone will see. It's not a promise of God that
everyone will receive and rejoice. Look at verse 19 of John 10. There was again a division among
the Jews because of these words. What words? The words that I'll
lay my life down for the sheep. My sheep know my voice. I know
them and they know me. The Father loves them. The Father
loves me. I love them. They love me. They love the Father.
All of these things, there are other sheep not of this fold
I must go and receive. They will listen to my voice
so that we one shepherd and one flock and I will lay my life
down that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me but I
give it of my own accord. This the Father has charged me
with. I have authority to lay it down
and to take it up Again, and I've received this from my father.
These words cause division amongst the Pharisees. And many of them
said he has a demon. Many of them said he is insane.
Why should we listen to them, to him? And others said these
are not the words of one who was oppressed by a demon. Can
a demon open the eyes of the blind? So here, we've already
touched on this, but it goes into this text, going into verse
22. The segue here is to show us
another instance where this was true. The claims of the unregenerate
religious, I'm not talking about those who profess to be atheists
or in a cult or something. People who profess to be in Christ,
in the God of the Bible. They're religious, but they're
unregenerate. You know them by their fruit,
says Matthew 7. The fruit compared to the teachers
of lies, like the Pharisees, and the fruit compared to the
teaching of the apostles, which is that Christ alone, it's Christ
alone. All that He is, all that He accomplished,
and for whom He accomplished it. All of this is the truth.
Those who don't teach that or confess that, they are not in
the truth. The fruit of their confession
is error. But the unreligious always have
claims. They usually do the same thing.
For Jesus, they said He was insane. Because isn't it easy? For if our children are watching
a show or listening to the radio... I don't even need to listen to
the radio anymore, but I'm going to listen to the radio. And I remember as a child
hearing something or watching something, and somebody saying,
whether my mother or grandmother or somebody going, you shouldn't
watch that. That guy's a lunatic. That guy's a heretic. You shouldn't listen to that.
This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. And as a child,
you just go, oh, that's scary. Turn off the TV. Turn off the
radio. I won't tell you who, but I had
a cassette tape of some, quote, Christian music when I was in
middle school, and it was taken from me because the guy was a
heretic. And I loved the music. It was
so fun. I didn't understand why. I now
understand now he's a heretic. He is a heretic. He's still alive.
And so I found the tape. I took the tape out, I popped
it apart, I put it in a Pat Boone cassette tape, and I put Pat
Boone back into this Heretic tape and put the box back where
it was. So I was listening to Pat Boone, the Heretic. That's what you do. You kids
don't have a clue how hard it was to hide your music in those
days. And if you messed up and got
glue on the tape, you had to throw it away. I mean, it was
terrible. If you pulled it too hard, it was terrible. It broke
it. So, the Pharisees said the same
thing about Jesus. He's just insane. We've got spiritual
leaders in a culture, in a community, and they say, oh, that's crazy.
Those people are wrong. Those people are weird. Those
people are crazy. Those people are insane. Those people are
demonic, because they said he had a demon, too. Those people
are a cult. I mean, I don't want to ask you
to raise your hands, but many of us, there's one or two, there's
one or several ways that we could respond to the cults when they
come knocking on our doors too early. We could just be fleshly
and go, why are you knocking on my door? I ain't out of the
bed yet. This is a day off. But there are some people who
invite them to talk, like me. There are some people who enjoy
the conversation around the Word of God, even with a heretic. even with a cult member, even
with an insane person, even with a demonic person. But for the
most of us, because of what we've been told in our evangelical
circles, most of us, we see them come, we don't even answer the
door. I mean, I've had people tell me, you know, so-and-so
knocked on my door, and I hid. I hid. Well, I don't think we understand. Even in the most well-insulated
homes, they can hear you. Kids, don't talk! I mean, they
hear that. They hear running. They see you
dive behind the sofa. In Savannah, when we were door
knocking in the neighborhoods, and one
time we knocked on this one door, and it wasn't like we were harassing
these people. They had given us the information,
said pray for us. Okay, we're going to come by.
We're going to visit with you. So we came by one, and nobody's home.
Came by the next Tuesday, nobody was home. The next Tuesday we
went by, knock on the door, the lights are on. I was like, oh,
they're here now. And we knock on the door and you sort of see
the curtain move, you know, and the lights go out. And I'm knocking again, nothing.
And the guy with me knocks on the door and says, we see y'all
in there. I'm like, dude, this is, no. He's a zealous type. And they yell back, nobody's
home. So I yelled, I said, well, when
they get home, tell them that we came by and we never went
back. I mean, you know, that's how we deal with people sometimes.
That's how people deal with us. The Pharisees weren't even cordial
about it. They're just demonic. They're
just a cult. And when we hear those things, when we, the reason
I said that and shared that story, when we hear those things, people,
we treat people differently. We don't mean to, but we treat
people different. We look at them differently. You ever had
that cult leader or that heretic or that weirdo that was in the
community? Everybody calls him pastor, but
when he comes in, you're thinking, man, that guy's going to touch
me and I'm going to go to hell right then. I'm just going to poof. I'm just
going to die. I think that's how people think
of me sometimes. Friends I've known my entire life usually
see them and hug each other, do all these hand jobs we used
to do in the 80s. And they see me and they don't
know what to do. It's like, oh, diarrhea! And they run away.
I mean, it's like, what are you doing? They don't know what to
do. Jesus was treated the same way. So why do we take personally
when people treat us that way? We shouldn't take it personally.
It is what the unregenerate do. It is what the religious do.
They see the truth and they cannot believe it. They cannot understand
it. They cannot receive it. So they
just decide the better way out is to attack the person's character
by saying he's crazy, by saying he's demonic, or by saying he's
in a cult. And this is true of many claims.
The cults themselves say they can be true. Now see, this is
always the frustration. Well, how do you know that you
have the truth? Well, Jesus just described it to us over the last
few weeks. His voice. His voice. It's all about hearing His voice. Are we listening and can we hear
the voice of our shepherd? I didn't say James Tipton's interpretation. I said His voice. Do you see what the scripture
is saying very plainly? Then argue with it, don't argue
with me. And let me show you how you can
identify people who are wrong but try to prove themselves right
by Scripture. They do just what the Pharisees
did. They do just what the devil did at the temptation of Jesus.
Well, the Bible says in verse such and such that... Well, the
Bible says over here in this verse. The Bible says in this
verse. Nope. What Jesus has to say about
what He has to say is sufficiently said in the Gospel of John in
context. I can prove it in many other
contexts of the New Testament, but Jesus proves it clearly there.
If I were to rip John's Gospel out of my Bible, I would not
need another book of the entire Word of God in order to teach
every theological truth found in the totality of the Scripture.
I would not need another proof text. I would not need another
verse to prove what I'm trying to say here. They help. It's
good to see reinforcement. But the religious unconverted
use pretext, use small passages of Scripture. They use English
words to make us think that what they're saying is true. And there's
nothing more intimidating than someone who can rip off Bible
verses like there's machine gun ammo. How do I answer that? I don't even know there was a
book of Malachi. I thought that was my neighbor's dog. Habakkuk? I thought the guy was
choking. Habakkuk. I've never heard of that. I'm not
going to argue with this guy. He knows what he's talking about. He can
speak Hebrew. Jesus' Bible wasn't Hebrew, by
the way. It was Greek. Mine's English,
what is yours? We listen to the voice of our
shepherd. The courts themselves claim to
be true and they call orthodox truth, they call the truth of
scripture false or error or insane or demonic. The difference in
this context is between those who listen and hear and those
who do not. Division is the guaranteed outcome when the truth of the
gospel is Proclaimed, the truth of the gospel of free and sovereign
grace is heralded. Division is one of the guaranteed
outcomes. The other guaranteed outcome
is that the elect of God, the sheep, will hear it and believe
it. That's the only two outcomes.
It's not on the hearer. It's not on the speaker to decide
who's who. It is in God's hands. Even when
the work of God is clearly illustrated by Jesus, the miracle of sight,
and then more over the miracle of regeneration, birth and faith,
new birth and faith in Christ. Religious people always want
to refute it. They always want to come along
with the yeah, but. Yeah, that's true, but the first
year, but that we see in the New Testament narrative in date
is the letter to the Galatians. where the Judaizers came in and
the Galatian Christians, the many congregations there of that
region, had been converted by God the Spirit through the teaching
of the apostles who taught the gospel of free and sovereign
grace. The good news of God's sovereignty
to save his people from their sins through the finished work
of Jesus Christ, who also is our righteousness, as well as
the penalty, paid the penalty of our sins. And these Galatian
Christians then, along came the Judaizers into this Gentile culture
and they said, well we hear the gospel of Christ, we know He
is Messiah, that's what Christ means, the Greek word for Messiah.
We know that Jesus is Messiah and He's come And they said,
well, here's the Gospel. Here's what Paul taught us. Here's
what the apostles taught us. That we're secure in Christ.
It is the work of God. And He saved us through the death
and the life of Jesus. And raised Him to life in the
promise of Christ. He has granted us repentance
that we might see and believe. And the gift of faith is ours
by the mercy and the love of God. And they say, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. But, you also need to understand
Judaism. You also need to understand circumcision. And Paul says, these people are
cut off from Christ. One of the arguments I get in
that kind of thing, but yeah, you can have the gospel and that's
good, and you can try these other things too just in case. That goes into my roach on the
plate theological system. How much of a roach would you
allow to be in the plate at the restaurant? I was in the fifth grade. I was
in the lunchroom and there's one thing that I loved when I
was in the fifth grade and it was those biscuits. They were
homemade biscuits and they were probably all pure white flour
and butter but they were made homely. at the place, and I opened
up a biscuit sitting there, and we sat in alphabetical order
so I can see the Todd girl and the Tootin' girl and Westbrook
over here, all us T's, S's, and W's sitting together. And I open
it, and inside the center of this biscuit is the abdomen of
a cockroach. I close it, and I sit it on the
table. And the girl's sitting across from me. She goes, what
did you do that for? She picks it up. She goes, put that back on your
plate. I'm like, I'm not eating. She was fussing at me because
I wouldn't put it back on my plate. So she made enough noise that the
teacher came up and says, what's wrong? And she just tells on
me. James got a bug in his biscuit
and he won't, you know. Anyway. So the teacher opens it up and
says, go show this to the, she doesn't do it, go show this to
the custodian, to the lunchroom lady, whatever. She comes out,
she opens it up, she says, well, oh my, she picks it up and flicks
it in the trash can and hands me the biscuit back. And I look at her and I say,
I'm not, I don't want this biscuit. And she's looking at me like
I'm crazy. I got the bug off of it. So she throws it in the
trash and reaches up there and gives me a new biscuit. And I'm
like, I don't want that biscuit. Because the batch that that came
from is that batch. I want to stand there and go,
don't eat the biscuits! I mean, it's like soya green.
I mean, you know. But I was a timid guy and I would never speak up.
Where did that go? How much error are you willing
to have? How much additives? None! We don't want any bugs in our
food. If my neighbor has a bug on his plate, I don't want to
eat. The thought of it makes me sick. I'm not going to have
anything added to the gospel either. And Paul says that even
an eyelash added to the gospel of grace is damnation. You see
that? And we don't have to be hard-nosed
and ugly and haughty about it. We've got to be firm in it. Well, we're all God's children.
We are not all God's children. The Pharisees in this context
were never, ever God's children. And then in verse 21, The other side of that is that
there are some, even unregenerate people, who say, yeah, but a
demon cannot open the eyes of the blind. So they could recognize
that it was the work of God. And let me tell you something,
beloved, the Pharisees knew it was the work of God too. They were bearing false witness
about Christ and they knew it. It was absurd to think that the
enemy of God, the devil, would be able to give sight to the
blind. And Jesus, who is the life, will prove in John 11 that
He can do everything that God can do, because He is God, when
He raises Lazarus from the dead. And then verse 22 comes. And then verse 22 in your Bible
says something like, at that time. And I would like to say that
a better way of translating this is to just say, at the time of
the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem. Because this is
three months apart. But sometimes we read it and
we go, oh wow, I thought it was supposed to be the Festival of
Booths. The Feast of Booths, yes it was.
And why are we saying now it's December 25th? Because that's
Hanukkah. This festival here is the one
that celebrates the Maccabean revolt that took back the temple
and Jerusalem from Epiphanes, who, by the way, sacrificed a
pig in the Holy of Holies. And then out of that revolt,
came a reformed Judaism and a group of individuals came out of that
revolt and out of that reform to put Israel back in line with
the precepts of God. And they were called the Pharisees. And these Pharisees are the main
characters in most of these dialogues. This Feast of Dedication is a
long celebration that can be done at home. You don't have
to come to the temple, but some would come to the temple. Y'all
know Hanukkah. It's still practiced by many
types of Jews today. It's not prescribed in the Old
Testament. Moses never spoke of it because it didn't happen
during that time. It was later in history. And
so here, they're practicing this festival and Jesus is here. The
crazy thing is, is that just as Jesus is the tabernacle, the
tent, the booths, just as Jesus is the Passover lamb, Jesus is
also the light of dedication, the hope of Hanukkah. See, even when man makes their
own festival, Christ can stand over it. Much like our Christmas, which
is at the exact same date. not a Christian holiday whatsoever.
It's a pagan holiday that the Roman Catholic Church took over
to try to persuade it to be more church focused. And now we practice
it the way we do for those of us who do. But at the time of
the Feast of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, it was winter
and Jesus was walking the temple in the colonnade of Solomon,
the Solomon's porch, as some of us know it as. And this was
a covered area, because in the winter there, it's cold, it's
got dampness, it probably could be raining. It's the only covered
area on the exterior of the temple. On the west side of the temple,
I think, if I remember looking years ago. But in this now, we
see this new discussion, and it sounds like if that wasn't
there, it'd sound as if it were the exact same conversation.
And Jesus is just repeating Himself. And it is the same exact conversation,
but it's three months apart. So the first thing we looked
at in verses 9 through 21 is the fact that the claims of the
religious unregenerate people are always the same. There's
always persecution. There's always somebody coming
against the truth. And then now, some three months
later, at a newer, more contemporary Jewish festival, here's Jesus
walking around the temple and Solomon's porch And what does
it say happened? They saw him, so the Jews gathered
around him. They gathered around him. And they asked him, how long
will you keep us in suspense? How long will you keep irritating
us by not telling us directly who you are, what are you? Are
you the Christ? Tell us plainly if you are. Tell
us plainly. Say it. I'm the Christ. I'm Messiah. But see, Jesus has never said
that, has he? He's never said that. He's never said, I am Messiah. But he has said that through
the teaching. I am the living water. He said it directly to the woman
at Sychar. He said it directly to several
individuals, but he never got out in front of the Jews and
said it. Why? Because they wouldn't have received
him as the Messiah he came to be anyway. And we'll look at
that in a minute. But see, here's the persistence
of the unregenerate. They don't let up. The unregenerate
religious of our day, when they have their ideals of how God
is and who God is and what God does, and they've got their eons
of traditions. What is it we heard last week,
Trey? You know, Calvinism has invaded Baptist history. Really? Oh my goodness. There is a short season of less
than 120 years where Baptists were not all Calvinists. Maybe,
let's just put it that way, the whole of Baptists. That's the
whole point. Traditionists like to argue that,
but we're not even talking about Calvinism. That's a whole other
conversation that's not even important to any text that we
teach. It's not important whatsoever. But it does make for a good conversation
from historical theology. But the persistence of the unregented,
they double down on their traditions. They double down on their interpretation.
2 Peter 3, if you just read the letter of Peter, Peter's second
epistle, just read the letter. I would encourage you to do that
today or tomorrow. Read 2 Peter, just read it. Don't read the
headings, just read through them real quick. Don't bother yourself
with the numbers, just read it. And then think about what you
think he's talking about. and about who he's talking to. But
the unregenerate religious are very persistent. Every time there
was a public opportunity, every time Jesus made a public appearance,
I mean, the Bible says He was just walking on Solomon's porch.
He wasn't out there teaching. He was just walking. And they
see Him and they surround Him. They're harassing Him. It's sort
of like when you're teaching a Bible study or you're at a
conference or you're in a church, and it doesn't happen here, but
in larger settings sometimes people will stand up and rebuke
you in the middle of the service. They'll point at you and they'll
rebuke you. And they'll say things, they'll
scoff, they'll say blasphemy, they'll do all sorts of things. You just have to sort of let
it go. Or if you post something online. I mean, if I post scripture,
I had a friend of mine in Virginia text me a couple of weeks ago
and say, you know, I think if you said it's such a beautiful day
and post it on Facebook, a thousand people would argue with you and
call you a heretic. Because no matter if you're just
walking in the sun, enjoying the day, people see you and they
automatically want to troll and come around and do these things.
Jesus dealt with that Himself. He dealt with that in His day.
We're going to deal with it in our day. What did Jesus do in
response? He proclaimed the gospel of grace
and the truth of who He was. He didn't debate them. Jesus
apologetic. Jesus' apologetic method was
to proclaim that which the Father gave Him to do. So beloved, we
do the same thing. And I know I've come under indictment
before in times of civil unrest and social issues. All you want
to do is preach the gospel, James. All you want to do is talk about
the Bible, James. You don't care about these people. You don't
care about us. You just talk about your white man religion
or your American religion or your, as they all assume, your
Republican religion or most recently your Democrat religion. I'm a
Democrat, some people think. I have that indictment on me
a little while ago. Sorry, Siri just thought I was
talking to him. That's the NSA, they're listening. But these people are persistent.
They came after Jesus. They will always consider themselves
wise and they'll consider themselves most holy in the eyes of God
because of the way they live, because of their faith, because
of their piety. because of their stand against wrong teaching? They can't let it go. It is the
essence of their existence. Imagine every day when you get
up, all you want to do is refute, refute, refute, refute. That
your heart and every breath and every drop of blood that beeps
through it is nothing but an opportunity to think about how
you might refute error. What a worthless existence. What
a wasted life. It's almost like the prodigal
son who throws it all away. That's what that type of ministry
is. It's a wasted piece of garbage. Friends, Jesus didn't waste His
ministry. He proclaimed clearly the truth. He did not allow these unregenerate
religious people to take Him off the course that God the Father
had put them on. He did not I mean, He is God. With His will, He could easily
have crushed them. With His Word, He could easily
have come to a place... I mean, imagine... For those
of you who like to watch Marvel movies... Oops! We like to watch
Marvel movies at my house. Imagine Jesus in the context
of having superpowers as God, could do anything He wanted to
do, just by saying it, You know, speaking His Word and decreeing
it. Here it is. What an amazing movie that would
be. There would be no more Marvel movies. Because Jesus would set
all things right. Amazingly, He will, because He
is God. Jesus, in all of this pestering, all of this persecution,
He never sat Himself as the center of it. He always put the Father
as the whole purpose of His being. And the whole meaning behind
everything you said was to give glory to the Father. And He never,
ever defended Himself. But yet, in proclaiming the things
that He had been sent to do and the truth of the Father, He always
defended Himself because God the Father vindicated Christ
when Christ, by His own authority, took His life back up. But these people can't let it
go. They have nothing else to do besides find fault and continue
to display a hatred toward the truth. Friends, that's also true
for people who are stuck in legalism, who are stuck in certain eschatological
things like end times, who are stuck in certain aspects and
nuances of ignorance. What do you believe about this?
What do you believe about that? Or what do you believe about
that? Or the other thing? It's okay to ask people what they
believe about the gospel and the work of Christ. And we should
share that with each other and we should grow. And if someone
is willing to learn and talk, even if they're a little bit
agitated, we love them and we walk through it and we just bear
it. But that's not who we're talking about. We're talking
about people who hate the truth. And one of the things that they
do, not only do they twist scripture, but they also ask the same questions
over and over and over. Because what they want is a wider
audience, a wider witness of what Christ was saying. They
want, again, tell us plainly. How long will you keep us in
suspense? They've had a lot of very hard conversations with
Jesus. Jesus just, in John 8, called
them what? The sons of the devil, in public. That's not easy to swallow. There's
division among the Pharisees there in John 9. And now in John
10, he's calling them thieves and robbers. Hired hands. Those who come in
the other way, they're not coming to God. They're not taking people
to the truth. They're taking people to death. So they've had some hard conversations,
but now they want a wider audience. They want a wider witness. They
want to hear Jesus say something where they, as the leaders who
are looked upon as the judges and the rulers of truth, could have some other large group
of people hear him say something that they would rule blasphemous
so that they could feel justified in killing him. It was against
the law for Israel to have court. It was against the law for Israel
to throw someone off the Temple Mount. That's how they would
get rid of you. They'd throw you off the Temple
Mount and you would splat. Or they would drag you to the
edge of the hill and stone you or throw you over the cliff and
stone you. And when those stones landed
there, that was your grave, and if anybody touched you, they would throw
them off the cliff and stone them. Gives you a little insight
of Romans 7, doesn't it? So even though it was illegal,
many times they picked up stones to kill Jesus, and now they're
going to do it again. They would have done it, just
like they killed Stephen. The only reason they never killed
Jesus that way is because it was not appointed unto Him to
die at that time or in that manner. And the only reason they couldn't
is because God stopped them. Jesus is sovereign over the free
volition of man. We can do nothing except God
permitting it. But they were persistent. They
asked the same questions. I look at it like this. They
just wanted a sound bite that they could replicate. They just
wanted that evidence, something they could put and make a meme.
And it just continued. You see this? You see this? You
see this? Look what Jesus is doing. Look what Jesus said.
Because they want to condemn Christ for what He says. And
they will never back down. They will never give up the matters
of tradition. They will never stop thinking that their personal
observation, their personal divine ability to see the hearts of
men is the rule of piety. They will never stop the physical
attack. So they gather around him and
they ask, how long will you keep us in suspense? See, this is
the pretense of the unregenerate. They want to seem as though they're
waiting with excitement. Are you the Christ? We just want
to know. Tell us all. Please. We're dying here. Tell us plainly so we can see.
The people at large are thinking, these Pharisees care about our
redemption. They're going to identify the
Christ. He's already been identified
by John the Baptist. He's already been identified.
He's already been identified everywhere He went, by His teaching,
by His miracles. The Holy Spirit had borne witness
to Him at His baptism. God the Father has spoken, and
Jesus was plainly from God. You say, oh, they seem as though
they desire us to know the truth. Well, you keep us in suspense.
This plays on the hearts and minds of the crowd, the masses, and
the sheep. And it causes them to consider
the Pharisees as those who have the intention of seeing the Redeemer
come. when in reality they could care
less. Tell us plainly, as if Jesus had already said many times
throughout the years who He was and what He came to do indirectly,
but He never said in front of them, I am the Christ. But many
times He had made Himself equal with God, and that's why they
continually took up stones to kill Him. This time, however,
the Jews seek to permit the crowd to hear, because they're thinking,
well, maybe if they hear Him, They'll stone him first. See, the Word of God had already
revealed Jesus as Messiah, but these unregenerate religious
people were continually pressing to find fault, even with Scripture,
twisting it for their own glory, their own purposes, reducing
the little knowledge they had of the truth of who Christ was
to an indignant and purposeful rebellion and unbelief. The Jews
could not receive Christ as Messiah, even if He had stated it plainly,
as I mentioned before, and that they were still confused at the
teaching of Jesus' death and suffering. In John 6, that's
why the multitudes left. What do you mean? Your blood
and your body? Put on a crown and get a sword,
dude. That's what we're looking for. That's what Messiah is coming
to do. To move Rome out of our way. And to put a wall up and
to stop this intrusion continually on our holiness. And Jesus is
like, let them come. This is not your promised land.
This is not your eternal life. You're not even the children
of God. I'm not going to sacrifice myself for this. I'm going to
sacrifice myself for the sheep of God, those who He gives to
me, this kingdom that is not of this world. This is the powerlessness
here of the unbelievers. They cannot see and understand
the reality of spiritual redemption. Even if Jesus had stated plainly
He was Messiah, they would still be thinking in a military or
political way. Even the disciples thought that. Peter's like, you don't have
to die. No, no, no, no, Jesus. Man, we've been talking while
you've been sleeping. Remember the boat ride, you were sleeping?
I mean, we were talking, and we've got it all planned out.
Thomas is going to lead the charge, he's going to be the first to
die. You know the stories. And I'm never going to deny you,
I'm going to be by your side to the very end. And we're going
to take back Israel. We're going to take back Israel.
And just like Moses, God's going to send a whirlwind of fire.
He's going to drown the Romans just like He drowned the Egyptians.
He's going to burn them like Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what
they thought Jesus was coming to do. Jesus came to lay down His life
for the sheep. To die a sinner's death. To lower Himself in His
passive obedience to the authorities that He created. To die on a
cross that God the Father had purposed before He ever said,
let there be light. eternally, but the unregenerate are powerless.
Jesus responds to them this way, and He says to them and answers
them, I told you and you do not believe. You do not believe. The works
that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you
do not believe because you were not among My sheep. Jesus reminds
them that they have already been told that He was Messiah because
He revealed the work of the Father. There's only one prophet coming,
and it was the one that Moses spoke of. It was the one that
Isaiah spoke of. It was the one they have been
looking for. It was the one heralded even through John the Baptist. They've been waiting, and now
here is Jesus. Jesus is doing and revealing
the Father's work and Jesus is speaking and revealing the Father's
Word as we saw in John chapter 5. He is settled any doubt by
the power bestowed upon Him and His teaching that He revealed
to them. He was from God. He was the Messiah. He was indeed
the Christ. It is that they refuse to believe
a spiritual redemption was necessary. Remember? If you do not believe
in Me, If you don't believe in my body and blood on your behalf,
you will die. What does he say? In your sins. Are you blind? Or can you see? They're not just unwilling to
accept the reality of Moses' teaching, which pointed to Jesus
while claiming to be holding to Moses' teaching, but they
were unwilling to accept the reality of the Father's witness.
of the scriptural witness. It's not just that they were
unwilling, but they were literally unable. They knew, but they were unable
to believe. Because that's what the heart
of unregenerate man is like. Even religious, well-meaning,
loving, so-called spiritual people will twist and thwart and challenge
the truth of Scripture to fit their own glory. They could not believe because
they were not His sheep. Jesus then restates what He had
taught a few months earlier. Now, at the end of December,
He would say it all again. This is why the Gospel writer
puts it here. because it's still in the context
of the teaching. My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me. Now why would He restate that
positive stance on those three things? Because those three things
are true, and because they are true, the antithesis of each
are also true. So by Jesus saying, My sheep
will hear My voice, I do know them, and they will follow Me. He is saying also that those
who are not His sheep do not hear His voice and will not hear
His voice. Those who are not His sheep,
He does not know them, nor has He ever known them, nor will
He ever know them. And those who are not His sheep
do not, nor will not follow Him. And in verse 28, the reality
of what happens to the sheep, and I will pick up more on this
next week, but in closing, let's look at this. I give them, my
sheep who hear my voice, who I know and who follow me, I give
them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will
snatch them out of My hand. My Father, verse 29, who has
given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch
them out of My Father's hand. I and the Father are one." Jesus always, always gives life
to His sheep. Always. There is no sheep who will not
have life. Jesus gives life. This life insures
their faith. This life insures their hope.
This life insures their regeneration. This life insures their assurance. They will never perish, He says. They will never be lost. They
will never be unbelievers. They will never be objects of
wrath. They will never, ever, ever die. And no one will snatch them out
of My hand. My Father who has given them
to Me is greater than all, and no one will snatch them out of
the Father's hand. See, the security of the believer
only lies in the finished work and the power of God, the Son
of God, and the Father. What does the Father have to
do with this? Nobody can snatch us out of His hands. So we're
in the hands of the Father, we're in the hands of the Son. We're
in the hands of God. Nothing can snatch us away. This
isn't about what's saved always saved. This is about eternal
security. This is about knowing that our redemption is a finished
work of God. This is about seeing that Jesus
Christ does and will effectually die, did die, and effectually
give life to His people. The foreknowledge of the Father,
as we've learned two weeks ago on Wednesday, is equal absolutely
to the love of God for His people. Those whom God has foreknown
means those whom God has eternally loved. The predestination of
the Father. The New Testament is replete
with the doctrine of predestination, also known as election. God the
Father elects, God the Father predestines, God the Father foreknows. And no one will snatch His people
out of His hands. And the authority of Jesus securing
His sheep and giving them life lies in the authority of God
the Father who is powerful over all things, who sovereignly saves
all His people, all those He has decreed in purpose for eternal
life. So the sheep have been given to the Son by the Father.
And the Father is supreme over all. And the work of the Son
is the work of the Father. And the power of the Father is
the power of the Son. And the divine nature of the
Son is the divine nature of the Father. They are doing the same
work. They are speaking the same word.
They are fulfilling the same decrees. They have accomplished
the same outcome. They are one in their work. That's what He means. I and the
Father are one in this work of redemption. Don't tell me that
I'm not from the Father, for I'm doing His work. And I'm saving His people. The
Father knows the sheep, the Son knows the sheep, therefore they
have life. Jesus will not lose any because
He cannot fail in His mission to propitiate for them. No false
gospel will cause any of the sheep of Christ to be lost. No
wolf will take any of the sheep away. May scatter us, they will
not take us away. No colt will come in and confuse
the body to apostasy. No one can snatch us out of the
hands of Christ. No legalist, no Pharisee, no
thief, no one can cause us to run away from the truth. The
Bible makes it clear that whoever has run from the truth never
was in the truth and they never belong to Christ. No child of God will ever be
lost. Because there's no way that Christ
will leave us. Paul says to the Colossians in
chapter 3, verse 3, For you have died and your life is hidden
with Christ in God. Your life is hidden. Jesus and
the Father are doing the same unified work. It's where I started
the sermon today. That we have unity in the faith. That includes having unity in
our understanding of the work of God, all persons of our one
God working together to secure salvation for his people. In unity, the redemption of the
elect of God who shall never be lost. Let's pray. Father, I am unfit to speak Your
Word. In my flesh, I doubt and fear
and I'm troubled. When I feel bad, I complain,
and you know these things, God. But it is not my qualifications
that gives me the authority to speak Your Word. It is Christ. His righteousness. has made us
worthy to approach your throne with boldness, to call you Papa,
to pray to your name, to your ears, to call out to you for
help. Father, we are glad for the gospel
of grace, for your love for us. We are thankful for the teaching
of Your Word that we would understand and realize who we are in Christ
and what a great love You have for us. Father, I pray that this
Gospel would be a medicine, would be a healing oil and ointment
to our souls, to our minds, to our hearts. That though we were
sinners, rebellious, willfully hating you, willfully hating
each other, that Christ died for us in that state when we
were dead and decayed like Lazarus' body in the grave, rotting and
smelling. Father, you caused us to be born
again. You made us alive in Christ because you justified us through
the death of Jesus. And Father, in that you can redeem
us fully. unto eternal life and unto resurrection
and glory. We love you because you have
loved us. We worship you because you're worthy of all praise,
glory, honor. Even had you condemned us all
to death, you would still be worthy. of all praise and glory
and honor. But Lord, as your children, we
get to praise you for your glorious grace, that your glorious justice
and righteousness and wrath has been poured out in Christ. Thank
you for listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
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