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. Well, if you turn in your Bibles
to John chapter 10, we're still there. Got a couple more weeks
of John 10, then we'll be... Well, we've got a couple more
weeks of John 10, let's just put it that way. We really do think ourselves
about Not quite halfway through this book, but almost. Almost. Let's read John 10 together from
the beginning up to verse 21. "'Truly, truly, I say to you,
he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in another
way, that man is a thief and a robber.'" But he who enters
by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper
opens. The sheep hear his voice, and
he calls his sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought
out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him,
for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow,
but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice
of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them,
but they did not understand what he was saying. And Jesus again
said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the
sheep. All who came before me are thieves
and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the
door. If anyone enters by me, he will
be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes
only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life
and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired
hand and not the shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees
the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf
snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired
hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own, and my own know
me, just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. And
I lay down my life for the sheep. and have other sheep that are
not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen
to My voice. So there will be one flock and
one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves
Me, because I lay My life down, that I may take it up again.
No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord.
I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take
it up again. This charge I have received from My Father. There
was again a division amongst the Jews because of these words.
Many of them said, He has a demon and he is insane. Why would we
listen to him? And others said, These are not
the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open
the eyes of the blind? Beloved, this particular section
of Scripture, as you have become aware, is rich, rich, rich with
the truth of God's limited and effectual atonement for His people. We also see a division here that
we'll close out our sermon with today, our time this morning.
And I have been dealing with this for the totality of the
last 88 sermons in this text because from the very onset,
When we pretext, that means when we look into the scripture and
we take out little pieces and we develop our belief system
on tiny pieces, that's a pretext versus a context. We preconceive
what the text is trying to say. The context reveals to us what
the text is teaching. We live in a culture, and I spent
14 minutes and 30 seconds of this last week. We live in a
culture where the scripture is just a reference tool. for those
who claim to be the people of God. The Scripture claims to
be the power of God. The Scripture claims to be the
voice of God. The Scripture claims to be the
answer to all of our questions, the reason in all of our dementia,
the truth in all of a dark falsehood. Because the Scripture is the
only means through which God the Holy Spirit will ever work
in your life, ever. He will not work in your life
through a high-five, a hug, or a pat on the back. He will not
work in your life through therapy, counseling, or entertainment. He will not work in your life
through singing beautiful songs that reflect this truth. Only
God, the Holy Spirit, will only work in your life through the
written Word that He has given. In May, we're going to have a
conference on the 18th, and we're going to have an after-lunch
on the 19th together like we do here, and then have a panel
for discussion. We're going to be learning about
the person and the work of God the Holy Spirit. It's going to
be an all-day thing from 10 to 6, have lunch together and then
dismiss. we're going to really press the
teaching of the doctrine of God the Holy Spirit. Because we've
misunderstood, especially as Baptists, we've misunderstood
the principles taught clearly in Scripture about God and the
triune God, and that God is one God. In a lot of our minds, we
have three little gods that work together to make one God. But
the Scripture says there is only one God, and He is known in three
Persons, distinct and eternal, each, the Father, the Son, and
the Spirit. And neither of them are each
other at any time ever in history. They are all eternally distinct.
And these three Persons are the God of Scripture. And these three
Persons work together. And as you'll see today, the
Person of Jesus Christ, who is God the Son, is also God the
Creator. But He is not God the Father.
but yet He and the Father are one, and that they are one God,
and they have one mind, and they have one purpose, and this purpose
is to be glorified because God is worthy of all glory and honor
and praise, and God is glorified in the redemption of His sheep,
and God is glorified in the reprobation of those who are not His sheep.
And when we learn these things in Scripture, we need to read
them and glean them. We sang this song just a second
ago that said, by Your Spirit, You opened up Your Word to me
by the Gospel. Is the Word of God open to you?
When you read the Word of God, is it open to you? Does it fill
you? Does it feed you? The Gospel causes that to be
true for you, church. It's not an academic, well, I
need to be smarter. No, the dumbest man in the world is the greatest
theologian that God would ever use. It's not about smarts. It's about
hearing. Well, maybe I don't read that
well. It's okay. Can you listen? That's not the point. I'm not
saying to become a student in an academic way. I'm saying,
can you, when you hear the Word, like I read it this morning,
does it click? Can you hear it? Can you see
it? Do you know that it's the Word
of God alone that's going to satisfy every longing that you
have as a believer? Every longing. Every longing. Because when we're in Scripture,
we are with Christ. With Christ. We are with our
Savior and our Lord. I want to focus on verses 17
and 18 today. And I want to physically take
this apart and put it out of order with the two points that
Jesus makes. For this reason, the Father loves
me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
He lays down his life for the sheep. For this reason, the Father
loves him. I'm going to put that last in our sermon. but I lay
down my life, that I may take it up again. No one takes it
from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority
to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again.
This charge I have received from my Father." And that's sort of
what we're going to do. We're going to break it down
into several things. The first thing I want you to
see this morning is that Jesus emphatically, and this isn't
the first time and it's not going to be the last, expresses that
He lays His own life down by His own accord, by His own authority. I want you to think about that
for a second. Is that the gospel reality that
you've heard in your own life? Is that what you understand when
you think about the death of Christ? Jesus gave of Himself,
Jesus willfully gave of His own desire, and Jesus had the authority
to give. See, sometimes in our culture,
people believe that Jesus was caught up in a political situation
and God made good out of it. For example, people say, well,
you know, the Pharisees in Rome, that was an issue. And the Jews,
I mean, you look at what they had. There was a political platform
that they really were taken from them. They couldn't have court.
They couldn't do anything judicially because Rome took the sword from
them. Then we see Paul, or Saul of
Tarsus, as it's listed in Scripture, executing Stephen by the authority
of the Sanhedrin. All of a sudden now we see this
play. We see this tension. But why did he have the courage
to do that? Because sometime before, they were able to take
Jesus, try Him, both in a Hellenistic court and in a Roman court, and
found Him innocent. Guilty of no sin, guilty of no
charge, guilty of no crime. Yet because of public unrest,
they were scared. Who was scared? Both Herod and
Pilate. They were scared that the Jews
would revolt. Why would it bother them? Is
Rome not powerful? Yes, Rome is very powerful. But
do you know what happens when we are puppets of Rome and we
cannot keep under control the very people under our care? You
know what Rome does? It's like an exterminator. They
just say, you know, we tried to be nice to these people, we
took over all of their land, we gave them everything they
wanted, we let them keep their lifestyle, and they're going
to revolt against us? They would just annihilate them
all. And the leaders who failed to keep the peace. And so in
doing so, the political thing to do was Pilate, as you'll see
in a couple of years, he says, What do you want me to do with
him? I'll wash my hands of this man. It's out of my hands now. What shall
you do? What do you want us to do? And
what does the crowd cry? Crucify him. Crucify him. Pilate's no fool. I can't kill
an innocent man. I can't, the number of guilty
are there. We're going to crucify these,
and I cannot kill this one. He's done nothing wrong. I have
no record to attach to him. I have no guilt to put on him. And so, in order for that to
work, oh, Jews, I need to let go of a guilty man. Who shall
I let go? The rapist? The child molester? The murderer? The serial killer, who shall
let the murderer go? Barabbas. So Jesus takes the
place, judicially, of a murderer. He dies as a murderer in the
public eye. And people think, and that was
so terrible. And Judas, his best friend, one
of his best friends, he only had 12, and he just sort of lost
his way and got greedy. And then that happened to him
and he sold Jesus out. And then this happened, and that
happened, and the other happened, but oh, didn't God make good out
of all that mess? See, that's the way people look
at that. No, God did not make good out of all that mess. God
made that mess. God caused that mess. God caused
every breath out of every person, every voice, every word that
they did, every step that they took, God purposed it. And Jesus
Christ, in His timing, in the time of the Father, every step
of the way, did everything according to plan. Everything. Not one thing dealing with the
narrative of the ministry of Christ, and His arrest, and His
crucifixion, and His resurrection, and everything. None of that
was circumstantial coincidence. None of that was outside the
sovereignty of God's decree. Friends, the same is true for
us. And I know the argument that comes with the truth of Scripture.
We, in our libertarian mind, come up with this idea, well,
that's just strict determinism. How about we call it what the
Bible calls it? Supremacy. God is supreme. And His sovereign rule is an
exercise of His supremacy. And if we can't see that in the
person of Jesus Christ and His Word, we're not listening. I
gave my life willfully. I laid it down when I wanted
to. I had the authority to give my
life the way I gave it, and I have the authority to take it up when
I'm ready to come out of the ground. You see, that's what
Jesus is saying. Now why does that play in here?
Why would he exert such dominance in this conversation? Because
the Pharisees were already making plans to try to find a way to
kill him. And their thinking, every time
they talk with him, is, we've got to stop this man. And they're
plotting, and they're asking questions, and they're getting
him in public dialogue so they can catch him in a sin, catch
him in a crime, catch him in blasphemy. Just like Stephen,
they can stone his behind. But every time Jesus does it,
the same political problem that Pilate had with the Jews against
the government of Rome, all of a sudden the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees,
had with their own people. Some amongst them would begin
to believe, as we see, verses 19, 20, 21. They begin to divide
on this issue. In John 9, they begin to divide. Nicodemus spoke up in John 8
and was like, what do you mean? Why would we call him a sinner?
So the division starts to happen. So even in the politics, they
knew the only way they could get away with killing Jesus is
if Rome did it. And all of this is part of the
plan of God. But Jesus asserts right here,
I lay down my life, all the while those who are thinking, does
He know what we've been talking about? Yes, He knows what you've
been talking about. He knew what you were going to
be talking about before the foundation of the world, and He purposed
that you would be talking about it. That's what we need to recognize
here. Jesus then says, I'm going to
lay my life down. No one takes it from me. That's
the second thing. He says, no one takes it from
me. And they're going, who does this man think he is? This is
their mind thinking. We are going to kill him. We're going to take
his life from him. He thinks he's in control of
the situation. Yes, because he's the sovereign
God of the cosmos. He is in control of the situation.
He's in control of what you do with Him, and He's in control
of what you do with the blind man. He's in control of the man's
blindness. He's in control of the man's
birth. Who sinned that this man was born blind? Him, in the womb
of his mother, or his parents? Jesus says, the reason this man
was born blind is that the glory of God may be revealed through
it. As I give sight to this man's physical eyes, everybody's going
to be in awe and wonder. But oh, my friends, when I give
sight spiritually and cause one who is dead in their sins and
their self-righteousness to believe in me as their righteousness
alone, and my life is laid down for them, oh, what a glory it
will be! You see, this is what's happening. Read it in the context. Keep
the context in your heart and mind as you continue to read
through the Scripture. Every letter, every gospel, every
narrative in the Scripture is exactly the same. Except, of
course, for the wisdom literature and the Psalms. They're not the
same. When we look at the narratives, when we look at this, it is the
same. It is what is happening. And we need to keep it in tune.
Jesus says, I lay down my life. Christ is fulfilling the plan,
the charge that He got from His Father. Christ is doing the work
of the Father. It's the point of all of this.
It's the point of all of it. Now, some people would say, well,
why is it that we continually have to learn this stuff? Why
do we have to learn these things? Don't we already know it? Well,
let me ask you a question. How well do we know it that we
don't need reminding? I'm willing to bet you that if
we were to take and teach John 10 on the public square somewhere,
let's just use it, let's try to be funny, at the Christmas
gathering that's out here on our streets, and there'll be
several thousand people that come. If I were to put a speaker
out there and stand and preach John 10, I would say that most
everybody out there would say, oh yeah, we're celebrating the
birth and the death of Jesus, we're celebrating Jesus, and
then I start to talk about Jesus laying down His life. It would
be the first time that many of them have ever heard it. The cults, the world religions,
and everybody in between, and everybody around and on the outside
of all of those, All of them will say, Jesus died to pay for
my sins. It's not good enough, church.
Words have meaning, and meaning is what matters. What's good
enough is knowing what John 10 teaches, what John's Gospel teaches. Learning the gospel is not about
learning an outline or a Romans road. The Romans road is not
the gospel. I used it for years. It's not the gospel. The gospel
is not necessarily even in there when you piece it together that
way. What is in there is a punch list for any human being with
a brain to follow and think they're saved. And quite honestly, it
is the Roman road. It leads you right back to Rome,
right back to Judaism. It's funny how those two started
to partner together in the life of Jesus, and they've never separated. Jesus lays down His life as He
says He lays down His life, in the way He laid down His life,
for the purpose that He laid down His life. Christ is not
required to give His life. He wants to. because it is determined by God
who is the just and the justifier, according to Paul in Romans 3,
of all who believe in Christ. What Christ are you believing
in? Are you believing in this Christ I'm teaching today? Or
are you believing in a Christ that you heard about, or that
you thought you heard about, or that you've just known about?
Which Christ is it? Is it the Christ of Scripture?
People argue. We don't need to go all through
these verses. Pastor, the church needs to learn
how to think and talk and dress and act. Then listen to John
10. Because what happens in our lives
and the transformation that takes place when we get from, not from,
but when we get into the gospel and then we get into things like
Romans and we learn some doctrine, we learn some practical outcomes
of this doctrine, and then we went through Philippians and
Ephesians and 1st and 2nd Thessalonians and Colossians. We've been through
a lot of the Pauline letters and the apostolic letters. I
mean, we're getting instruction on who we are and what difference
it makes. But to continue in learning the
gospel over and over again, we grow a deeper root into the truth
of Christ. And in doing so, we stop thinking
about ourselves in such a way that we need to warrant our own
righteousness. We stop looking at getting our
lives together for the sake of God, and we realize that our
life is not going to be together at all, but that Christ put His
life together and gave it for the sake of our righteousness.
And not just to die, but to raise Himself up again. Christ did
not sin, therefore in His humanity He was not guilty of sin, therefore
He did not have the penalty of sin weighing on Him like you
and I have." So Jesus laid His life down.
It is required of all men to die. It is just that all men die. I spoke to that in 2008. I was
on a national radio show talking about personal defense. I wonder
why they asked me that. How do you, as a pastor, man
of God, they'd say, you know, how do you justify fighting and
doing and all this kind of stuff, firearms? How come you have such
violent hobbies and interests if you're supposed to be such
a peaceable man? I said, well, I ain't killed anybody yet, you
know. Knowing how to do that and doing it is two different
things. I mean, it's just a... But I had the argument come on
a phone call, this question. So what would you do if someone
came into your house and tried to hurt your family in the middle
of the night? And without hesitation, I said that man would see his
maker. Then the phone started ringing a little more. Well,
what do you say about, how come we're not supposed to murder?
Well, what's worse, defending innocence or not defending innocence? Somebody comes in here to hurt,
I'm not gonna stand here and go, okay, shoot them all. But if somebody
comes in this church, it's gonna be a very quick and short session.
And then, what was that? Like that thing fell down the
other day, you know? What was that? No worry, back to the text,
here we go. That's the end of it. We're not
gonna let people hurt people on purpose if we can stop them.
But the point I'm making is, I've used this explanation. I
said, however, if someone does come into my house and hurts
me and my family, I said it's not really an injustice, though
it is a crime, though it is sinful and evil. It is not really an
injustice because why should my family not deserve this any
more than any other family? I said in the economy of God,
in the economy of God's righteousness, I mean, Somebody coming in and
mass killing my whole household is not justice. It's not even
anything compared to the justice of God. And I deserve the eternal
wrath of God. I deserve it because I'm a sinner. But by God's mercy, Jesus Christ...
See, that was an injustice if we want to talk about fairness.
What did Jesus do? He did nothing. He deserved not
to die. Every man, woman, and child in
the world deserves the penalty of death. Every person that has
ever breathed life except Jesus the Christ deserves the wrath
of God. But God, in His mercy, with the love with which He loved
us, caused us to be born again. How? How is it that God can let
James, a vile and evil man, be counted as righteous? Have I
done enough good works? Have I been in the ministry long
enough? No, because I think I sin more in the ministry than I did
before I was in the ministry. Temptation is terrible. What do you mean? Well, I don't want to sit here
and tell you all the mean thoughts I have. All the frustrations
I have, all the doubt I have, we'd never get through the sermon.
Some of you are going, well, I have frustrations and thoughts
and doubts too. Well, praise the Lord, you're a human being.
But moreover, praise the Lord that you are worthy of death
for those things, even in your heart. And praise the Lord that
because you are the sheep of Christ, Christ satisfied God's
judgment for you. I lay down my life of my own
accord, by my own authority." No one took the life of Jesus,
He gave it. That's important. He gave it. Christ is not required to give
His life in any sense because He deserves to die. Christ gave
His life in every sense because He wanted to. Because without
Christ dying, God the Father would be unjust and sinful for
giving me. And you, do you see that? Now see, this is where we need
to start putting in perspective. And I'm studying the book of
James right now, just personally, because I'm going to teach on
it one day or write on it for you all for the sake of our soul
and the rest of our hearts. Because we live in a culture
where it's just Jesus tagged on to Judaism. It's just Jesus
tagged on to Romanism, to Roman Catholicism. It's just Jesus
tagged on to spiritual self-righteousness. And we've got a whole generation
of smug so-called Christians who walk in a manner so well
before their own eyes that they think that they are actually
transformed into the picture of righteousness. And that very
thought is wicked and sinful. You ever thought about that?
Anytime we think we are in the perfect image of Christ in our
flesh is the same thing that Satan thought when he said, I
should stand before and next to God. Look at the reflection
of the glory of God in me. And the Bible says that Lucifer
didn't even say those things. He thought them in his heart
along with a third of the hosts. When we think we're good enough
and that God's working enough goodness in us, we are guilty
of the same thing that Lucifer's guilty of. Self-righteousness. The vile and evil things that
we see, like for example in Corinth, These poor Christians, they had
to learn that temple prostitution and all this other stuff was
not good. They learned that idol worship was not good. They learned
that even having these things in their home and patronizing
the businesses were not good in Ephesus. They learned that. They had to be taught certain
things. They had to be taught how to relate to one another.
These unbelieving, unequally yoked spouses in Corinth, and
they weren't really spouses, they didn't have marriage in
Corinth, but they had covenant, logistical and judicial covenants
in that sense, where they had property rights. And Paul says
he had to teach them, listen, when an unbelieving spouse is
willing to stay with you, you let them stay, but if they leave,
let them go. They had to learn that. We have
to learn things as believers. We don't just wake up the day
after we've been born again in the knowledge of the truth as
this completely righteous and perfect person in our flesh.
We're a completely righteous and perfect person in the realm
of God's work of redemption because Christ laid down His life of
His own accord. Christ is not subject to die
at the hands of anyone outside of His desire to do so, and He
did so so that it would accomplish the plan of God. This was the
instruction. This was the command. This is
what I got from my Father. I was given the authority to
lay my life down when I was ready and to pick it up when I was
ready. Why did He do it? I've said it a dozen times over
already this morning. He did it to accomplish the plan
of God to redeem the people of God. What's the context here?
Those who are the sheep of Christ. They're the only ones that He
redeemed. He didn't redeem any more and certainly any less. The sheep who are mine hear my
voice. They hear what I'm saying this
very moment. They know that my life being laid down by my will
and by my authority and on my accord as the plan of the Father,
the charge that I've been given to do by the Father, this is
the Father's work that I am now doing, and I'm doing it for who?
Doing it for the sheep. I lay my life down for the sheep.
And the whole reality that we see here, as we'll get to in
a minute, is that this eternal plan of God, Jesus Christ who
is the God-man, purposed it completely and fully, and every step of
the way it was absolutely divinely orchestrated without any hiccup.
Every breath of it all was divinely planned. And in this giving of
Himself for the sheep, the Father loves Him. That doesn't mean
it's the only reason the Father loves Him. But Jesus wants to
reiterate for His hearers, and now for us the readers of what
He said, that the Father loves Him in the giving of His life. Jesus does this to accomplish
atonement. Jesus does this to accomplish,
to be propitiation, to satisfy the wrath of God. This is what
is called good news. It's good news because God is
no longer vengeful and wrathful and overlording us. Not overlord
is a broad, but looking over us and saying to us, I cannot
wait to smite you. God does not look at you that
way, beloved. God does not look at you, even
in your sin, and think, I'm going to judge that man. He doesn't do that. Because He
cannot do that. Because God is just and God looked
at Christ who took on our guilt, beloved, the sheep, the church
of Jesus Christ, we who are the elect, we, our guilt has been
placed on Jesus and God the Father once and for all finished for
all time any wrath that He will ever give for those sins. And He poured it out on the body
of Jesus. He poured it out on the soul of Christ. Jesus did that willfully. Jesus
is our propitiation. That word is in your English
Bible. Almost every translation has it. It means the satisfaction
of wrath and justice. So there is no sin, there is
no crime, there is nothing that the elect have done or will do
or are currently doing that Jesus did not suffer for and die for
so that the wrath of God is satisfied in us. And if that is not clear, I pray
that you would just read through this first ten chapters again.
And I pray that if you still struggle with it, that you would
call me or some other brother, elder in the church, and talk
about it. Because it really doesn't matter
how we get through anything else, does it? Does it matter how we
get through this job? How we get through this raising
children? How we get through this marriage? How we get through
this sickness? Does it really matter? Does it really matter
in the scheme of it all? What matters in the scheme of
it all? is that we as the children of God understand the gospel. I've said this a long time, and
I haven't said it recently, probably in a few years, but I think the
church will be its healthiest when it's the hardest to live. I think the church will be its
healthiest when we're fearful of our lives. I think the church will be its
healthiest when the last thing on my mind is washing dishes. The last thing on my mind is
wondering if my shoes need replacing. Ever thought about stuff you
just do to have enough toothpaste? You don't ever, well, I do, but
most people don't ever notice their toothpaste until they're
at the end of it, right? I keep it in stock. Got a little toilet
paper, too. We got shelves of that. But we don't really think about
it. We just utilize it. We're walking through the motions
of life. Friends, these things are mundane. And the suffering
of our life is mundane in comparison to the eternal glory that we
have in Christ. And see, that's ridiculous, but that's why Paul
continually asserts the idea when he's teaching that it's
the stupidest thing you've ever heard. And that's why the academic
world that's not believing look at Christians and say, y'all
are the dumbest bunch of people. To which I say, thank you. Y'all
believe in this magical God and this mystical place and this
ridiculous myth about a man who was God becoming man and born
of a virgin? How does that take place? A snake talking to folks
in the garden, the world coming from nothing, and all this other
kind of crazy stuff. Y'all believe that kind of stuff?
Man, y'all are dumb as a bag of rocks. We're smarter than that. Well, of course you are. You're
smarter than that. They're smarter than that. That's what we tell
people who are unbelieving. They're smarter than that. They really
are smarter than that. They're smarter. They're too smart to
believe the reality of their own self-righteousness. Even
an atheist has a level of self-righteousness. An atheist says, I don't have
to believe in a God because I'm not going to believe in the standard
of God. I have set my own standard of what is good and bad. And
I had this conversation with one just a couple of weeks ago that
said the very same thing. I know what's good and I know
what's bad, and I can see and experience what's before me,
that which is good and that which is not good, and I don't need
some old book written by a bunch of crazy people talking about
this God in the sky to tell me what is good and what is not
good. I can live good according to my own standard. That's self-righteousness. And then we attach some biblical
historical figure like Jesus to it, and we have self-righteousness,
and we say, and then Jesus died for me. and look at my righteousness,
look at how I'm doing now. That's still self-righteousness. Or Jesus is my genie in the bottle.
I do like this and poof, He comes out and He gives me everything
I want. That's self-righteousness on top of self-materialism and
everything else that's going on. This is what people do without
being born again. They create their own way and
their own path to what is good. The Word of God is the only path,
according to those who are redeemed, is the only path of truth. Christ
propitiated. He justified the people of God
once and for all, forever. Justification is done. You're guilty of some major crime,
let's say. You know you did it. They're
looking for you. There's a warrant for your arrest
at the federal level. The FBI's knocking on doors. They're trying
to find you. Your neighbor loves you and sees you and wants to
help you. And when they knock on his door,
he says, no, no, no, he didn't do it. I did it. I confess to
the whole thing, but the man's never done it. And they arrest him
and they put him in prison for the rest of his life, but you
don't know. So you're running for your life. You see a meter made and you
start, you jump in a sewer. Who knows? NSA, they got networks. And all of a sudden, one day,
somebody reads to you something that you'd never heard before,
and what it says is that somebody else took the penalty of your
sin, and your crime has been paid for, and that man has taken
your guilt. And all of a sudden, you're aware
of it. Are you free? Are you free? You're free. There's no warrant
for your arrest. There's no investigation against
you. There's nothing. You did it all. Somebody else took the
place of it. So if somebody else is serving
time for the crime you did, guess what? You cannot do. You cannot
serve time. And that's a terrible example,
but that's exactly what Christ has done on a large scale, on
a divine scale. He took the penalty of your sin,
and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And whether the elect are aware of it or not right now, Christ
satisfied the judgment of God for their sins, and they will
come to hear the truth of what Christ did for them. And I pray
it's in their youth, not when they're 90. They will be born again. Do you
believe that? You believe this finished work
of Christ, that Christ says, I laid down my life. It is by
my authority and my own accord. I did this for the sake of my
sheep. I saved my sheep. I died in the
place of my sheep. I obeyed the father for the sake
of my sheep. These are not possible outcomes.
The death of Christ does not provide a plethora of possible
outcomes. It's not a probable salvation.
It's a finished work of redemption. It is a finished work of justice.
God's justice is satisfied. How can God then go back and
require justice again for the same sins? He cannot do it. It is evil if God condemns any
man for whom Christ died. If Christ paid for the sins of
every human being and God puts one man in hell, he is a wicked,
maniacal, evil monster. But Christ didn't pay for all
the sins of all humanity. He paid for the sins of His sheep.
And this is taught so clearly in Scripture that there is no
way around it. This is why it's called the Good
News. Because God is satisfied with
you because Christ took your punishment. He laid His life down. This is
the outcome of the cross. Particular redemption. Limited
atonement. You don't have to see it here. You can see it really
well in John 6. And you can see it in a couple
of weeks when Jesus says to them, the reason that you cannot believe
the words that I say and that you cannot hear My voice is because
you are not My sheep. You don't become a sheep by hearing
and believing. You believe in here because you
are a sheep. Now, where does the rejoicing
sit? Thank you God for saving me. It's a big difference. You look at Barna and Graham
and all these different evangelical places that do research, and
you'll find that nearly 95% of all professing evangelicals Nearly
95% of all professing evangelicals cannot articulate that truth
that Jesus substituted for their guilt and that His obedience
is their righteousness. And it would go on to say many
things, and these are older statistics, probably 10 or so years old.
I don't know what they are today. I can't imagine they're any better.
but most people who consider themselves Christians in the
mainstream evangelical churches. That'd pretty much be any Protestant
church that's so-called Christian that's not Rome. They would say, those statistics
show us that a majority of these people, when they're polled about
the finished work of Jesus, or their assurance of salvation,
etc. They cannot give a biblical answer
to these questions. Most people, most people don't even know what John's Gospel
is about. I'll reiterate what I said in
the beginning. You need to read the Scripture. The people for whom Christ died,
the sheep of Christ, are judicially excused. Their sins are forgiven. They are no more expiation. Christ expiated the sins of the
sheep. Their sins are paid for. And Christ has the authority
to give His life, and He is God, and He is doing the works that
the Father is doing. Romans 5, 19 says, For as by one man's
disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's
obedience the many will be made righteous. What makes you righteous,
beloved? The obedience of Christ. To die
on the cross, to live a perfect life, No one takes it from me. No one takes it from me, Jesus
says. As I said earlier, this is not a mistake, it wasn't an
accident, it wasn't a plan that man did that God just used. See,
I don't even know where that falls in line with mysticism
and with panentheism or things of that nature, but a lot of
people look at God as this force or being that creates everything,
starts it all going, and then just sort of looks and hopes
it'll work out, and if it doesn't, puts his hand in there and sort
of piggybacks on circumstances to get his will accomplished.
Let the creature have volition to do all that he wants to do,
and then I'll attach on, oh, that'll work, because he's all-knowing.
He knows how to connect the dots. That's how people think God is,
that He connects dots and makes things work. What does Scripture
say? And truly in this city they were
gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you
anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles
and the peoples of Israel. What did God anoint? I mean, what did God do? To do
whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. That's a big line. Jesus, Herod,
and Pilate, all the Gentiles and all the people of Israel,
you purposed to do everything that your hand had predestined
to take place. In John 12, we will hear Caiaphas
in his argument to save the neck of Israel. It is better for one
man to die than the whole nation perish. And then the Gospel writer
says that he spoke this not of his own accord, but as a prophecy. No one takes his life from him.
He gives it freely. But this is another problem we
have sometimes when we think about the finished work of Jesus
and the death of Jesus. We stop there, don't we? Oh,
Jesus died. Jesus died. Jesus died. Great. I'm glad that Jesus died. Jesus
laid His life down for the sake of His sheep. And that wasn't
the end of it then. And I have the authority and
the power to take it up again. To take it up again. I can take
it up again. Christ took up His own life. Christ brought Himself to life.
He'd already proven it in John 11. He'd already shown that He could
take a four-day-old corpse and call it out. He called Lazarus
out and then says some of the most prophetic, beautiful things
that I've ever heard in short sense. Unbind Him and let Him
go. Jesus died. It paid the penalty of sin, but
when Jesus became alive, He unbound us and let us go. Because not
like the guy who took the crime that you did, and he's in prison
for the rest of his life until he dies, Jesus never did anything
worthy of the prison of death, and so he was free. And so are
we. We're free. And when I say that,
you would not believe. When I talk about the freedom
that is in Christ, you would not believe the hatred that comes
my way. You're teaching your church,
they'll say, to just live how they want to live and just be
wicked and evil. Am I teaching you that, church? Oh, we're free. What does that
mean? That you're free from the law? Oh, yes. How does the hymn
go? Oh, happy condition. We don't
have to follow the precepts of this religious order. I don't
have to worry as to whether or not, I don't have to worry, listen
to this, as to whether or not I love the Lord with all my heart
and strength in mind, because I know that I want to, and I
know that by the mercy of God that I can strive to that, but
I know that I'll never do it. But Christ did. So I get credit
for Christ loving the Lord with all of His heart and all of His
strength and all of His mind. I get credit as if I had never
failed in that way. And I've never taken a life, but
I am a murderer. And I have committed murder when
I've hated somebody. And so there's no way to get
away from it. I'm always a murderer, even if I never do it again,
which I can't stop when I feel somebody's just dumb as a bag
of rocks. See, I use that as a joke, but
it's really a reality. And you know what? I mean, how
many of you think people are stupid sometimes? Yeah, thank
you. You all have told the truth there.
You that didn't raise your hand, you're liars. I mean, sometimes we think, that
was just dumb. I mean, go to a fast food restaurant. Drive
to get gas. Go to the grocery store. Go to
the beauty shop. You're going to, on your way, or there, or
en route, or whatever, you're going to encounter somebody that
you think is just really ridiculously dumb. That's a stupid person.
And then, when you're thinking that about them, the guy behind
you is thinking about you. And that's murder. I mean, it really is the heart
of murder. And we recognize it quickly, don't we? Don't we find
ourselves like that as believers sometimes? We go, I shouldn't
be so frustrated. I shouldn't get this upset about
something like that. I shouldn't feel this way about this person.
I don't even know them. They might be having a bad day.
and we come to resolve that what we're doing is not pleasing to
the Lord, but we don't wallow in the reality that now we're
a murderer condemned forever. We rest in the truth and the
reality that Christ suffered as a murderer, and He wasn't,
and He was raised to life to prove it. That's the argument here in John
9 and 10. This is a sinner. He worked on
the Sabbath. He told this man to do this.
He told that man to do that. He violated the law of Moses.
He's a sinner. He blasphemes God. So when he
died, even though they thought they did it all on their own,
Jesus had already said He did it on His own. And when He died,
they're like, yes, we got this guy. Shoo, let's get Israel back
in order. Let's honor God tomorrow. Let's
celebrate. Could you imagine the worship
after the death of Jesus by the religious of His day? They felt vindicated that they
had rid the world of a blasphemer. And then lo and behold, there
He was. Why? Because he wasn't a blasphemer.
He wasn't a murderer. He wasn't a liar. He wasn't a
thief. He wasn't disobedient to his parents. Just as a side note, children,
that is your only job in life. Obey your parents. Because in
doing so, you honor God. And when you don't obey your
parents, Christ died on the cross as a disobedient child. And he
wasn't. So that you could be righteous. I take up my life. The power
inside of Christ that raised Him from the dead is inside of
us, keeps us in the faith. Paul says that several times.
The power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in us.
What is it doing? It's causing you to believe the
words of Christ right now. It's causing you to hear the
words of Christ right now. It's causing you to have faith
continually in this finished work, in this teaching that I've
been going through for the last few years. This gospel of grace,
this good news that God is satisfied. He's not angry with you. He's
not sick of you. He's not looking forward to the
day when He can smite you. He's done that already on His
own Son, so you, beloved, and I'll remind you of that, beloved,
you are free. Christ is alive. Death does not
hold us. It did not hold Him in His innocence,
and in the same way, it will not hold us in our righteousness
because our sins are forgiven. Jesus' death is not the end of
redemption. Redemption has a completion and
it is life eternal and glorification. It is being made like Christ
is now. It is being given a new body.
It is being made in the image of our Creator perfectly forever. Christ is at work in us. And
He would not stay dead because He was not guilty and deserving
of death. Neither shall we stay dead. One day we shall live forever. His death accomplished its purpose
for the elect, for the sheep, for those who belong to Him.
and His life and His resurrection does the same. It vindicated,
as I've already stated, that He was not a sinner. He wasn't
guilty and worthy of death, but He gave His life anyway so that
we could be free. It proves that He was God, for
only God, not only God can give sight to the blind, but only
God can raise a life from the dead. It establishes the final
picture of redemption. The whole point of it all is
that we're together with God. Ephesians 1.10 says that God
will put all things under the feet of Christ. All things will
be set in place. Beloved, we don't have to be
vindictive. We don't have to be vindicated
in this world. We don't have to be proven right. God will
prove us right in the day of redemption. God will prove Himself
right. All who ignore and malign and
just frustrate the gospel of grace and harass the church of
Christ, all the stress and the frustration of persecution throughout
all generations will be set right one day when God, the Son, comes
in all of His glory and sets Himself on top of all things
without any way to ignore it. and the goats will be cast into
everlasting judgment. But the sheep will be set aside
to be in Christ because Christ took the everlasting judgment
of God for them. And the final picture of redemption
is that we will be raised to life and glorified as Christ
is. It provides also the death and the life of Christ, provides
a promise for the elect in righteousness. We will be made perfect. We are
declared perfect because Christ is perfect. They are alive. Jesus is alive and we will be
alive as He is alive. And I've already alluded to this,
but it bears repeating. The death and the resurrection
of Jesus Christ accomplishes the revelation of victory over
death. It's what we talked about when
we first started our service, the grieving and the burden of
life, the burden of marriage, the burden of sin, the burden
of sickness, the burden of everything that we could think of, and we
just feel so overcome and so overwhelmed. And the closer we
get to knowing the truth of Christ, the harder it is emotionally
to carry The burden is overwhelming. It is not going to come lighter
and lighter and lighter. But when we put our mind on that
which is eternal, we understand the rest that comes in the finished
work of Christ. We understand as if God picks
us up and we no longer have to stand on sore feet. As if there's
no more pressure on our shoulders because Christ took all the pure
and eternal pressure of all of this on Himself and God crucified
Him. This rest that we have is not
a doing away with all the pressure. It's being able to absurdly,
in the logical mind of our day, rest with a joy that is often
inexpressible, as Peter would put it, in the finished work
of Christ as our sufficient hope and our absolute promise. The gospel is perfect. Victoriously, Christ raised Himself
from the dead. We have victory over the wage
of sin, which is death, and this is for the sheep of Christ. All
who are in Christ are His sheep. All who are His sheep will be
found in Him. And this is not just something
that we need to realize is separated in the context of history. from
the work of creation and everything. This is the point of life. It's
why God created the heavens and the earth. Jesus, according to Paul in Colossians,
is the Creator of all things. John, here in the prologue, in
the first four verses, says that there was nothing that was made
that He did not make. He is the Creator of all things and that
God caused all things to be made in order for Him to send His
Son into the world to satisfy His wrath for His people. Creation didn't happen outside
the plan of redemption. It did not happen by chance. And so we see God the Father
giving the charge to God the Son this work of Jesus, His incarnation. Imagine what it's like to take
on humanity, to be God, and then to take on humanity. The closest
we think and materialize in our minds are superheroes. I mean, it's the closest we could
think of mythological things, a being, sort of human-like being
with great powers. If you realize, Jesus Christ
took on the fullness of humanity. He created Mary and created the womb inside of
her and created the egg and fertilized it. And in that womb, He created
a zygote and an embryo. and an infant, and was born,
and stayed this earth as God for 34 years, almost. God gave him this charge. The
humanity of Jesus. is important because if Jesus
had not obeyed as a man, He could not sit as a substitute as man.
How many of us are man? All of us are man, human. It's
not a gender issue. We're all human. We all deserve
death. Christ must become human that
He would be obedient as a human, so that when He was crucified,
it actually had merit to pay for something. Jesus obeys in His humanity,
and not only does He provide expiation for our sins, but He
provides righteousness according to the law of God. Jesus obeyed
as a human being where we could not. And in turn, the imputation
of His righteousness to the elect is not just that He took our
guilt that we deserved, but He gave us a perfect obedience on
our account that we do not deserve either. So Jesus' death warrants justice
in Jesus' life of obedience even to the cross and raising Himself
from the dead. Jesus' life of obedience counts
as obedience for us. So not only are we just forgiven,
we're perfect. We're perfect in the eyes of
God because it's as if we've never violated the law. As a
matter of fact, God looks at all of you who are indeed in
Christ and says in His heart, anthropomorphism, He says in
His heart, you have never broken My law. That's how He looks at
you. What is this called? If I were
to teach this to three-year-olds, which would not be difficult,
what would it be called? I would say it this way, this
is the love of God. If you want to know what God's
love looks like, it looks like He gave His Son to pay for your
sins and His Son obeyed, even on the cross, to give you righteousness. It's as if you've never disobeyed
your mom, because Christ never disobeyed His. It's as if you've
never had a bad thought or desire or deed, you never looked at
anything ugly with your eyes, you never listened to anything
simple with your ears, you never ate anything simple with your
mouth. It's as if you've never done anything wrong. It's as
if you are really a perfect human being, and that is the record
of your account before God the Father, and the only way you
have it is because God loves you. Beloved. That's what it
means. And that is only true of the
sheep of Christ. God's love is eternal and immutable. It cannot change, it cannot begin,
and it cannot end. It cannot start. For this reason, the Father loves
me. that I do all the work He's charged
me with, to accomplish all that He charged me to accomplish,
that I may satisfy His wrath for His people, and that I might
also truly obey on their behalf, that they would become my righteousness. The Father loves me in this,
because He loved you, sheep, in this. God has always loved the Son
and the Son the Father. The intimacy with the Father,
though, changed at the time of incarnation. God's love for Christ and Christ's
love for the Father is seen in His obedience. Seen in the passion
of Christ whereby He would be willing to lay down His life
and suffer not just physical death, but justice. for a people
who were spitting on Him and rebelling against Him and rejecting
Him. Friends, all of us at one time in our life rejected the
truth of Christ. But God in His love caused us
to be born again. That's what Paul says in Ephesians
2. It's what Peter says in Peter
chapter 1. He is the causal agent of our redemption. He did all
the work, and then He made us alive that we might see it. Nicodemus
says, we know that you are the one come from God. Ironically,
they're going to say in verse 19, this man has a demon. The
same group of people. And Jesus says to him, truly,
I truly say to you that you cannot see me. unless you're born from
God, unless you're born from above. And beloved, if you are
a sheep, you will be born from above. You will see and understand
the voice of your shepherd. You will understand that God
had purposed Christ to die and raise from the dead for the sake
of His sheep. And in this work, God loves Him
more and more and more. The love of God for the sheep
is seen in the giving of His Son, the One whom He loves. And
God's love is not found outside this effectual work. There is
no love of God outside this effectual work. Quit thinking that God
has emotions, because God is not an emotional
God. He doesn't move at the pulse of things that He observes, because
He doesn't observe, He knows. Why do emotions strike us when
we hear of bad news? If we knew all things at all
times, we wouldn't even think about it. It's impossible. God's Gospel is a certain and
loving and perfect and effectual act in which God and through
which God has satisfied the wrath that is deserving so of all.
But for His sheep, it shall never be seen. Look at verse 19, 20-21,
in closing. There was again a division amongst
the Jews because of these words. All of a sudden now, these people,
they're fussing and fighting. John 10 verse 19. There's division. Now many of them said, he has
a demon and he's insane. Why would we listen to this guy
who has a demon? And others said, these are not the words of one
who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of
the blind? See, a true and perfect picture
of Christ, listen to this church, divides the religious from the
redeemed. I'm going to repeat that. A true
and perfect, the true and perfect picture of Christ divides the
religious from the redeemed. The religious double down and
bear roots and anchor themselves to their way and to their traditions
and to their view of holiness and all of these things. The
redeemed see Christ for what He is, who He is and what He's
accomplished and for whom, and they rest therein. And that's
the end of it. And when we see, and it's one
of the reasons why exposition is so rare, because you can't
get away from dealing with things that you don't believe. when
you're teaching the Bible erroneously or from a pretextual position
or a presumptive position. It's not popular because it's
very difficult to see something and go, I don't know how to answer
that. Let's just teach something else. Let's go to Psalms. Oh, don't know that. Let's go
to Leviticus. Oh, don't know that. Let's go to Revelation. Nevermind.
People don't want to teach that either. The reason we can see is because
God has separated us. He's taken us out of the sheep
pen of falsities, and He's brought us into the true sheep pen of
the true shepherd because we are truly sheep. So the picture,
the true and perfect picture of Christ through the Word of
God, the testimony of God about His Son is seen in Scripture,
and it separates the sheep from the goats. It separates and settles
in the mind of those who hear in truth the testimony of Christ
about Himself. It gives us a resolve to rest
and to not look at how we're going to change our life in order
to be right with God. It's about how Christ satisfied
God's wrath for us. And which do you want? Do you
want to keep working and hope you get it? Or do you want to
trust in what the Bible teaches and says that Christ got it?
There's no in-between. You either work and hope and
wish upon a star, or you rest and know and are satisfied. This is all a part of the total
plan that God had purposed, that there be division amongst the
Jews, that some of them, like Nicodemus, would believe in the
finished work of Christ, he would be born again. He was a sheep. He no longer listened to the
thieves and the robbers. He listened to the voice of his
Savior. And this plan that God had purposed to save His sheep,
they will hear His voice. He will separate eternally the
sheep from the goats. And He'll sort them in this life
too. Some who still believe in their
views of righteousness and go therein, and those who believe
in the plan of righteousness and follow after Him in faith.
Do you follow after Christ in faith? Do you believe in Christ
by faith? Do you believe in everything
that Christ tells about Himself? Beloved, it leaves you hanging,
doesn't it? You see, this is what the real
truth of Scripture does. It leaves us hanging with this
idea that we need to resolve something. It's like a cord that
doesn't resolve at the end, a sustain that needs to go somewhere. I'm
thinking, well, just get through with this song. And I want to
sing this song. I want to finish the song. I want to quit and
be done and feel satisfied. I want to finish this meal. I
want to taste this food and enjoy the end of it. I want to have
my dessert. Well, friends, the dessert is the hang. It is all of Christ. It is all
of Him. He's done all the work. And it's
just like, we just hang there. There is no resolve. Now what
must I do? Believe in that Christ. This moment, the next moment,
tomorrow, the next day, restate in your mind the truth of Christ,
hear His words continually resonating in you, that you would believe
in Him and His work, and that you would be satisfied therein,
that you would not seek a righteousness of your own, but that you would
know He is your absolute only Savior. There's a big divide
with that teaching just as we've seen and just as we'll continue
to see. And the reason God divides that
way is because that is His purpose and His divine plan. The gospel
cuts people apart. People like to say, well, Christians
shouldn't be fighting. I agree. But true Christians,
are going to have unity, not in that they can sit together
and eat together, but in what they believe about Christ. Let's
pray. We thank You, Lord, our Father,
our God, for just all of the teaching that's here in this
text. Lord, so much that I'm just not
able to cover right now. Lord, give me the grace to see
and to expound on that which is necessary for us and for our
growth and joy. Father, I continue to pray for
all of us, Lord, that we would pray for each other. Father,
there are some families who are not here this morning, and it
troubles my heart because I don't know what's happening. Father,
messages that I received this morning from others that I do
know what's happening, it troubles my heart. Lord, I just pray that
You would work it all out for our good, that You would keep
us from being in despair, that You would hold us to a place
where we would not lose hope, And by doing so, Father, You
will drive us to the Word and You will drive us to pray for
one another, not out of just frustration, but God, out of
faith. Lord, we need a great healing
of hope and peace. as a family, as a spiritual family,
as a church family, Lord, I pray that You would give that to us
and grant that to us, Lord. And we pray for so many, so many
amongst us, Lord, who are having detailed issues. I mean, with
everything, God, the list is beyond my comprehension this
very moment, and we don't have to tell You how You ought to
do Your work. We don't have to tell You what
it is that You need to be aware of, for You know all things.
You know the heart and the depths of all of us, and You know everything
that we don't know about us. And so, Lord, we know that even
in that, that You know the darkest places of our hearts, that You
love us anyway, and that You gave Your Son for us anyway,
and so in that we rejoice. Help keep us in this faith. as
You've promised. We pray these things in the name
of Christ. Amen.