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. We close out this section of
John today and we need to keep in mind what we've learned thus
far. Remember John 1, where the Gospel
writer, where the evangelist says that in the beginning was
the Word. The Word was God, the Word was
with God, He was with God in the beginning. All things were
created through Him, still away from Paul's teaching to the Colossians,
and for Him, and by Him, all things were made. Nothing that
was made was not made, except that He made it. He came to His
own, His own did not receive Him. We're seeing that in John
8. But all who did receive Him, those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become children of God. He gave the privilege.
He called them His own. Not because of their will, or
the decision of their mind, or their blood, or their heritage,
or their lineage, or their history, but by the will of God. And then the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us. We have seen His glory, glory
as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. From
Moses we receive the law, but from Jesus we receive grace,
upon grace, upon grace. And we've seen this play out
now, 74 sermons. I would say 74 hours is probably
more like 86 hours. Seventy-four sermons out of this
text, and I can promise you that I've truncated it. Just in this
very text in John 8, I could teach about the Trinity, I could
talk about death, I could talk about eternal life, contextually
deriving from it, but we will see it as we continue to move
in this Gospel. We've seen Jesus call the first
disciples. We've seen the miraculous power
of His divine person, knowing the heart of man. We've seen
Him turn water to wine, showing that He was the better Bridegroom.
And He did not even take credit for that, but gave His work,
credit for His work, to the Master of Ceremonies and to the Bridegroom.
That's a gospel allusion. It points to and back and forth
to the gospel. We see then in John 2 where John
the Baptist even says, I'm not the Christ, who are you? I'm
the one that says, make straight the paths of the Lord. The one
who has come after me is before me, whose sandals I am not worthy
to untie. Why do you baptize? Well, I baptize
with water, but the one who's come baptizes with fire and with
the Holy Spirit. He cleanses the temple out of
the prophecy of Malachi. He would have zeal for his father's
house. And they like, by what authority
do you do these things? He says, I tell you this, the
truth. Destroy this temple and in three days I shall build it
up again. Many believed in His name because
of the signs and wonders that He did, but Jesus did not believe
in them because He knew what was in man, and no one had to
tell Him what was in the heart of man. And there was a man named
Nicodemus of the Pharisees who came to Jesus by night, and we
see that. You must be born again, beloved. That is part of the
gospel message. You must be born again. It's
not just that you take truth to the knowledge of the text.
You must be made alive by the Holy Spirit. No matter how much
Bible knowledge we have, no matter how many centuries of tradition,
of theological things that we know, like the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, the Scribes, the Chief Priests, these are very intelligent
people. They know the Bible more than
you and I will ever know the Bible, academically. But they were not born again.
They were not born again. And the very people who called
forth the coming of Messiah, rejected the Messiah every single
moment that He gave proclamation of Himself as God come to earth,
Emmanuel, God with us. Messiah, the Christ. So Jesus goes to the Samaritans. the accursed dogs of society,
the traitors of Judaism, the inbred, worthless, uncircumcised
people. And Jesus saves the people of
Sychar when the people of Jerusalem rejected Him. And then in John
5, Jesus says that you search the Scriptures, O Pharisees,
Because in them you think that you find eternal life. You think
that your knowledge brings you to God. You think that because
you are Abraham that you are God's chosen elect. But you are
not, for you are not mine. I speak the words of God. I do
the work of God. As the Father is doing, now I
am doing. As the Father was speaking, now
I speak. Hebrews 1. God at many times
in many ways has spoken to us through the prophets and our
forefathers through the prophets. But in these last days, He speaks
to us through His Son, whom He has exalted above all
things. Don't ever forget that Jesus
was truly, is truly man, and is also truly God. In John 6, He does a miraculous
thing in feeding a multitude of 5,000 men plus with just a
small portion of food. And they gather up 12 baskets. Jesus says, gather up what remains,
that none should be wasted, that none should be lost. And the people look and wait
for Jesus. And Jesus walks across the sea,
teleports the disciples in the boat to Capernaum. And the people had come there
because the storm had blown boats, and they went in these boats
and found Jesus. Oh, dear, great, awesome Teacher! When did You come here? How did
You get here? Do not labor for the food that
perishes, but labor for the bread that endures to eternal life.
I am the bread that comes down from heaven, sent by My Father
to give life. Eat of My flesh, drink of My
blood. The sustenance of your hope is
Me and My work on the cross. The reason you do not believe
is because you have not been given to Me by the Father. For
no one can come to Me unless the Father makes him come, draws
him, creates in Him a new heart that He is His, and no one can
come if the Father does not give them to Me. You do not believe
because you are not of My Father, and you have not been given to
Me. No one comes to Me unless the Father brings them to Me. And all that the Father give,
they will come. And all that the Father... All
who come, they will be saved. And all that are saved will never
be lost. They will be raised to everlasting life. and so on
and so on. And in John 7, we see this continuation
of this discussion. Six months later, then we're
into John 8. He is the living water. He is the light of the
world. He is God. And that's where He brings it
to this day. We've gone through verses 48
through 50. 50, well actually 48 through 57,
we've already dealt with them, but we're going to recap them
this morning from a practical point of view as applying this
doctrine to you as a body. And then we're going to end it
with Abraham. It's going to take a good portion of our time today
dealing with Abraham. I'm going to have to read the
18th chapter of Genesis, and maybe the 22nd chapter of Genesis,
and some other places, and Hebrews chapter 11, and a whole bunch
of stuff, so maybe I won't read it all, but we'll point to it,
and you can make notes. Please take notes when you hear
the Word of God. Write things down as you want
to remember them. It is a good practice, and it
is a godly practice to take notes when you hear teaching.
48, the Jews answered him, are we
not writing saying that you have a demon and that you're a Samaritan? Jesus answered them. We've gone
through this two weeks prior, last week and the week before.
I do not have a demon. You notice that? That's what
Jesus says. I do not have a demon. Now see, if somebody calls us
a charlatan, somebody calls us a liar, somebody calls us, this
is the practical theology. This is the applied theology
here. Somebody calls us a name. Somebody calls us a, calls us
a, you know, a scoundrel. We personally are offended. We're
personally affronted. We're like, Oh, who do you think?
I'm not a scoundrel. I'm not a liar. Have you ever
lied? And you're a liar. You see? It's not that we should
take offense at these things. We shouldn't take offense. Jesus
did not take offense at all of the persecutions that came His
way, but when they said that He had a demon, He said, no,
I do not have a demon. Now, Hollywood would have done
a better job of expressing Jesus. Because He would have been like
Iron Man. See you kids? He would have went,
boom, and burned everybody. I don't have a demon. I mean,
you know. Oh wow, he doesn't have a demon. He is the demon.
I mean, no matter what Jesus did, unbelievers would still
accuse Him of being of the devil. No matter what people think of
Christ, it doesn't change who He is. And as Peter tells us,
Jesus did not return Revile with Revile, but entrusted Himself
to the one who judges rightly. Christ did not have to defend
Himself because the Father vindicated Christ. The Father gave Christ
glory. And there's a lesson in that
for us. Jesus rebukes the idea of Him being demonic. But He
accepts all the other slanderous slurs. He didn't say, don't you
call me a Samaritan. Don't you tell me that I'm a
traitor to my people. Don't you tell me that I'm not
a Jew of all Jews. Don't tell me I'm not a Christian.
Don't tell me that I'm not Baptist. Don't tell me that I'm not Reformed.
Who cares about those things? It used to make me very upset
in the beginning days when the closest people to you, when family,
friends, and cohorts begin to call you a cult leader, begin
to call you demonic, begin to say that you have another gospel,
and all you're doing is preaching Christ and hoping and praying
that God would call His sheep home. and that you would see
life, and you would see growth, and you would see intimacy, and
you would see glory over and over again as we peer into the
pages of Scripture and we see God face-to-face in reality through
Jesus Christ. Everybody wants to see something
miraculous. Beloved, look at the Bible. There
is no greater miracle than you being able to understand what
it is saying and to see Jesus. But He doesn't
deal with the slander against His character. We were not born
in sexual immorality. And what does He say? Well, which
one of you accuses me of sin then? Bring it. If you have an
accusation, bring it. That should be our attitude.
Lovingly. Jesus didn't double down and
stomp His feet and put His MMA face on Him. Bring it! No, He
says, accuse me of sin then. Bring the evidence. Samaritan,
whatever, liar, whatever, whatever, whatever. I teach the truth because
I speak the words of God. You say He's your God, but you're
a liar. That's why Jesus tells them twice to their face that
they're liars, because they don't know the Father. Jesus responds
with this fact. How does He respond to this?
How does He argue against these accusations? I honor my Father. Do we honor our Father who is
in heaven? Not perfectly, not completely, not every day, but
we do if we are in Christ, we honor God. When we are proclaiming
the gospel of grace and sovereign grace, we honor the Father. We,
as Jesus did, who spoke the truth of the Father, honored the Father.
When He took the suffering, He honored the Father. When He testified
to the witness of the Father, He honored the Father. When He
revealed the work of the Father, He honored the Father. He never
took honor and glory for Himself, because it belonged to God the
Father, and God the Father would bestow the glory that belonged
to Christ to Him. And when we honor God, when we
speak of the truth of the Gospel, we honor God. We honor our Father. We honor our Father when we correct
error. We honor our Father when we call
out sin. We honor our Father, but we dishonor
our Father when we think we're better than those we're calling. And see, that's the accusation.
The undercurrent of this accusation is that you're a Samaritan, you
have a demon, etc. Jesus responds with that by saying,
I do not seek my own glory. I don't seek my own glory. I'm
not here to puff myself up. I'm not here before you so that
these people will follow me instead of you. I'm here to save my sheep
and the Father will give them to me and you can't stop it.
You will not take any of My sheep from Me." You see that? There's hope in that, beloved.
The cults, the false teachers, all of these people who God ordains
to continue to bring a barrage of evil into our culture, only
those who are born of God can see the truth and believe. People will malign us, friends.
People will destroy us. People will talk of us. People
will do things against us and love us in the front and stab
us in the back as they embrace us. And it is not going to stop. It is not going to change. As
a matter of fact, if we see the narrative of history in the Christendom,
it gets worse and worse and worse. God has never purposed, hear
this, God has never purposed that America would be a nation
of Christians. God has purposed that America
would, as all countries, be Babylon, and He will destroy it one day,
either in His coming or either in its expiring. I'm not saying
that as citizens we don't strive to do what is best for us, but
we cannot put our hope in what we will be as a nation. We must put our hope in who we
are as a nation of priests. People hurt our feelings. They
hurt my feelings. Believe it or not, I have feelings. I have
deep feelings. And I get hurt easily when people accuse me
of things that I have not done. It is the number one sin in my
life. That if some of you frowned while
I'm preaching, I may think, oh no, what did I say wrong? Even
if I read the text from the scripture, I must have misspoken. That's
a paranoia of sinful proportions. And by the mercy of God, those
are fleeting, very quickly. Oh, well, that's silly. Moving
right along. But there are some things that
we've experienced as a church, people who have hurt us, people
who have abandoned us, people who have done things and continually
do things against us for years. And we're thinking, when will
this stop? It's not going to stop. It's okay. And what's amazing
is it's not gotten lesser, but we don't see it. Because we're
not looking for it anymore. If you want to find dirt, you
can find dirt. If you want to find bedbugs,
just go to a hotel. If you want to see things to
cause you grief, just open your eyes and peek into the soul of
this culture. You can see it. If you want to
be belabored over the grief of your faith and how people don't
love you anymore, then just focus on those things. But Paul says
to put our minds on Christ. Paul says to put our mind on
that which is eternal. To look at how Christ lived and
have a hope in that. That if God Himself and His humanity
was hated, should we not also be not surprised? There's too
many negatives there. We should not be surprised when
we are also hated. As a matter of fact, It teaches
us that in just a couple of verses. We are in good company when we
are maligned. Now here's the tragedy. It's
one thing to see the cults malign us. It's one thing to see unbelievers
malign us. But it's another thing when so-called
people of faith begin to malign us. The so-called people who
had the only people who held the oracles of Christ. were the
Jews and they maligned the very author of the Oracles. And I find it very ironic, I
won't preach this because it's just an irony. He is the cornerstone,
he is the rock of salvation and they picked up rocks to kill
him. I laughed out loud last night when that sort of popped
into my head. That's like a children's object lesson. Jesus is the rock
and they picked up rocks, how dumb. How judicially blind. Jesus is dishonored a lot. He says, you dishonor me. They
dishonored Him because they would not what? They would not accept
His testimony, which was the Father's testimony. They dishonored
Jesus. Now, let me put this into an
application of our culture. Dishonoring Jesus in this context
and then for us in this transcendent principle is when we call Jesus
who he is not. When we create in our mind or
our language or our culture or our vernacular, maybe that's
redundant, a Jesus that the scripture does not testify to. For example,
I'll give you some absurd examples, the Jesus of Let me start from
the easy. The Jesus of the cults. Okay. The Jesus of the witnesses. He's
just a created being. He's this, that, and the other.
Jesus of LDS. He's just a brother. Is it like
brother to Lucifer? He was an angel and then they
went their separate ways and now they're at war with things. And
they get that from the New Testament somehow. Well, I'll tell you
how they get it because they have another prophet that now
has spoken for God and created a New Testament. All of them. Islam, what we call world religions,
it's a cult. It's not a world, just because
it's old doesn't mean that it's not a cult. They are required
to study the New Testament for they cannot deny that Jesus was
a prophet of God. Just like Nicodemus, we know that you are from God.
But the only prophet that was yet to come is Messiah. But they
wouldn't want him because his Messiah actions didn't fill their
earthly intentions. And thus it was a spiritual problem
because their glory would be reduced if Jesus didn't rescue
them from Rome so that they could continue to be high and mighty. So dishonoring Jesus is to teach
the false Christ of the cults. Dishonoring Jesus is to teach
the false Christ of universalism. Oh, God loves everybody, God's
gonna save everybody, God's gonna make it an opportunity to save
everybody and everything's gonna be okay. I mean, you see that
in some aspects of judgment, how people look at judgment.
Like, I'll say the name, like C.S. Lewis, who wrote extensively
about the fact that the Old Testament was not authentic, and who wrote
extensively about the fact that there was no judgment of God
against any human being, but that eventually God would put
all people into righteousness. And that's one of many problems. Narnia has cool stories. He wasn't
a theologian, he's a philosopher. And enjoy his philosophy, if
you can stomach it. Should you read him? I like to
read fiction sometimes. As long as it's not seen as truth. The false Christ of universalism,
the false Christ of, and we've talked about this throughout
this teaching of John 6, 7, and 8, of what? Potential redemption. You've heard me say for years
that Christ is not a possible Savior. He's a perfect Savior. He actually paid for the sins
of His people. It is a done deal. John 6 explicitly
teaches this truth. Romans teaches this truth. Galatians
teaches this truth. All of the scripture teaches
this truth. This is not a theory. Atonement in itself is a theory
to most popular theologians. A theory. A possibility that
we can infer from our astute reason and logic from the reality
of the cross. We can infer it, a lot of people,
as a viable theory. No. The atonement is an explicit
doctrine of Scripture that Jesus paid for sins. They are paid for. It is finished. Jesus didn't say, it's just begun. He didn't say, the doors are
open. He didn't say, listen for my knocking. You know, Revelation
3. By the teaching of Jesus in John
6, Jesus doesn't knock on the door of an unregenerate person
and wait for him to open it. He kicks it down and says, I
pay for your sins! And he snatches him into light. Like a SWAT team. Not a beggar. The false Christ of potential
redemption, the false Christ of universalism, the false Christ
of all sorts of different types of theological things that make
an emphasis on signs and wonders and wealth and all this other
type of stuff. experiential, existential, everything
that you can think of. There's a Christ to fit every
desire of the flesh of men. They are false Christs. They
dishonor Christ. They're not believers in this
sense. These were not believers. People
have argued with me this week that these were believers in
John 8, because the Bible says they believed. Many believed. The narrative says, then Jesus
turned to those who believed and said, you're lost. You see. These aren't believers
who need correcting. These are unregenerate people
proclaiming a false Christ. Here's one for you. The false
Christ of libertarianism. That's the title, or the label
rather, that I have placed on decisional regeneration. This
idea of the freedom of the will effectual in salvation. Effectual. The false Christ of legalism.
The false Christ of antinomianism. See, we invent everything under
the sun to satisfy our desires of how Christ should save us.
And we add to the gospel. And according to Paul, Adding
to the gospel is no gospel but is condemnation. Jesus says in
John 3 that God loved the world this way, that He gave His only
Son, the only one that He had, that whoever is the believing
ones in Him does not perish but has eternal life. But whoever
is not the believing ones are condemned already, for they are
not the believing ones of Christ. They are not believing. For this
is the judgment, the light is coming to the world, but people
love the darkness rather than the light because their works are evil."
Friends, the lust of the flesh, of course, obvious, but self-righteousness
is also evil. This is all a recap. This is
74 weeks of recap, by the way, if you haven't figured that out. It's going to ramp up here when
Jesus starts healing this blind man out the doors of the next
verse, of chapter 1, of verse 1 of chapter 9. Yeah, we're starting
back over, chapter 1. But they dishonor Jesus, a false
Jesus, a false Jesus of evangelicalism. Now, I've been saying, I've been
using these terms for, what, 7 months, 8 months? The evangelical
cult. And some of you just sort of
take it, you go, ah, that's cool. And some of you have come to
me and gone, what in the world are you talking about? And other people have
said, why are you talking about us? Not here, but I mean without.
Are you a cult? Are you evangelical cult? I mean,
can we say Christian cult? Yes, we can say Christian cult.
a cult that is centered on the teachings of Christianity or
the teachings of Scripture, it doesn't mean that they're truly
Christ's people. They're not Christ's people. They have extra-biblical,
hyper-biblical, outside of or above and beyond biblical understanding
or revelation, and then they what? Then they come to a place
of creating in themselves their own way to God. The evangelical cults of our
day are nothing but just a step away from Judaism, which is really
just in the intermediate there is what? Rome. What does it look
like? When we continue to add to the
gospel to such a way that we forsake the truth of God and
think we're honoring God, and then we're in doing so dishonoring
Christ, and by dishonoring Christ, we dishonor God because no one
comes to the Father except through Christ. And people will accuse us just
like they accused what? Just like they accused Jesus
of seeking His own glory. You think you're better than
Abraham? Has he been asked that already? You think you're better than
Jacob, our Father, who gave us this well, John 4? Who do you think
you are, John 6 and 7? What son do you bring? What proof
do you have? He gives them proof today. When
He closes this text out and He says, I am, it's all the proof
they needed. I did not seek my own glory,
verse 50, there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. As we
saw last week, Jesus did not seek His own glory. Though it
was due Him, it would come through the Father. Jesus did not revile,
as I quoted 1 Peter earlier, but entrusted Himself to the
faithful judge. We then also must do the same,
beloved. We must entrust ourselves to
the Father. We cannot assert our rightness when we're sharing
the faith and we're teaching the truth. We cannot be offended
when someone doesn't see what we see. We cannot have an arrogance
about us that we are smarter or better or more astute. We can grab all this information
and use it to our advantage and then work with it. Voila, we
see Jesus. We must be humble. We must be
broken. We must have a spirit and a burden
that weeps over the lost, that weeps over the reprobate, that
weeps over those who will not believe, that weeps over those
who are objects of wrath. We must have that heart, but
we do not lose hope. You see, that's the cycle of
Paul's life. I'm going to take the gospel,
and he had great expectation that God would save his people,
and people would come to faith, and then a majority of people,
after they left the city, would devour the small body of Christ,
and try to bring all sorts of heresies. Like Paul says, there
are heresies among you. There must be. Actually, there's
an imperative there. Heresies among you. There will
always be goats in with the sheep. There will always be wolves being
birthed and maturing, and one day they will snarl and snap,
and we will see them for who they are, but they will not overcome
us. We must do the same. We cannot
assert our rightness. Because when we do, what we do
is we usurp the glory of God. We make people into a place where
they want to fight us rather than stand and bask in the glory
of God. Think of the tempest at Sinai.
Think of what Paul says to the Hebrews in that letter. You have
not come to this mountain. This mountain where the tempest
and the lightning and the thunder and the voice of God and the
smoke The fear of God was in the people and they did not want
to hear or be connected in any way to the voice that came down
from the heavens. So much so that they said, let
us never hear another command that is so harsh because God
is so set apart. He's so perfect. He's so right.
He's so magnificent that if an animal touches the mountain,
it must be stoned to death. I said, let us not hear it. Let
us not look at it anymore. We don't want to see your face,
Moses. Cover your face. Because you've
got this glow about you. Because you've peered at the
shadow of the tail end of the robe of the backside of God's
glory. And you're shining. And we don't
want to see this anymore. We can't stomach this anymore.
I don't want to see it. But God brought the law down
and He says, this is what I expect. This is the display of my righteousness.
This is the cause of my vengeance. You are not law keepers. You've not come to that mountain,
beloved. You have not come to that mountain.
You've come to Christ. in whom there is no condemnation,
in whom there is no fear. Because He loves us and gave
Himself for us, He satisfied God's wrath on our behalf, and
His perfect obedience is ours to claim. So when we seek to be right,
we take away that glory. We cannot seek to be seen as
glorious, Even in the truth and how glorious it is, we must decrease
that we exalt and increase Christ. So, we do not need to take personal,
yet again I say this, at the attacks and the persecution.
We cannot feel harmed by the fact that people do not love
us. The Father is the judge, and as the Father judged rightly
with the Son and glorified Him, we who are in Christ do not seek
approval of the world or the religious of the world, but we
seek the glory of God above all things. When Paul says to the
Corinthians that this is foolish, he meant it. He wasn't speaking metaphorically. He wasn't using imaginative language
to color some sense of self-deprecation. Paul was not self-deprecating.
Paul saw the glory of God. The world and the religious of
the world, the unregenerate of the world, the lost of the world,
until they are born again, will not love us. And our actions
and words cannot please and appease unregenerate people. Those people who have been part
of our lives for a long time and then they come to start to
fight with us about the gospel or push away from us because
we share the glory of God and salvation. It is not us that
they are pushing away, it is Christ. and we can either rest in His
glory and the sufficiency of His grace and His persecution,
or we can yield to our flesh. What shall it be, beloved? The
Spirit of God who is in us empowers us and preserves us and keeps
us. We cannot mold ourselves after
the liking of other people's faith or other people's truth
because it is wrong and it dishonors Christ. It is disastrous to have
doublespeak when it comes to the Gospel. Christ gained glory
from the Father, and because we are in Christ, we too will
what? Share in His glory. We must be clear about our idols. No matter who they are. No matter
what doctrine it may be. And we must move them to the
side that God may be seen in all of His fullness. Christ alone. These are not phrases that we've
just adopted throughout history. These are words that have meaning.
Oftentimes we lose the meaning of these words because we lose
sight of the glory of God through the Gospel, through the Word. And that this, as Paul would
boast, light momentary affliction, prepares us for what? An eternal
weight of glory. The heaviness of the eternal
glory of Christ that will smother us to such a joy that there is
no comparison. We think this burden is heavy.
It's nothing. It's like this invisible jacket that I'm wearing.
It doesn't weigh anything. Get me some help. But the glory of God is heavier
than all of the burdens of this life. He says in verse 51, truly, truly
I say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never see death. The Jews
said, now we know you have a demon. Abraham died as did the prophets,
yet you say they will never taste death. Are you greater than our
father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do
you make yourself out to be? We talked about this last week.
Unregenerate. people, false converts, false
teachers, legalists, religious et al. They all seek their own
glory in the name of giving glory to God, but in doing so they
reject Christ and His gospel as revealed in Scripture, and
in doing that they dishonor God. Jesus recapitulates that those
who believe His testimony His teaching, His Word are saved
from sin. They are saved from death. Now
why would He say that in the midst of these conversations?
Because there were multitudes listening. And there was hope there. As
the spiritual leaders of this day were seen to be destroyed
by the teachings of Jesus, being overshadowed by the Shekinah
glory of God in the face of Christ, Then all of a sudden, there comes
some hopelessness for those who follow our spiritual leaders. And Christ is showing His people
that there is hope. Believe what I say. Trust in
Me. Eat of Me. Believe in Me. Come
to Me. You have life. You are saved
from sin. You are saved from death. Jesus
was not offering salvation to the Jews and they rejected it.
Jesus was proclaiming Himself as salvation and they could not
see it. So their plea, their defense
was demonic. You must be demonic. Because
the prophets died. Abraham died. These people sought
their own glory. As Jesus says in verse 54, if
I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who
glorifies me, of whom you say He is our God. But you do not
know Him. You have not known Him. I know
Him. And if I were to say that I do
not know Him, I would be a liar like you are liars. You are liars. But I do know Him and I do keep
His Word. So many think they glorify God, yet they dishonor
Christ, and thus, as I've already said a thousand times, they dishonor
God. Christ is God the Son. Many think they know God, yet
they do not know the Christ of Scripture. So in this, they do
not know God, because Christ is God. Many think they are connected
to God, they have some intimacy with God through some type of
meditation, or some type of study, or some type of this or that,
or some type of lineage, or some type of relationship. That's
why people flock by the thousands to see spiritual leaders, quote,
quote, quote, pronounce a blessing on them,
or give them a word from the Lord, or whatever, and they cry,
and they weep, and they fall down, they take pictures, they
touch the stage, they try to find the napkin that these men
have used so they can have some piece of his DNA sticking in
their Bible, and they can hope in a man. Friends, we hope in
the man who is Jesus. These people think they're connected
to God, yet they hope in the faith of others. They hope in
the connection of others, the lineage or the tradition of others.
And just like these Jews who hoped in the lineage of Abraham,
they could not be in God through Abraham. Some people confess that it is
not Christ who saves, but it is we who save ourselves by what
Christ has done. They will concede that there
are good people in the world who God will favor, no matter
what they believe about Christ. There are some people who claim
to be in Christ who will concede that there are those who have
never believed in Christ, as the Scripture reveals. Never
believed in the Gospel. Never believed that Christ suffered
on the cross to die for the sins of His people. Never believed
that Christ is the only way to God. And yet they will say, those
people are good, look at their lives. They must be in Christ. He is our God, the Jews would
say. He is our God, just like Abraham is our Father, God is
our Father. This is not true of most people
who confess Christ, beloved. When someone tells you they believe
in Christ, ask them who Christ is. Just very plainly, who is
Christ? And they'll give you some answers,
and they'll say, now what has Christ done that you might have faith
in Him? The answer should be very clearly, Christ obeyed And
my sins were credited to Him. My guilt was put on Him and He
died. God punished my sins in Christ. They are paid for. And
Christ obeyed where I could not. And that's been credited to me.
So I am a law keeper before the Father. That is what the Gospel
teaches in a nutshell. And then they need to recognize
that God raised Christ from the dead. And as Trey taught some
time ago, a couple of months ago, that resurrection is tied
to our justification in such a beautiful picture of assurance.
The covenant of grace that God would save His people from their
sins. See, the gospel is God will save His people alone from
their sins. There's no other gospel. And
that's what we've been learning for 74 weeks. And 44 weeks in
Romans. A false confession is not the
truth, it's a lie. If I see in the newspaper that
someone robbed a store or broke into a house and I decide I just
want to confess to it, and I walk into the court and I say, yeah,
I robbed that house. There's no evidence that I did
it, just my testimony. Oh, James Tippins confessed to
this crime. Wow, I can't believe that. And then they start to
look and they find a video. And it's not me. Guess what that?
That was not a confession, it was a lie. So to say people believe
in Christ and confess Christ, but it's not the Christ of Scripture,
it's a lie, it's not a confession. It's not truth. In Jesus' hand, verse 56, this
is our sermon, that was the introduction. Here we are. Your father Abraham
rejoiced that he would see my day, and he saw it, and he was
glad. So the Jews said, you're yet
fifty. And you've seen me, Abraham. Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am. And they picked up stones to
kill him because he said, I am. That is how God identifies Himself
throughout Scripture. I am. He is the great I am. Some people say, well, what in
the world? How did Abraham rejoice? Because Abraham had died in the
flesh, right? He'd been long dead. So he was with Christ. He was with Christ in the bosom
of himself. Isn't that funny? The bosom of
Abraham. It's Abraham's presence that
the Jews look forward to. Not Christ. Jesus got in the
way and they're like, are you greater than Abraham? Our Father,
yes, I am. I am. You see? I'm greater than Abraham. He rejoiced in me. And people
think, well, what in the world? Well, Genesis 22, I can't read
it all, but you know the story. God had told Abraham to what? To sacrifice Isaac. In chapter
18 of Genesis, just bear with me. In fact, I want to read some
of that. Chapter 18 of Genesis. It says there that God, the Lord,
Jesus Christ, appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre. As he sat
at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, he lifted up
his eyes, and he looked, and behold, three men were standing
in front of him. When he saw them, he ran to the
door of his tent to meet them, and he bowed himself to the earth
and he says, O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do
not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought,
and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree, etc. So they said, Do as you have
said. And then here, after they ate, the Lord promised that Sarah
would have a son this time next year. And Sarah's listening. She's in there wondering what's
going on and she's listening. And she laughs because she's
old. Isaac's name means laughter because
she laughed. She could not believe. That's
why Ishmael was born. As a matter of fact, if you remember
well, this is right after the circumcision of Ishmael. Probably some days later because
he's walking around, and Abraham as well. There's a joke in that. Thirteen years after God promised
Abraham a son, Ishmael was born, and then Ishmael was circumcised
as a picture of the covenant of Christ. And then the Lord
shows up with Abraham and promises his old, elderly, decrepit wife
a child, and she laughs. and then Isaac is born, and then
chapter 22 of Genesis, God says, take that son whom you love,
whom I gave you, and kill him for Me. Abraham said, all the glory of
God. Abraham had seen Christ before Isaac was born and Abraham
saw the work of Christ and the picture of Christ in Genesis
22 when he got up early the next morning and he went and he left
his servants at the bottom of the mountain and he took the
wood for the burnt offering and he took the knife and he took
the ropes and he went up and he found the place where he would
set up the tabernacle and set up the altar and he prepared
the altar and he had his own son carry the wood for the burnt
offering And Isaac asks, my father, where is the lamb
for the offering? And Abraham said, God will provide
for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. Every time I read that, it just
destroys my countenance. Why? Because it's Christ. And Abraham looks up and he sees
in the thicket a ram. He puts the knife to his son's
throat. He lays him on the wood. The
torch is lit and the ropes are bound and the angel stops him. And there's a ram in the thicket.
And he calls this place the Mount of the Lord that shall be provided. By faith, Abraham obeyed. Turn to Hebrews 11, verse 8. By faith, Abraham obeyed when
he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an
inheritance. And as he went out, not knowing where he was going,
By faith, he went to live in a land of promise as a foreign
land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of
the same promise. For he was looking..." Look at
this, y'all. "...he was looking forward to the city that has
foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah
herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age,
since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore,
from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants
as many as the stars of the heaven and as many as the innumerable
grains of sand by the seashore. These all died in faith, not having received the things
promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, having
acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For
people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a
homeland. If they have been thinking of
that land from which they had gone out, they would have had
opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better
country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, as He has prepared for them a city.
By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and
he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up
his only son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your
offspring be named." When God says your offspring shall be
named through the son that He's about to tell you to kill, what
hope do you have? Paul tells us what Abraham believed.
He considered that God was able even to raise Isaac from the
dead, from which, figuratively speaking, He did receive him
back. So, Abraham saw Christ and rejoiced
in His day, for he longed for it from the very beginning. And
for those Jews not to understand that, and for people to say,
yeah, see, that's Judaism. Wrong! It never was about Judaism. It never was about human covenant
keeping. It's about God's covenant keeping. Abraham believed Christ long
before he ever knew the reality of what Christ would be doing.
He knew that God would send the Lamb. He knew. This is the spirit of
Abraham. It is not the spirit of these
people talking to Jesus. The spirit of these people talking
to Jesus is starkly antithetical. It's different. It's completely
removed from the spirit of Abraham in so far that they not only
do not see Christ and rejoice, they hate Him and want Him to
die. Such is the majority of professing
Christians of our culture, beloved. We need the evangel clear in
our mouths because the spirit of the Pharisees in our day is
as clear as anything. I've never met an unconverted person who claimed
to be in Christ that wasn't absolutely explicit on how they know they
have eternal life. They have every answer in the
book. Well, I prayed to receive Christ. I accepted it in my heart.
I walked down the aisle. I chose God. I chose life. I
did this. I did that. I did this and the
other. And I remember in 2008, when I talked about testimony
one time at our church in California, and I remember saying it sort
of like this, the first time I ever said it. I said, if your
testimony, if someone were to ask you, how do you know that
you have eternal life, and your answer starts, because I, There's
a very good probability that you don't know what you're about
to say is heresy. I could say because I have faith.
Because of what Christ has done, yes, but that's typically not
what comes out of their mouths. It's usually because we are the children
of Abraham. My daddy was a deacon. I've been in church. I was baptized
when I was 12. I received Christ and rededicated my life when
I was 20. I was saved under Billy Graham. I was saved under this.
I was saved under that. I was this. I was that. There
is no hope in those things. And these are not egregious means
to the same end. These are terrible demonic things
that the devil has used since the 19th century, since the 1st
century, since the first humans to thwart the teaching of Christ. The Spirit of grace fights against
the Spirit of flesh. We've been learning that on Wednesday
nights. The Spirit of God within us, the new man and the new mind,
fights against the flesh. We've learned what that looks
like. And we've learned that our battle is not ours to win,
but it is Christ who is already victorious. The children of God rejoice in
the teaching of His Word. The children of God rejoice in
the intimacy of His people. The children of God long for
the unity of the faith, and nothing will shake us. Yes, we may stumble,
we may fall, we may stub our toes and dance around like an
idiot, but we will not fall away. Those are metaphors to spiritual
slipping. Weak faith, sin, temptation,
despair. The children of God are taught
by the Spirit of God. We've already seen this in John. They know
His voice. We'll see in a couple of chapters.
They hear it. They listen. They follow. They
come out. They are drawn by the Holy Spirit. They are given to
Christ by the Father. They come and they want to eat
what the Father has shown us through the teaching of Jesus
the Son, the living Word of God. We desire to know more of Christ
from His Word together as Christ's people. We know that we are the
children of God because we've been given to the Son. We know
we have the Spirit because He testifies to us that we are in
the faith. that we believe in Christ alone
completely, nothing else, not and but, not yell but, but Christ
alone. Faith is the evidence of this
truth. Faith is the evidence of things
unseen. Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God. Because Christ would be the Lamb
who would be his righteousness. And Abraham never saw it in his
life. Oh, but he looks upon it today. He looks upon it today. And beloved,
you and I look upon it today as we hear these words. We look
upon that which Abraham longed for. We can see it. You have
been given spiritual life through the gospel of grace sovereignly.
This is rejoicing. This is means and cause and occasion
for rejoicing. This is amazing. Believing on
the true Christ is the spirit of adoption. We cry and call
Him Daddy. Not majestic Father, O God. I mean, you know, yes, those
are good too, but we have intimacy to call Him Papa. Jesus is better than Abraham.
because Abraham longed for Him. Jesus is better than Moses because
Moses wrote of Him. Jesus is better than Jacob because
Jacob could not provide water that came and welled up to life. Jesus is better than Joshua because
he is given victory over sin. Jesus is better than Aaron because
the bread of Aaron perished. Jesus is better because Jesus
is the point of it all. The grace of God in Christ. He
is the Lord. He is the God of heaven. And
He has saved His people from their sins. And the Pharisees
did not belong to Him in this manner. They were not His. But by the sovereignty of God,
Jesus was murdered by the Pharisees so that He, would pay for the
sins of His people. In the unbelief of the Pharisees,
the will of the Father for propitiation came to fruition. Without the
work of God the Spirit to make alive the religious, they will
not believe. And then they will always hate
the truth of the gospel of grace. Have you noticed that, beloved?
Just as the Pharisees in verse 59 picked up stones to throw,
what does Jesus do? He hid Himself from them. Many people pick up stones to
throw at the gospel. Jesus has hidden Himself from
them. He left them. He did not convert
them. The lost who hate Jesus are not
promised eternal life. They're not promised an opportunity
for eternal life. They're not promised the possibility
of eternal life. Only those who are His are promised
eternal life. Only those for whom He has died are promised
eternal life. We live in a day where the true
gospel is so hidden, when it is proclaimed, the stones come
out. And as Jesus left them to their
unbelief, this is going to sound harsh, but we have to do it in
tears. We should do the same. We cannot cause people to believe.
And as long as they want to talk and listen, but when they begin
to hit us with rocks, just step aside. And maybe the Lord will
convert them. Maybe they are the elect. Maybe
they are the ones for whom Christ died. And they will come and
one day say, I see. And God will rejoice, and we
will rejoice in God, and Christ and God's people will rejoice,
and we will be forever together as siblings. But here's what
we should take away from that, beloved, not, oh, Lord leaves
these people in our belief. He did not leave us in our unbelief. That's what we take away from
this. It's not despairing, though it's burdensome. It's awesome. He should have, but He couldn't
because our sins are paid for. So He must bring us to life. This is because God does not
lie. And God does not change. And God will never, ever cast
us out. Jesus did not walk away from
us even when we were obstinate. Even when we were ridiculously
arguing, this isn't true, this isn't what I've heard. The Holy
Spirit of God went, wake up! And y'all did. So did I. And we saw. We can rest in that. I tell you
the truth, beloved, you will not see death. You will not die in your sins
if you hear my words. Jesus said He was God, and that's
why they wanted Him to die, because He claimed once again to be not
just equal with God, but in essence, God. And God, Jesus, has established
your redemption through His work. and there is nothing that can
take you away. Let's pray. Father, please, Lord,
we pray that You would help our children to see this truth. God, we pray for our neighbors
to hear this truth. We pray for our enemies to hear
this truth. We pray for our families to hear
this truth. God, please open their eyes,
open their hearts, bring them to life. but Lord, Your will
be done. For not all are Yours, not all
will come, not all will be saved. So in that truth, Lord, help
us to have comfort. Help us to be consoled by Your
Spirit, to let us put our eyes on that which is eternal, Your purposes in redemption,
and Your command and call and empowerment to proclaim this
Gospel to this world. Lord, it doesn't get any easier
as we continue in this text. We're going to have more and
more confrontation with not just our own faults and theologies
as we clarify them by Your Spirit, but Lord, with the world around
us who will begin to wrap us up, Lord, in a label of heresy, of strange, Lord, we do not ask
You to give us favor with men, favor with religion, favor with
culture or tradition. We ask You, Lord, to keep our
focus on the fact that we have favor with You because we are
not condemned before You. Jesus took our sin and we have
been made alive. And it is in His name we pray. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
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