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. Let's turn in our Bibles to John
chapter 8. John chapter 8. And we might finish this text
today, we may not. It just depends on how much I
talk or how much I worry. You ever have dreams that are
sort of like nightmares but they're real? I mean, they're not supernatural,
there's not a booger running after you, but sort of like dreaming
that you're doing something that you normally would do, and then
you wake up and you realize, well, I'm in the bed. Well, this
morning I dreamt that I got up and got ready for fellowship
and came to the building and started the service, and then
I woke up and was in the bed. And it was two hours after I
normally would wake up, so it was a little scary to see the
sun out and wondering had I giving that dream because y'all were
standing outside waiting for someone to come, standing here
waiting. But it's just one of those things
that pastors have a recurring nightmare of not making it to
fellowship. And I thought about it this morning
as I've just been trying to get my act together. And I thought,
you know, I wish all of us had that nightmare. I wish all of
us had the nightmare, and I'm saying this in a jovial way,
that man, we cannot not be in fellowship. We must be with God's
people. It is something that has driven
me since I was a boy. to be in the fellowship with
the church. Yes, there are things that come up. There are things
that keep us from the normal things of life, like going out
of town or going to work or even coming and being with the body
of Christ. But friends, there is nothing
more distraught for me if I could not be here with you today. There's
nothing worse in my mind that if God would give me illness
to keep me from being with the body of Christ, to keep me from
teaching the Word of God to you, you know. And my heart is that
you would continue to grow and understand Scripture and grow
as a people, as we've said in our bylines since before any
of you ever met me, a people for His glory, by His grace.
Thought I was creative, but there's been a thousand things written
of that same phraseology throughout the centuries. But friends, that
is what the church is. We are a people. We are a people
who are intimate around the reality and the truth and the person
of Christ and the gospel of grace. And as we've come here this morning,
that's exactly why we've assembled, because we're obligated one to
another. We're obligated to hear the Word
of God and to grow, of course, but we're doing this for the
sake of one another. We are, as Paul would say in
Ephesians 3 and 4, we are to grow up into every way into Him
who is the Head. Tonight at our Theology on Call
at 8 o'clock, for those of you who follow that, I've got a question
on the table. Why is it that we need pastors?
That was in my inbox this morning. Why do we need pastors? Why can't
everybody just be their own student of Scripture? And doesn't the
Bible tell us? So I'm going to answer that.
But you know, for those of you who have been together for so
many years, you know that I harp continually on your personal
study in the Word of God. Because pastors are not here
to tell you everything that you can obviously read for yourself.
But we are here to oversee as we read and to teach. And there
is a giftedness that God endows those who are truly called to
teach with a desire to be in the Word and a desire to be in
fellowship for the sake of each other's joy. for the sake of
each other's maturity, for the glory of God, for the name of
Christ to be exalted together as a people, because there is
no witness to self-exaltation. There is no witness to private
and personal worship. That doesn't make sense. There's
no such thing as individual church. Well, I am the church. No, you
are part of the body, but we are not churched until we are
together. Beloved, there are a lot of things
that fight in our life. There are a lot of burdens that
come. There are a lot of spiritual things that take place. But let
me tell you, there are two things that the enemy works on us more
than everything. And that is putting us in a place
where we cannot find the time to be in Scripture, and putting
us in an emotional place or a state of mind or a physical sense where
we just cannot make it to assembly. We cannot be here. And I am glad
that you are here together today. But you are not here so that
you might just look at what I have to say. You are also here that
what you hear is being taught to you by God, because you are
also in the Word, so that those who are behind you and in front
of you are also benefiting mutually by your presence. Even if it
is just your prayers, we benefit one another in the presence of
the assembly. So John chapter 8. This is a
difficult thing to continue to preach because there's so many
things that Jesus says that are very redundant. And so for some
of us, we're thinking, well, I've heard this now for three
or four weeks, we get it, Jesus is of the Father, they are not,
they are of the devil, they are not God's people. But today,
hopefully, we can see the last iteration of this in this chapter,
because he will continue to say it over and over and over again.
But there are some things that we want to see here. Look at
verse 47. Well, let's look at verse 45
and I'll read to the end. But because I tell you the truth,
you do not believe Me. John 8, 45. Which of you convicts
Me of sin? If I tell you the truth, why
do you not believe Me? Verse 47. Whoever is of God hears
the words of God. The reason why you do not hear
them is that you are not of God. The Jews answered him, Are we
not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?
Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father,
and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory.
There is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly,
I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him, Now we
know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets. Yet you say, If anyone keeps
my word, he 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? And Jesus answered, If I glorify
myself, my glory is nothing. It is the Father who glorifies
Me, of whom you say He is our God, but you have not known Him."
See, I know Him, and if I were to say that I do not know Him,
I would be a liar like you. But I do know Him and I do keep
His Word. Your father Abraham rejoiced
that he would see my day. And he saw it and was glad. So
the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and
you have seen Abraham. And Jesus answered to them, Truly,
truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So they picked up
stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the
temple." Let's pray. Lord, You must preach this message. Father, Your Spirit must be in
us working for us to hear. Our ears must be tuned to spiritual
things. We are awake and we are alive
because of the life given to us through the life-given Spirit.
Because of the work of Christ, we have been made alive. But
Lord, we often are not attentive. We often are not very focused
this day, Lord. I pray that You would focus all
of us. As I read and exposit and illustrate, Lord, would You
speak through me. Father, as we listen and deal
with this text and apply it to our minds and thus our lives,
Lord, would You speak to us. Father, would You do it all for
the sake of Your glory, even if we are to be humbled this
day. Father, do it for Your name's sake. As Jesus was humbled, not
glorifying Himself, but dying on a cross to save Your people
from their sins. It's in His name we pray. Amen. I'm going to be repetitive, but
as I continue in this text, I see more and more continual application
and parallel of the culture in which we live. Is that not part
of what we're supposed to learn? Yes, as we hear what Jesus says,
as we hear what the evangelist has written here by the Holy
Spirit, we know that we are to learn the details of Christ's
ministry. We know that we are to learn
some of the doctrine and theological things that Christ teaches, but
we are also to learn how this relates to us in our present
day. What is the overarching principle that applies it to
our lives? Are we supposed to walk away
anti-Semitic? Oh, silly Jews. Unbelieving Jews. No, not at all. Are we supposed
to walk away as historians? So let's remember all the things
that Jesus said and did and put a timeline together. Nothing
wrong with that. It's definitely good. But that's not the point
of this text. The point of this text is for
us to see Jesus as the truth. The point of this text is for
us to see that without the divine work of God supernaturally overcoming
and transforming the will of man, that we would be just like
the Pharisees of Jesus' day. We would be spiritual people
who would seek after God in their own efforts, who would try to
stand before God and answer this idea of how we can be right before
Him, we would be so inundated with every opportunity of rightness
in our flesh that we would be blind and we would die in our
sins. And in the same way, we also
need to recognize the culture in which we live today is not
much different at all in first century Palestine. There was
an undercurrent of religion called Judaism that flowed for centuries. And it was the common thing.
It was a common place. It was a standard of living.
It was a standard of thinking. It was a standard in a worldview. These people just took for granted
as normal and true and right. And today in our America, in
this world that we live in, we have a standard of thinking,
a worldview that many people ascribe as godly. Many people
even utilize the pages of Scripture to affirm their assertions that
we are indeed a godly nation, that we are a godly people. Not
the body of Christ who believe in the redemption through the
blood of Christ. That's not what I'm talking about.
People believe that just because we are America, we're God's people. Just because we are indeed what? Americans, that we are Christian. That's why the animosity for
so long in our lifetime has been toward those who are, what, not
quite Christian, or been toward those who are a little less Christian
than we. That's why it's so easy for legalism
to become this thing that just rises out of the human condition.
of us adding more and more laws, adding more and more rules. Oh,
well, if you really are a Christian, then why is it that you have
that shirt on? Why is it that you go to a football game? Why
is it that you would do this? Why is it that you would do that?
And the list of questions would go on, the list of requirements
would get larger and larger and larger. The only way that you
can have hope that you are indeed in Christ is that you believe
that He alone is your salvation. That Christ alone suffered on
the cross and satisfied the wrath of God the Father for your sins. and that His obedience in His
humanity is sufficient to be called your righteousness. Jesus
is our righteousness. We have not, beloved, listen
to this, we have not been transformed supernaturally and monergistically
and divinely into actual righteous people. in our flesh. We are
not righteous in our flesh. No good deed is perfect. No act of obedience is counted
as righteousness. The only way we are righteous
before the Father is that we have faith in the One who is
the righteousness of God, and that is Jesus Christ alone. to
put an undue burden on a culture of how they ought to be, and
what they ought to say, and how they ought to act, and how they
ought to engage, is nothing more than a transformative Judaism
that was anathema at the day of Jesus, and it's anathema today.
We are cut off from Christ when we add to any condition whatsoever
from our flesh. You see that? We are no different
as a culture as first century Jews. People will say to me this
week have said, but we as a culture don't reject Jesus. Yes, we do. Pulpits aflame this very moment
in this community and in your community who are what? Rejecting Jesus. Some may be
teaching the very same chapter that I'm teaching. And they will say, well, these
Jews couldn't believe because they weren't willing to stop
murdering. These Jews refused to believe because they loved
their power, and they didn't want to give up their power.
In order for them to be saved, they had to give up their power. They had
to give up their authority. No! In order for them to be saved,
God must give them to the Son. In order for them to be saved,
He must make them alive. In order for them to be saved,
He must overcome the depravity and the brokenness and the inability
of their human nature, which would do everything but believe
in Jesus alone for salvation. Why is it that we have to use
the word alone after all these things? Because everybody else
thinks that it's this plus. Whoever is of God hears the words
of God. This, in philosophical circles,
is where you are circular in your reasoning, Pastor Tippins.
Absolutely. Christ said it. The Lord, the
Holy Spirit wrote it down through the apostles. I read it. God
teaches me that it's true. I rest in it. How do you know? Because Christ said it. How do
you know Christ said it? Because the apostles wrote it
down through the Holy Spirit. How do you know they did it?
Because it's in the Bible. How do you know the Bible is true? Because God said it.
It's stupid. So call me stupid. That's what
regeneration does. Allows us to see that which the
world says is stupid and have an incredible faith in the finished work of Jesus
Christ. The God of heaven, who is the judge of all men, sent
His Son to satisfy His wrath for His people's sake, that they
may be saved from their sins." That's the gospel. That is why
it's good news. Because God has created the condition,
and God has met the condition. God has established the covenant,
and God has fulfilled the covenant. This is the work of God for salvation. There is no greater assurance.
There is no greater mark of perseverance. There is nothing greater than
that. That's why it is called good
news. Whoever is of God hears the words of God. And Jesus says
in verse 47, this is a recap, the reason why you do not hear
them is that you are not of God. Did you see that? See, the Scripture
doesn't say, Jesus doesn't say there, If you hear these words,
then you'll be of God. The Scripture doesn't say there,
if you just believe, then you'll be of God. If you just hear,
no, you cannot hear, you cannot believe, because you are not
of God. That's what the Bible teaches. Keep in mind, hermeneutics
is the science of interpretation, taking an antique piece of literature
and understanding the author's original intent, understanding
the author's original circumstances, understanding the author's original
audience, and putting it in the picture of its day. as it was
intended. Someone writes a poem, or if
an artist writes a song, I love to see how people with these,
you know, historic and classic songs of our era, 60s, 70s, 80s
and all, and people go, oh, this is what he meant by that, and
this is what he meant by that, and people spend their entire lives interpreting
the poetry of this type of thing. And then I love it when the artist
comes out and says, no, I was talking about my dog that died
when I was a kid. And it makes a fool of all these
great soothseekers, all these great philosophers who had all
the right answers, and people go, oh, he's so smart, he's such
a thinker. Well, the Bible tells us in 1
Corinthians 1 that God thwarts the wisdom of the wise, that
God destroys the wisdom of this age, that God takes those really
awesome thinkers like myself, and I'm not saying that in a
good way, awesome thinker, I think all the time about crazy stuff.
It's not wisdom, it's foolishness. If I were to expand what I think
on some things, I would be the queen, king, grand, crowned heretic. I'd sit on every throne of heresy. Because these crazy thoughts
that go through my mind, I'm like, maybe this is what it means.
Maybe that is what it means. Ooh, I can see an imagery there.
Wow, I see this, I see that. Oh, but the Word of God says
this. Well, that's just fun thinking. Are you a thinker? I pray that
you are a thinker. We need to think. But we need
to think in line with Scripture. How can we do that? How can we
hear it? Because we've been born again
and God's Word is alive to us. God's Word is alive to us if
we are of God. We are not of God until we have
been born again. And the only way that we have
birth is by the Spirit of God through the words of Christ.
through the words of Christ. See, God's regenerative purposes
causes His children to hear His Word. He causes us to hear it. This is that we believe and trust
in what God has declared concerning His Son. We believe in the teaching
of Jesus, which is the teaching of God. Those who are not of
God cannot hear. Remember, I went back through
John 6, 37-44 last week. Only those who God the Father
give to me, come to me. Those who come to me, I will
never cast out, but I will raise them up in the last day. The
reason that you do not come to me, the reason you cannot, is
because you are not given to me. You have not been given to
me. You cannot come if you have not
been given. And if you have been given, you
surely will come. And that is believing. That is
hearing the Word of God. It's not an academic pursuit.
I seem discombobulated when I made that statement. I'll refer to
it in the end of my sermon. But sometimes it's hard for people
to grasp the difference between hearing the Word of God and studying
academic theological things. They're hugely different. And
if the Lord grants this, I'm going to interview someone who
is an atheist who was a Calvinist. And I pray that it would be a
picture. of this. Moreover, I pray that
God would bring him to faith. The Jews could not stand this. How dare you say that we cannot
hear the Word of God? See how that parallels? How many Christians
do you know in this life? Family, friends, co-workers?
Oh, I'm a Christian. Well, the Bible, let me see what
the Bible teaches. Let me show you what the Word
of God says. Let me show you the face of Christ through the
Scripture. Oh, wow! Camaraderie, intimacy, fellowship. Whoo! Here we go! Oh, well, I
don't believe that. You don't believe what I just
read to you? Well, I don't believe that's what it means. That's
what it says, yeah, but there must be more to it. Have you
had those conversations? I have them all the time. And
you know what I say to those people? I said, whoever is of
God hears the Word of God. And some of those people truly
are the children of God. And God, even in that statement
by Jesus, calls us, the Holy Spirit calls us in to go, I do
see it. All of a sudden, I don't really
see that. Oh, I do see it. I do believe this. I do know
this Christ. Versus others who get, what, angry, belligerent,
upset, And we've all been there, but we who are the children of
God don't stay there. We're not staying in a state
of unbelief and refusing the Word of God. I hear often for
20 plus years, I've heard, well that's their interpretation,
that's your interpretation. Now, there are some interpretive
issues that we could argue. There are some grammatical issues
that we could argue, not here, because if there's a recipe that
says stir the butter and heat it for 90 seconds over an open
flame, it's not talking about anything but heating the butter
over an open flame. It's not a metaphor. of scolding
that butter for a couple of seconds. Or roasting it. Talking about
how yellow it is, and how soft it is, and how it needs to work
out. No. It's literally saying what it's
saying. The same thing is true for Scripture. There's nothing
to interpret. Scripture interprets itself. What does that mean?
That means that what the Bible says in context is what the Bible
says in context. And there's a difference. Whoever
hears the Word of God is And whoever does not hear, the reason
they do not hear is because they're not of God. This doesn't mean
that if you don't have understanding or if you struggle to grasp it,
that you're not of God. But when we refuse what's clearly
and plainly before us, well, I just can't see that. I had
someone send me a list of verses, about 20 verses, all from the
Old Testament, that prove that Christ is going to sit in a restored
temple on the throne of David and start sacrifices all over
again for a thousand years. And so I looked at all these
verses, I read every one of them, and all I could say to this person
is, I'm so sorry, that's wrong. It's not there. People can look at the Bible
and see all sorts of things. These Jews looked at Jesus and
saw all sorts of things. They even saw Him as Messiah.
But they could not comprehend what He was the Messiah of. They
could not comprehend the reality that Jesus came to save them,
not them, His people. He didn't come to save the Jews,
those people. He came to save His people. He came to save His
people from their sins. And that they could not be saved
because they would not and could not believe that is true, and
that His work was effectual. And so what the Jews did, and
I closed with this last week, In verse 48, they started to
attack him. They started to call him names.
They started to make assertions about his character. Are you
not a Samaritan? We saw you over at Sychar. We heard about the
revival there. You left the temple, then you go to Sychar, and you
then bring somewhat of a salvation to the Samaritans. Oh, you're
a Samaritan. And you have a demon. Now how
do these things fall off the lips of people in public? Because
they've been on the lips of people in private for months, if not
years. People love to dog the teaching
of the grace of God because they hate the grace of God. People
love to murder one another with their lips because it's just
what our flesh does. It's an easy thing for us to
do. But the problem is, is that a lot of times when somebody
comes out like this, it's because they've been saying it in mixed
company, in private, for a long time. And finally, what they've
been saying about Jesus comes out to His face. You have a demon
and you're a Samaritan. Ha! Now what do you say about
that? Because remember who they are. They are the spiritual leaders
of the entire nation of Israel, and all of the people are there
for this festival, for this feast, and they are hearing this discourse,
and they are seeing their spiritual leaders call Jesus a Samaritan,
to which the law would require them to grab Him by force and
throw Him out of the city. And before Paul authorized the
stoning of Stephen, They couldn't stone him, but they could have
under their own law, but their law had been revoked by Rome.
They had no longer had the powers of execution. That was crucifixion. They hated Jesus and they confessed
it. Jesus says, I don't have a demon,
but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek
my own glory. There is one who seeks it, and
he is the judge." See, the explanation that the Jews went straight to
the negative, slanderous things that they could say about him
so that they could defame him in front of other people, has
that ever happened to you? Have you come to a place before
where someone takes and just makes an assertion about you
because of your faith in such a way that it just defames you
and people around you just sort of, they don't necessarily believe
it, but they don't want to be near it? Those of you who were
with us in 2012, you know all the well what that feels like.
Tuesday night classes, standing room only some weeks, and then,
oh y'all are a bunch of heretics, devil-worshipping Calvinists.
You know, me and my left foot there the next week. I mean,
it was weird. It was very strange. Oh yeah,
I still love y'all, but I just, I'll look at the video later.
I don't want anybody to see my car out there. Now, I'm going
to go to the abortion clinic next week and just park there
so people won't think I'm part of Grace Truth. I mean, that's
a joke. But you see, people don't want to be aligned with it. And
that was probably part of the intentions of what? Of the Pharisees
here. If we could just defend, all
we've got to do is just knock Jesus down in the eyes of these people.
They're starting to believe. They're starting to come to the place
where they're listening to Him and not to us. We've got to do
something. But Jesus says, the opposite of what you say is true.
The opposite of what you say is true. You are wrong because
I do not have a demon. I honor the Father, God. I honor Him and you dishonor
me. You dishonor Him. You dishonor me when you dishonor
Him. I'm not seeking to be glorified. I'm not trying to stand up here
making myself to be something that I'm not. I'm not standing
here receiving glory, though He deserved it. See, there's
the difference. But the Pharisees, to save their
own glory, tear Jesus down. To save one's own glory in their
spiritual lies, they tear other people down. I've called it for
years, since the mid-90s, I've called it the tabloid syndrome.
The tabloid syndrome is, let's put enough of the silly lies
in front of people. You know, nobody believes the
tabloids. You know what the tabloids are? They're all online now,
but I mean, there used to be, when I was younger, these newspapers
that were at the checkout at the grocery store. And if you
had the old lady, this was before the scanners, you know, the beep,
beep, beep, she's ringing up 45 items. That's gonna take a
while. So you could just read that. You didn't have to pay for it. You
just read it. You know, Elvis is still alive. The Bat Boy's
been found. I mean, they just recycle these
things over and over again. UFO sighted in South Georgia. So-and-so from Egypt is first
cousin to Jesus. I mean, all sorts of things that
take place. And what really gets the cake, though, is when it
talks about celebrities or government officials. And recently, we've
seen a lot of tabloid stuff about the royal family. that every
time you go, you go to the drugstore and there's like the royal family
there. There's always some trash to be learned about the royal
family. Why? Because when we feel common and normal, we have
this greener grass mentality. If I was just famous like them,
you know what fame is? A normal person that everybody's
always looking at. That's what fame is. So open
up your windows, open up your blinds, live tweet your bathroom
experiences, and then you'll be famous. Everybody will know
everything you're doing. Going to the john now, brushing
my teeth now, look at this, a child crest. I mean, you know, we're
in a good spot. Then you'll be famous, and you
might even make money off of it. But the only difference between
the famous and the not famous is that everybody's looking at
the famous. And so when we're feeling pretty common, we have
what's called envy and jealousy and we see things that other
people have and we want it. But we know we can't have it,
so we buy a tabloid. I knew she didn't look that good
in that dress. That's photoshopped. I knew he probably went bankrupt.
I knew he didn't have all that money. Oh, I knew he was dating
Bat Boy. I mean, you know, it's one thing
after another. to make us feel good about who
we are by tearing down someone else. Now that's not the point
of this, I'm just showing you, it still exists in the world
today. And it exists in the world in the entertainment relational,
sports relational, politics now it's all about one and the same
anymore, where it's easy and feels good to see someone else
be devoured, but in the spiritual sense it's still happening because
people devour the body of Christ by rejecting the Christ of the
gospel. How do they do that? By rejecting
the Word of God. By refusing. By refusing to hear. Refusing to believe. So these
Jews went to this slanderous accusation and Jesus says you
dishonor Him by dishonoring the Father. Jesus reveals this when He speaks
what the Father has shown Him in His speaking. See, Jesus is
saying, I speak what the Father speaks. My words are the Father's
words. So if you don't like my words,
you don't like the Father's words. Now see, here's the difference.
And there's something that will come out at the very end of the
sermon. A lot of people say, well, how do we know Jesus was
telling the truth? He could have just been a man. It doesn't matter
that He could have just been a man. He was not just a man.
He was the God-man. So Jesus never defended himself
and says, you want me to prove it? Ta-da, shooting fire out
of his hands. Jesus doesn't prove himself on command like the devil
tempted him to do. Just turn these stones into bread.
No, Jesus only worked in conjunction with the will of the Father for
the sake of the glory of the Father. And in John 11, we're
going to start seeing God the Father glorify Jesus the Son.
through the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, and then ultimately
from His own resurrection, that the Holy Spirit raises Christ
from the dead through His own resurrection, not only is Jesus
glorified and given all glory and honor, but He's vindicated
in all of His claims. He doesn't have to prove Himself.
God the Father is going to prove Himself. God is going to prove
Christ. The Word of God proves Christ.
You don't have to have evidence to go with the Bible to believe.
You have to have the Spirit of life in order to believe. Jesus
speaks what the Father has shown Him and is speaking. Jesus is
doing the work that the Father sent Him to do. See, He always
says this, I say what the Father has shown Me. I share with you
what the Father says concerning Me. Jesus never spoke in His
own authority. Though He said He could, He doesn't.
For the words of the prophets, Moses, God through Moses spoke
of me, so therefore I speak what the Father speaks, and I'm telling
you who I am because I'm telling you what the Father says I am.
Who the Father says I am. Does that make sense now when
Jesus says that no one comes to the Father except through
me? Do you understand that Christianity according to the Bible, not the
Christianity of culture, not the Christianity of history,
but the Christianity of the truth of Scripture, is the exclusive
in run on spirituality, life eternal, and divinity. No other faith, no other religion,
no other man-made ideal, no other false Christianity No other false
gospel is close. It's a miss. When you're at the range, you're
trying to qualify, and you hit the line on the outside. Oh, you
know, it tears in there. Come on. The range guy goes,
no, miss. Miss. That's ten points. Give
me the points. It's close enough. You can't
be close enough to eternal life. Paul teaches that in Ephesians.
Those who were far off, those who were close, nearby. Who were
those who were nearby? The Jews. They had the oracles
of God. They had the promises of Messiah. They had everything.
But yet, they were still on the wrong side of the line. They
were still lost. Many people who are in the proximity
of Christ and Christ's Word and Christ's people are still lost
because they're on the wrong side of the line. They're unbelievers. They refuse and they cannot see.
Jesus says that he will be glorified by the Father and that the Father's
purpose is to seek glory for the Son. The Father is going
to glorify me. I do not seek my own glory, yet
there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. It's sort of
like that last jab there. That last assertion, God is the
judge. He is the one who says that I'm going to be glorified.
Don't, you don't get to say that I'm being self-glorified here.
You don't say, because they were trying to say, hey, Jesus is
stealing our thunder. He's trying to make himself something.
It's not the point. Not the point. The Father is
the judge. And for the believer, this should cause us pause. But
what does it do for the unbeliever? It causes them to scoff. And
then they'll make a t-shirt that says, only God can judge me.
You're right. And God's Word has judged. God
has spoken. If He does not give you to the
Son, you will not have life. If you do not believe on the Son,
you will perish in your sins. God's Word has spoken. Then he
says in verse 51, truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps
my word, he will never see death. The Jews said to him, now we
know that you have a demon, because Abraham died, as did the prophets,
yet you say, if anyone keeps my word, he'll never taste death.
Now I find this ironic. Jesus' assertion that anyone
who keeps my word will never die, to them is absurd. It's absurd. What are you talking
about Jesus? There are many people, get this,
anyone who keeps my word will never die and then what do they
do? The prophets died, they kept your word, I mean God's word,
you see. By being triggered in that way
shows that in their cognitive mind they knew that Jesus was
speaking the word of God. They could see it in their cognitive
mind. They could see it in their earthly mind. They could see
it in an academic way. But they could not trust in it.
And they could not surrender because they had not been born
again. Why would they get upset with some demonic Samaritan saying
that you will live if you keep my word and then apply it to
their own prophets? If they didn't, in every way
believed that Jesus was telling the truth. Because they are the
father, they are the children of their father who is the devil,
who is a liar from the beginning, and they can only do that which
their father does, which is lie. And so Jesus says, you do not
believe me because I tell you the truth, because you are a
liar. I speak the truth to you and
you are of your father. They disbelieved and they were offended
that their prophets have kept the Word of God, but yet they
die as if they knew that Jesus was true. But then Jesus had
told them that God is the judge. And God judges all men accordingly
in their sin and their personal righteousness and unbelief. Or
either He will judge those who Christ has died for, atoned for,
through the words of Christ. Christ said, Jesus says, that
if you keep My Word, you will live. You will not die. So when God the Father judges
all the nations, all the people of all the earth, He will judge
the world based on the words of Christ. He will judge the
world based on those who have believed in the words of Christ
and those who have not believed in the words of Christ. Now,
beloved, I'm going to make a transition here. Not a transition. I'm going
to make a statement here that will carry us through the next
chapter. When people refuse the teaching of God's grace, they
are refusing salvation. Did you hear that? When people
refuse the teaching of God's grace in total, effectually, They are refusing salvation. They are mocking the teaching
of Jesus who said He is the only way through which one can be
right with God. That there is nothing you can
do in the flesh but eat unto death. You can labor for the
food that perishes all you want, but you will die. This is not about a system of
theology. This is not about a historical theology. This is about the Bible
and the teaching of the Bible from the words of Jesus Christ
who are also reiterated and expanded by the apostles. This is life
and death. Beloved, do not let people settle
in their seats with you just because they can say, Jesus paid
it all and all to Him I owe. That's a beautiful song if the
truth behind it is the gospel. But if it's a man-centered doctrine,
those people should be in fear. We should have a burden for them
that we should teach them these things. The only response that
the Jews had about the grace of God is that He must have a demon.
Now this is what I find funny. I mean, I could do an entire
sermon on this thing from a philosophical standpoint, but look what they
say. We know Now we know that you have a demon. There's no other way around it,
Jesus. You have said that if anybody
keeps your word, they would not die, but Abraham died, the prophets
died, Moses died, all of our people died, and they kept the
Word of God. We know you have a demon. Isn't
that the pompousness of unbelief? Isn't that the pompousness of
self-righteousness? Isn't that what it sounds like? We know
we're right. We know you're wrong. We know
what you teach is not of God. Really? Where's the rub? The Gospel of
Grace, John 6, verse 44. No one can come to me unless
the Father, what, gives them to me. We know you have a demon because
only by the demonic can someone assert such claims when many
who have believed obviously have died in the flesh. And they can
continue after him. Now they're thinking Jesus is
really seeking self-glory. Church, when we're sharing our
faith, we should never seek to be right. Ever. We should never
seek to be haughty. We should never come to the place
where we must argue with ignorance. And there's a time and a place
when people sign up for that and say, hey, let's fight, then
put the gloves on and go for it. But when they don't sign
up for it, then stay out of it. Jesus isn't halting, Jesus just
asserts the truth. Over and over and over and over
again, Jesus just continues to make the claim that I'm speaking
the words of God and that He says concerning me that you will
die in your sins if you do not believe that I am the only way
that you can be forgiven of your sins. My body, my life, my flesh. These are the assertions of the
gospel of grace. They say it's demonic. And then
they ask the same thing that the woman from Sychar asks. Who
are you trying to make yourself out to be? Are you greater than
our father Jacob who gave us this will, she says, I think
in verse 4 or 5 of chapter 4. Are you greater than our father
Jacob? You're talking about living water?
Jacob dug this well with his own men and his people watered
from it and his livestock watered from it and for centuries we've
lived off this water. Are you greater than Jacob? You
got water that Jacob couldn't give us? Yeah, I do. Because the water
I give is the water of life that comes from the Father through
me. I am the living water. Oh, you got bread that's greater
than the bread that Moses gave us? Remember John 6? You got
bread that's greater than the Moses bread? Who do you think
you are? Is this not... See, talking to
Jesus, then turning to the crowd. Is this not Joseph's son whom
we know? He's claiming to be from God.
See how that mocking looks? This was a very problematic time. Publicly, this interaction was
very, I don't know, dynamically uncomfortable. If not downright
wicked. Much like today. We can see the theater of the
apostles. We can look at what Jesus did. And we can know how
to handle these things. We sometimes fight so hard for
people to hear our right position to the negation of the truth
that everybody is focused on the argument rather than Christ. It seems like we've forgotten
that the only way they can see what we're saying is that if
God the Father gives them to Jesus in the first place. We are not empowered to change
men's mind. We are not empowered to overcome
unbelief. We are not empowered to argue
people into salvation. We are not empowered to stomp
our feet and raise our hands and shake our fist and say, we
know the truth. But we are empowered to rest
in the providence and the sovereignty of God and salvation, and we
are empowered to know the truth of Christ and the Word of God,
and we are empowered to share it and leave it for God to water
as He sees fit. And friends, just so you all
know, and as you interact with the world around, there are many
people who claim to have the truth, but they act in such a
way that they would be excommunicated from any true church in the nation.
The way they talk, the way they speak, the way they assert, the
way they continue to fight. Isn't that sad? To have the gospel
in your mouth, but not have the humility in your heart. Paul
says, "...have this mind among you, which is yours in Christ
Jesus, that God..." What? "...He was equal with God, but
did not make equality with God something to be grasped, but
made Himself nothing." Paul instructs the Corinthians to be nothing.
That God uses the nothings of the world to bring to nothing
the things that are... Listen, we've got a lot of people who
think that they are, and they're not. And I don't know if you
pray that way for yourself, but I do pray that way. Lord, make
me nothing. Don't make me something. Don't let me in my mirror go,
Tippins, you got it, because I don't have anything. And I
pray that if nothing else, we would be marked as a church,
as a congregation of humble proclaimers that assert the truth of Christ
together. Not as great minds of the faith,
but as humble sheep. That's the greater calling. It's
the greater calling. You have a demon. Are you greater
than Abraham who died? We know you have a demon. We
know. We know. Many students of doctrine
are lost. And in some sense, they're effectual
atheists with the right gospel in their brain. Some of you may
think, well, I don't really like the way that sounds, but I'll
unpack it as the weeks come. I'll show you. Even Paul says
there were people there who hated him, and the only reason they
went to the street mimicking his words is so that they would
hurt Paul's ministry, and they would make money off of Paul's
back while he was incarcerated. And Paul said, don't fight the
heretics. They were charlatans, they were
heretics. because they're preaching it correctly, let them do it.
Who cares? Let them do it. And he was talking
with the apostles, by the way, and the churches, the pastors
of the local churches. But they asked, are you greater
than our father Abraham who died and the prophets who died? Who
do you make yourself out to be? Listen to Genesis chapter 5.
Have you ever read the genealogy of Genesis 5? What does it say?
And so and so lived and then what? And then he died. And then
so-and-so lived, and so-and-so lived, and then he died. And
then so-and-so lived, and then he died. And then so-and-so lived,
and he died. And then so-and-so... Every verse of that genealogy
ends with, and he died. And he died. And you know what
our history is going to be if the Lord tarries and they died. He died. I died. We died. He
did it. We all are going to experience
that reality in the flesh because that is the point of what happens
to the flesh because of sin. And they can't figure who Jesus
is. Hasn't He already told them?
Jesus says, I come to glorify My Father. I come to do the will
of the One who sent Me." Who are you, Jesus? I come from the
Father. I come from heaven to declare
to you good news. I am the Son that must be lifted
up. I am life. I am living water. I am the true bread. He's told
them over and over again for years, I am who I am. And Jesus is not aiming to be
great. He answers them this way. He
says, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies
me, of whom you say He is our God. See, so Jesus even tells
them what we've been thinking. You're upset about not abiding
in My Word. You say your prophets are abiding in My Word. So you
know that God, you're saying that this God is your God, but
He's my Father. He is my God. He is the one who
sent me. So I'm not giving glory to myself. I'm giving glory to your God. Why is it that you hate me? He's
already said, that's why you want to kill me. We know you
have a demon. Who said they wanted to kill
you? He knew their hearts. This is the second or third time they've
accused Him of demonic possession. Jesus is not aiming to be great.
He's not looking to take the Pharisees' place. He's looking
to show the shadow of what they were, and the insignificance
of their existence, and the lack of understanding they had of
truth, and the fact that if God did not spare them and give them
understanding, they would die in their sins. This is a good sermon on evangelism.
It's what we ought to understand and keep in mind as we share
the gospel, as we're patient with our family, as we wait for
our children to mature in the faith. We can beat our children into
spiritual submission, but they're just playing a role. I'm not
saying that's not a bad idea, but you know... I'm joking. Everybody's like, oh... But they're
just playing a role. Some people believe because they
want to look good to Dad. Some people confess that they're in
Christ and they do the good Christian thing because they just want
to look good in the community. Some people like the role of
being a godly person in their workplace. They like it. It doesn't
make them born again. A lot of pastors love the accolades. Man, that was great, pastor!
So glad! I'm proud to be an American.
Good sermon. Good teaching. My glory is nothing if I glorify
Myself. It is the Father who glorifies Me. You say He is your
God. Many claim to be of the Father.
However, they're not giving glory to Jesus Christ. What's that
look like? Well, it's obvious in the unbelieving
world, the non-professing world. Let me just put it that way.
The non-professing world, those who don't profess to be in Christ,
but it's even obvious in the professing world, those who claim
to be believers. They don't give glory to Christ
for their salvation. They don't give glory to Christ
for their knowledge of the truth. They don't give glory to Christ
for their ministry. They don't give glory to Christ
for the provision of their lives. It is by the mercy of God that
you do what you do. It is by the mercy of God He allows you
to get a check every week. It is by the mercy of God that
you get up and breathe. It is by the mercy of God that
He pours on the regenerate and the unregenerate alike, but the
ultimate prize that even when we die and we starve to death,
that we have Christ who is our life. We have the Spirit of righteousness
residing in us that God has established us righteous because of the obedience
of the Lord. Many claim, but they're not giving
glory to Jesus Christ. But they glory in each other.
They glory in themselves. Remember the dialogue Jesus says,
many Christ's have come, and others have given glory to themselves,
others testified of their own thing. But you enjoy getting
glory from one another, so you never refuted that they were
Messiah. That's why evangelists are so
easily embraced. You know, I get three or four,
no kidding, three or four requests for the pulpit a week from people
from without? They send a message either on
the voicemail of the toll-free number or they go to the church
website and they say, hey, I'm going to be in town. Would you
like me to teach your congregation? I'm like, delete? No, I don't
want you to teach a congregation. I've even had people come on
Facebook and say to me, hey, Pastor Tippins, I've got my cousins,
mamas, best friends, dogs, family coming in, and he's got a wonderful
testimony about how he found God in a hot air balloon over
the Sahara. And it's a wonderful testimony. And the balloon tried
to go down, and blah, and I'm making that up, that part. I don't want to make fun of someone's
testimony, but I mean, it's just about that absurd. And this and
that and the other, and it'd be a blessing to your church
And I had to. I had to say, what text do you
think he preached? Oh, he's just going to tell the
story of his conversion in this area of the desert. No, thank
you. You see? People love glory. They love that one message or
that two messages that they've been preaching in 7,000 churches
for 25 years. I'm not saying you can't recycle
sermons, but if they're not contextual, they're not worth listening to. Jesus didn't glorify Himself.
He glorified the Father. We must also glorify Christ in
glorifying the Father and glorifying Christ. How do we glorify the
Father? By glorifying Christ. How do we do that in the work
of ministry? We give all glory to Christ.
We give all credit to Christ. We don't praise Christ for an
offer of salvation. We don't praise Christ for a
universal call of salvation. Listen to our Theology Answers
podcast tomorrow morning. We talk about that. There is
no such thing as a general call. It does not exist. There is no
universal call to salvation. There is no universal offer to
salvation. When Jesus proclaims salvation
here, He is not talking to these people. He is talking to His
sheep who are among them. And he says, you are not of God,
you are of the devil. God does not take the devil's
children and make them His own. He saves His children and rescues
them out of the number who were by nature children of wrath,
not really. We reduce the glory of Christ
when we glorify ourselves, our will, our decisions, our choices,
our ministry, Our own ability. Jesus closes it out this way.
He says, but you've not known Him. The God that you say is
yours, this God that you say is our God, I give glory to Him,
but you do not know Him. You don't know Him. I'm going
to ask that question of you today. Do you know God? Do you know
God? And see people, this is where
this doctrinal thing, this is where people think, yes, I've
studied theology. You don't know God if you study
theology. I've taken systematic, I've taken
a dozen systematic theology courses, written so many papers that it's
not even worth talking about. None of that has given me knowledge
of God, none of it. I've gotten the knowledge of
some things about God, I've got some pretextual and some contextual
understanding of some of these systems of doctrine and theology,
and I can find them in the Scripture, and it's really neat. But if
I'm not born again, it has no effect. You know, God, these Jews knew
a lot of doctrine. They understood that the resurrection
was physical, but they didn't understand that Christ was the
resurrection. You see? You have not known Him. Jesus says that He's spiritual,
religious, moral, ethical, Bible-toting, Bible-teaching, Bible-praying,
Bible-sacrificing people. You have not known Him. I know Him. I know Him. So I ask, do you know God? And
the only way to know God is to know the One who knows God, and
His name is Jesus. We must know Christ. John 17.3,
we'll get there. John 17.3, this is eternal life,
that they know you, the one true God, and the Son whom you have
sent. These things are written, John 20.31, that you may know
that you have eternal life. You may know that Jesus is the
Christ. And by believing on His name, you may know that you have
eternal life. Do you know God? You know God
if you know you have eternal life because you know Jesus.
What about knowing Jesus? What do I need to know? What
He likes for supper? What His shoe size is? Do I really need
to know His birthday? Is it December 25th, Jesus? Let
me put it in my calendar. That's not knowing Jesus. Knowing
that Jesus is who He says He is, and He has done what He says
He's done, and He's accomplished what He said He accomplished,
so that you might have life. In total. Simple, yet unseeable
without God's divine work. If I were to say that I do not
know God, Jesus says, I would be a liar like you." You see what Jesus didn't do?
You know what Jesus could have done? Jesus could have gone through
the entire Old Testament that He wrote and pulled out an apologetic
and a discourse on the fulfillment of prophecy through the Old Testament
Scriptures to such a degree that these Jewish leaders would have
been kneeling at His feet, kissing the ground that He walked on,
from an academic point of view. But even then, they wouldn't
have believed. because they could not see Him
for who He really was. They could not see that they
needed salvation from sin. So, Jesus then asserts, it's a reiteration,
a recapitulation, I do know Him and I do keep His Word. I am
not a liar like you. And this is the only place that
Jesus goes from the Old Testament teaching. This is all He does
with them. He goes to the Old Testament with Nicodemus to Genesis,
was it 5? And it says 6. No, 20 something. Anyway, it
doesn't matter. Where the serpent is lifted in
the desert. And here, with these Pharisees,
with these Jews, He goes to Abraham. You claim to be Abraham's children?
Well, you're father Abraham. You're doing the work of the
devil, your daddy, who's a liar and a murderer. And you're lying
and murdering. You cannot believe the truth. because I tell you
the truth, and you are of the father of the devil. But he says
in verse 56, your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my
day. Your father rejoiced that he
would see my day. In other words, he was longing
for my day. He was looking for my day. He
was hoping for my day. Now this sounds good there. Then
Jesus would say, you know, Abraham, look for the day of Messiah.
And they could say, okay, I see what Jesus is saying. Now get this. They
say what? Abraham died. And Jesus said,
yeah, he was looking forward to my day. He was rejoicing in
it and hoping he would see it. And then Jesus says he saw it
and was glad. Jesus rebuked the very notion
of the fact that they thought Abraham died. He died in His
body, but He wasn't dead. As a matter of fact, He rejoiced
in the day of Christ, and this lit them aflame with rage. But they did not do a thing,
except to begin to argue with Jesus. And they said to Him,
How is it you're not even fifty, yet you've seen Abraham? And
this is what causes Jesus to die. Before Abraham was, I am." We're going to talk about what
that really means next week. Before Abraham was, I am, Jesus
made Himself to be God and they had a reason to pick up stones
and to destroy His flesh and kill Him. But the Scripture says
He vanished and went out of the temple. That is a beautiful reality. Abraham looked for the day of
Christ and rejoiced in it. It's a beautiful reality that
we look for the day of Christ, we look back to the day of Christ,
and we rejoice in it. Those of the Old Testament looked
forward and rejoiced, and we who are in this time and era
look back and rejoice. We are glad that Christ is our
salvation. We hope and rest in the perfection
of the work of Christ, which is a divine work of God the Father,
and He has saved us, and He has sealed us, and He will carry
us with Him into eternity, and He will glorify us one day that
our bodies will be made alive as our souls have been made alive
today by the Spirit." Friends, if you don't grasp anything
outside of chapter 8 to apply to your life, apply that experience
of joy every moment as you remember the work of God. It is such a
perfect work that nothing can separate you from the love of
God. Nothing. You cannot separate yourself
from the love of God. You cannot do it. God's grace
is effectual and you have been saved by the purpose of God through
the death of Christ. And you've been promised life
through the life of Christ. Rest therein and hope forever
in Christ. Let's pray. We love You, Father. We thank You for this truth,
for this gospel message, for this overwhelming, powerful,
glorious, joyful reality that You have saved us from the foundations
of the world. Father, as we go about our day,
help us to rest. Help us to rest in our bodies
and our minds. Help us to rest in our soul, knowing that we
have been adopted by You. And that when You called us,
You saved us. And when You saved us, You forgave
us. And when You forgave us, we are right before You. And
when You gave us the righteousness of Christ, we are perfect before
You. And the list goes on and on. Salvation is so simple, yet
it is so rich and so deep that You have shown us in Your Word,
God, that it is all about the riches of Your glory. the inexpressible,
innumerable riches of Your Majesty. Father, we can't fathom that,
so we have eternity to look forward to as we practice this day, looking
and resting. We shall do so tomorrow and the
days to come, and then one day forever in front of You, Father.
In the presence of Your Son, Jesus our King and Lord and God,
we will rejoice and learn and grow as You teach us ever so
more and ever so deeply the truth of this grace that is so amazing. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.