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. And as we read the gospel, we
need to pay attention to what's already been done, what's already
been said. At the very beginning, 68 weeks
ago, we talked about the fact that this gospel would challenge
your thinking. It would challenge your theology.
It would challenge your positions on certain doctrines. It would
awaken you to certain aspects of the gospel that maybe you
had not considered before. That sometimes it may even cause
division in your own mind, in your own home, with relationships. I told you that as John began
the writing of this gospel, we see in the first 18 verses, which
we call the prologue or the introduction, that he sets the outline and
the tone for the rest of everything that he talks about. Everything
that Jesus is shown here to be saying and teaching. And so that
as we read these things, we need to keep in mind, and I'll show
you this morning how that actually operates in some degree. I'll
say, okay, right here, remember here. I do it every single week. I make allusion, I look back
to the prologue of the gospel. But today I want to show you
specifically. Jesus is speaking with the Pharisees, and for those
of you who have not been able to hear the last few weeks in
succession, I really encourage you to go to the church website,
listen to these sermons, so that you will have the fullness of
what they are teaching, what Scripture is showing us here.
Jesus says He's going to go away, and then He says in verse 21,
I'm going to be going away, and you, you Jews, are going to die
in your sin. and your singular sin. We talked
about this a little bit last week. And then he tells them
where I am going, you cannot come, this inability. So you
see if you go to the prologue of John's gospel, if you go to
the first 18 verses here, you see that the light has come into
the world. He came to his own people. The
world did not receive him. The word there is acknowledge
and understand. The world did not receive Him
and acknowledge Him and understand Him. He came to His own people
and His own people did not acknowledge and understand Him. And those who were what? Born of God, by the will of God,
were given the right to become the children of God, not by the
will of the flesh, nor by the genealogy of their lineage, the
blood of man, nor by the decision of the mind, or anything of that
nature, but by the will of God. And so when we read this and
we keep seeing Jesus say, you cannot, you will not, you cannot,
you will not, we need to remember that which we've already learned.
Not just in the prologue, but also specifically with Nicodemus
who is here in this hearing who is remembering what Jesus told
him when he came to Jesus at night and made that confession. And Jesus says that you cannot
see the kingdom except that you are born anew. You must have
every facet of your countenance, of your faculties, of your mind,
of your abilities brought to newness. I can't fix you, Nicodemus,
you can't fix yourself. Nothing that you can say with
your cognitive mind right now can put you in right standing
with the Father unless you're born again. It's interesting
that in the 60s, born again was the primary cultural distinction
for Christians. For those of you, for the few
of you in the room who were really up and about in the 60s as adults, you probably remember that. And
it was so weird and it aligned so strangely with, I don't know,
Hare Krishnas and hippies and everybody else that had some
kind of a new age feel to everything, we sort of lost the phraseology
of being born again. Are you born again? It is those
very words that George Whitfield, an Anglican priest, would come
over to America and preach along the Eastern seaboard. You must
be born again, he would say. You must be born again. He would
catch people who would have some sense of religiosity, some establishment
in their own way of living as a, quote, Christian, and he would
say to them, you must be born again. Because what that would
do is it would confront, and what it does do today is it confronts
what we think we can accomplish in our own ability. It confronts
our morality and puts it in its proper perspective that no matter
how good we are, no matter how perfect we can live our lives,
none of that matters before God who is the righteous and holy
God, the perfect God, and who is right in all His judgments,
as Jesus will allude to again today. And so you must be born
again. And to the natural mind, to the
person who does not comprehend that from the offset, like Nicodemus,
he goes to the natural. Jesus is speaking of a supernatural
work whereby God the Holy Spirit takes through the hearing of
the teaching of Christ and brings to life an unregenerate person,
brings to life a sinner, gives salvation, and that person believes. and trusts in Christ. You must be born again. You must
be born again. And so when we think of these
things that Jesus says, you cannot come. What did the Jews say last
week? Oh, he's going to kill himself.
Because it's the only place in their mind that they would not
go. There's no place amongst all of Judea, Galilee, that we
don't have reach. There's no place that He could
hide. Maybe He will go and be a prophet to the Jews of the
Dyspersia, or maybe He'll just be a prophet to the Greeks. But
He's not our prophet, and we do not receive Him. We do not
acknowledge Him. We do not accept Him. We do not
agree with Him. We do not love Him. And as he
continued to have these conversations throughout the years of his ministry,
Jesus would assert that because they do not receive him, acknowledge
him and love him, they do not know him. And because they do
not know him, they do not know God. And because they do not
know God, they do not love God because they do not love him
because he is God. And he was sent by the father
to do the will of the father. And that Jesus says in John five,
that I say is that what's the father is saying. And then as
the father is working now, I work. He continues the work of God
for He is God. Nothing stronger in John's Gospel
up to this point that's so clear as we see, I think it's verse
58, we won't get there today, where they actually pick up stones
to kill Jesus under the law. They're actually able to kill
Him even though Rome forbids it. We see in Acts chapter 6
and 7 where the calling of the first deacons in Acts chapter
7 where Timothy, because he is so full of grace, People, I'm
sorry, Stephen, he's so full of grace and so beloved by the
church and so gentle and humble that the Pharisees and the Jews
and the scribes and the chief priests, they purpose to get
him killed. So they have people testify and
lie against him. And at that very moment, for
the first time in a very long time, the Jewish authorities
exercise capital punishment on Stephen. And Saul, Paul, same
word, same name, Paul is there and he is one of the Sanhedrin
who approves of the killing of Stephen. In verse 58 of chapter 8, the
Jews almost took that same judgment out upon Jesus because He claimed
to be God. In verse 25, Jesus is continuing
to tell them who He is, that they would die in His sins unless
they believe, verse 24, so then they ask Him, Who are You? And He says to them, Just what
I have been telling you from the beginning. Now what's He
been telling them from the beginning? He says over in verse 23, What? You are from below. You are of the earth. Your origin
is fleshly. My origin is that I am from heaven.
I come from the Father. I have a divine origin. That's proclamation one in this
very short discourse. I am God. I come from heaven.
That's what he's saying. Now see, it troubles me because
there are a lot of people, listen to this, there are a lot of people
in our culture Because we are in a religious culture. I can't say we're in a Christian
culture, because to be in a Christian culture means people would have
to believe in the Christ of the Scripture. The very title, Christ,
the Holy and Only One of God, the Jewish translation in English
there is Messiah. Christ is the translation of
the Greek word Christos, which is Messiah. People would believe
that Jesus is around, Jesus is real, Jesus taught some good
stuff, Jesus did some good things, but yet we use the label Christian
in our understanding of culture. People say this is a Christian
nation, but yet I would argue that there is not one mention
of Christ in any historical document of this entire country, not even
the letters of our founding fathers do they ever mention Christ. So in the same vein, the Jews
live. In the same vein, many in our
culture live. They express the idea that they're
Christian by some other means of measuring the way they live,
the way they speak, the way they dress, the way they don't dress,
the way they drink, the way they don't drink, the way they eat,
the way they don't eat. Well, I'm a Christian because I do
this, or I'm a Christian because I don't do this. And the scriptures would
say that those things are fruitless, workless, and not even to be
used as a comparison. And some people would say, well,
I'm a Christian because I'm in this particular club. I'm in
this, you know, not like a Sam's Club, but I'm in a club full
of people who all agree. We stand in front of it, hear
a guy blab on about politics and say that it's preaching. We get together, we pray. Oh,
we pray in Jesus' name. In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright,
great. I'm not mocking people who pray
in the name of Christ. It is by the authority of Christ,
not the magic words that come out of our mouth that give us
the authority to pray. It's by the authority of the
finished work of Christ. It's by the person of Christ.
We can only pray by the authority of God Himself and Jesus is God,
the Son. So we would say that, you know,
many people think that they understand and believe in the Christ of
culture, but yet they do not know the Christ of scripture.
I've said this probably 15 times in the last few months. The Jews
in the same boat as most evangelicals, as most, put the label where
you want it. Methodists, Baptists, Episcopal,
Lutherans, and we won't even get into the false gospels of
many of those groups. But we're quick to come to say,
well, you know, these people, they're good people. By whose
standard? Are they better than the Jews
in the sense of their goodness? But see, we can then looking
back 2,000 plus years go, oh, the Jews were just mean and able
people. But yet we ascribe that people are good today because
they look like the Jews of yesterday. They look like the Jews of yesterday
because they pray when they should. because they dress the way they
should, because they act the way they should, because they
are caring and do benevolence so that people can see them. because they come to temple,
because they read the Bible, because they do all sorts of
things, and therefore they are pleasing to God. Jesus even uses
that same analogy. He says, unless your righteousness,
and He's not talking about spiritual righteousness there. He's talking
about moral righteousness. He's talking about the righteousness
of just doing what is right in society, like not running a stop
sign, not violating the speed limit, wearing your seatbelt,
not touching your phone while you drive. Simple little things
that we can't even in this room obey. perfectly. But it is sin just the same to
violate any of those laws, even by one mile an hour, by one block
without the seatbelt, by one little touch to a YouTube video,
it's not, it's illegal, it's a sin. But none of us are on our face
and crying out for forgiveness and, you see what I mean? Because
nowhere in obedience can we be right before the Lord, but yet
some people have a spiritual obedience in the likeness of
their own culture, in the understanding of what they think Christianity
is. And friends, I'm telling you
that it's no different than first century Judaism. But we are quick
to call them brothers. We're quick to call them sisters
because they're good people in our minds. Who's more of a brother? A man
struggling with his alcoholism, struggling with his pornography
addiction, struggling with his anger, but is truly regenerate,
truly working out his own salvation with fear and trembling, trusting
in the One who is faithful. Every night he goes to sleep
knowing that it was only by the mercy of God that he shall ever
stand righteous before the Lord. Or the deacon at the church who
is absolutely so good and so perfect that every child loves
him. They call him Candy Man because he gives out candy. He cries with people when they
suffer. Yet he doesn't know Christ. You see, in our day, we would
say that that man is a better Christian than the other. But
Jesus says the other man is truly a child of God, not the latter. The publican and the Pharisee.
These are things we need to keep in mind. These are not people
who are good people. For the Bible says that no one
is good but Christ. And Jesus has been telling them
before the beginning, verse 24, I told you that you will die
in your now plural sins for unless you believe that I am He, you
will die in your sins. Now let's then see verse 25,
which is where we are today. Then they said, who are you?
Now we, in our human nature, would not put up with such continued
digression of human cognitive processes. In other words, we
wouldn't put up with that stupidity. I mean, would we? We tell people
who we are. Hi, my name's James. I'm from
here. This is blah, blah, blah, blah. And who are you again? At the
minimum, are you listening? You don't care about, are you
even listening? But yet, here are these people
who have been for three years listening to the teaching of
Christ and he's saying who he is and from where he comes and
what he is going to do and assert after assertion after assertion
after assertion that the only way to eternal life is to trust
in him alone and they're thinking well, what good work can we do?
What magic trick can you show us to prove us just one more?
Can you feed us one more time? That's some good bread Can you give us the water that
you've been talking about that will well up and never run dry?
Remember the woman from Sychar in John 4? I'm so tired of coming
out here to escape embarrassment. I want that water. Who gave Him
something to eat? I have food that you know not
of. In the natural state, we do not comprehend the essence
of who Christ is, but in the new mind, God reveals it to us. And they say, who are you? Jesus
says, I am He. I am He. I am He. In the Septuagint, which is the
Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is what they
used during Jesus' day, nobody read Hebrew in the temple, it
was Greek. They spoke Greek, they read Greek,
they wrote Greek. There was no Hebrew Bible in
the first century. Understand that. Okay. The scholars spoke Hebrew, the
households might have spoken Hebrew, but it was not done publicly. The writings were in Greek. A
little side note there. Jesus uses the phrase, I am He. A lot of times people say, well,
that was when Moses was with... No, He says, I am that I am. We see a greater witness of the
use of this phrase, I am He. It is not something normal. People didn't go around saying
that. That's why it's confusing to those unregenerate spiritual
leaders here. Who do you say you are? He's
already said, unless you believe that I am He. Unless you believe
that I am from above, unless you believe all these things,
but specifically unless you believe that I am He. Jesus right there
is asserting He is God. And that's the only thing that
you can come from the grammar of this in any language except
Eugene Patterson language. For those of you who know the
message. There's no telling what he put there. NIV adds all sorts
of stuff at the end of it to try to make it make sense. It's
not there. Egoemi is the Greek phrase, I
am. I am He, that's what it means.
Where does that come from? Well, the book of Isaiah specifically,
Isaiah 41.4, who has performed and done this, calling the generations
from the beginning, I, the Lord, the first and with the last,
I am He. This is God's self. Proclamation
of who He is. I am He. Isaiah 43. I read this last week. You are
My witnesses, declares the Lord God. And My servant whom I have
chosen, that you may know and believe Me and understand that
I am He. Before Me no God was formed,
and there shall never be any after Me. And Isaiah 43, 13.
Also henceforth, I am He. Isaiah 43, 25, I, I am He, I
am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not
remember your sins. Isaiah 46, 4, Even to your old
age I am He, and to your gray hairs I will carry you. I have
made and I will bear, I will carry, I will save. Isaiah 48,
12, The Lord's called Israel and says, Listen to Me, O Jacob
and Israel, whom I called. Listen to Me, listen to what
I'm about to say. This is what God says, I am He. So when Jesus uses that phrase,
there's only one thing that the Jews heard. Did He just say He
was God? Yes, He did. Yes, He did. He did not hide the reality of
His divine nature. I am He. Jesus is clear on who
He is. And He says, if you don't believe
I am He, you die in your sins. Why is this important? because
this is understanding Christ. Listen, listen, even people who
say, oh, I mean, have you ever met anyone who would say that
Jesus didn't die for sins? I mean, I have, but very few
people here in this part of the world. No, no, no, no, no, Jesus
didn't die for sins, He just died. I mean, everybody who claims
to be a Christian that I know of, We'll say, yeah, Jesus died
for my sins. What's that mean? I mean, could
I not die for your sins? Yeah. If you committed a crime
and I confess to it, lying, and they put me in the electric chair
or whatever kind of, I don't even know if they even kill anybody
anymore. Used to, it was electric chair in Georgia. It was like
a heinous thing, but it's what they did. I could lie and take your punishment,
so I could die for the sake of your sin. Or you could be robbing
a bank and I think you're in trouble, I go in there and try
to save somebody and somebody kill me. I could die for your sin,
for the sin of what you do, I could lose my life for. But there's
a difference in someone just dying because of the sins of
someone else. When the Bible says that Jesus
died for our sins, that means he took the punishment of our
sins in our place. He substituted himself for our
guilt. He knew no sin. The Scripture
uses the picture that He became sin, though He knew no sin, that
we might become the righteousness of God. How in the world does a human
being have the authority How does a man that's born into this
world have the privilege, have the audacity to think that his
life is enough and sufficient to satisfy the judgment of God
for the sins of the guilty? Because He's God and He's man. And these verses, 23, 24, I mean,
not even to the 25 yet, I'm from above, you're from below. You're of the world, I'm not
of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins unless
you believe that I am He. You will die in your sins. Jesus
does not hide the reality of His divinity. And Jesus is clear
here on the condition of humanity. Listen to this. Unless you believe,
you will die in your sins. That's how we can stand here.
I can stand here before you and I can say that those Cults who
twist Trinitarian doctrine to say that Jesus is the Father
are dead in their sins. Modalism that teaches that God
just transforms into a different person. He's the Father sometimes,
He's the Son sometimes, He's the Spirit sometimes. They are
dead in their sins. Because Jesus asserts that He
is God fully and eternally. and that He stands before them
in humanity, and that He is distinct from the Father. Jesus, I am
He, and I am He who does the work of the One who sent me,
who is, He'll say as we close our service out today, still
with me. So either Christ is who He said
He is, or He's the biggest lunatic that has hoodwinked the entire
world for 2,000 years. And you know what, even in that
logical application, coming to a rational conclusion doesn't
save us. Oh yeah, Jesus, He's got, okay,
so He's gotta be God, He's gotta be the one that takes away the
sins. All right, that makes good sense. Making good sense to us
is not salvation. Salvation is a work of God. Isn't
it funny, I say funny, it's not necessarily the right word but
it's what we use here in the South, isn't it funny as I read all those
instances, not even all of them, some of the instances in Isaiah
where God uses I am He to self-identify, all of them then all deal with
salvation being all of Him and for His purpose and for His glory.
I will save. I will blot out. It is for my
sake. It is for my glory. It is for my name. I am He. I
will do this. It is done. This is completed.
Jesus is preaching the same thing that God the Father has been
preaching for millennia, since the beginning of time, since
Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. And in Genesis chapter 3, when
God, when Jesus Christ in the garden with them says that from
the seed of the woman, the serpent will be crushed. He is establishing
a covenant of grace, a covenant of redemption, whereby God alone
will be the author and the finisher of salvation. Believe that I am He. These people reveal the depths
of the depraved and condemned nature of Christ. In contrast
with culture, these people looked like saints. In contrast with
the righteousness of God, these people were devils. Are you listening? Because this, it's funny, I'm
about to use the second name of a podcast, this is the dividing
line with truth. This is the difference between
truth and error. It's oh so subtle, you might
not can tell it. You might not can tell that there's
like a one and three quarter inch drop from that corner of
the room to this corner of the room. But I can tell it. Because
I laid the floor. And I've got the scars to prove
it. I can tell. But it's so subtle,
unless you put your hands on the floor and you started doing
it, you wouldn't notice it. That's how subtle error is. That's
how subtle the enemy is. That's how subtle the culture
that has created a caricature of God, a caricature of Christ,
a caricature of religion, that's so close to the truth that we
feel guilty by saying, these people need evangelizing. Friends, let us share the Gospel
with ourselves every day. Let us preach the Gospel to those
around us every opportunity that God gives us. Let us always be
ready to share the truth of Christ and not take someone's bumper
sticker with a fish on it as proof of their regeneration or
a bumper sticker with legs on the fish as proof of their reprobation. The origin of humanity comes
from a depraved position. And many people believe that
Jesus is what they want Him to be and they cannot listen to
what Jesus says about Himself. It's funny that I have a conversation
this week with a young brother who brought to me the, what do
they call them? The power verses of the false
gospel heralders. Well, there's a three-letter
word in the Greek, POS, ALL. Jesus died for all. God's going
to save all this universal atonement stuff. Well, John 3, 16 doesn't
teach that at all. It doesn't even have anything
to do with that. In fact, there's no use of the word ALL there. Whoever is believing has life.
Whoever is not believing is condemned already because they are not
believing on the Son of God. Where do you get universal atonement
there? In John 6, Jesus says, you cannot come to me because
you have not been given to me by the Father. And all that the
Father gives me come to me and all that come to me will never
be cast out. I will raise them up on the last
day. And then He says, and all who the Father gives me will
come to me. Oh, but God's drawing people.
He's drawing the Jews. No. He's condemning the Jews
by proclaiming the gospel in their presence and not regenerating
them. And when I say the Jews, I mean
the leaders here, of which Paul was one and God saved him out.
So it's not like this collective whole of everybody in this genealogy,
boom, condemned. No, that's not the way it worked.
Just like the whole idea of the nation of Israel. They're not even an authentic
people. There are nobody from nowhere
living in pagan land and God calls one man out who disobeys
for 13 years. But yet his faith was accredited
to him as righteousness. And people say, yep, Abraham
was saved because he obeyed. That proved that he was really
believing in God. He did not obey. Where did he obey? I remember throwing some A.W. Pink
in the trash with prejudice one day. I mean, I literally sat
back in my chair and pushed back like a movie scene. And I overhanded
at the, right in the trash can. I got up from there and I had
to spray myself with Lysol. Now that man said, there's any
delay in your obedience, you're on your way to hell. That was
the closing response. I dug it back out later because
I can't throw a book away. But I put a black dot on it, which
means warning. I used to put skull and crossbones
on there, but a little bit, you know, when the author of the
book comes in, what's the black dot? Oh, that's a good resource. You can learn some stuff from
Pink. But you got it wrong. You got it wrong there. It's
wrong. Because what's a delayed obedience? It's the same thing as an imperfect
obedience. What is faith about anyway? Sola fide. Faith alone. Well, faith is alone for salvation,
but faith is not alone. You better get up off your rumps
and get busy if you really love Jesus. You know, that's good
instruction. Where do we get it from the epistles
of the apostles to the church? Be about the work of the ministry.
Good. The pastor-teachers. Do not labor under compulsion,
but with gentleness and patience and kindness, enduring evil,
enduring persecution. Do all these things for the sake
of the elect, for the sake of the body of Christ, for the sake
of the gathering. Teach them, admonish, use the
Scripture. It will make you successful in
everything you do. O church, love one another. Follow
in the pattern of Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ,
Paul says. Don't show favoritism. Tang me tongue though, no man
can do it. Be careful how you speak to one another because
you cannot take it back. And just like a small spark can
set the whole forest on fire, so can one cross word really
destroy the intimacy of a relationship. Welcome a man worthy of the gospel.
Have these attributes, and if they're growing, and surely you
what? Make your election more sure. Why? Because number one,
we strive and we desire because God's transformed us in our mind,
but in our flesh we serve sin. If you want to know how that
plays out, listen to the Wednesday night sermon of this past week.
I go through that, just notch by notch. Imperfect obedience is the same
as delayed obedience. It's the same as a staggered
obedience. Well, I love my wife today, but
I hate her tomorrow. Guess what? I'm guilty. So when
does the standard come to be the standard? The only hope we
have is the perfection of Christ. And when we see that Christ never
failed in His obedience, we see that Christ actually as a human
being literally did learn obedience, then we understand what the apostles
are teaching the church. Not the lost, the church. Not
so that they might become regenerate, it's because we are regenerate.
Let there be no malice. You know why Paul taught that?
Because there was malice. Stop joking coarsely about sexuality,
Paul says to the Ephesians. Let it not even be named among
you. Why would he say that? Because it had been named among
them. But never does Paul say, they're unbelievers. Paul even
says in 1 Corinthians to kick the sinful brother out of the
church because he's having an affair with his stepmother. Until
he straightens that out. Brother! We've conflated the gospel of
grace and the power and the declaration and revelation of God through
Christ and the finished work of the cross. We've conflated
that with the instructions to those who have been given the
mercy of God. Jesus, they ask Him, who are you? Again
and again and again. Friends, I personally feel that
that question is being asked over and over again when people
come back and they say, yeah, but what about? I hear the gospel,
yeah, but they're saying, who is Christ? Who are you talking
about? What is this gospel you're speaking of? Now, they wouldn't
ever say that because they have in their mind, they're blinded
to the fact that they don't understand the gospel. And friends, there
are a lot of regenerate people who don't really understand the
Gospel. I'm not saying that if you don't have all knowledge
of every intricate detail of the Gospel, you can't be born
again. You can be born again by the Holy Spirit of God just
by hearing these words right here. Jesus Christ says that
I am the Lamb of God that takes away your sin. If you eat of my flesh and drink
of my blood, you have eternal life. And God, in some mysterious
way, as He wishes, brings you to life and you go, well, I'm
going to trust in Christ. We see that in John 4, the woman
at Sychar. She's arguing religion. She's arguing all sorts of things.
She's debating with Jesus. And all of a sudden, out of the
blue, when Jesus is teaching her, there is a day and it is
today that you will not worship there or here, but true worshipers
that the Father are seeking will worship in spirit and in truth. And she resolves, then maybe
Messiah is the only hope I have. He will teach us all things.
And then what does Jesus say? the One whom you now speak, I
am He." I'm God. And she's struck. And she runs
back and tells... All Jesus told her is that she
was living with a man that wasn't her husband. That's all He told
her. And she goes back and says, I
have met a man that has told me everything that I've ever
done. That'd be a long list. Jesus would grow a beard by the
time He got through telling me everything I'd ever done. And
if he had a beard, it'd be long. God brings to life, and without
that life, we will keep asking, who are you? What is this gospel? How does this work? What's happening
here? So, as we grow, that's one of the reasons the assembly
is compulsive. What's that mean? We're commanded
by Paul Several places to be in the gathering of a people
that we're committed to be in gathering with. Why? Because
it is where the instrument of the grace of God continues to
work in you. Not salvifically, because that's
sealed and done, but effectively as we grow in our understanding
of the grace of God. And out of that grows our worship.
Out of that we mature. Out of that we learn obedience.
And most importantly, we learn where that obedience stands before
God. Because Christ is our hope. So Jesus then, as this question
is asked, restates His authority. He's already said it, several
chapters, several chapters. Year after year after year, every
six months, He's like redoing this, because that's what He's
there for. Now, I mentioned this earlier. Wouldn't we get irritated
of having to say the same thing to the same people over and over
again? Come on, parents, don't lie.
How many times do I have to say, don't eat in the living room?
How many times do I have to say, don't put food for the trolls
to find 600 years from now in your room, don't eat in your
room? How many times do you have to say, don't throw your shoes
in the hallway? How many times do you have to
say, quiet down, stop screaming, don't get so loud on Xbox Live,
don't be aggressive? How many times do I say as a
dad, did I ask you a question? No, then I don't wanna hear your
mouth. You see people go, that's so rude. No, it's not. You come
live with His children. I'm trying to talk and there's
somebody else talking? I mean, and it's not God? And only He
should interrupt me? I mean, you know, it shows you
the arrogance we have as parents too, right? We're sinners also. But we get sick and tired of
being sick and tired of the sick and tiredness of telling people
over and over again to do something, which in their brilliant minds
they should automatically do. Just like God instructs us every
day through His Word to be patient. To be gentle. And some of us
are pretty good at that. Because our bodies hurt so bad,
we don't even feel like getting mad anymore. It's alright, house
is on fire, just blow it that way. It's okay. It's okay. We're not righteous
because of it. Who are you, Jesus? Verse 26,
I have much to say about you. I could preach that entire verse
with proof texts from all over the New Testament. And it'd probably
take me three weeks. What is it that Jesus has to
say about the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the chief
priests, the Sanhedrin? What does he have? He has a lot
to say. And he says it, I have much to say about you. How? Who are you? I have much to say
about you. And I have much to judge about
you. But he who sent me is true. You
see that contraction there, that contradiction? But, I have much
I should say, much I can say, I have much I need to judge about
you, that I could judge. But, He who sent me is true. I'm going to stick to this. I'm
going to stick to this teaching right here. And I declare to
the world, there it is again, Cosmos. I declare to the world
that I have heard from Him. And we've already gone through
this, how do you bear witness about yourself? Jesus says that
I can. Because I am from one who sent me. He who sent me bears
witness about me. In John chapter 5 we see him
talking about that, that Moses wrote of me. You search the Scriptures
because in them you think you find eternal life, but they speak
of me. You see eternal life there, but
you reject Me. You reject them because they speak of Me. You
reject Moses where you think you find life. You reject the
law because... or you, you know, you reject
Me so therefore you're rejecting Moses. You accept the law and
you think it's going to find hope for you, but yet it's Me. I'm the law. I'm the holiness
of God. And only I can set you apart
for God. I'm the only one that can draw you out of darkness
and set you into the righteousness of My Kingdom. I have to put
you here. You can't earn it. You can't
prove it. You can't come in any other way except listening and
believing and hearing who I am. I am speaking by the authority
of the One who sent Me and He is true. And I declare to the
world what I have heard from Him. What is that? I am He. He has authority to judge that
man is sinful. Jesus has authority to judge that man is depraved.
Jesus has the authority to judge and declare that man is unable
to save himself. And Jesus has the authority and
does declare that there is no such way that any man can come
of his own accord to salvation. When you put it in light, and
you think of the people around us, who continue to fight against
the truth of the gospel. What does it say about them? Jesus says it says that they're
dead in their sins. Jesus has the authority to speak
as God, for the Father is true. So what the Father is saying,
Jesus says. You know what that shows for
us? You know what that can do for us? When we teach the Scripture
in its context, we are doing what is true. We are teaching
what is true. We don't have to have theological terms to teach
people truth. As a matter of fact, I would
suppose that very few churchgoers, very few professing believers
have theological terms. But I promise you this, you better
have the definition of those terms from the context of Scripture
in order to be able to teach them to someone else. Where does
it come from? It comes from the Word of God. But if I want to say the gospel
to you all, why do I need to spend four minutes saying gospel? That question was brought to
me Friday. And I've brought mention of it the last few months. Some
people think that evangelism is repent, believe the gospel.
I might as well speak in a different
language. Because in our culture, repent means, to most people,
do good works, put down all your sin. It does not. And gospel is just assumed. Where
do you ever see that ever used in evangelism in the New Testament?
You don't. You see it used at the very end
of a teaching. What must we do to be saved?
And Peter says, change the way you're thinking right now. Repent. Change the way you're thinking
right now, what you must do. Repent of that. Change your mind and
believe in the news that I just told you that's good. All the
preaching that I just did, believe in that. You see? We can't just
say gospel, but we do. Because we, Grace Truth Church,
know the Gospel. The world doesn't know the Gospel.
So to say, believe the Gospel, what is the Gospel to most people?
What would be the Gospel to the Jews? They're Jews. And you're
not. That's good news for us. We're
fine. You see that? Articulate explicitly
what Christ... How do we do that? Let's just
get into the Scripture. Well, how can the Gospel apply
to my life? I believe the Gospel. The Word means the teaching that
is good of Christ. The teaching that is good that
comes from God. That's why I always use Gospel. Because it used to be Godspeak. It's where the Gospel Word came
from. And some hick came along and said, Gospel. And then it
stuck. He has authority to speak as
God, for the Father is true, so therefore His testimony about
Himself is true. Jesus' testimony, Jesus' Word,
the Scripture is true. It's what we need above all things. I've had four requests this week.
One of them has been, I would like to get involved in some
theological classes. One. Another one was, can you
please help me affirm the call to the pastorate? And what resources
do I need in order to become a pastor? Second one. Third one. And I'm going to talk to you
all about this in a few weeks. A small congregation in Western
Africa has reached out and wants to know, would we spiritually
adopt them and pray for them? And can they use our church name
and say that they're a sister church? And I'm like, we're going
to have to do a lot of talking. And the English is bad, it's
tough. But let me tell you something, friends. We're going to have
to talk about what that looks like. It's not biblical what
he's asking for, but there is a way we can minister to them. And another one is, how is it
that Christ is sufficient for my marriage? I've had those four
requests specifically, I've had a lot of them, but have come
across my desk from without the church. These are just emails
and things that have come through the website. And the answer to all of them
is the Word of God. You don't have to have a sister
church in order to be established in the eyes of men, in order
to be safe in the boundaries. You don't have to have that.
It's good to. You need the Word of God. You
need to stand on its principles as Christ is teaching it as true. You want to know your call to
the ministry? Eat the Word of God as though you will never
eat again. And God the Holy Spirit, through the teaching of the Word,
will give you the understanding of His calling to you. And you
will not worry about what God has called you to do. You will
be immersed in its training. Theological training. You want
systematic theology? Read the book of Colossians. That's how I teach it. That's
how I taught it two years ago to our high school group. Colossians
1.1, systematic theology class. We never touched a systematic
book. And at the end of the last few weeks of the course, last
few weeks of the school year, we went through and we started
adding some theological terms to the things that we taught
in Scripture. So now these students can go, oh, I know what justification
is, which is a term that Paul uses. I know what Christology
is and it's dealing with the accomplishment of the study of
Christ. And I see who Christ is, so we see where it comes
from. And all of these things, the Word of God. And how is my marriage
going to be? What should my church do to help
me in my marriage? You should be taught the Word
of God and commanded by the authority of Christ in your spirit to love
your wife as Christ loved the church. And then held accountable
to do it. That means stop your whining
and your complaining and your fussing and all of these different
things and put it to death. Oh, you can't do it, neither
can I. We better work on this together and encourage one another
in the gospel. Because see, it's one thing to
be told just to put it to death and then somebody will walk off
and you're going... That's like showing up at the airport and
there's no plane and the pilot's saying, flap your wings. You'll
get there. Where's the plane? Now you're
going to flap it today, baby. Go! I'll give you a captain's hat
and some pins. That's how impossible it is to
keep the flesh dead. Without the Word of God, it is
never going to happen. God speaks, Christ speaks, we
hear, and so the Word of God, His Word, the teaching of God,
which is the teaching of Christ, the judgment of God is revealed
therein, and the remedy of that judgment is revealed therein.
And that's where Christ takes this conversation. And the remedy is singular. It's explicit. It's myopic doctrine
of Christ. The only means to redemption,
the only means to God, the only way through which any person
ever could ever be saved is through the teaching of God about His
work of redemption. Whether it was before the cross,
or after the cross, or during the cross, either way the teaching
was the same. As Moses lifted, we get there,
so must the Son of Man be lifted. Because without the new birth,
no one can understand these things. They cannot believe. Verse 27,
they did not understand that He had been speaking to them
about the Father. Has He already not had this conversation?
But you know what Jesus doesn't do? Jesus doesn't grow impatient
with them. Jesus doesn't call them stupid. He'll soon call them Satan. Should we call others Satan who
sound like Pharisees? No. How dare we pass judgment. Well,
Jesus did it. Paul did it. Well, why don't
you teach the scripture and let the Lord discern and give us
the discrimination to know who is and who is not a Pharisee.
Just because I smell like a Pharisee and talk like a Pharisee doesn't
mean I'm a Pharisee. I could just be Pharisaic today. I could
have got up on the wrong side of the bed and hit the wall of
legalism because I stepped on a Lego and I'm not happy. I told
them not to put the Legos down there. That'll make a legalist
out of everybody. Do it. Just go home, step on
a Lego with all your weight. Not Yosemite Sam is what you'll
sound like. For those of you who were adults in the 60s. 70s, 80s. We cannot believe. Some people say, well, I just
don't get it. I don't get the gospel. I don't get how I can just believe
in the work of Christ and ta-da, all my sins are forgiven. Because
that's the point of the work of Christ. He forgave us of our
sins. The point of the work of the
Father. How can that be true? Or here's this one. How can I be
sinful? I've heard that many times in
my life. Why do I need salvation? Why
are you sharing the gospel with me? I'm a pastor. Sad. Share the gospel with me. I want to hear it. Share the
gospel with each other. The gospel isn't for the lost
alone. It's the power of God unto salvation. It's the power
of keeping us. The good news of Christ is everything
that He's done to accomplish redemption and everything that
He's doing to keep us redeemed and everything that He's going
to do to establish us in His glory. It's good news, y'all. They could not believe And in that sense, what are they
supposed to really understand? Jesus is saying it over and over
and over again. I'm teaching you about what I'm
saying, I'm teaching you about what I'm doing, and now I'm telling
you I am He. So you can trust in what I'm
saying because I'm God. Now, how many people throughout
history, even in antiquity and even in my day, I mean, I've
known four contemporary people in my adult lifetime who have
actually professed to be Jesus. Remember the Branch Davidians?
He was Jesus. That God that's still alive over...
I don't know if He's in Seoul or where He is, but He's got
like 400,000 people following Him. He's a multi-billionaire.
He is Jesus. He says it, I am the reincarnated
Christ. And everybody, oh goodness, and
they're worshiping and following around. And every time you turn around,
there's somebody else in some era talking about the fact that
they are God. They are speaking from God. They
are doing the work of God. The Crusades by the cult of Rome. Killing people by the masses
to convert them. You either believe or you die. What choice do I
have? Let's fight. That's not God's
will. Well, you know it's God's decree,
but it's not God sending them to do His work of redemption
by the sword. No different than that in the
jihadists. I've never heard of anybody scared of a Catholic,
and their regalia is a little bit more frightening. It's supposed
to be a joke. What are they supposed to understand?
He's God. He is He. He is egoe me. He is the self-existent One.
He is telling the truth. He is not just some flake running
around doing everything that He can to get people to follow
Him. He's proving Himself over and over again. He speaks with
the authority of God that for thousands of years was given
to us through the prophets who never knew each other, who never
met. I mean, it's just a logistical
impossibility. That the Old Testament can be
contrived. That's ridiculous. That it can
be manipulated as a source document. It's insane. Nobody will establish
its validity. Even if we do, it doesn't mean
that people are saved because they believe that the Bible is
real. But as Jesus came on the scene, He spoke in the words
of God given to us through Isaiah. He spoke in the words of God
given to us through Ezekiel. through Joel, through Jonah.
As a matter of fact, he even illustrates Jonah's experience
as a prophet to be the very picture, the shadowing, the foreshadowing
of his death, of his burial, and of his resurrection from
the grave. I'll give you the sign of Jonah, he says. He was
for three days in the belly of a fish, not a whale, but just
some type of sea creature, whereby he was saved miraculously and
did not perish. But even Gershwin, Wouldn't believe that. And in
a time where it was really taboo to even say that the Bible might
be fictitious, he wrote a song in his musical Porgy and Bess
about the idea that the Bible isn't necessarily so. Doesn't matter either way, does
it? Only Jesus speaks with the words of God, and only Jesus
operates in the power of God, and only Jesus would prove that
He is God through one specific thing. In John 11, we see Jesus
saying that the sickness of Lazarus happened so that the Son of Man
would be glorified in it. And after He raised Lazarus from
the dead, Caiaphas and the Jews, who knew all well that He was
God, because only God can do that, felt it necessary that
he be put to death because of the cultural indifferences and
the stress that they were feeling, because if he incited the people
to not obey Rome, Rome would have wiped him off the face of
the earth, and did. Jesus proved that He is who He
says He is. He's taught them they cannot
know God if they do not know Him. He's taught them that they
cannot have life if they do not believe He is the life giver.
And He's testified completely and effectually about all that
He's going to do. And man's depravity establishes
in him a hatred for authority. See, some people say, well, why
can't they just do this? I mean, even in common sense, couldn't
they be compassionate? No. Because depravity, listen to
me, church, depravity, our sin nature, makes us hate authority. We hate the sign out there that
says, no turn on red. Stop here and yield. And the sign's just really disturbing.
We hate it. It's been in the paper a billion
times. This is dumb. It's Department of Transportation,
the state of Georgia, who decided where to put it. It's not a local
issue, but people continue to bash our local people because
that is a dumb sign and it shouldn't be there. We should be able to
turn on red where we please. In the middle of a town that
after 6 o'clock you could lay in the street and not get hit
by a car. Not between three to five, but
after six, you can just sort of lay down, unless it's Friday,
and then I don't know where these people come from. There's rush
hour here on Friday afternoons. I just need to get two blocks
up, and you shut the car off and get out. It's just ridiculous. We hate authority. We hate being
told what we cannot do. You can't touch your phone. See,
that's a new one, right? I mean, Georges, we've been able
to have a shotgun in the left hand, phone in this hand, smoke
with our feet, and drive from the back seat. It was 2006 before they even
made it a law that you had to wear a seatbelt in a pickup truck.
Because some of our legislators were farmers, they weren't gonna
put a seatbelt on, click it, I don't think so. Yeehaw, America, I mean, you
know. No seatbelts for us. I mean, little things like that.
How much more do you think that we in our human nature are going
to fight back with somebody saying, I'm the divine ruler and creator
of you. And I'm the one who judges how
you will live and die. That doesn't work for us. Don't
touch your cell phone. That makes us mad. I'm your God. Bow before me. I'm going to die
for you. And if you don't trust in me,
you're going to die in your sins. Tell me who's going to die for
my sins. You're going to die for my sins, alright. We're going
to put you on the cross. I've been telling you that the
whole time. See, that's what's so ironic about it. The hatred
of authority. Jesus says that man cannot believe
because he has a hatred for authority. He has a hatred for instruction.
What does the psalmist say? What does Solomon say? That the
fool despises the instruction of his father. Isn't that crazy? You adults,
you remember being 18, 19, 20? Making your plans, doing your
thing, and your parents go... They ask a question. They don't
even say anything negative. They just ask a question. Don't question
what I'm trying to... Hey, we're trying to pay the
bill for you. But since you want to bark, I mean, you know, because we
don't want authority. We don't want somebody digging
into our business. Newsflash! God has ordained authority in
every aspect of life. Your physical health and what
you put in your body, you don't have the freedom to do outside
the exercise of the law of the land. You can't put a controlled
substance in your body without a prescription unless you're
a felon. You're a felon when you do that. You know that? You
can't go out and buy a crack on the street without breaking
the law. And if you do it, you're free to make the choice, but
you're also free to accept the consequences. You see what I'm
saying? Nobody's free. We all have authority on every
aspect of our lives, everywhere. These Jews were no more the kings
of their own domain than the dogs at their feet. but they
thought they were. We think we are. We think we're
in charge of everything that we do. We can build our kingdom
and say, look at what I've built. We could put our feet up and
smoke our pipe and enjoy the afternoon and say, wow, I've
labored and here are the fruits of my labor. But we are not free. People want to be free. from
all control, but in that depravity, they don't want any oversight,
and they desire to be free from any oversight, any accountability,
to which the Scripture reveals they are indeed not free at all,
but slaves." Listen to this. Slaves of their own depravity. Slaves of their own nature. And
thus, puppets of the enemy. And how do we escape that? Only
by the mercy of God and the rebirth through the effectual work of
Christ to bring forgiveness and righteousness to the sinner?
Does anyone find hope and true life? Jesus is God who came to
earth to redeem sinners. Those whom the Father give to
Him will come and they will live. Do you hear that? Do you believe
in Christ who is God? So then He proves what will show
His authority and the authenticity of His claims. He says it this
way, So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of
Man, you will know that I am He. When you have lifted up Me,
you will know that I am what? When you have lifted up Me, the
Man, you will know that I am God. and that I do nothing of my own
authority, but I speak just as the Father taught me." Jesus
is not claiming to be the Father. They are distinct, eternal persons
of the Godhead. Jesus speaks this first. Of course,
the prologue shows us. I hadn't even done that, but
I'll do it next week. Jesus speaks of this first in verse 51 of
chapter 1 when He speaks to Nathanael. And He's in awe. Truly you are
what? You are the Christ. You come
from God. You are many things that people
said, but Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, you will
see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending
on the Son of Man. You've not seen anything yet,
Jesus says. I came to open heaven to you. And not just open heaven
to you, but take you there. As Moses lifted up the serpent, lifting up in that day when someone
says someone was lifted up, it meant crucified. Because it was the only place
in that culture where someone was lifted up. And Jesus is proclaiming His
death, and He says that when you crucify Me. It's almost as if He knew they
were going to stone Him and would love to stone Him. It's almost
as if God planted the idea Let Rome do it. It's the only way legally they
could have it done. Why would that take place? Because it's
what God had ordained. Jesus reveals the nature of His
claims and He says that the cross is the revelation of My divinity.
The cross is the revelation of My authority. So Jesus establishes
His testimony and said it is vindicated at the cross so that
He restates that all that He proclaims, are the words of God
the Father as they have been taught to Him by the Father. Jesus, as we'll see next week,
is the eternal God the Son. The Son of God, co-existent with
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. And God did not abandon,
God the Father did not abandon Christ on the cross. And He says
that in verse 29, and He who sent Me is with Me. He is with
me. He has not left me alone, for
I always do that which is pleasing to Him. As He is saying these
things, many believed in Him." So here we see that the nature
of Christ's obedience as the Father is with Him is eternally
sufficient. That means everything Jesus has
ever said, done, thought, went, considered, responded, anything,
has been obedient to God the Father. This is why the gospel is the
gospel. Because when we trust that Christ
is God, Christ is man, and that His obedience as a man satisfies
the law and the righteousness of God, His obedience on the
cross is called passive obedience because passive obedience is
a judicial issue whereby one submits themselves to the governing
authorities of a state. That's what it means. It's the technical term. Jesus'
passive obedience, subjecting Himself to the authorities, to
the wickedness of the authority of Rome and Israel, and dies,
and in His death the wages of sin, which He had not, He paid,
and all the fierceness of the wrath of the Father was with
Him, at the same time the intimacy of the Father and the sweetness
of the Father was with Him, and He was raised from the dead,
because He did not deserve death. So He paid it, and then was glorified
in it. And if you trust in that work,
God rebirths you to show you the sufficiency of what Christ
did. You will lay down all other applications of how you might
be better in the eyes of God. A little tiny bit of faith alone
means that there's nothing else that we bring to the table but
Christ. It doesn't have to be a strong
faith, it doesn't have to be a large faith, but it has to
be only faith in only Christ. and only His grace. So I believe that Christ and
His Word is sufficient for my salvation and for yours. And by the hearing of this Word,
may God grant repentance to all of us. And we who are His, may
we really grow deeper so that we might become joyful equipped
and supplied with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Let's pray. Father, Your Word is true. Lord,
I pray for our brothers and sisters who have not come this morning,
who have not been able to be here. Lord, I pray that they
in due time would be able to settle their business matters,
they'd be able to settle the situations that they're in. Lord,
that they would find some time off of work, that they would
be able to be healed in their body, and that their hearts would
be mended, that they would have joy, so that we could fellowship
with them. Just the same, Lord, we are with
them in spirit. Father, we continue to labor for each other in all
the circumstances of life that plague us, but we know they are
gifts from You, so we rejoice in them. Lord, help us to pray
for one another. Help us to rest in the teaching
of Christ. Lord, help us to worship because
of who He is. In Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you
for listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
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