This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at www.gracetruth.org and www.anchoringfaith.org. A
people for His glory, by His grace. ...sufficient for our
hope, for our knowledge of You, and that that knowledge is not
something that we do inside of our own human ability, our own
intelligence, our own authority, but Father, it is a wonderful
and incredible gift from You. Father, I pray that we would
be strengthened as we hear Your Word today. I pray that we would
be empowered to walk, as You've called us to walk, as those who
live by faith, who hope fully in the finished work of Christ
alone, with nothing from ourselves, no place that we go, no gaze
that we have except Christ. and His cross by faith. Father, we do pray for those
who are not able to be with us today, and we pray for those
who are across this world, Lord, who do not have a church family,
a gathered family. The word church, Father, is gathered. Thank You that we can gather
as Your people. Thank You for the freedom we
have to do so. Thank You for Your mercy to give us understanding
of Your Word, to give us the gospel of grace that we might
worship You in all of Your glory because of Your kindness toward
us in Christ. Father, help us to not allow
our sin no matter what it is, whether it's omission or commission
or fear or doubt or unbelief or whatever it might be, as your
children, Father, as we've gathered today, help us to overcome the
flesh, help us to see and let nothing stand in the way of our
worship and our understanding and our application. And we pray these things in the
name of Christ, our King. Amen. John chapter 7. We will finish this chapter today.
And then we will start next week in chapter 8, verse 12. I'll explain that next week. We live in a day and age where
no matter where you turn, no matter what period of life we're
in, no matter what element of life we're in, there's always
a fan base. I mean, there's even a community
of people who love the game of chess, who watch chess championships. Commentators. And if you think
commentating a sports event is difficult, you should see the
commentating for a chess tournament. If you ever heard the term backseat
driver, you'll know what I'm talking about. No, you shouldn't
have done that, you should have done this. But there is a fan
base for everything known to man. There is a fan base for
knitting, for pecan pie, for cooking, for everything. I am not kidding. If you go online,
you can find a forum or a group or a support system for any hobby,
interest, addiction, idea, thought, word, Anywhere. You can go to Twitter
or to Facebook or to Instagram or to Snapchat, well actually
it's not a real public thing, but anywhere that there's a catalog
of people's thoughts and you can find instance after instance
of people who are expressly showing you what they really love and
care about. Constantly. Now I particularly like the pictures
of pie and cake. And I also like the particular
forms when someone else tries to do that pie or cake or whatever
it may be to that same degree and they nailed it and it looks
terrible, you know. In fact, I get so tickled sometimes watching
or looking at those pictures that I laugh till my stomach
hurts. But the Christian faith is no
different. And I use that idea lightly, the Christian faith.
We have fan bases inside our culture, our Christian culture.
We'll have people that love the red letters. Oh, the words of
Jesus, they're the most important. And so if I don't have red letters
in my Bible, it's really confusing to me. Because according to what
Paul says in all of his letters, he says, I'm an apostle by the
will of God of Jesus Christ. So therefore, if Paul writes,
Jesus has said it. So I don't need red letters to
tell me I can read quotations. I'm not that dull. But you've got a fan base. You've
got an entire movement of people who believe that the red letters
are really the most authoritative things in Scripture. We have
people who are in groups that have affinity over the type of
translation that they use. We even have fan bases of people
who hold to certain aspects of certain intricate details of
source documents. We have people who fight for
their right to hold to their TR, their received text, which
by the way, the Texas Receptus is a marketing name. The publisher
created that name to sell it, by the way. It's not divine at
all, it's just ridiculous. We have people that hold fan
meetings, evangelism. about what they do as a church. We have groups of individuals
in the name of cultural Christianity who say, you know, come to our
church. Come to our gathered ones. See how weird that is? We're
saying come to our church. When we actually say what it
is, church, ecclesia, gathered ones. Come to the gathered ones. Come to us. We have people who
have fan base and affinity. Oh, it's our music. We love our
band, our choir, all these things. We have the best music in the
world. And people love it. There's nothing
wrong with loving good music, especially good hymns and truth
that comes from that. But the point I'm making is that
there's a fan base for it. I mean, I was playing some, you
know, Irish. I love Irish music, especially
hymns. And I've recently been introduced
to the psalmody in Irish tradition. And it's awesome. I don't want
to sing it. I certainly don't want to play it, but I love it.
I might start me a fan club. Grace Truth Church, Irish psalmody
group. And for those of you who like
it, we can get in there and talk about it all day and all week and argue
about the meter and argue about the wording and decide whether
or not we're going to wear kilts on the certain days of the month. That's actually been proposed,
by the way. Not from someone here, but from another person.
I don't think so. Especially, was it last week,
we all had plaid shirts on. The three of us who were up.
I'll have flat shirts on. Somebody asked me online, do
y'all have a dress code? No. We used to, not here, but
I have been in churches that have a dress code. But there's
a fan base. We have our favorite preachers,
we have our favorite sermons, we have our favorite theologies,
we have all sorts of things. And let me tell you what it all
boils down to. John closes his first epistle
with an incredible command to the church of Christ. He says,
beloved, keep yourself from idols. And I believe that the culture
of Christianity has proven itself to not worship God to such a
degree that we are, and I'm not saying we as in personally, but
it has become a birthplace of idolatry. So much so that if
a man has enough clout, has enough butts in the seats, has enough
property to call a church that he has authority over the teaching
of Scripture. Sometimes it is so bad that when
Scripture is clear on certain aspects of things that because
he has been in ministry for so long that people say, well, that's
not true because so and so says otherwise. Well, let me tell
you the wisest teacher that has ever been at work in the world You ready? I would argue that
Satan is probably the most influential teacher in the world. And I would argue, if y'all remember
several years ago, I did a little mini-series. See, the summer
attendance always goes down a lot, so we used to do little series
of things, and I did one called, The Devil in the Pulpit. The devil speaks through many
men every day, sometimes through us, like he did through Peter.
Because we listen to our thoughts, we listen to our feelings, and
we act accordingly, we speak accordingly. And then all of a sudden, you
know, we're being utilized in that temptation in that way. But I think the enemy stands
constantly on the hearts of men in the ministry, and he puts
before them a lot of things that get public eye, and that public
eye gives credibility to the world that we live in. And friends,
there is nothing further from the truth. Jesus lived in obscurity. John the Baptist lived in obscurity.
And when they became famous, they died. When we have enough
people around us to pat us on the back and make us feel comfortable
in the culture in which we live, we are not doing the Lord's work. When we can find millions of
followers to buy our books and support our stuff and to go forward
with us in so-called ministry, we're probably not preaching
a pure, monergistic, sovereign grace gospel. And as we close out chapter 7
here, I want you to see that this fan base issue, this fandom
as they call it, that we have in our culture is nothing new. It's what's happening in the
days of Jesus. What's happening in the days
of the apostles as we see Paul write, and I'm going to end this
sermon today in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. But we're going to
start in John 7. There were people who were constantly,
you know, Barnabas, Barabbas, not Barabbas, he's the God that
they let out, Barnabas and Paul, and Apollos, and all these great
teachers. People would esteem the teacher
to such a place that they took pride in it. Well, I know so-and-so.
Or I know so-and-so. Or I know so-and-so. Well, I
sat under the teaching of so-and-so. Well, so-and-so did my wedding.
Well, I was baptized by so-and-so. You see this? And yet the apostles
actually fought against those things and said to the church,
Paul says, I'm glad I didn't baptize any of you. I'd almost
be embarrassed, you see. I didn't come to you with eloquence. You ever heard a pastor claim
that he was eloquent? I have. I didn't come to you with the
greatest of visual aids, cultural relevancy. I didn't come to you
under the authority of, you know, this, that, or this. I came in
weakness, barely able to speak, barely able to stand on my feet
so that the cross does not lose its power. I preach only Christ
and Him crucified. I want you to hear this, church,
because there are several applications in this closing of this chapter
that we need to apply. Verse 43. So there was division among the
people over him. And some of them wanted to arrest
him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to
the chief priests and Pharisees and said to them, Why do you
not bring him? And the officers answered, No
one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them,
Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or
the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not
know the law is a curse. Nicodemus, who had gone to him
before and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge
a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he
does? And they replied, Are you from Galilee too? Search and
see that no prophet arises from Galilee. And I told you last
week that I'd have to finish the sermon today. because there's
a lot of application here. Not a lot of theological things
to learn, not a lot of doctrinal things to pick out, but just
some observational things that need to be understood. So it's exposition in that we
should pull it out of the text, it's from the text, it's in the
narrative, but it's also topical in that we need to understand
who's saying these words and what their thinking was. If we come to the place of knowing
the Pharisees, we need to recognize that as we've already seen in
John's Gospel, they hate the truth. They hate the truth. They hate the Word of God. They
hate God Himself. They hate the Father. They hate
the Son. And oh, do they hate the Holy
Spirit. People argue that with me. Someone
has said to me recently, through an email, you seem anti-Semitic
when you preach. And I said, thank you. Just being
a little cheeky. Because Jesus, in that sense,
is against Judaism. Not against Jews and themselves,
but against Judaism. It's not pure. It's a false religion. It serves and worships a false
God. No matter how much they use the right Scripture, how
many people do we know, beloved, who have the same Bible we have,
who have the same understanding of even the Greek language that
some of us may have, and yet they are raging heretics? lost and unable to see the truth. How many cults use the Holy Scripture
as one of their texts? Islam. Matter of fact, it is
commanded of a Muslim to read the New Testament every year.
It is part of what they must do to be faithful to their religion. Why? Because they count Jesus,
the Christ of Nazareth, as a prophet of God. Jews didn't even do that much. Some of them did. What are we here for in the world,
beloved? Why do we gather each week? Is
it some cultural obligation? Or is it because the Holy Spirit
draws us together, draws us to hunger for the Word of God, draws
us to understand the truth, draws us to be empowered through a
divine means that we can only get as we gather together as
the church? This grace of God that's given
to His people, continually working in our lives to mature us and
to grow us and to strengthen us and all of the above. All
the benefits, all the blessings, all of the things that are ours
in Christ, we come together that we might be administered to,
to receive these things. And friends, as we move through
the Word of God, division comes. Let me say to you again, the
division in our day is not like the old jokes it used to be when
I was a kid. When the pastor would get up
and it'd be about ten to twelve and he'd say, well, I finished
a little early, let's beat the Methodists to the restaurant. Or let's beat the Lutherans to
the restaurant. Well, they'd get out at eleven,
you know. That's not the kind of division
we're talking about. We're not talking about the division between
whether or not you use wine or not wine. We're not talking about
the little nuances and the funny little jokes that have been printed
for centuries in newspapers and books, about denominational distinctives,
and about how the Presbyterians drink in public and the Baptists
drink in their closet. These are not divisions. And this isn't even where we're
going with our understanding of what the Scriptures taught
about divisions. Friends, we're talking about people who would
claim to know God and not know God. Think about that for a second. the solidity and the unity of
the culture in which we live, walk outside tomorrow, it's Monday,
go to a public place and just say, God is good, very loudly. Not a library, say it softly.
But say it, God is good, very lightheartedly. Man, God is good.
Somebody will say, Amen. Amen. It might even be the guy
standing there with his bottle. Amen. Somebody might even say, all
the time. And you know how that goes, the wave at the ball game
never stops. You're like, I'm not getting back up. It never
stops. Somebody may even come up and
talk to you about it. Yeah, the Lord is so good. But if we were to stand in public
and say, why is God good? We can't answer the question
if we don't have the truth. God is good because He is God,
and He is God as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. God means
the Most High One. It's a word that means His place.
It's not a name, by the way. The only name we know of God
is Jesus, which means Yahweh saves. Yahweh is not a word.
It's a mystery. So here, we live in a culture
that everybody would agree and say amen because God is good.
A Jehovah's Witness would say amen that God is good. A lost
person would say amen that God is good because it's God we trust
that's on the dollar that's in their pocket. Yeah, God is good,
look at that. Indivisible under God with liberty
and justice for all. That sounds so regal. That sounds
so awesome. That sounds so prestigious. That
sounds so ridiculous. Liberty and justice for all under
God is only in Christ. Liberty and justice is only found
in Jesus, not America. I'm thankful that I'm an American
and I'm so happy to be here. And I will perform my civic duty
as a citizen, but I am a Christian. And everywhere I turn, every
time I look, the truth of my God, the truth of my Christ,
and the authority of His reign conflicts with my American life. It conflicts with my American
Christianity. It conflicts with the cultural
religion of our day. And brothers and sisters, that's
exactly what happened when Jesus stepped foot in Jerusalem. Every
piece of nationalism, every piece of religion, every sense of morality,
every absolute jot and tittle of academia, it all went to the
gutter, and they didn't know what to do with it. No one's peaches like this man.
We can't put hands on him. We're just a little afraid to
touch the guy. The man knows what he's talking about. He's
teaching things that we've never heard. Division, beloved, looks like
those people that we used to always get along with. That we
used to high five for Jesus. That we used to go door to door
and give a cup of cold water with. These people. when we start
seeing the truth, no longer want to be intimate with us. Why? Because either we can remain
intimate with the world that tries to look like Christ in
their own way, or we can be intimate with Christ and thus each other
and be separated from the world. We've learned over the last few
months that the idea of haggios, the idea of sanctification, the
idea of holiness means to not be part of this, but to be set
apart for this. So, beloved, we are set apart
in our knowledge. We are set apart in truth. We
are set apart in our lives. We are set apart by Christ because
He has taught us all things. He has given us the knowledge
of His mercy. He has revealed God the Father
to us. And more than that, He has brought us to God that we
might be His people insofar as, well, even more so, we are the
righteousness of God because we are in Christ and it's His
righteousness given to us. My friends, people argue about
words. People argue about theories. People argue about philosophy.
People argue about politics. People argue. We, as human beings,
would argue whatever aggravates us. Trey and I have had a conversation
recently about dividing over the color of the carpet. And
I don't know if he's had that experience or if he was just
joking. I've had that experience. color of the wall, the window
tint color, the door size, whether or whether or not to
put a lock over the HVAC control. We're going to vote on that. We're going to fire him. He doesn't
want to believe what we want to believe. It needs to be hotter in here. I mean, it seems so silly, but
in the heat of it all, our flesh rises up and it comes to a place
where we begin to divide. But brothers and sisters, we're
not going to divide over that as Christians. We're going to be divided from
the world, from the culture that claims to be Christian. How many
people do we call our brother and our sister in the world that
we live in? I mean, we're Southern, so everybody's brother. What's
up, brother? What's up, sister? or boy, girl, dude, dudette.
It depends on what era it is, 80s, 90s, whatever. But really,
if we're brothers and we're sisters, it means that we're in Christ
and we're in the Christ. We're not coming to a new Christ. We're not in a different place.
We're not coming to a man-centered Christ. We're coming to a sovereign
Christ. Division It starts to do something, doesn't
it? It sorts people into places. So if we come in our lives and
we see that there's seven or eight different factions of theological
division, and what we find is only one of those groups has
the truth, then we really don't have seven groups, we have two. I want you to hear me. If out of seven different distinctions
theologically, only one of them actually has the truth of Christ,
the true gospel, then we don't have seven distinctions, we have
two distinctions. We have error and truth. So all
the other six are together as one, though they would never
see themselves as unified. So brothers and sisters, there
is no difference. and people rejecting the gospel
of grace and the authority of scripture and being in the Jehovah's
Witness cult. I don't care what Baptist church they stand in.
See, there I said it again, it's wrong. I don't care what building
with Baptists on the wall that they stand in. We are not in
a position to admit and confess that people who reject, I'm not
talking about ignorance, I'm talking about rejection, who
reject the truth of Christ, we cannot stand and say that these
people are indeed born again. Why? Because Jesus tells us that
a tree will bear good fruit. And do you know the context of
that teaching in Matthew's Gospel? the words that they say. Do you
know the occasion of that teaching? False teachers. You will know
whether they are brothers in the Lord if they teach the true
gospel. Some people say, oh, they got
fruit, they're nice, they're giving, they're pleasant, they're
kind, they're gracious. That's what Satan does, y'all.
He puts on the light, and pretends to be that which he's not. But when he opens his mouth,
James says that no one can tame the tongue. The tongue will set
the fire that proves the substance of the man that it's come from. And beloved, I know I seem to
be dragging this. This is where we stand today.
Remember, I'm talking about fans Affinities, get away from listening
to popular professionals. Get away from absorbing commentary
and listen to the Word of God. Do not make me the cornerstone
of your faith. Make Christ the cornerstone of
your faith. Because I pray that God would
kill me in this earth before I become the centerpiece of someone
else's Christianity. And sadly, if they find my body,
somebody will worship it. I saw the funerals of two famous
people. I didn't see the funerals. I
could not see pieces of the funerals. They wrote it in the sky, famous
people of the last few weeks, and it really hurts my stomach. Hurts my stomach in many ways,
but most of all, it hurts my stomach in the fact that many
people who claim to know Christ celebrated the words of heresy. Oh, he preached about Jesus.
Saying the name Jesus is not preaching about Jesus. saying
Jesus is Lord is true, but what if I said Zechariah was Lord? You'd be
like, what? Yeah, Zechariah is Lord. You'd
be like, man, you're crazy. Where do you get that? No, Jesus
is Lord. Jesus is a name. Who is the Jesus that we're talking
about? Who are you talking about? Millions
of people have been named Jesus before Jesus was ever born. Moses'
right-hand man was named Jesus, which is the Greek word for Joshua,
which is the English word for Yeshua. Actually, both of them are English.
Esu, Yeshua. Yahweh saves. It's a common name. It's nothing special. It's who
this Jesus is. Who, which Jesus are you speaking
of? The Jesus of Scripture. Is it
the Jesus of John? Is it the Jesus of John's Gospel?
Is it the Jesus of John 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on? Is it the
Jesus of Paul? The one He taught of? Or is it
just the Jesus of Grandma? The Jesus of Sunday School from
the 1980s? The Jesus of Billy Graham? I pray not. And see, just that statement,
well, what's wrong? Why do you have to be so... I'm
not being negative. I'm showing you the parallel of exactly what's
happening in John 7. This is part of the application
of this teaching. It is not easy. We can't just
move on. Here's the point. The division
that we talked about last week was so great that it actually
took a unified people. The Sadducees, the Pharisees,
the chief priests and the scribes and their officers were so united
around their hatred for Jesus that they became like glue. Their hatred for Jesus became
like glue. And then all of a sudden, when Jesus stood before them
and He spoke, they were still in the same boat. They were still
in the same one of two distinctions. Saved by the grace of God, or
lost. But even amongst their unity,
they began to divide. And the officers would not lay
hands on Jesus because no one ever preached like Him. No one
ever taught like Him. I can't put my hands on this
man. I'm fearful. I don't know. Maybe He is. Some
people say He's the Prophet, which, as we saw last week, was
Moses speaking of Christ. Some people say He was Elijah,
which was an illustration of the message of God, not Elijah
himself. Some people said He is Messiah,
the Christ, the same thing, same meaning, same word. And they
were overwhelmed and divided. And the chief priest, as we saw,
said, have you also been deceived? You see what's happened there?
These spiritual leaders loved their own glory so deeply that
they could not fathom not being looked at as authoritative in
everyone's eyes. See, we all have this disease,
and we want to be admired or liked or respected or something
of that nature, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to be loved
and wanting to be liked and wanting to be respected. I think it's
a natural thing, but it comes from a natural sense, which is
our flesh, which is what? Which is depraved and sinful,
so it's driven by a sinful nature. to the point that we will compromise
instead of having someone say, well, I just don't like you,
or I think you're wrong, or you're just terrible, or you're a heretic,
or you're just a weirdo, which is all I've been called throughout
my life. And I'm fine, I'm a weirdo. And
I'm probably getting weirder as I get older. But instead of hearing those
things, we're like, oh no, I don't mean that, oh no, I don't mean
this, or I'll just be quiet. I'm not going to say a thing.
I'm not going to do a thing. I'm not going to engage in this
conversation. I just want to be liked by everybody. So everybody
smiles at us and they say, oh, look at that little quiet person
that I don't even know. They're so pleasantly quiet. And some people, like most men,
mostly men, I don't know, women may have this problem too, but
I can't speak from experience. Most men want to be respected. Not necessarily feared, though
some men want to be feared. They want to be strong and powerful.
Most men want to be respected. They want people to look at them
and esteem them as respectable, as hardworking. I mean, the worst
thing a man could ever be told is that you're lazy. Worst thing
that a doctor could ever be told is that you don't care, you malpractice. Worst thing a pastor could be
told is that you're a heretic and that you don't love me. The worst thing a Pharisee could
be told is that Jesus, no one's ever taught like Him. If you're a teacher of all Israel,
and somebody else comes teaching, and then all of a sudden now
your teaching seems subpar, something's wrong, and in your spirit you
go, this is not good. So that which fueled their hatred
for the truth, Jesus Christ, became the target of all of their
animosity, and it divided them even amongst themselves. And
they took pride in the fact that they had not been deceived. Do
you see that? Verse 47. Have you also been deceived?
We haven't been deceived. We know the truth. Do you know
that people actually say, let me hear, people actually say,
because gossip, even your enemy loves to have something that'll
get you fired up, people actually say that Grace Truth Church is
a deceived people. Or a deceived people. Someone says, talk about y'all.
Oh really? Yeah, you've deceived that entire congregation. I can't
believe anybody come here and you talk. Just deceive, you're
a cult. Okay. A cult for Christ? I don't know. I mean, what is
the world going to call us? They hated our Savior, they're
going to hate us. And we're not the only congregation dealing
with that. But where's the animosity for
most others who claim to be in Christ? You see what so-and-so
had on last week? Did you hear what so-and-so said
about so-and-so? And beloved, it's not above us to have those
same issues, but I'll tell you this, I believe we're intimate
enough that we would stamp them out before anybody else even
knew about it. I believe everyone in this building would correct
somebody else in love if they saw that type of behavior, because
I've seen it happen. But people believe when we hold
to the true gospel, the religious of our culture think we're deceived,
beloved. The Pharisees, the leaders, listen
who they are, they're the popular preachers of Christianity today. And they go, no, we know more,
we have more audience, we have longer tenures, blah, blah, blah,
you know, I hate to mock people. And they're not really do that,
that's sort of the Muppets. But they're talking heads. We know better and you all are
deceived. We stand on the authority of
our tenure. We stand on the authority of our education. We stand on
the authority of the fact that I can pronounce Greek. I can
pronounce Spanish but I can't understand it. And I know some of you can pronounce
Klingon very well. I've heard it. They were worried and took pride
in the fact that they were not deceived. They were worried others
were being deceived. And they said, have any of the
authorities of the Pharisees believed in them? Who else has
believed? This cannot be. Someone has to
stop this. Friends, this is true for our
present day Christianity inside the circle of the true Protestant
traditions, inside of the circle of true Reformed tradition, inside
the circle of true Calvinistic tradition, inside the circle
of true Baptist tradition, you notice the word that seems to
be constant? Tradition. And we keep on going until we
get all the way down, and all of a sudden, we hold tradition
loosely, and we hold tightly to the authority of the word
of God, and when there is conflict, we correct. Well, in the authority
of Scripture, not the authority of tradition or history. And
I'll be quite honest with you, I don't care what Calvin said
about John's Gospel, I want to see what God said as he wrote
it through John's mouth and pen. It's not up for individual interpretation,
it's up for divine interpretation, exactly how it's written in the
simple grammar of a language that you and I speak, sort of.
Talking about English. We don't come just because we
are this or that or this or that with the label. We're not identical
to everybody out there who holds that label. Heavens to Betsy, whatever that
means. Probably means something terrible I shouldn't use. Robert
will correct me after the service. But heavens to whoever People think that denominational
names means that churches are all the same. Friends, how many people call
themselves Reformed, but everything about their congregational administration
is a violation of the teaching of what Scripture says should
regulate the worship of the assembly? which we call RPW, the Regulative
Principle of Worship. Why? Because we've got to call
it something. That thing we do was taken. Why? Because if we could say
we believe one thing and then we do something different, it
just sort of doesn't match up. It could be that we're just in
error and need to mature and grow up a little bit. That's
fine. We could say we believe certain
things. We can hold to certain truth. But if we continue to
teach something that's not true or doesn't align with that truth,
then we're really not holding to that truth at all, are we? And the Jews said here that they
held to the truth of God. They were looking for Messiah.
There He was, evident to many, evident to them in their cognitive
understanding of the history of their own prophets, yet they
could not see it fitting into the confines of their cultural
religion. Beloved, the true gospel, the
church of Jesus Christ, the sheep of Christ who hear His voice
and hold to the Word of God as supremely authoritative, who
love each other and live in community in the context of the instruction
of Scripture, are always going to be small in comparison. And they're always going to have
the smallest voice, and the larger whales will swallow up the tiny
minnows. Why do you think it's constantly
taught in the Scripture to persevere? You think it's just because when
our heads are coming off our bodies? Listen, the proverbial
head coming off our shoulders is exactly what's happening in
the sense of emotional disdain and frustration, relational division,
cultural division. The stronger we stand on a position
of explaining the truth of Scripture, the clearer distinctions will
be made, and people who do not like the baby that they hold
and coddle to be called ugly or an idol will come after us
with a tenacity that's never been paralleled. We must persevere in that fight.
And the good news is that we don't have to persevere. Christ
is victorious for us. He causes us to hold fast. But
now here's the funny thing about this. Verse 49 shows you the heart. Listen very carefully. This application
is going to be stressful for us. But this crowd, these people, this part of the
world, those types of folks, or whatever else your translation
might say, Those people, these people that do not know the law
is accursed. You hear what they just said?
You know who they're talking about? The worshipers who were
in the temple, who were there for the feast. Those who might
even be saying, he might be the Christ, he might be the prophet.
Isn't this man from Galilee? Don't we know his daddy? The disdain that Jews had, that
the leaders had, that the religious zealots had, that the teachers
had for the common person. When I say common person, I mean
just like in general, the general population. I said that one time
and somebody thought I was being condescending. The general population,
they hated not just the Samaritans, the half-bred, half-religious, variants of Judaism, and not
just the Gentiles, but even their own kinsmen. And especially those
who would question, well, maybe this man is from God. Has not the Pharisees already
said that he was from God? But they were willing to do away
with him. This shows us the very heart of these spiritual leaders
who say they love God, but they hate every man but themselves.
Listen to this, church. They were worshiping. And as
long as they were getting the homage that they deserve, and
the glory that they... I mean, imagine the pomp and
circumstance of having that golden pitcher, filling it from the
pool of Shalom, and then walking it into procession to pour it
into the altar. And the steam and the celebration
of the singing of the psalm. Imagine the little kids sitting
there looking at the priests as they walk by. Oh, wow, it's
a holy man, mama. Shh, don't talk in church. I've
got to go to the potty. You've got to wait until the
water gets poor. And when the steam starts, then we'll go.
Same problems 2,000 years ago. Imagine the esteem of these wives
and women there thinking, man, I wish my husband was able to
become a priest. Why'd he have to be born to a
carpenter? Why did I have to marry this guy? He's not doing
anything with his life. His hands feel like sandpaper.
He smells. These people bathe every day.
Wow, how clean they are, you see. Man, I wish they could,
wow, esteem. And the theologians in the crowd,
well, look at these men. They know their stuff. I could have been
a Pharisee because look at all that I know. I'm a Google theologian. I could have been a Google Pharisee.
I mean, you know. And so on, so on, so on. Whatever
praise they got, as long as people were giving them the honor and
the glory, they were fine. They loved these people. No,
they didn't. They loved what it did for them. They loved what
it made them feel. They loved the gaze. They loved the astonishment.
And they even loved when the small little factions would go,
Ah, you're not that... Or they could show disdain. They
were esteemed by their fellow countrymen. Oh yeah, those Samaritans
are stinky. They're terrible people. They're
terrible in their doctrine. They don't even know the one
true God. As we saw in John 4, they learned the one true God.
By the mercy of Christ, He saved, the Holy Spirit saved that woman
from Sychar, and truth came to the Samaritans. Just days after
Jesus was kicked out of the temple verbally, after cleansing it,
rebuked rather, These Pharisees then begin to say, everybody,
this whole crowd, this whole group, the truth of their hatred
and bigotry was evident here. This whole group are accursed
because they do not know the law. Now, I could preach the rest
of our time today on that. But I would prefer you to listen
to the Wednesday night series if you're not able to come, because
we're in that portion of Scripture that talks about the law. The Jews had racism. The Jews
had bigotry. You want to know what it's like
to deal? You want to know what the church
ought to do in the answer to social justice and racism? Church
discipline, that's what, and that's the end of it. The Word
of God is authoritative enough to deal with the sins of man
no matter what they are, how big they are, or how much collaboration
may seem necessary. The church doesn't need resolutions,
it needs the Word of God to be taught faithfully by nobodies
who don't want to be somebody. That wasn't the crowd here in
Jerusalem. And even Nicodemus, who is the teacher of Israel
according to Jesus, what does he say? Something really dumb. Verse 51, does our law judge
a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he
does? Where'd that come from? Where'd it come from? I mean,
I've peeled through cross-references and I don't find, I'll be honest
with you, I don't find that authoritatively distinct in the law. As a matter of fact, I see quite
the opposite. If two witnesses come, case closed. Stephen didn't get a chance to
be watched. Stephen didn't get a chance, as we'll see, not in
this, but As you know, Acts chapter 6 and 7, Paul didn't hold a hearing for
Stephen. He didn't look to see if his life measured up to the
law. Don't you know these people that don't know the law? They're
all accursed. They're all accursed. We're the ones who are not accursed.
We know the law. An academist like Bedut and Harlaw
said that he didn't even know the law. He didn't even know
how to appropriate the administration of his own law that he was the
teacher of, supposedly. Friends, it's the same thing
that's going on today. Well-meaning men who spend more time wondering
how they're going to answer social issues than they do teaching
the church of Jesus Christ the truth of Christ and empowering
them to live by faith in the One who gave His life for them. We live in a horrible world of
cultural religion that says, if you do this, say this, act
this way and look this way, then you're okay with God. There is
nothing closer to Phariseeism than that. I mean, Roman law. Maybe he was
talking about Roman law. Maybe he was. You know, in Acts
25, it says, So maybe Nicodemus was just confused. Maybe he was
more of a Hellenist than he wanted to admit. But in the end, what ends up
happening here I said, they just rebuke him.
Are you from Galilee too? Remember that? We closed our
service out with that last week. Are you from Galilee, Nicodemus?
You're part of the teaching class? You're a teacher? And you're defending? He's not
really defending him. Nicodemus is just defending fairness. We
later learn in chapter 12 that Nicodemus seems to be born again.
He seems to believe He puts His neck out and sacrifices His life
in a sense. We don't know that He died, but
He hurt Himself by being supportive of Christ. And here, are you from Galilee
too? Because remember, no prophet
comes from Galilee. Jonah? Jonah was from Galilee. There
were several other prophets from Galilee. But these people are
so bent. They say, no. Why don't you go search and see?
You know what they just told Nicodemus to do? Let's make sure that no
prophet comes from Galilee. I want you to search. Where are
they telling him to search? Have you ever thought about it? The Scriptures. They're telling Nicodemus to
go back and learn a little more. They're telling Nicodemus, you
know, when you're the teacher of all Israel, but we're going
to tell you right now, you need to search the Scriptures and see if there's
any teachers and prophets coming from Galilee. You'll find that
it's really not so. Isn't he supposed to come from the city
of David? You need to know your Bible,
Nicodemus. Don't tell us about the Bible. You go search the
Bible. Now this is a peer, and they're rebuking him this way. What are we to do? You know why
we need to use the Bible in our defense of the Scripture? Because
it's the only thing that matters. You know why when we do evangelism
we need to use the context of Scripture, not these colloquial
phrases and these little paraphrases and things that we always like
to hear? If I say Jesus is Lord, what if the Jesus I'm speaking
of is not the Jesus of the Bible? If I say Jesus is Lord in a public
place, what if a thousand different people have a thousand different
contexts in which to believe what Jesus I'm speaking of and
they don't know? You know how they know? I'm supposed to teach
them. So there's no place to yell out in public, Jesus is
Lord. It's not there. Teaching took
place in evangelism. Teaching took place in correction.
Teaching people the Scripture took place in evangelism and
correction. Not philosophy, not argumentation,
not debate. These are foolish things. They're foolish things to God,
but they seem so wise to man. Now go to 1 Corinthians chapter
1. And let me close here. Because some of you may be saying,
well, James, you know, you've sat here and you've talked philosophically
on this issue for forty minutes. And there's enough in that context
there that we could have been done in this sermon in five minutes
and moved on. I won't use a word or a half
a sentence or a phrase. Let me show you the totality
of 1 Corinthians 1. Verse 18. Well, let's back up. Verse 10. I appeal to you, brothers,
by the name of the Lord, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that all of you agree that there is to be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the
same mind, with the same judgment, discriminatory judgment, For
it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is
quarreling among you, my brothers." What I mean is that one of you
says, I follow Paul. Another, I follow Apollos. Another,
I follow Cephas. Or I follow Christ. Is Christ
divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were
you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God I baptized none of
you except Crispus and Gaius, so that none of you may say you
were baptized in my name. I did baptize also the household of
Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether
I baptized anyone else. For Christ did not send me to
baptize, but to preach the gospel. And not with words of eloquent
wisdom lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. For
the word of the cross is folly, foolishness, stupid to those
who are perishing. But to us who are being saved,
it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy
the wisdom of the wise and discernment of the discerning. I will thwart." Where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this
age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? Since
then, for since in the wisdom of God the world did not know
God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what
we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs in Greek,
seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified." Listen to this, a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who
are called by God, by the Spirit, by the Word. Both the Jews and
Greeks. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For
the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men. for consider your calling, brothers."
Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many
were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.
But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.
And God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised
in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing
the things that are, so that no human being might boast in
the presence of God. And because of Him, you are in
Christ Jesus. who became to us wisdom from
God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it
is written, let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." And you know that's like six
sermons in that text. Let's pave it over here to where
we were. The Pharisees were not going to be saved. Isaiah 6 is fulfilled in John
chapter 12, Jesus' own words. This is fulfilled in your hearing.
They hear but not perceive, they see but not understand, etc.
I dulled their ears and I blinded their eyes and I messed up their
mind. So they would not believe. Secondly, we see revival, we
see repentance, we see salvation coming to the Gentile world,
to the nothings of the world, to the lowly things of the world,
to the despised things of the world, to the shamed things of
the world. And those that were, and those
that were zealots, and those that knew the law, they didn't
see salvation. They could not see salvation.
For Jesus came to the sick, not the well. Jesus came to find
the lost, not the found. The Pharisees will say to Jesus,
so what are you saying about our blindness, you say? Are we
guilty? Well, you said that you could
see, so yeah, you're guilty. But you're really blind guides.
For in the world that we live in, the cultural Christian world
that we live in, the overwhelming infusion of constant teaching
that is wrong, that is placed on the corner of this semi-legalistic,
semi-self-centered, semi-humanistic Synergistic type gospel, it's
no good news at all, is sinful. God uses the nothings, the dummies, the weak. He doesn't use the
strong and the talented so that we can boast only in
Him. I want you to think about that for a second. There is no wisdom outside of
Christ. The answer to the things that
this world throws up, and when I say world right now, I'm including
all the cultural Christians. The Christians who for 30 years
have been inside some place among some people that they would say
are their church, but yet they refuse the gospel of grace. They
love their pastor, they love their teachers, they love the
Bible, they love a Jesus, they love all this kind of stuff.
And their Christianity goes as far as their tied envelope. You know, you used to get the
boxes with the numbered envelopes in it. And the plaque on their Sunday
school room with their great-grandmother's name on it. And the bake sale that they gave
to them. Nothing wrong with that. I'm
just saying that's as far as their Christianity goes. The
quarterly teaching out of Scripture. No digging. And then when somebody
comes along and says, Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus
is the living water. Christ alone is your hope. You
must believe in Christ, this Jesus who accomplished this work
for His sheep. And you, if you are a sheep,
will hear the voice of our Savior, and you will believe and follow
after Christ. Will you believe in Christ today?
And they go, I've been a Christian forever. No, no, no, no. You're not listening. Believe in this Jesus. Well,
I got saved at the summer camp meet. I heard that testimony back in
the spring from a man. I know I'm going to heaven because
in 1962 I got saved at the summer camp meet. How's that happen? Well, I went forward and the
pastor saved me. That was his exact words. I said, have you ever heard that
Jesus died for the sins of His sheep, to atone for them, to
bring them together to God, to bring His elect home, so that
He would be glorified in His grace toward them. He satisfied
the judgment of God for those who belong to God, and the Father
will give them to the Son, and the Son has saved them at the
cross, and He will send His Word and the Spirit to bring them
to life, and they will believe and trust in Christ." Well, I
ain't never heard nothing like that. Well, my friend, you've
never heard the gospel. Don't you tell me I'm saved. I don't have to tell you, sir.
I mean, that's an enemy maker, y'all. That makes people angry. When someone who has been born
again in 1962, God did birth them again maybe at that summer
camp because they heard the Word of God read to them. Remember
they read it in their room that night when they were, you know,
17 years old. And then the next night maybe
some guy did say, hey, come on down here if you're saved. And
maybe God had saved them. It's not because of what they
did, it's in spite of it. And then somebody comes along
and teaches them the Scripture, and they see this Jesus that
they knew, but never knew that deeply. And they go, wow, what
a glorious Savior I have. This sovereign grace, this glorious
Gospel. Wow, I never knew just how deep
the riches of the grace and the glory of God ever were for me.
Wow, hallelujah. Oh, it's hard to deal with, but
glory be to God. See, that's what happens when
the sheep hear the newness and the depth of the teaching of
the Gospel. That's why pastors should teach the church the Scripture
so that we can grow in our understanding of grace. Friends, we must recognize
that our culture is living and standing dead before the Lord
in a stagnant of religion. Stagnation of religion no different
than the Pharisees of first century. What's the remedy? We don't need
books. We don't need popular preachers. We don't need pomp and circumstance. We don't need wisdom. We don't
need all of these really cool relative outpourings of teaching. We need to teach the Word of
God in the context in which it's given. And watch this foolish,
ignorant man open his mouth and wisdom come out. And people will
say, just like those officers said, no one's ever taught this
way. If I could preach in any pulpit
in the county, it wouldn't be worth listening to. And I'd never do this to you,
but you ever had a guest preacher? You know what I'm talking about? In the years past, a guest preacher,
and they show up and they're like, everybody's going, man,
I hope our preacher gets back soon. And that seems flattering. By the Lord's grace, you've never
been exposed to heresy, as long as you've been a part of this
family. You've never been exposed to
someone who was not vetted and qualified according to Scripture,
not my standard, the Word of God standard, to be able to know
the truth of the Gospel. If somebody stands up here and
exposits, it's because we trust they know the truth, and if they
don't, Night at the Apollo has nothing to clear a stage that'll
take place in this place. You know, the hook, you know? That might not have been a good
reference. Remember they'll hook these two?
Nuh-uh, it wouldn't happen. Let me ask you this question
in closing. How do you respond to this persecution
in your life today? Is it with fear and trepidation,
knowing that only God can change it? Great. Is it with a desire
to go and get in the Word of God? Not buy a book on this or
an article on that. Nothing wrong with those resources.
But friends, get in the Bible. Let me tell you something. If
you are in the Scripture today, reading and reading and reading,
when the time is right, God will open that Word to you in a supernatural
way that you will not believe. And then when you get through,
man, I wish I could remember all that that I just said. It comes. See, y'all think I've got a good
memory. No. I have to think about my middle
name sometimes when people ask me. But the Word of God, if it's
in it, God the Holy Spirit will pull us out, pull it out of us. Answer the culture with the Scripture. Let the church be the church
that she has set apart in her practice. and in the position
of the authority of Christ through the Word of God, so that no one
can say, those people are so smart. Those people are so wise. Let the world say, y'all are
dumb as a bag of rocks. I can't believe y'all believe
what y'all believe. And keep teaching them what we
believe. Because, friends, the Gospel
divides the sheep from the goat. Let's pray. I pray, Lord, that as we closed
out this text, I didn't even get all the application
I wanted out of that, Father, but the Lord's Your Word and
Your will be done Christ is the Lord and He is
most definitely the Lord of this church. And I pray that His Word would
hold fast in us. Deeply protect us. Lord, empower us. Give us a sense
of zeal but not pride. Give us a sense of knowledge,
but not puffed up wisdom. But having the true wisdom, who
is Jesus from scripture, having the true understanding of the
gospel through the spirit, which is from the word of God, Lord,
we might be light in this world. That we would correct our opponents
with gentleness and respect. praying that You would grant
them repentance, that You would change their mind, that You would
regenerate them by Your Spirit, Lord, that they may become alive. Father, I thank You for this
Word. I thank You for the Gospel. I thank You that Christ is all
that is needed and has satisfied all the requirements of the law
and has satisfied all the requirements of Your righteousness, all the
requirements of Your justice, everything. There is nothing
that we need to do but rest in the fullness and the sufficiency
of the work that You have finished in Jesus Christ. When He said,
It is finished, Father, it is finished. Let us believe in all
the work of our Lord for us. And as we labor, as we work,
as we suffer, as we go well, and as we fall backwards sometimes,
Lord, let us never try to work to please you unto our justification. But Lord, let everything that
we do be because of you and from you as part of our celebration. Because we are yours, and nothing
can stop us from being yours. 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
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