This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. Let's pray, Church. Father, I pray as You've taught
us in Your Word that it will not return to You void, but it will do that which you
intended for it to do. So today, God, I pray that for your people,
that it be your will that you intend to grow us, to encourage
us, to rebuke us, to equip us, to train us in righteousness
through the teaching of scripture. Father, that our children would
be caused to listen this day. and that we who have to handle
them, even when we think they are distracting, Father, that
we would not be distracted from the hearing of Your Word. Let us spend more time soaked
into the words of Christ than we are the troubles of this world. the fears of this world, the
trials of this life. And Lord, by all of your mercy
and power, help us never to mix the two, to convolute the gospel
and try to use Christ to justify our own natural and
fleshly wisdom. Father, I pray that as we've
assembled here this day, God, that You would give us joy, that
You would grow us deeply in love with each other. Father, that
we would never look at the body of Christ, the church assembled,
this place, in this place, as something to do or some place
to be. Oh God, how demonic we have allowed
the truth of the church to become. By Your mercy, God, thank You
for opening our eyes. Pray, Lord, that Your Word would
powerfully work in us, that we might rejoice, that we
might share the Gospel, that we might love each other because
You have first loved us. In Jesus' name, Amen. We're basically picking up in
verse 29 from last week and moving into the text that you heard
this morning. because it just seemed to be a little rushed
as I ended last week's message. But I want to say from the onset
that what we've been seeing here in John chapter 6 and John chapter
7 is this true display of the natural essence of humanity.
This correct and obvious expression of worldliness even though it may seem like
it's religion, it's worldliness. This expression of haughtiness,
of we know the truth and you do not, they're saying that to
Jesus. They stand firm on their convictions.
The mix between the crowds of Jerusalem and the pilgrims of
Galilee that are there in Jerusalem and the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the scribes and the priests which make up the Sanhedrin,
how they all interact with Jesus and think of Jesus and how everything
that has taken place thus far in the three years of Jesus'
public ministry has tainted the view of every person who's ever
heard of Him. And so there's not one area of
first century Palestine, there's not one area of this in the world
at this time who does not have some presupposition of who Christ
is, some prior assessment, some tradition or whatever I would
like to say, mama and daddy doctrine, grandpa theology about who Jesus
is and what He came to do. And friends, nothing has changed
in 2,000 plus years in the nature of man. Nothing has changed in
the 10,000 plus years of the written history of man. Humanity,
as long as it has existed, has had a presupposition, a prior
assessment, a prior understanding that has been influenced not
by the freedom of our will, but by the inference and the infusion
of outward stimuli that has caused us to think what we think. None
of us are free in our minds to think. We are all slaves to the
conditions of our being, to the essence of our nature, and to
the external things that weigh down upon what we believe. The
only escape from this is that through the hearing of Jesus'
Word, by the Holy Spirit, we are transformed by God. It is
not a work that we work with God. We don't work with God to
be transformed. He transforms us. A thousand
percent of all the transformation that takes place is all of God.
We call that monergism. One power. One action, one working,
and it is all the work of God. There is nowhere in Scripture
where the Bible teaches that man comes to this knowledge of
Jesus and then somehow works it out in his own efforts and
then comes to the right truth and then God goes, whoo, I'm
so glad he came to the right conclusion. No, God causes the
right conclusion supernaturally through the teaching of the Word
by the Spirit. And beloved, just as the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and the scribes and the priests and the Galileans
and the Jerusalemites all had their idea of who Jesus was,
just as the Samaritans from Sychar and all of the Greek and Gentile
peoples of this day all had their own understanding of what religion
was and what Christianity was and who Jesus was and what the
truth was and who God was, and they all claimed to know what
they knew, they were all wrong. The masses are never right. You ever thought about that? History is never accurate. Depends on who writes it as to
what gets pulled out. We don't come to a knowledge
of truth that's tainted with a little bit of lie and say it's
truth. One roach in the pot is a tainted pot, right? Doesn't
matter if we fish it out and bring it to a boil, none of us
with that knowledge would eat of it. Well, maybe some of us.
I know some of you rednecks. A little protein doesn't hurt
anybody. Not me. Matter of fact, we would be persona
non grata at that location if it were a restaurant. There would
never be a time where I would be allowed back there. And we have that much discernment
about what we eat, how much more discernment do we need by what
we eat spiritually? Friends, there was a gathering
in Jerusalem. There was a church, Ecclesia,
in Jerusalem known as Judaism, and it was a cult. I wrote this in my notes as Brother
Mike was reading the Scripture so that I would not forget it.
But I have started calling, instead of saying the so-called church,
I have started calling what would be defined as those gathered
people under the false gospel claiming to be in Christ, the
evangelical cults. Now this may seem extremely I don't know, overzealous on
my part, but I'm tired of having to make the distinction between
the people of Christ and the people of Satan by using the
same language. Just like the Jews used the same
language about God and Messiah and the law and grace, but when
they tried to apply it to the very nature of the truth of Christ,
they could not see it match. And therefore, everyone in that
area was inundated with different points of view using the same
language. I want to stop trying to have
to define the word every time I speak to a different crowd.
So, the evangelical cults of America are not the church of
Jesus Christ. Now, who are they? Those who
reject the gospel. Where are they? Well, we could
be sitting right here. The minute we think that, oh,
we're not the cult, we're not the ones in error, could very
well be the day that we are. We hold to the truth of the gospel
humbly, tightly, with great trepidation, for if it were not for the power
of God, we would all be left to slip into unbelief." I want
you to hear that, church. Never should there ever, ever,
ever be spiritual pride. Even when I preach from John
7 and we see those people who did not believe the gospel, and
then we make application of our present day and we say, oh, those
people who don't believe the gospel, we may very well be pointing
into the mirror. if God does not continue His
grace upon us. So let's be very careful and
let's be very thankful that God is gracious to us. John 7. They've already said that we
know where this man comes from. As I've said last week, there
was this myth about Jesus being mysteriously from nowhere. It's
not found in Scripture, but it's found in the Jewish writings
and historians. And Jesus answers them divinely
as they murmur, you know where I come from. But what does He say? We know where this man comes
from. When the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes
from. Jesus says as he taught the temple, you know me and you know where
I come from, but I have not come of my own. I have not appeared
in my own accord. He who sent me is true. And then
Jesus accuses them one more time, and him you do not know. And
him you do not know. You do not know the Father. You
do not know God. Friends, let me share a little
story with you. There are times, but specifically I remember several
that were very bad, where when I would share the Gospel with
people in a group, and we would have conversations about Scripture,
and the conversation would be an opportunity to reassert the
truth of Christ, and we would reassert the truth of Christ,
and then I would see someone in that group who claimed to
be in Christ, and then they would have this very awful scowl upon
their face, like they were angry with what I was saying. And I
would look at them, and I did look at this one person one time,
and I said, do you believe this? Do you trust in Christ? And their
response was extremely odd. The response was not absolutely. I believe in this Christ that
you talk of. I believe with the Bible. The
response was, how dare you question my faith? Two things are at work there.
An unregenerate person or the devil speaking through a person. This person years later proved
to be regenerate. but years earlier proved to be
unregenerate. Because when anger is the response of the truth
of Christ, and an opportunity to obey the command to always
be ready to give a reason for our hope, comes with anger, how
dare you, you know. It is evidence enough to assume
that person is lost. Even if one comes to us and says,
I don't believe you're a Christian. Tell me how you are a Christian. If that offends us, wah. Woe
to us who are offended by the opportunity to explicitly express
the gospel. But now, will our flesh be offended?
Absolutely. Our flesh will be offended. You
can't tell that I'm a Christian? Obviously not. You know, that's
been said to me before. As someone turned around and
said, I thought you were a Christian when I was talking about something
specifically that I didn't know was unchristian. And then when
he shared with me his thoughts about this particular thing,
I felt really small. But it wasn't anger that roots in us, it is
brokenness. It is something that's called
conviction. That we go, wow, let me tell them what I believe. But see, that's what's happening.
That's exactly what's happening here with the Jews. Unregenerate,
religious, pious people who loved what they thought was God, but
they were worshiping Satan. And people go, no, no, that's
not true. The Bible, the Old Testament, you can... So, Jesus
is wrong when he says that they worship
their father, the devil, when they worship through the Old
Testament in their own understanding of it. No, Jesus isn't wrong.
We're wrong. And if the Jews here were worshipping
the true God of the Old Testament, but they were just a little off
or a little wrong, then are they worshipping the God of the Old
Testament? in the same way the Muslims do, in the same way the
Mormons do, in the same way the Jehovah's Witness do. Now we
would never call those groups of people God's people that have
truth but are just a little bit misunderstood in the same way
we cannot call these who are the audience of Jesus here in
John 7 a little bit misunderstood. Beloved, there are many people
who gather in the name of Christ who are not Christ's people.
There are many people who would gather in the name of truth who
do not have the truth. There are many people in this
very day. Friends, do you really believe that our culture is 90%
Christian? Come on. I believe that the number of
Christians that are truly regenerate in America are less than a percent. And I can only measure that based
on what people say the gospel is. Some of us may be unregenerate
in the room. Some of our friends and family
may be unregenerate, but for years have claimed to be in Christ.
It's not our claim to Christ that causes us to be saved, it's
Christ's claim on us. Jesus answers them, I know Him.
I know the God that you do not know. See, isn't that an amazing
evangelistic tool? Isn't it the same tool that Paul
used with the Greeks, with the Areopagus? Yes. Look at all these gods that you
claim to know. Well, I know the one true God
of them all, and His name is Jesus. And He is unknown to you. And many of them scoffed, for
they saw it as frivolous and foolish, like most professing
atheists do today. Oh, it's foolish to believe in
a God. Then stop arguing with me over fairy tales then. Be
quiet. Bethune? I mean, you know, that's
not how evangelism worked, is it? No, Paul, just like Jesus
says, I know the one true God that you claim to know. And God's
people who He is drawing, who He is going to give to the Son,
who He has given to the Son, they go, oh yeah, tell me. Maybe
I've been wrong all these years. Tell me the truth. Maybe I just
don't know more. If we are truly God's people,
we want to know everything about who our God is. We want to know
Christ to such a detail that there is nothing else that matters
in the world. Friends, there is no sport, there
is no fashion, there is no family, there is no food, there is nothing
in this world that is greater than the greatness of the savory
sweetness of the satisfaction of Jesus Christ our Lord. So
much so that what causes us to skip meals? Is it work? Is it
leisure? Is it busyness? What causes us
to skip physical meals? Friends, you know what should
cause us to skip physical meals? When we're head down with Christ
and the Word of God and we don't pay attention that we're hungry. How often does that happen? I know Him, Jesus says, because
I come from Him. And if Jesus had never done one miracle,
He still has the authority to proclaim that. And through that
proclamation, God the Holy Spirit can still save people. But He did two miracles. He authoritatively
spoke as God and the Son who comes from God, full of grace
and truth, and yet He still, in the same sense, authenticated
His authority through the power of the divine working of God. And these people, they could not stand it, so they
said, that they were going to arrest Him. They were seeking
to arrest Him. But no one laid a hand on Him, because His time
had not yet come. So, in verse 29 there, as a way
of reminder, Jesus speaks not in His own authority, but in
the authority of God, because He was sent by God, therefore
He is the only one who knows God. So if we, or anyone else,
are to know God, we must know Christ. Jesus' authority is supreme because
He was sent by God. The very presence of Jesus standing
before these Jews was authoritative enough. He is true, and the Father
is true, and therefore the Father sent Me. You see how Jesus never
used an apologetic to try to prove that He was God? He just
continued to assert it. God is true, and He has sent
Me, therefore I am true. And what are the Jews charging
with? You testify on your own account. And he says, no, the
Father testifies of me, the Spirit testifies of me, Moses testifies
of me, Abraham testifies of me. How many more do you want me
to give? Jacob testifies of me in John 4. How much more do you
want? What patriarch do you want to
hang up? What theologian or 50-year pastorate do you want to hold
over the Word of God? You know what makes a man authoritative
in his teaching? Nothing. Christ is authoritative. So if we teach not Christ, we
have no authority to even open our mouths. If I'm a pastor for
21 years, and some guy down the road's a pastor for 2 years,
he speaks Christ, I don't, he's authoritative. It doesn't matter
how long someone's been in ministry, how long someone's been in school,
how many initials are after their name, how many languages they
know, how much Greek they can parse, or how many times they've
preached a particular sermon. Friends, you can memorize words
just like you can memorize lyrics of a song, and you can memorize
sermons too. And you can bark the same error
for decades without ever coming to a knowledge of the truth.
And people will say, amen, and they will follow you. And then
when the scripture comes to life through an infant and the Jesus
of the Bible is proclaimed, those who hold to the traditions of
men's usurp the authority of God himself, when they place
the authenticity of the truth and the expression of the knowledge
and the wisdom of men because of their tenure and because of
their platform as authoritative over Christ. If my sermons are different than
someone else's, then one of us is wrong. Or both of us could
be wrong. But if we preach Christ, it is
never wrong. It's not popular. Beloved, the
whole idea of the church in our present day is wrong. The whole
idea of the assembly is wrong. It's no different than Judaism.
We'll get there. Jesus is authoritative. And He's
the only one that can cause these people to believe and to see
the Father and to know Him, because God has handed all things to
the Son, and only the Son can grant life.
So they were seeking to arrest Him, verse 30, but no one laid
a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come, yet many of
the people believed in Him. And they said, when the Christ
appears, will He do more signs than this man has done? So all
of a sudden, people begin to hear what this man was saying,
what Jesus was saying. They begin to see that the leaders
hated him and that the people of Jerusalem were sort of going
with the leaders. They're allowing this man to
speak. Now, is it coming back to you from last week? And then all of a sudden, the
crowd begins to say, how many more signs could this man do
to prove who he was? How many more signs does this
man have to accomplish before he's seen as Messiah? Don't we
know that he's Messiah? Now the Jews or the Jerusalemites
are saying, well, maybe they know he's Messiah, that's why
they're not putting hands on him. What are they scared of? They know
something we don't? Now here, these people begin to start turning
their minds into the idea that maybe this man is Messiah. And they begin to voice it in
the temple, at the temple of Booth's. And by the way, six
months from now in this narrative is the Passover, which would
be in April of year 30. And that would be when Jesus
dies. And the Pharisees heard, verse
32, this is where we are today, heard the crowd muttering these
things about Him. And the chief priests and the
Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him. So they wanted to lay hands on
him, but they couldn't because it was not the will of God that he be
arrested then. But six months later, it would
be. Through the workings and the dealings of the chief priests
and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes, working together
with Judas Iscariot, who would betray Jesus by the will of God
the Father, who had decreed it down to the detail before there
was ever anything created. For those of you who watched
the live feed tonight, that's called supralapsarianism. Don't
worry about it. Figured y'all get a kick out
of that. So what does this show us here in verse 32? When people
begin to attest to the glory of God, when people begin to
see life change, when people begin to see regeneration, when
people begin to see worship and rejoicing in the true gospel,
what happens to those who have something to lose? Namely, glory,
self-glory and faith. They hate the people and they
hate the message. Friends, I want you to listen
to me. People hate the gospel. And it wasn't the Greeks who
hated the gospel the most, it was the Jews who hated the gospel
the most. Because they had the most to
lose. Because they had to come to the realization that all of
their spirituality was for nothing. You see, it's interesting. when
we believe that we have accomplished something for the sake of God's
work, outside of God's absolute sovereign work, outside of His
sovereign power, outside of His sovereign doing. And people have
a hard time coming to grips that the supernatural essence of God's
work is the attention and the salvation of the sheep of Christ
with their hunger after the Word of Christ and their devotion
to the people of Christ. But when people begin to attest
to the glory of God, how many more miracles could this man
do before he's proven to be Messiah? How much more does this man have
to say? I think maybe he's Messiah. Maybe they think he's Messiah.
When people start to attest to this and to the power of the
true gospel, people get angry. The Jews were enraged that people
were coming to the conclusions they were about Jesus. About
Jesus as Messiah, about Jesus origins. He is from the Father.
This man's telling us he's from God. That's why they wanted to
kill him to begin with, remember? That he violated the Sabbath
and he claimed that he was from God, making himself equal with
God. See, the Sadducees, they were
the staunch defenders of the Law of Moses. They were the ones
who said, we've got to get him. Now we're going to cooperate
with the Pharisees who never really saw eye to eye, but now
all of a sudden they have a common enemy. And the priests and the
scribes and these three groups that made up the Sanhedrin, whether
it be an official mark or not, right here at this moment, they
collaborated very quickly and said, okay, put the temple guard
on him. Because they knew that in the temple that the guard
could lay hands on him and keep it out of the eye of Rome. They could do what they needed
to do to put Jesus away for a season until they could get some charge
against him that Rome would authorize his death. But the temple guards could not
get to Jesus, though He was in plain sight. What this must have
looked like. And if you read the very next
verse that we're going to start with next week, what this, Jesus is
not hiding, He's standing there teaching loudly. There's no PA
system for Him. Some of you are thinking, I wish
you didn't have one either, but, you know. He's not standing there
walking around in little circles talking No, He's proclaiming. He stands in the middle of the
temple and He proclaims the gospel, the good news of His coming.
And then after a while, the last day, as we see there at the very
next point, in verse 37, on the last day of the Feast, the great
day, Jesus stood up and it says, He cried out, If anyone thirsts,
let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the
Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living
water." And they still didn't arrest him. There he is. They could not touch him because it was not his time.
I mean, think about this. Jesus claiming to be the living
water. Jesus claiming to be that from which all life flows. Jesus
claiming to be Creator. Jesus claiming to be Savior.
Jesus claiming to be God. Jesus claiming to be Messiah.
And they could do nothing but stand in awe and wait for the
will of God to be placed in their hearts and minds that they would
do that which God had decreed for them to do. That, beloved, is the absolute
reality of sovereignty. And people hate sovereignty until they're born again. But Jesus responds to their desire
to put hands on Him. They were angry. Verse 33, He
says, I'll be with you a little longer. They're talking about
what's getting, let's arrest him now. And he goes, I'll be
with you a little longer and then I'm going to be with the
one who sent me. I grew up in a law enforcement
family. My father's been in law enforcement since I was a baby.
And I've worked a small stint in the sheriff's department and
other places. And I remember many times people coming in and
they're under arrest and they're making bold claims. You're all
gonna die. I mean, you know, oh really?
And you're in handcuffs. and your underwear's hanging
half down. I mean, you know, you're having a bad day, buddy.
You'll be okay in the morning when you sober up. I have magic
powers. I've heard people say that before.
Don't take off my sunglasses. I'll burn you with my laser beams.
Too much Marvel Comics. I mean, that's not what Jesus
is doing here. So I've heard bold claims with
crazy people. Jesus isn't crazy, He's claiming to be. But that's
what they thought. Jesus is bragging. We're going
to arrest Him. And He all of a sudden says,
I'm going to be here just for a little while and then I'm going
where you can't come. I'm going to be with the Father
who sent me. You can't touch me. And where I'm going, you
cannot come. This infuriated them even more.
But there's a proclamation here. Jesus is showing that these men
are powerless except He submits to them. And the only time He
will submit to their desire for His arrest is when the Father
tells Him to. Jesus, I will be with you for
a little while as if to express that their plans have a limit
to their execution. Jesus states this as if he'll
be in the temple for a short while. That's probably what they're
thinking I'm gonna hang out here for a little bit longer than
I'm running away Now see if I were part of the Sanhedrin at the
time and I hear Jesus I'm gonna go to the one who sent me I'm
like put some spies on him and we'll find out where he really
comes from I bet he's staying with a guy named Bob Up on Mount Gerizim. We know he's a Samaritan look
at him But when He says, then I'm going
to Him who sent me, they knew what He had been talking about,
they knew what He was saying, and that ignited a fire inside
the groups who hated Jesus to such a degree that it was absolutely
guaranteed that when they had the opportunity, they would arrest
Him. But He's reasserting that which He had always claimed.
He never claimed to be from any place except from the Father. But we know that Jesus ultimately
is talking about the cross. that Jesus ultimately, just as
He was talking in John 6 about the destruction of His body and
the shedding of His blood, that He's talking about the cross,
that when He died in this flesh, He would be with the Father again.
As Jesus prays in John 17, verse 5, and He says, And now, Father,
glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with
You before the world existed. Jesus knows that He's going to
the cross, and He knows that He's going back to the Father,
having accomplished, listen, having accomplished, one more
time, having accomplished everything that the Father sent Him to do. Everything. So then in verse
34, as we see there, He tells them, you will seek Me, and you
will not find Me. Where I'm going, you cannot come. Now see, to the natural flesh
of these Jews, He is saying, who does He think He is, telling
us He can't find Him? He doesn't know our reach. He
doesn't know how widespread our power is. Where shall Jesus go
where we cannot find Him? We will hunt for Him. And He
is saying that we will not find Him? And you see what they say
that they'll do. Oh, He's going into the dispersal
with the other Jews who have forsaken their faith. He's going
to be amongst the Greek, amongst the Gentiles, living in the wilderness. Those people that James wrote
to, and those people that Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews
to, and those people that Peter wrote to, and the partial audience
of Paul's letter to the Romans. Except they were still Roman
citizens, so they had a little bit better standing. You will seek Me, and you will
not find Me. See, when Jesus begins here,
He's teaching and illustrating a natural truth and a spiritual
truth at the same time. He's illustrating a natural truth
that they will seek to try to find Him and arrest Him. And
He's also illustrating a spiritual truth in that they will seek
after Him. Some will seek after Him spiritually.
Some will seek after the truth of Him. Some will seek after
the knowledge of Him. He's speaking literally. When
He says, You will not find Me about the cross and death, He
will be dead in His flesh for three days. Jesus will be gone
from the world during that time, so they will look for Him, yet
He will not be, He will be gone. Also, there are some in the hearing
of His words right there that would seek after Him, listen
to this, but they would indeed die in their sins. They would not find the truth
of Christ salvificly because they would not be made alive
by the grace of God through the Spirit from the Word of God.
The evidence of that is that they refused the gospel of grace
as taught by God in Scripture. They refused the gospel of grace.
You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am, you
cannot come. Now, of course, literally they
could not join Him in death. And literally, they could not
join Him with the Father. They could not join Him with the Father.
I want you to listen to that. Jesus never said, follow me or
you may not come to the Father. Or it might not be possible for
you to come to the Father. He says often, you cannot. He says often, you will not.
He'll say in John 12, it is fulfilled in your hearing this day the
words of Isaiah, you cannot believe because God has hardened your
heart, deafened your ears, and blinded your eyes. Why is it so easy for the natural
man in the name of ministry? You know how Facebook and social
media remind you of what you were thinking years ago? Well,
two years ago today, I made a statement similar to this. I didn't remember
it until today because it so awesomely reminded me of it.
That's why you should put happy thoughts on these things, so
you can remember the happy things. But there are many pastors who
are not in the faith. That's what I was thinking two
years ago today. There are many pastors who are
not in the faith, but yet they're in ministry for years. Evidenced
by what they teach. Evidenced by what they do with
the congregation that God has given them. Evidenced by the
fact that they continue to run away from the gospel of grace,
from the doctrine of truth, from the gospel. Evidenced by the fact that they
have to work so hard to do other things inside their congregation
in order to assimilate people, in order to draw people. Listen,
if we have to do anything that causes people to want to learn
the Word of God, they're not God's people. Now I'm animated
in my theatrics, whatever you call this, speech. I'm animated. It's just my personality. I'm animated when I'm happy,
I'm animated when I'm angry, I'm animated when I'm surprised,
I'm animated when I'm laughing, and when I'm not animated, I'm
asleep. Or hoping I'm asleep. But that doesn't draw you to
the Word. It doesn't help you pay attention.
If you're a sheep of Christ, you hear His voice, you hear
the truth of Christ, and you want to hear it, and you want
to focus, you want to understand, you want to learn more. Friends,
we don't have to do anything but teach the truth of Christ.
The sheep of Christ will come, and they will hear, and they
will live, and they will grow. Spiritually, these people cannot
come to the Father. It is an impossibility for them. People will seek another Jesus
then. They will seek another Messiah.
They will seek a Messiah of society. They will seek everything but
the true Christ. Beloved, it is one of the most
evident things in the evangelical culture of our day that the thing
that causes them to share their faith is the music. Oh, come
here. And some of you can sing like
professionals. You should be up here singing.
You see? But that's not what we draw.
Oh, you should come worship with us. Oh, sister so-and-so, brother
so-and-so. I mean, it's like recording artists.
Who cares? Wouldn't it be funny if we get
to heaven and the angels sound like goats? I mean, you know,
not that it will be, but wouldn't that be funny that the standard
of what we think is awesome is not even awesome to the Lord?
When he said, make a joyful noise, he was literally saying noise.
I hope not. I love good music. That's not
a fan. Don't invite people to come here
to sing. Oh, we got a great kid's program. We got a great kid's
program too. It's called teaching the scripture
while they run around and pull our hair out. And as they grow
a little bit, see, all the children are laughing now, except the
ones that are pulling hair out. And their parents are laughing. But
then when they get about two, they calm down. But that one
to two, it's like, that's where you learn, thou shalt not murder.
You learn to apply it. That's where you learn it. Oh, we need a big youth program.
What are we going to do? Here's our youth program. Look
around, youth. We got youth, a bunch of youth, and they're
learning the Word of God. You want to get together? Get
together. Nothing's stopping us except that we're busy in
other areas of life. But the evangelical cults of
contemporary times say that we must compromise truth for the
sake of what the world does so that we can have a so-called,
quote, Christian alternative to the world's ways. Let's have
Christian movies. Let's have Christian sports.
Let's have... What is a Christian sport? Not kicking dirt or saying, Jesus
bless you, when you stomp on somebody. I mean, what does it
look like? You ever seen church softball? There's nothing Christian
about that. As a matter of fact, church softball halftime is discipline. Or it should be. Those of you
who've played church softball know what I'm talking about.
You've seen the videos of the little league moms and the soccer
moms losing their minds. Well, look at the deacons and
the pastors losing their minds on second base. I love you, brother, in
the name of Jesus, but I'll kill you when I get home. I mean,
you know. We don't need that stuff. It's
not necessary. We're busy enough as a culture. Why don't we do that which is
ineffable and glorious in spite of all that which is worthless?
Let the church be the church, and if we want to get together
and do something, get together and do something. But we don't
draw people to the stuff we do, because here's the real and skinny
and the dirty and the nasty of it all, is that the stuff we
do, if it's not prescribed by Scripture, if we do it as an
obligation of attendance, it is sin. R.P.W. The regulative principle
of worship. It's what we call the Bible tells
us what we should be doing as the church. Now, does that mean
we cannot do other things? We can do anything you want to
do as a family. Anything you would do in your
family that would give glory to God, we can do as a church
family. But we don't make it a program of the church. You
see what I'm saying? Some of you have suggested, hey,
let's get the kids and teach them some songs. Get the kids together
and teach them some songs. Get the kids together, get the
youth together, do something. Great, no problem. We don't want
to skip church service to do it. And some of you have asked
about that, even recently. Let's get together and let's
talk about those things. But what do we do as the church? We certainly
don't use those programs, or not the programs, we certainly
don't use something as a program to draw the lost into the church. If we had a really nice choir,
and I love a nice choir that can sing, Call them the goats.
I mean, you know, it's a joke. We call them the sheep. They
may sound like, but they're lambs. And I love the sound of a good
choir. I love an orchestra. I love good music. I love music.
It can become an idol for me. It's just one of those things.
And you musicians, you know what I'm talking about. but it's not what we do to, I
mean, oh, you know, sister so-and-so or this guy over there or so-and-so
like that, you know, they're just really not in touch with
their faith. This is what most churches do. Let's get them to
come and be part of the music program. Let's get them to come
and be part of this. Let's offer this option. Let's do this outreach. You know what an outreach is?
Taking the Bible to your neighbor and sharing the gospel. I used to love to send in those
NAM reports back in the day, 15 years ago. How many times
did you share the gospel this week? And I'd write, like, 3,000.
Because that was the estimate of the number of people that
I spoke to, either in groups or individually, about the Bible
in some particular way. But what they were wanting is,
how many times did you sit down and do this gospel presentation,
this little four-point outline, this little thing, or whatever?
At that time, it was faith, the faith outline. It was ineffective. So when we can share the Word
of God, when we can share the truth of God's Word, we are sharing
the Gospel. If we're teaching the Gospel
rightly, that will draw the sheep of Christ to salvation. God will
use that to draw His people to Himself. We don't have to have
anything else. We don't have to have relationship
evangelism or any of this other stuff. We don't have to have
all these things. And I know I'm chasing a rabbit
here, but many of you have asked about these things. We don't
have to have anything but the truth to draw God's people to
the truth. And Jesus is saying that people
will seek another Christ. The Scripture teaches that people
will seek another Christ. In Hebrews 12, it refers back
to Genesis when Esau, when it refers back to Genesis. It says,
for you know that afterward when he, Esau, desired to inherit
the blessing, he was rejected. For he found no chance to repent,
though he sought it with tears. The prophet Amos, God speaks. Behold, the days are coming,
declares the Lord God. When I will send a famine on
the land, not a famine of bread. Listen to this church. nor thirst
for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall
wander from sea to sea, and from north to east, and shall run
to and fro, and seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not
find it." Proverbs 1, because I have called
and you refuse to listen, have stretched out My hand that no
one has heeded. Because you have ignored My counsel
and would have none of My reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you
like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when
distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon
Me, but I will not answer. They will seek Me diligently,
but they will not find Me." Friends, listen to this. See, people think a famine of
the Word of God is just the Bibles being banned, or Starbucks putting
something stupid on their cups, or the government being the paganism
that it is, or prayers not in school. This isn't a famine of
the Word of God. A famine of the Word of God is
the second Thessalonians' famine. where many people in the name
of a false Christ become evangelical cults, and they preach a false
gospel or a half-truth, and they gather with the real Bible, with
fake believers and fake temples, and they worship a fake God whose
name is Lucifer, and they do it all in the name of Christ.
And when they don't see the fruitfulness that they want, they placate
to the masses and they provide options that will draw people
in from all over the place. And it's not the truth of Scripture.
It's not Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. It's not
the Word of God. That's where there's a famine
in the Word of God today in America. It's been replaced with something
else. When we say Sola Scriptura, we mean it. The Word of God alone. And beloved,
if we believe Christ, we believe everything in the Word, and by
the mercies of God and the power of His divine work, we will submit
to and obey the teachings of the apostles as the New Testament
church without fail. For Jesus Himself says, and Paul,
through Christ, through Paul says, that those who do not submit
were never of us. That means they were never in
the faith. You know what it looks like? Somebody like me that likes
to teach and preach, in a couple of years, just walking away.
And they go, what happened to James? Surely something must
have happened to James. If that happens to me, beloved,
you know what it was? I was never born again, I just
like to preach. Just like the charlatans of days
of Paul's incarceration, who taught the truth, but they were
not born of God. And Paul said, let them teach
it. Until they start teaching false, let them teach. It don't
matter what their motives are. It's like the atheist that hands
a Bible to his atheist friend and goes, look at this stupid
stuff, and the guy reads it and gets saved. Give it to him. There is a famine of truth and
a famine of salvation for many. In the days of Israel in the
first century, there was a famine. In the days of America today
in 2018, there is a famine, beloved. And many people hold the Word
of God, that's their seeking after Jesus, but they're not
looking and they're not seeing Christ because it is forbidden.
What's the answer to that? That we as the church of Christ
are faithful to the learning and the teaching and the sharing
of the Word of God, and most of all, of equal importance,
that we're faithful to each other in that same thing. We see people seeking after another
Christ in how they worship. God has prescribed how we see
to be worshipped. We don't get to determine it. People seek
another Christ in how they operate their church and their polity,
but we don't get to decide that. Christ's Word has decided that.
People get to decide what they want to do and understand it's
truth, but we don't get to decide that. The Word of God. No one
seeks after Christ, Paul says. No one seeks after God. And beloved,
it is so true today that it's just like it could be a sermon
in itself. Jesus is saying, I'm going to
the Father, you cannot come. And there are many people who
cannot come to the Father because there is a famine of the Word
of God, and it is the judgment of God. People love the darkness
rather than the light because their religious works were evil.
I added religious because of the context of John 3. But the Jews, verse 35, 36, and
then we're done. What do they say? Where does
this man think he's going to go when we will not find him? Where does He think we do not
reach? Oh, does He intend to go to the
dispersion with the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does He
mean, you'll seek Me, and you will not find Me? And where I
am, you cannot come. What does He mean, they say?
See, here's the reality of this. In their own wisdom, people will
claim the truth. But when we act in our own wisdom,
it is impossible for Christ to be out of reach. I mean, it is
impossible for Christ to be in reach. When we act in our own
wisdom, it is impossible for Christ to be in reach. We can
put together a posse. We can put together a search
team. We can put together a committee. We can put together anything
we want to do. But, beloved, without the work of God, it is
impossible. When we act in our own wisdom, it is impossible
to see Christ. We cannot come to our cognitive solutions and
say, oh, yep, I believe all that. Hallelujah. I see Christ. No. Believing in Christ is trusting
in Christ. Having faith in Christ is trusting
in Christ. For what? Number one, salvation.
And most importantly, salvation. He alone, His person, His work,
everything that He's ever taught throughout this entirety of the
Word about salvation is true without fail. This is what God
reveals to those He regenerates. We understand it more and more.
It's clearer today than it might have been yesterday. We grasp
it. We love the truth. We hold fast
to Christ who is the truth. Just saying, oh yeah, Jesus is
God, and He is Messiah, and He is, you know, this fact, that
fact, this fact, that fact, this fact, that's not salvation. If all these facts are true,
not only do we believe they're true, but we trust in them. And
in doing so, we trust in Him. You see the difference? Not just for salvation, but most
importantly for salvation, but also for the sake of truth, for
the sake of everything. Trials, Christ is enough. We
trust in Christ in this trial. Worry, we trust in Christ in
this worry. I did a little mini-series this
past week on my podcast about what hinders our prayers. Doubt
hinders our prayers. Fleshliness hinders our prayers.
Relational strife hinders our prayers. It's like what I read
out of Psalm 1, God will not listen and incline to calamity
because when we don't trust the Word of God and the promises
they're in, we're not believing in them. You see that? Not trusting
is unbelief. But where's our hope in that
when we see unbelief in the faithfulness of Christ? So ultimately, it
doesn't matter when our faith is weak as long as it's there.
And then God strengthens it. See, it's been preached to me
for a long time in years past that you've got to have the strongest
faith, you've got to have a perfect faith, you've got to have a great
faith. No, I've got to have a little faith and a great Savior. I've
got to have just a smidgen of hardly any faith, but all faith
and only Christ. Because if I just have the faith
of a mustard seed that Christ alone is the answer, then I'm
not trusting in anything but Christ alone. And that teensy
little, tiny, feensy little, tiny piece of faith is enough
because it's the only faith that I have. The Word of God is truth. And
they can't see how this Messiah will run out of their reach and
escape their arrest. They think Jesus is claiming
to be equipped to hide from them, but they cannot see that spiritually
He is returning to God the Father through death, and then also
will return alive to earth. Many will gather their own teachers,
as Paul told young Timothy. And many people will say they
know the truth, but the truth is not in their mouth, and they
do not confess it, so there is no truth. but they will pour
over anyone who would stand with a Bible. But in the end, they
love their own glory, they love their own ministry, and they
love their own version of the truth. Shall this Messiah, they
would say maybe, run to the Greeks, run with the exiles, and set
His throne up in Greece? Shall He teach the Greeks? Shall
He be the King of the Greeks? They did not love the truth.
They did not know the truth. Do you? The church are the people who
are united in the truth of Christ. There is no such thing as a church
who do not believe doctrine and unity. Do you know you are in covenant
with Christ and that by command you are also in covenant with
Christ's particular people? We call ourselves Grace Truth
Those who claim to know God, but do not know the Christ, they
mock Christ. And that's what these Jews did, they mocked Him.
And what's crazy is they somewhat prophesied this, because the
Greeks would receive the Gospel in mass number, while ethnic
Jews would refuse the Gospel in mass number. It was all the Greeks, where
the majority of Paul's work was fruitful. He became the apostle
to the apostles, and then the evangelist to the Gentiles, to
preach to them the unsearchable riches of Christ. And out of the Greeks, those
who came were the sheep of Christ, and they were the true Israel
who could see and believe. Ah, He's going to make Greeks
His throne, they mocked. Some Messiah, some Messiah. Those who mock Christ are not
the sheep of Christ. Those who mock the gospel are
not the sheep of Christ. Those who mock the word and the
church of Christ are not the sheep of Christ. No matter what
hunger they may have or may have had for parts of the truth, beloved,
we should not consider people born again who mock the gospel. We should not consider people
born again. I'm not saying who question and inquire and want
to learn. I'm saying those who mock. Those who equate the doctrines
of grace with the doctrines of demons. Let us not forsake the truth.
Let us not forsake the fact that Christ in His mercy has called
us to engage in the Word and to encourage each other therein
as a body. Beloved, you are necessary for
one another in this war. God has equipped us together
to be victorious in Christ as we await to be with Him. And
until that day, it is all of Christ. It is all of Christ. Let us rejoice in that. Let's
pray. Thank You, Father, for the work
of Jesus, for the flesh of Jesus, for the blood of Jesus. God,
You put Him on the cross to satisfy Your judgment against the sins
of Your people. His body was broken, His blood
was poured, and atonement was provided, certainly, effectually,
and He has saved the sheep for whom He died. Lord, through Your
Word, as You call Your church to Yourself, all who You have
given to the Son will come, none who You do not give will come.
Father, may we be submissive and joyfully active in sharing
our faith Father, may we start with ourselves, with our homes,
with our church family, and with the world at large. Lord, help us to be steadfast
under trial. Cause us to rejoice in the midst
of uncertainty. Give us a hunger for Your Word
and a love for each other. Lord, I pray that as we continue
to grow as a body, that Christ and Your Word would be what we
were known for. Nothing else. Though we may do
many things together, though we may sing many praises, though
we may engage in many activities, let it only be for the praise
of Your glorious grace that we're known for. Not ourselves. Not our temporal things. Father, I thank You for these
children who sit here week after week. Lord, that You teach them,
that You grow them, that You would save them. Father, we love
You and we pray these things in the name of Christ. Amen.
Thank you for listening. We hope that this message has
encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to these messages and
other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
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