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. Lord, Your Word is true. Your
power is ineffable. Lord, Your wonder and Your love,
Father, we are in all of You. God, may Your Word penetrate
our hearts this day, that we would know You deeply. Father,
that we would be able to divide error and truth. That we would
understand what it means to truly be in Christ. That we
would see the power of Your Word. That we would experience the
presence of Your Spirit. Father, I pray that Your will
be done, that our joy would be immovable, that our hope would
be everlasting. For as this flesh of ours wars
against itself, as the enemy tempts us to hear and believe
the lies, Father, Your Spirit that seals us until the day of
redemption shall never fail. Your Son, who paid for our sins,
who gave us His righteousness, shall never fail. Father, Your
Word will never fail. I pray that we would hear it.
In Jesus' name, Amen. As I made some statements at
the beginning of our service today about megachurch, and I'm
not calling megachurch. A church can be large without
being megachurch. I'm talking about congregations
of people who come together week after week after week and they
find an affinity in what they do outside of who they know in
the Lord Jesus. They find an affinity amongst
themselves in a way that they seem somewhat proud of what they've
accomplished when they look at what they've built and say, wow,
look at our church. Wow, look at what we provide. One of the clear tales of how
deeply cultural religion in the name of Christ has pervaded and
invaded our lives is that people will sacrifice the truth of Scripture
for the comforts of society. It is a clear indicator of one
who is ignorant, unregenerate even, possibly, Whereas as they
see the world, even in the name of Christianity and its trinkets
and toys and options, they would much rather have the options
and the pleasures of the flesh in the name of Christ rather
than Christ Himself. It's exactly what the believers
of John 2 sought. Many believed in His name because
of the signs that He did. But Christ did not believe in
them. For He knew what was in man,
and no one had to tell Him about the heart of man. In John chapter
3, we see Jesus telling Nicodemus, who professed, We know that you
are the One come from God, but you cannot see or enter into
Me except that you be born from above. How is this so? How can one be born again that
he go into his mother's womb? Jesus says, you marvel. Are you
not the teacher of all Israel? Do you not understand as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man
be lifted, that whoever is the believing ones will not perish?
but they have everlasting life, but those who are not the believing
ones are condemned already this very present day, because they
are not believing presently on the Son whom He has sent. For
God loved the world in this manner, that He gave the only Son that
He had, that those who are the believing ones have eternal life. For God did not send His Son
into the world to condemn it, but that through Him the world
might be saved." People hear that message and
they go, oh yeah, I believe it! Jesus says that the judgment
is this, that He, the Light of God, has come into the world,
but that the people of the world loved the darkness rather than
the light, because their works were evil. And He's talking to
Nicodemus, whose religion was wicked. The teaching of Nicodemus
was demonic. The worship of Nicodemus was
satanic. The offerings of Nicodemus were
pagan. It was all evil. The world looked
on and said, wow, the Jews are so spiritual. They are a depraved,
grossly ignorant, blind people in the day of Christ who loved
themselves and their false God, Lucifer, not the God of heaven. Jesus' ministry was continuing
to these people, and He preached the truth of who He was, and
they spat upon the revelation of God face to face, and they'd
say, we know God, look at what we teach, look at our Bible,
look at the words of Moses, look at the prophets. And they would
just stand firm on their faith, and they would reject Jesus.
Friends, people who tell you that Israel ethnically or the
people of God are as blind as the wall to my right, that is a cultural distinction
that did not exist in this country until the 40s. The only ones
who are true Israel are those who see Christ for who He really
is. Beloved, that's the good news.
You and I as Gentiles are Israel. Not because we are from Abraham,
because we are in Christ. Do not mistake it. Because many
try to parallel Judaism with the Christian church. No, no,
no, no, no, no. Judaism is parallel to Babylon. Judaism is parallel to the cults.
Judaism is parallel to atheism. Judaism is parallel to Satanism. This is the truth of Scripture.
Oh, it points to Christ. Absolutely. I'm not talking about
the Word of God revealed to Israel. I'm talking about the heart of
the men who are Israel who refuse to believe because they love
the glory that comes from them and men like them rather than
the glory that comes from God. And how a human being with an
IQ of 6 or higher can read John's Gospel and not see the glory
of Christ and the glory of God in the face of Christ beats me,
except that the Bible teaches that those who are not given
to the Son cannot see Him. So I cannot boast in my IQ of
8. My cat and I are on... I cannot
boast in an IQ of 12 and say, look at I, I'm so smart, look
at me. No, I boast in Christ alone who
loved me and gave Himself for me, not for every person. For me, and for you, beloved,
and for all the sheep whom the Father will give Him, all the
elect who will come home, all the saints who are counted in
that number, all the world who are the elect of the world. And the Jews marveled. Remember
the two expressions? The Jews marveled, saying, how
is this man, who has no learning, teaching this way? And the crowd,
after he says, that's why you seek to kill me, say, you have
a demon. So there's three groups at play
here. There are the Jews, the leaders, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees,
the teachers, the rabbis, the scribes. There are the crowds
who are the pilgrims, those who have come into Jerusalem from
the Galilean area into Judea for the feast, those who don't
live there, where Jesus had been doing His ministry in Capernaum
and other places predominantly because every time He ministered
in Judea, they just wanted to kill Him. And then there are those Jerusalemites. This is the last time I'll use
that word. There are those who live in Jerusalem who know their
leader's heart. They know what time it is concerning
Jesus. They understand why He needed
to be killed because He violated the very essence of their living,
of their lifestyle, of their faith. Jesus, according to their
own interpretation of Scripture, was an abomination to God. but He is God standing before
them. Yet they could not see Him. And He says, that's why you seek
to kill Me. Who is seeking to kill you? The
crowd asks. Now these Jewish people who lived
here in this region begin to speak. The Jews of Jerusalem,
they say out loud, is not this the man whom they seek to kill?
Here He is teaching in our synagogue. He just called our leaders, what? Reprobates, apostates, blasphemers. He just said that they did not
know God and that they had the law given to them by Moses, yet
they did not keep the law. And these Israelites there, these
Jews in that region, they're like, who do you think you are?
He's speaking publicly against you. What is wrong with you people? Get him. I see what you don't
understand. Imagine, and we've had to do
this in previous churches before where we'd have people proselytizing
heresy openly. And I'm not talking about undercover. I mean, just, it's time for a
break and they're handing out literature. Brother Luke had an apostate
doing the same thing in his church in Reidsville years ago. At the
end of a service, at the end of a meeting, he's handing out
propaganda, wicked, evil, satanic propaganda about a non-gospel,
handing it out. And the brothers are like, please
stop, don't do this. We've had to put hands on brothers
before in California and ask them to please leave the property
lest they not survive. And I had good muscle back in
those days. Not myself, but I mean, big guys that liked to walk around
with me. That was intense. What do you do? You tell them
to stop and then you throw them out the door. Literally, throw
them out the door. I have great men of God who have
taught me much through the years who tell me stories about their
ancestors having to hold up camp inside the church building with
a shotgun so that they don't lose the property to the heathen. I remember one story told to
me by an older man in the Golden Isles who said that he remembers
a deacon meeting when pistols were drawn one time in the 40s.
And nobody wanted to shoot each other, but they knew where each
other stood. And finally a third party pulled out a pistol and
said, I'm going to kill all of you if you don't stop. So they
went home. I'm not saying that's proper
use of our meeting time, certainly not, nor is it even probably
Christ-like, but I'm just showing you that hostility is among us. It's in our culture, it's in
our world, it's in our homes, it's in our minds this very day. And
people come and they preach false things, we have to put them out
of our assembly. Friends, that's what's happening
here in the minds of these Jews. This Jesus fellow has come in
and started teaching doctrines of demons according to their
understanding. And just as we've asked people and very much forcibly
encouraged them to leave the property before, and as those
stories I told you, grunts have been drawn. Friends, that seems
rare in our world, but in the world of the first century, you
did not blaspheme where it did not become a public scene. If
you blasphemed, they would not just tell you to be quiet. They
would forcibly grab you with the temple guards and they would
kick you out of the temple area by force, if you survived it. The brutality of the temple guard
is unparalleled in religious circles, except maybe by the
Crusades. Think about it. So it was not
anything odd for some crazy Gentile to come running into the temple
area and have to be ejected forcibly. It would not be odd for some
weird guy to decide that he wanted to try to talk back to the Jews,
and it was well known that they would have seized those persons,
publicly proclaiming them as blasphemers and throwing them
out of the temple, whereby they would never be able to do business
in Jerusalem again. Their social life was over. Their
business life was over. And here's Jesus, whom they say
is worthy to die because of what He teaches, and they let Him
teach after He calls them publicly in the face of all people. Not
just the members of the Jerusalem city, but also the pilgrims of
that place who had gone there for that feast. Citizens is what
I'm trying to come up with. And there they are. Is this not
the man they seek to kill? Publicly, with their mouth. They
say that in the middle of service. Could you imagine this disruption? This is the man they're trying
to kill. What is he doing standing here still talking? He just called
them unbelievers, violators of the law of Moses. Blasphemy!
Blasphemy! Isn't this the same man that
violated the Sabbath and rebuked them publicly some years ago? This is the man that they want
dead. They're very judgmental of Jesus. Why is it that the
Jews from without, the Galilean Jews, aren't as judgmental? Because
they've been watching Jesus. They've been seeing Jesus. That's
why Jesus' brothers were saying, if you just go in there and teach
and stay cool and simmer down a little bit, you'll be fine.
You go in there, I'm from God, I'm this and I'm that, you know,
stop that stuff. Just teach the Bible just like
the Jews teach it and people will love you, especially because
you can do magic. Especially because you have power,
especially because you can do miracles. See, I'm not making light of
that, I'm just telling you how frivolous their thinking was.
How simple and stupid that our thinking is as unregenerate people
if God does not reveal to us the truth. That we would only
boast in Christ, beloved. But they were judgmental. After
all, the leaders of their city had judged Jesus a heretic, judged
Jesus a blasphemer, a law violator, violating the Sabbath, and then
rebuking them publicly, and then telling someone else to violate
the Sabbath. Remember? Remember what he's
talking about? I did one work and now you marvel,
you're upset about it, now you want to kill me? How did Jesus
know that? Well, number one, they spoke
it. They had meetings about it. Number two, Jesus is divine.
He knows the hearts of men. It's already been taught to us.
But now these people call it out. And they, in their mind,
were more judgmental of Jesus because the leaders of their
town were judgmental of Jesus. Not to say this is any correlation
at all, but it certainly does fit. We had very good hospitality
when we first began as a congregation. Oh, your services are at 2 p.m.? Oh, Pastor Tippins is available
on Sunday mornings. Let's get him to preach here.
Let's get him to teach here. Let's get him to do that. And it was all the
time, every week. And then the so-called leaders
of our area, spiritual leaders, decided that we were not fit
and that we were not of like faith. And then all of a sudden,
all that went away. Overnight, it just went away.
And our Tuesday night courses on church history and all that,
they just sort of went down to two of us. From 30 to 2. Why? Because it's not popular
in your social circle, because your boss may not like it, or
your neighbor may not like it, because you stand for Christ.
In the same way, when Christ's people stand for the truth, when
Christ's people stand on the Word of God alone, the world,
even though they may claim Christ, they hate the truth, they're
not in Christ. It's very easy to become judgmental.
It's very easy to become swayed by those who supposedly are leading
and authoritative. Beloved, it is not someone's
role that makes them authoritative, it is their word. It is not what
they have as far as a title, it is that they teach the truth.
And more importantly, as Jesus would tell us in Matthew's Gospel
in the Synoptics, that they live the truth. Jesus makes accusations of their
leaders and here He is speaking openly and they say nothing.
They say nothing. Why do you seek to kill me? He
says. None of you keeps the law. And no one did anything about
it. What in the world is happening? These Jews want to know. These
citizens want to know why their leaders are allowing this heretic
to continue to teach. What's amazing about this is
that the Word of the Lord will not be stopped. The work of God
will not be stopped. I have a question on the table
tonight. It's an interesting question. If man does not have
free will, how do we look at that inability with the practice
of self-harm? What are we supposed to do with
that? And what it ultimately boils down is about sovereignty.
Friends, let me tell you about sovereignty. If you want to know
the answer to that, or at least my stab at it, 8 o'clock tonight. God the Father decreed all that
would take place in the days of Jesus and in the days of today. And nothing is going to stop
the decree of God. Not the will of man, nor the
choices of man, nor the actions of man, nor the decisions of
man. I know I'm being redundant, but you get the point. None of
these things are going to stop the will of God. God is not this
all-knowing being that looks into the possibilities of the
future and says, Ha! I'll work that into my good.
No, God decrees all things. And God decreed every jot and
tittle of the Word of Christ before the foundations of the
world. And God decreed that these people
would hate Jesus, and they hated Him. And that was the natural
bent of their being. Just like it's the natural bent
of our being. If we were not born again, we would hate Christ.
Even though we would say we don't, we would find another Christ,
the social Christ. the American Christ, the Southern
Baptist Christ, the Presbyterian Christ, the Evangelical Christ,
whatever Christ we could come up, we would find that Christ
and we would make Him our Christ and we would feel satisfied and
moreoverly justified that we had Christ. But the Scripture
says that God is sovereign in all of this and the reason these
people did not do anything about it is because God had willed
that it was not the hour that Jesus would die. And so no matter
how their blood boiled and no matter what authority that they
had, no matter what feeling may have come, whether it be fear
or worry or doubt, as we see in just a few verses, they actually
went to lay hands on Him and they couldn't. Numerous times
they did that. They couldn't. They could only
touch Christ when Christ decided they could touch Him. When He
laid down His life for His sheep alone. That is the truth of who God
is, and that is the truth of who Christ is. Because Christ
is God. So they started to speculate.
Why would they do this? Maybe they know something that
they're not saying. They heard Him, and they were surprised
that He called them out the way that He did, but they let Him
continue to speak. What's the outcome of this? They're
angry. They're angry. You know, everywhere
I look in the New Testament, I see anger as a fruit of the
flesh, a fruit of unbelief, a fruit of the world, a fruit of doubt, fear, a fruit of selfishness. Never is
anger a fruit of the Spirit. Never is anger the work of God.
Well, now God has a righteous anger. Okay. If you have a righteous
anger, if you want to know what the Bible teaches about that,
go back and listen to the teaching there on that. Do not let the
sun go down on your anger. We can be angry about that which
God is angry in His Word, but we can be angry and sin not.
And ultimately, we are not the ones who are offended by that
because we're not God. And though we may have a righteous
anger against unbelief or sin or wickedness or anything else,
who are we to even be angry because we are equally as guilty before
God and His anger should be boiled out on us. Therefore it's not
because of Christ He took the penalty of the anger and the
wrath of God and became our righteousness so that we cannot talk about
being angry with anybody. Now what do we do? Lord have
mercy. Help me, because I cannot not
be angry, except You work it in me. Lord, by the mercies of
Christ and His forgiveness, may my anger go away. Friends, when
people are angry at the teaching of Scripture, there is a bad
problem. See, they were angry at the teaching
of Scripture. It was what Jesus said to them is written down
and I'm saying to you, and we say to others. So it was the
teaching of Scripture, though it wasn't in the written form,
ultimately there it was coming out of Jesus' mouth which was
first-hand. That's the autographer. Not John. Jesus. They hated the Scripture. People want to interpret Christ
the way they want Him to be, not the way He is. So anger is
the forced expression of those who hate the truth. This is the
world in which we live. And predominantly, brothers and
sisters, predominantly, the people who hate the truth the most are
those who profess to have it. You tell someone who is sitting
in congregations this morning, who says, oh, I love the Lord,
He's so good to me. Why is Jesus good? Oh, I said
the Lord. Yes, Jesus. The Lord. The Christ. Or it's always about
God, God this and God that, and oh, God is so good. Is He? You
know how we know God is good because Jesus shows us God fully
in all of His goodness, in the goodness of the redemption of
the church of Christ who deserves all wrath and justice, and the
satisfaction of God's wrath in Christ, and also the goodness
of God and the wrath against the wicked. That's how God is
good. God is good whether He saves
a single man or not. And God is good whether He ever
gives another meal to another mouth. And God is good if there's
no one in the world that is not naked and homeless. God is still
good because God is the High One. And His name is Jesus. He is
the Christ. And He is the King of all kings.
Do you know, beloved, that's why you live? That's why there's
breath in your lungs this day. That's why the things that you
do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on, are for the glory
of Christ and no other. We live for the glory of Christ. We clean toilets for the glory
of Christ. We mop floors for the glory of
Christ. We fill fillings for the glory
of Christ. Whatever we do as believers,
we do it for the glory of Christ, as unto Christ. And in His sovereign
purpose, He permits us to do what we do so that we might give
glory to Him in it, and through it, and for it. And in these days of Jesus, just
like in today, many come to a lie and they claim that it is the
truth. And instead of understanding Christ in His simplicity, I mean,
just as He's given, they think, well, I can make this work for
Jesus. I can make this lie work for
Jesus. I can bring Jesus into this and make it spiritual. Bringing the name of Christ into
something doesn't make it spiritual. Believing in Christ alone makes
everything we are spiritual. Because we do it by faith. We deserve nothing. We've earned
nothing. We are due nothing. You see that? We deserve nothing. We are due
nothing. We've earned nothing. Christ
alone is life. The leaders and the crowds, those
of Jerusalem, they could not grasp what was happening. and many would be thrown out
of the synagogue for much less than this, and there stood Jesus
by the sovereignty of God the Father." But they come to the right conclusion.
Verse 26. They come to a right conclusion.
They say, could it be that these authorities think and know that
this is really the Christ? Could it be? Well, they knew. We know in John 12 that they
knew. We saw it. They knew, in their cognitive
mind, they knew that Jesus was Messiah. The Greek word Christ,
Christos. They knew! And this is what the people of Jerusalem
said. Why is He still teaching? Maybe you all know. Maybe the
teachers know that He's really the Christ and they're not doing
anything about it. Maybe that's what's happening. Maybe that's
what's going on. They're trying to figure out
why their leaders are such failures before them, to not stop this.
Well, the reason they didn't is because God had not willed
it. And that's answered. It's not my opinion. It's answered
right there in the text. Maybe they know He's Messiah,
but they've done all that they can do to discredit this man.
What do they look like now by professing what they think they
know is the truth? That's why He had to die, covered up, just
like David. and his adulterous affair with
Bathsheba, and his attempt to make it right, instead of confessing
and facing, what does he do? He tries to cover it up. He gets
Uriah to come home, but Uriah is too faithful. He won't even
go in his house. He sleeps outside. Even gets
him drunk, and in his drunkenness, Uriah is one of David's mighty
men, by the way, is faithful. And Dave was like, what am I
going to do? This woman, his wife, this is my most trusted,
faithful man. His wife has committed adultery
with me. I'm the king. I must hide this." So they hide
it. Same attitude that David had
in trying to hide his sin by killing Uriah is the same attitude,
the same murderous heart that the Jews of the first century
had toward Jesus. Though they came to the knowledge
that He was Messiah, they hated Him all the more. And so to cover
their failures, they wanted Him dead. It is better, what is it
that the Scriptures say? What does God say? He put in
the mouth of Caiaphas. In John chapter 12, it is better
that one man die than for the whole nation to perish. Beloved, don't even think the
words that come out of your mouth are your own. For God can utter
words through us in the sense that He prophesies through us. Yes, we thought them, we said
them. Just like the Scriptures teach to the prophets that God
wanted people in a place, so He put in the heart of the king
to call a census. And then the king gives an edict,
I want this, and he's doing all that he wants to do. But God
orchestrated it all. Some people have a hard time
with that, but see, this is who Jesus is. The sovereign God of
the universe. The sovereign God who spoke everything
into being. The sovereign God who calls us all that He decrees
to come to pass. So when we complain about our
circumstances, we are spitting in the gift of God for His sovereignty.
Yes, there is times for complaints in our human flesh, right? But
that's why the apostles, that's why God, through the apostles,
says to us in the Word, do not complain. Do all things without
complaining. Endure, young Timothy, by the grace that is yours in
Jesus Christ, so that when we are overcome with complaint and
fear and frustration, we are saying, I will not believe in
Christ. I will not believe in Christ. I do not believe in Christ.
I cannot believe in Christ. Amen. That's the first truth
you've said. that God in His mercy can give us faith. And
that faith is strengthened by the grace of God. And the grace
of God is given through the assembly of the saints and the hearing
of the Word and the prayers of each other. This is where the
strength comes. There is no magic bullet. There
is no magic pill. There is no working our faith
into the social sphere of our lives and thinking that it's
going to come out smelling good. Friends, the longer we stand
with Christ, the more of a pariah we are to the world around us. And to be counted with Christ
in this day, in the days where He walked the
earth, was a death sentence. And Jesus' brothers wouldn't
go into Jerusalem with Him because they wanted Him to conform to
their idea of faith and religion. They didn't want to be counted
with Him. So Jesus goes when? By the sovereign decree of the
Father, when it was His time to go. These people, They probably think
he's the Christ. And they thought they had it
all figured out. Oh, we know what's really happening now. They want to save
face. They want to cover up this stuff right here. But ultimately,
they're not as wise as they suggest themselves to be, are they? These leaders, what they did
to discredit Jesus, poisoned the minds of those people. Poisoned
the minds and the masses of their city. And even in the face of
the leaders concluding that Jesus is the Christ, they are opposed
to the truth. So these Jews answer their own
question, making themselves wiser than their own spiritual leaders.
So you see what's happened here. The Jews have lost their glory
already because of Jesus. Even in unbelief, they have no
glory. They discredited Christ and people
said, oh yeah, this is the man that he needs to kill because
he's a blasphemer. These are our spiritual leaders. Don't
you dare talk about our spiritual leaders. Don't you dare do this. Oh, look
at him. Now he's teaching. Well, maybe
they know he's the Christ. Man, we're wiser than he. Because
we know where this man comes from. That's what they say. We know
where this man comes from. We know where he's from. Now
here's something very interesting about this mindset. It is not
in Scripture. that Messiah would be obscured
in His origin. It is very clear that Messiah
would come from God. It is very clear that He would
be born in Jerusalem of a virgin. It is very clear that He would
be in the region of Galilee. It's very clear. So they weren't getting this
idea from Scripture, they were getting this idea. The most I
can see, I mean, you see Josephus writing about it, you see some
historians. The most I can see is that there is a Jewish tradition,
just like the Pool of Bethesda, that had no power ever, no one's
ever been healed. It's a myth, it's a lie, it's
a superstition. Nobody's ever been healed in
the Pool of Bethesda. There's no angel flapping his wings in
the water and somebody getting healed. It's not true. Just because
it's recorded that people believe that in the Bible doesn't make
that belief true. The same thing is true with this.
Jesus, these people, all their lives were taught, no, the Messiah's
just going to come out of nowhere. Nobody's going to know who He
was or where He came from. Oh, it's just like this mystery
man. Whoo! It was a mystery man made visible. He did live a life of obscurity.
But this is Jewish tradition. This is not biblical teaching.
And they were holding, yet again, to something that was not true.
And in a way that they felt superior in their wisdom against their
own spiritual leaders of that day. This foolish claim proved that they were just like
their leaders. Blind and ignorant. This is the
foolish claim, when men consider the Christ in their own wisdom.
Well, this is who Jesus really is, some will say to me. This
is what God really does, some will say to me. And I inquire
where that might be found in Scripture, and they go, well,
you know, I know God. I have a personal relationship
with God. Friends, if you don't have the
Word of God in you every day, you're not walking in Christ
at all. The day that you don't pick up the Bible, you've not
walked with Christ. Period. The day that you decide
that not being in the assembly is greater, is a choice. Let's say, the day that you decide
that something else is greater than being in the assembly of
the saints, you've not walked with Christ. I didn't say you
lost your salvation. I didn't say, but you're not
with Christ. You're not with Christ when we don't do the simple things
of being with the Word of God. This is Jesus. This is Christ.
That's why we must eat it and digest it. And we must not give
counsel that's out from it. We must come from within. We
must be together that we may be accountable to do so and also
be encouraged in the faith, be corrected in the faith, be challenged
in the faith. Jesse and I had a conversation
the other day trying to encourage one another. He made the comment,
I hate to throw you under the bus like this, brother, but he
made the comment that it seems as in our culture that the church
strives just like the world for leisure and for the weekend.
Oh, it's my weekend. It's not your weekend. It's Christ's. The world belongs to Christ.
Our life belongs to Christ. Our days belong to Christ. This
day belongs to Christ. It belongs to Christ. There's
no such thing as a family day when you're not worshiping. It's
a Satan day. You see what I'm saying? It's
not good for us. These Jews, oh, they were at
the feast. These Jews, oh, they were doing their thing. Oh, these
Jews now, they were wiser than their leaders, but they knew
nothing. They knew nothing, because Jesus is from the Father, and
Jesus is God. There is no way around it. They have established their own
version of the truth, and their own version of their application
of the truth, and their own version of living out the truth. They
have established their own version. And it was death. They could
not see. The reason these groups could
not see is not because of speculation or tradition or false teaching. Listen to this. It's not because
of spiritual ignorance or a lack of seminary or a lack of academics.
It's not because of any of these things. It's because, and this
is a very hard truth, God was not allowing them to see. So I say that because it's very
easy for us to fall, oh, you know, I can see, I know, I'm
going to do. Listen, if God does not through the teaching of His
Word push you into obedience, push you into fruitfulness, push
you into affection, push you into understanding, push you
into these things and grant these things to you, they will not
take place. You know what the unbeliever says? Well, God hasn't
granted it to me. but yet those are the ones who
profess to be in Christ. Well, I'm in Christ, but God
hasn't granted it. No, if you're in Christ, God has granted these
things to you. It is a struggle, it is a war, it is a battle.
It's not easy. Ephesians 6 is written because
the enemy is absolutely alive. He's alive, but he only does
that which the Lord permits and sends him to do. We need to recognize,
beloved, that these people could not see because God would not
allow them to see. And then, because of that, they trusted
in their own wisdom, they trusted in their own sight, they trusted
in their own feelings, they trusted in their own understanding, they
trusted in their own religion, they trusted in their own righteousness,
they trusted in their own version of the truth, they trusted the
fact that in their day, the way they lived their life, the way
they did their work, the way they made their money, and the
way they dressed, and the way they spoke, and the way they
traveled, was all for the glory of God. Sounds just like a rich
American Christianity to me. And it's anathema. Nothing wrong with riches. Nothing
wrong with leisure. Nothing wrong until they become
idols and they push out Christ. Beloved, keep yourselves from
idols. They were not wise. They thought
they knew where Jesus had come from. But they did not know who He
was. They thought He was a man causing
trouble that needed to die. But ultimately God is sovereign
over all of these things. He changed the minds and the
hearts and the actions of those present as He saw fit. And Jesus
was not arrested because His time had not yet come. Jesus,
hearing them say these things in verse 28, proclaimed openly,
publicly. I mean, how would you like to
be gossiping in the corner back there about somebody, and they
just get on the microphone and say, hey! I mean, you know, it's a
little embarrassing. So here's Jesus. Not only is
He God and knows perfectly what we think and say and do, but
He could hear them. Others could hear them. And Jesus,
in His continued proclamation, loud like I am sometimes, out
in the middle of the temple, hears Jesus proclaiming, and
He says, You know Me. Now, they just said, We know
Him. Right? You know Me. And you know
where I come from. And they're like, See, told you. Told you we know where He is.
Told you. But this is not This is not, as we'll see for Jesus'
next breath, this is not agreeing with them. This is a rebuke. You know me,
you know where I come from. But what does He say? But I am not here of my own doing. I did not come of my own accord.
I am not here of my own will. But He who sent me is true. Oh
gosh. He who sent me is true, and Him
you do not know. So you know where I come from. You
know the details of my history. You know where I've been since
birth. But you do not know the One who sent me, God the Father. You do not know Him. You know
things about me and my physical life, but you do not know the
Father who sent me. Therefore, you do not know me. And because you do not know me,
you do not know the Father. Jesus, as He proclaims publicly,
He is not stopped. Why? Because He has all authority
to preach. Sometimes my open air brothers,
they get all haughty, thinking they have the authority. They
don't have the authority to preach. I don't have the authority to
preach. And the authorities of this world can shut us down tomorrow,
and we suffer the consequences for it. But we do so humbly. The Word of the Lord will not
be silenced. If my mouth is shut, thousands of more can come where
I come from. But there's only one Christ,
and He's the only one who's come from the Father, and when He
speaks, no one can silence Him until He decides to stop. And His Word is speaking to you
today, and it will not be stopped. His Word speaks into our lives
the truth of who He is and what He's done. His Word governs our
lives as we live out this life by faith in the One who loves
us and gave Himself for us. His truth, His Word is the power
over us to overcome every temptation, every fear, every doubt, every
frustration, everything that could possibly wring our necks
in this terrible world. The Word of Christ will not be
stopped. It will accomplish. It will accomplish everything
that God has intended for you, beloved. And everything, even
the hard stuff, is a gift from heaven. Everything. Friends, I don't know how else
to help you see that, but say it, everything is a gift from
heaven. Jesus is saying, so you know
Me, you know where I come from, so you say, you have a wisdom
of your own and you know My history, but know this, Know who I am
this day. I have originated from the Father,
and from Him I come. And you do not understand this,
and your wisdom condemns you, because you do not know that
I am. Because He who sent Me is true."
Now, of course, none of them would say, oh yeah, God's a liar.
No, they would say, oh, we know God is true. Friends, that's
not what He's saying. It's not what he's saying. They
know that God is true. They know that God exists. But Jesus is claiming
that God is true and that God the Father sent the Son. And that when Jesus says, I am from
the Father, that God is saying, this is my Son. Because God has
already testified of the sending of the Son through the prophets,
through Moses. Moses wrote of me, John 5. Jesus is God and He's proclaiming
these things as God. And thus He speaks as the Father
is speaking, as the Son, full of grace and truth. No matter
what you think, no matter what you know, Jesus is saying, God
is true and He is saying that He sent me because I say that
He sent me. See, the rough reality is that
knowledge of God without the knowledge and the faith in Christ
is no knowledge of God. I believe that that's many a
theologian in our day. And the knowledge of God through
study, but they don't have the knowledge of Christ. They don't
have faith in Jesus Christ. They have a lot of information. They don't have regeneration.
Didn't mean for that to rhyme. But Jesus rebukes them there
again. Knowledge of God without the Word of God, then. If Jesus
is the only knowledge of God, then the Word of God is the only
knowledge of God. Friends, people that play this game to say that
the Bible is really good, but it's not authoritative of the
absolute rule of revelation, are evil. Their hearts are evil,
their minds are evil, they are in the flesh. Would you listen
to that? Now, they don't have to say that
verbally with their mouth. Oh, I don't really believe the
Scripture. No, they can do it verbally with their teaching,
indirectly. Because they can say, well, the
Bible says this, but... Or they can say, you know, in order to
be saved, you must... It's not in Scripture. They can teach
that which is not in Scripture and say that it's truth. Just
like this crowd here in Jerusalem. We know where he's from, and
so he can't be Messiah, because we know that Messiah is not going
to be known. Or let Jesus say, well, we have
the law. We have Moses, and Abraham is our father. And Jesus would
say, no, the devil is your father. Because if you, Abraham, were your father,
you would rejoice in me because he rejoiced in my day. Before
Abraham was, I am. I exist. Paul has something to say. Those
of you who have been following on Wednesday nights, Romans chapter 2, Paul
is talking to the Jews there, but if you call yourself a Jew,
what does he say? You rely on the law and boast in God and
you know His will and approve what is excellent. He's not saying
that they actually did that, but that's what they thought
they did. Because you are instructed from the law. And if you are
sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind and a light to those
who are in darkness. And now these very people, are
not a guide to the blind or the light and darkness. They are
the darkness themselves. Because Jesus says in John 5,
verse 46, If you believe Moses, you would believe Me, for he
wrote of Me. These people were not spiritual
at all. Learn this, church. Spiritual walking is not about
the perfection of the image, but about the perfection of Christ.
It's not about the spiritual image that we have, it's about
the perfection of Christ. Yes, we'll have an image of some
sort, but what is the image ultimately in our lives? Faith alone in
the person and the work of Jesus Christ. I live this life by faith. And we strive, and when we strive,
it is by faith. And when we succeed, it is by
grace and the work of God monergistically to work in us all that He wills
for His pleasure in us. God will purpose things in our
lives for His glory. But Jesus says you do not know
God the Father, and you cannot know Him because you are not
spiritually discerned concerning the Son of God. You cannot see
God the Son, so you cannot see the Father. This is what is revealed
to us in Scripture, that God sent the Son, the work of the
Son, the outcome of His work, etc., all of it. The Gospel is
not and never has been except Jesus into your heart. Come down
and be counted. Stand up for Christ. The Gospel
has never been, be committed for Jesus. The Gospel has never
been, say the prayer of salvation. Beg for God to save you. Say
this prayer with me. Check this box. Walk this aisle.
Enter these waters. Those are doctrines of demons. Just as the devil tempted Jesus
in the wilderness with the Word of God, so man twists the Word
of God to his own liking that he may be a god unto himself
for his own salvation. Beloved, please stop complacently
seeing others who deny the gospel of grace as brothers and sisters
in Christ. We are not on a journey to teach
people academy. We are on a journey to proclaim
the gospel of grace, that through the hearing, God may give hearing,
and they might be saved. Jesus knows the Father. Verse
29. I know Him, for I have come from
Him, and He sent me. See, salvation is not found in
the practices of men. Salvation is not found in the
responses of human will and the knowledge of the human mind.
Salvation is not found there because the Scripture says no
man seeks after God. No man goes to God. Anyone that
is to be saved is only going to be saved when they see Christ,
thus seeing God and having eternal life. No one receives the things of
God. That's what John has told us in his prologue. And at least
the Jews, in their sense, not like what I've just mentioned,
at least they did use Scripture for the most part. But it seems
like the practices of evangelism and spirituality and ecclesiology
and churchmanship and everything that we see in our day, it seems
like the practices there don't even have a root in Scripture,
don't even have a toenail in Scripture, nothing. It's just
made-up philosophies and practices. But Jesus says, I know Him. Jesus does not speak in His own
authority, but that of God's. He was sent by God the Father,
not of Himself. And Jesus knows the Father. Why?
Because He came from the Father. He was sent by the Father. So
therefore, Jesus' authority, the Word of God's authority,
is supreme because it was sent by the Father. He was sent by
the Father. And if we want to know the Father,
we must know the Word of God, who is Jesus Christ, who was
sent by the Father, who knows the Father. I mean, how many questions do
we ask ourselves every day? I wish I could just live better. I wish
I could just do better. I wish I could be a better Christian.
I wish I could be a better dad, better mom. You know? I wish I could figure out how
to deal with this. Why don't we just focus on what the Scripture
teaches us? Why don't we just meditate on it day and night?
Why don't we just understand the authority and the power and
the superlative, overwhelming, overarching authority that it
has over our lives as regenerate people to give us everything
we need in order to live this life by faith? that the divine
power of God is all we needed for life and godliness, and it
is found only through the Scripture. But we'd rather mander and meander
around, rather, and wonder and posit in our own heads with that
conversation with ourselves, and say, well, I'm not crazy,
you know, rather than trust in the Word of God, because that's
what the flesh does, beloved, trust in Christ. Ergo, trust
in the Word. Jesus' authority is supreme because
He was sent by the Father. His very presence standing before
them is enough to show them that He is true and that they do not
know the Father. They look to the law and they
look to their own understanding of the law. But Jesus perfectly
revealed the Law, grace upon grace upon grace, as it was intended
to be understood. Knowing Jesus is understanding
the Law. Knowing Jesus is seeing and knowing
God. Jesus is the only one who can
cause us to see the Father and know Him. Therefore, Jesus is
the only one who can give us and grant us and perfect in us
eternal life. Jesus says stuff like that in
Luke 10, Matthew, I don't know where. All things have been given
over to Me by the Father, He says. And no one who knows the
Son, except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son.
Now get this. And anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. So see, the only one that knows
the Son is the Father, the only one that knows the Father is
the Son, and the only other people that can know either are the
ones who the Son reveals the Father to. If one stands before God in his
own wisdom, he's condemned. Jesus gives the revelation of
life to whom He wishes the Spirit, to whom He wishes As Jesus has
already said in John 6, all that the Father give to Him will come,
and all that come will be raised up in the last day. The words
that I speak to you, He says, are spirit and life. So if you know who Jesus really
is, then you know God. You know the Son of God. You
know who Jesus is and what He's done, and all the works that
comprise His person and His purpose, because His Word has proclaimed
who He is and what He's done, and that He is Savior and Redeemer. If we do not know Jesus, and
we cannot recognize Him, and we do not have faith in His work,
then we do not know God. Verse 30-31, so that we're seeking
to arrest Him. So now they're going, OK, let's
get Him. Let's get Him. But no one laid a hand on Him,
because His hour had not yet come. Yeah, verse 31, many of
the people, now we're back to the Jews and the crowds that
come, the pilgrims, and then those from Jerusalem. Now we've
got the people believed in Him, and they said, when the Christ
appears, will He do more signs than this man has done? Sort
of like, what else do we need? Look what He's done. And the
very next verse says, then they set out to put a warrant for
his arrest. Because all of a sudden now, people were seeing who he
really was. But we know that trusting in
what he had done and his signs is not sufficient for salvation.
They had to be given faith. So beloved, I pray that you would
hear these words. I pray that you would understand
that the Word of God alone is all we need. We do not need anything
else. We do not need to play games
with our assembly. We do not need to come to a place
of trying to be more professional and more focused on what would
get people to come into the gathering here. Because if they don't want
to come for the truth and the intimacy, they don't want to
come for Christ. Because that comes with truth.
Intimacy. That's what comes. And this is
a mystery of God. This is a work of God. It's not
a work of man. There's always an opportunity
to see something better across the wall, or across the street,
or in another place, or another time. My friends, there's nothing
better. If we aren't preaching the truth,
then by all means, find it. If we are preaching the truth,
beloved, hold fast to it. Many people are perishing in
their sins, and they have the label of Christ upon them, but
they do not have the truth. Pray for them. Pray that God
would grant them faith. Pray that God would call them
out. We do not know who the elect
are, but we know how we are to find them. We pray and we proclaim. So by the Lord's grace, may He
call His sheep home. Let's pray. Lord, I thank You for Your mercy,
O Father, for Your power, for Your Word. Lord, so many people,
they hear sermons, and it's like, okay, I've come to church and
I've heard the Word, and now I'm going home. No, no, no, no,
no, no. The teaching of Your Word is all about the local assembly.
This bogs us down as if we're walking through a swamp with
mud up to our waist. Father, we cannot move very quickly.
Let us be bogged down with the glory of Your Word and truth.
Let us sink into the depth Father, of Your revelation to
us through Jesus Christ Your Son, help us to resolve in every
fiber of our soul that we would follow and live by faith, that
we would believe, Father, in Your holy work for Your holy
people through Your holy Son. Lord, we rejoice in these things. We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice
in the truth of the Gospel. And I pray, Father, continually
for our assembly, for every life that is connected to us. I praise
You, Lord, for the life of our brother who is now with You,
that his experience of worship is fulfilled ultimately now as
he awaits the day when we all shall be like Christ, face to
face. And Father, we pray that as we
submit to Your Word and do what You teach us to do, that we can
have the faith to trust in all that You've promised us. So in
this day, as we as a church have to exercise discipline, correction,
Lord, soften the hearts of all of us. Let us weep, but let us
do so as though we have hope, for we do in Christ Jesus. In
His name we pray. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
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