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. Turn to John chapter 7. As you're
turning there, I've told this story several times, but in California,
when we arrived, what we thought we would be doing specifically
in ministry, we did not do. Because the promises that were
made to me were made to me without credibility, without support
behind them. I'm not saying anybody lied, but what these people thought
they could do and had, they did not do, nor they could not do,
and they did not have. And so I was left in a very peculiar
place wondering what God had done to bring us to this place. Was it just for a season where
I would not preach or I would not be in ministry? What were
you doing, Lord? And God called me as a, just
like Jesse is doing this morning, to preach at another church in
the pastor's absence. I received a call from the local
association. The director of missions there
said, we have a church that's been without a pastor for four
years, and they have a rotating schedule. Would you like to be
on that schedule? And I said, no. And of course, my wife, being
the woman of God that she is, said, well, God's called you
to preach, and there's an opportunity to preach. What's wrong? You know, you sort
of dance in the head. Say yes. I called back and said
yes. See, that's what a good wife
does. They get on to you when you're wrong. And so I got on
the phone with one of the gentlemen from the church, and lo and behold,
there was a church, a congregation, who had been without a pastor
for those number of years, and I'm talking on the phone with
this gentleman who was one of their deacons, And he began to
drop names and talk about things that I have been warring with
for years and had to sort of keep hidden at the church that
we were in previously because it was sort of a death sentence,
if you will. Primarily the doctrines of grace,
preaching against the status quo of missions and ministry
and evangelism that we see in our culture. And me and this
brother talked for an hour and a half on the phone that day
and I thought, this is the closest person that I know in the world
that doesn't live in my house who understands what I'm talking
about. And so I was so excited to be going to that church that
Sunday and I go and I stand there and I preach Hebrews 1, 1 and
2. And there's probably 15 people
in the whole building. It's three times the size of
what we have here. And they all know, sat on the
back row, of course. It was the way it works. And I closed my
sermon out that day, and I opened my eyes, and there was a man
standing there in his 80s, and tears were running down his face,
and I'm thinking, all these people don't know I don't do altar calls.
And I stepped down and said, can I help you, sir? And he says,
I just want you to be our pastor. I want you to be our pastor.
God sent you here, you're gonna be our pastor. And I looked at
him and I said several things of this nature. And for those
of you who know me and you've heard my story, I was not in
a good place there. I was not in a good place emotionally,
mentally, physically even. And I said, sir, you don't even
know me. And you may like to hear what
I have to say, you may like my preaching, but you don't want
me to pastor you. I said, it's a big difference in me teaching
you something, me holding you accountable to walking in it. Oh no, we want
you, we want you. So I just came back the next
week, and the next week, and the next week, and finally, that
was July 27th, finally, in October, I had never left but one Sunday,
I was there for every, you know, they finally convinced me to
consider a call to be their pastor, or either just be their temporary
pastor for the next five years. But I've said that to several
people in my lifetime. You just like to hear my preaching,
but you don't want me to hold you accountable. You don't want to be shepherded,
you just want to be taught something. The book of James says that when
we're taught something and we turn away as though we haven't
heard it, we've not been taught anything. It's like looking at ourselves
in the mirror and forgetting who we were, forgetting what we look like.
We look at the Word of God and we see it, and we who are spiritual
and can discern spiritual things, what we hear from the Word of
God directs our lives. It shocks us, it pushes us, it
challenges us, it corrects us, it trains us in righteousness,
it teaches us who we are in Christ, who God is and what He's done
through Christ, and how we are to walk in Christ. It's not just
something that we learn, like, you know, I always wondered how
the sun worked. And we learn how the sun worked
and we go about our day. It's not like we're ever going
to go to the sun and be the first person to the sun, the last person
to talk about it, you know. It's not like that. It's not
like wondering, well, I wonder what kind of grass grows well
in Georgia? And so we Google it up, we search it on Google,
and we learn it, and we go, oh, well, that's too much work. I'll
just keep cutting the bahia, you know? And we just, we can't
approach the Word of God that way. We cannot come to the assembly
and say, well, I'm gonna learn something today, and then we go out and
we think about whatever it is our life really gives us a heartbeat for.
The Word of God and the people of God and the hearts and the
minds of the people of God, when we assemble, it does something supernatural
to us. It establishes in us a foundation of the gospel of grace so that
we are certain to worship even in the midst of the most difficult
days. And not only that, but we're certain to actually be
taught Christ more and more, even if it's the same proposition
over and over again, which it is. We learn Him more deeply. We understand Him in a way that
we maybe didn't really grasp and understand Him before. Our
heart is set on fire by the Holy Spirit to which our lives begin
to burn away. And we see the imagery of our
lives and what it does when we've been put to death in Christ,
we've died in Christ. The world no longer has an appeal
to us. I know when I was younger and I used to hear older people,
and it's funny what you thought was old when you were 15. You're
30, oh my God, now, I mean, you know, and when you're 30, you're
like, you're 50, oh my goodness, and now, you know, 50's on my
shoulder. You know, my dad was talking
about when he retires, he might be close to 70, and I'm going, you
can't be 70. You can't turn 70, Dad. I mean, you know, it's weird,
isn't it? It's amazing how I used to hear
old people, I don't know how old they were, they could have
been 25, I don't remember, but you talk about, I can't wait
to die and go to heaven. I think, that's a macabre existence. What's
wrong with you people? You don't want to die? There's
a lot to live for. Yeehaw! Let's enjoy life in the name
of Jesus. Amen? And that's a good thing to say. But I never really
understood that. But as we grow in the Gospel,
as we grow in the grace of God, as we grow to labor in this life,
we understand all the more, the closer we get to maturity, Especially
in difficult circumstances, we understand all the more what
Paul says when he says, to live is Christ, and to die is far
better. He says far better, not gain.
To die is far better. It's far better for me to die
than to live in Christ. But then Paul says something
extremely important after that. What does he say? But for your
sake, beloved, I live. It's better for me that if I
die, I gain Christ. It's better for you that I live,
that I might point you more to Christ. That is why we're here today.
That we may get our spiritual meal, that we may be longing
to see the face of Jesus Christ, and we may be longing for Him
to take us out of this world and to eliminate the circumstances
Friends, God does not promise the time when He shall take us
home, though it will be glorious, but until that day, we live in
the filling and the fueling of the Word of God for the sake
of those sitting next to us. We are not here for ourselves,
we are here for each other. We must understand that, that
when we're not in the chairs, we are hurting each other. When
we're not faithful in ministry and in prayer, we're hurting
each other. When we don't know what's going on in each other's
life, we're hurting each other. It is not a personal imperative
when it comes to our spiritual life. It is a command of God
Almighty Himself that we be together. And when we can't be together,
When I can't be with you, I grieve. When you can't be with me, you
grieve. We grieve because life does not
treat us rightly, does it? People get sick, people get hospitalized,
people die. Job calls us out of town. We
wake up and we can't move because we're so sore from something
else we did. And beloved, those things we cannot control. But
we can control our lives when those things aren't around us.
We can control, by the grace of God, the passion that we have
for the Gospel because the Spirit of God, and I'm saying control,
it may not make sense to you, but prayerfully it will after
we get through with the sermon. By the grace of God and the power
of the Holy Spirit, He has given us a mind which is ours in Christ
Jesus, the mind of Jesus. And for those of you who did
not make it Wednesday night, or who aren't able to come on
Wednesday nights, please go to the church website and listen
to the sermon that I preach out of 1 Corinthians, chapters 1
and 2, Wednesday night. How does the church stay together?
And it is not by the wisdom of men. It is by the power of Christ. Beloved, you and I exist for
the sake of one another. This is part of the teaching
of Scripture. This is part of the result of the Gospel truths
that we see. We're not coming to church. We
are the church coming together as a body, as a spiritual family
and friends. There is something dynamically
wrong with a Christian who has no spiritual discernment to be
with the saints. And I'm going to open that statement
there and I'm going to close this entire message with three
possibilities of why that's true. John chapter 7. Look at verse
7 through 17, these ten verses here we will go through today.
Of course, last week we saw Jesus talking with His brothers. They
were trying to convince Him to go into Judea to the feast in
a bold way to present Himself to be seen by the masses and
gain favor with the public. so that He might fix the animosity
for the Jews that wanted to kill Him. But He says, of course,
in verse 6, My time has not yet come. He's talking there, not
the hour, but the time to go into Judea has not yet come,
but your time is always here. The world, verse 7, cannot hate
you, but it hates Me because I testify
that its works are evil. You go ahead to the feast, but
I am not going up to the feast, for my time to go up to the feast
has not yet fully come." I added that for emphasis and clarification.
After saying this, he remained in Galilee. After some time,
his brothers had gone up to the feast. He also then went up,
not publicly, but in private. The Jews were looking for him
at the feast saying, where is he? and there was much muttering
about Him among the people. While some said, He is a good
man, others said, No, He is leading people astray. Yet for the fear
of the Jews, no one spoke openly of Him. About the middle of the
feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to preach. The
Jews therefore marveled, saying, How is it that this man has learning
when he has never studied? So Jesus answered them, My teaching
is not Mine. but His who sent me. If anyone's
will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching
is from God or whether I am speaking in my own authority. And that's
all that I'll have time to cover today. Let me pray. Father, I pray that the teaching
of Your Word would be given to Your saints, to Your sheep, to
Your children, to those for whom Christ has died, that we may
see it and hear it and breathe it into our lungs the desperate
air of life. Lord, that we may marvel over
its truth, not in astonishment as, how can this be? But, oh,
praise You, God, that it is. Lord, I pray for our congregation,
for the evil one is alive. He is working, he is living to
destroy, but he cannot destroy Your people. I pray You would keep the sheep
safe, that we would not be led into the temptation of the flesh
by the tempting of the enemy, but Lord, that we would stand
firm through Your Word against the fiery flames of the enemy.
And Lord, as I teach today, God, may You destroy all the wisdom
of my head and all the emotions of my heart. And will You just
pour through me the truth of Your Word. For it is the peace
that gives us the true peace that the world cannot understand.
I pray this in Christ. Amen. Jesus has said, the world cannot
hate you. This is a pick-up from last week, because they were
of the world, they loved the world. The world loves its own.
I made the comment last week that that is not just the evil,
wicked doers that we see in the world, but in contrast of our
morality. Most people who stand in a great
morality are also those wicked ones who do the things that are
ungodly, because they live in unbelief. They live in the world. Jesus' brothers loved the world,
not Christ. They wanted Christ to be what?
They wanted Christ to be molded into the likeness of their faith.
They wanted Christ to fall in line and get in lockstep with
the culture, religiously. They wanted Christ to be a Jew. And they wanted Him to fall in
line under the leadership of the Jews. So they thought, well, you can
go with us. And Jesus says to them, no, you're free to go because
you're not part of this plan. You're trying to make me in your
party, but you should be in my party, but you're not because
you are of the world. And the world that loves you
hates me because I testify of its evil. You go up to the feast. The Father has not told me it
is time for me to go. It's a paraphrase. Verse 9, after
saying this, he remained in Galilee. So he did exactly what he said
he was going to do. He was not going to fall prey to the pressure
of those around him, of the majority. He said, you need to do this.
You need to do that. Friends, that's a lot of the
time the reason so many people, you've asked the question yourself,
why do so many people believe a false gospel? Why do so many
people, I had this conversation this morning, you know, believe
the doctrines of grace, believe the gospel of Christ and end
up in churches that don't teach it. End up under pastors who
don't know it and end up in fellowship around people who don't believe
it. Pressure. It's the same pressure
that makes us really ready to go to work on Monday, and we
will not miss work, but we will sleep till 10 o'clock on Sunday
because we just worked so hard on Friday. If I had the same attitude toward
my faith that you all had, you would not see me on Sunday mornings.
You all, you know what I'm saying? The ones that aren't here, and
I'm not making accusations. Pray for women. And I say that
historically. If pastors of their churches
had, in general, the same attitude as congregants about being in
services, they would not be there because they would be terminated
from their post. According to the scripture, they
would be terminated from their post because they would be sinful. See, that makes us feel guilty.
And I'm not the type of guy that likes anyone to feel guilty.
but we need to recognize the pressure of this world. We need
to recognize that the determination to be at work should be third
or fourth in line to determination to be with the saints. Our provision
for our family's livelihood is not even in the top five when
it comes to the things of this world. I'd rather you be homeless
and lose your family than forsake your faith. Many people, Many people in this
world claim to be in Christ, but they hate the church. Something
that maybe some of you don't know that but there has been
a movement throughout the last 10 to 15 years of you know Anti-church
or church without walls or this or that neither? No, we don't
have to be a part of a church We don't have to be a part of
a congregation. Yes, we do How can we bear of the burden of
someone if we're not part of the local church? How can we
submit to the elders of a church if we're not part of a church?
How can we bring? Ourselves and others under the
discipline of the Word of God if we're not part of a church
We just walk down the road and somebody says God is good. We
walk over there and get in their business What's your name? Oh, are you walking with the
Lord? I mean, that's not accountability. That's not intimacy. How are
we to grow together with somebody if we're not in the local church?
We must be in the local church, and you are here in the local
church. But I want to remind you, church, as your pastor,
as one of your elders, that we are not here for ourselves. We
are here for each other. So the spiritual well-being of
our own lives affects everything that happens in every other part
of this church. When we're in sin, it affects
everybody here. When we're not in prayer, it
affects everybody here. When we're not in fellowship, it affects
everybody here. When we're sick, it affects everybody here. When
we're dying, it affects everybody here. When we're depressed, it
affects everybody here. Everything that happens in our
lives affects everyone here. Why? Because we're intimately
connected divinely through the Spirit of God, and we are in
covenant with one another. There's no such thing as personal
sin, personal decisions, personal choices, volition, or anything
of that matter that lives in a vacuum because it does not
exist. And you might say, well, how does that happen? What if
just Jesse and Dave and I, there's a backlight on this, come to
the place where That really troubled me there for a second. Well,
we're going to do it in the dark. What if Jesse and Dave and I
know something that's going on in your life? And what if, just
in that situation alone, causes us to be so labored and so burdened
that we can't minister correctly? What if when we teach the Scripture,
we come to a place where You want some people, and I say you,
I'm just talking about you, some people don't come to listen to
the Word of God. And then because they don't listen
to the Word of God, we're so burdened that we can't even study
the Word of God ourselves. You ever been there? Yes, I've
been there. It'll probably take ten minutes
for the Wi-Fi stuff to come back up. But I mean, this is difficult
for us to grasp. But if I am just a member of
the church, and I am really cruel to my family, and I'm cruel to
my kids, and one of my pastors has to deal with that, it does
affect everybody else, even those who don't know that it's happening.
Because it is a chain. It's like sneezing with an infectious
virus. Beloved, we can't escape it.
Whether we hear the sneeze or not, the germs are floating in
the air. And that's just what has happened in this first century. I just wanted to apply it for
today because we're in war, beloved. Wednesday, Those of you who are
in Windsy, the reason I preached out of 1 Corinthians is because
my spirit was so troubled, I was so burdened, and I can't overcome
it sometimes. And this was a difficult day
where I'm thinking, what in the world are we doing here in this
world, God? Just hurry up and return and take us all away because
it's overwhelming. And you know what the Bible teaches
us? What is the answer there? I don't sit down and fret over
those things anymore. I open the Word of God and listen.
And when God's Word ministered to me, I thought, you know what?
I'm going to teach this to the church tonight. And several of
you said, that was the on-time sermon, buddy. It's like you
were hanging out with me today. Why? Because the Father is gracious
to us. God puts the words here on these
pages, and He purposes for us to hear the teaching together
that we might be intimately united, not only in Christ eternally,
but also temporally in this life, in this season as a church. Jesus remained in Galilee because
the Father had determined that it was not time for Him to go.
Beloved, the Father has determined for you to be a part of this
local fellowship. And if you are in commitment, if God has
called you here, He has not called you out of here. If God has called
you to be in the faith, He has not called you out of the faith.
Do you see that? There is nothing worse than a
fickle man. There is nothing worse than a
fickle woman in the faith. Oh, the Lord has called me, as
I hear it. For 20 years I've been hearing it. God has called
me to do this, and in this I shall do. And then a few months in,
it's a little tough. Oh, maybe God's not calling me
to this after all. Well, what are you, a liar now or are you
a liar then? What God were you listening to a couple of months
back? The God of the world? The God of your mind? The God
of your belly? What were you listening to? So in this, we
have to be careful not to be fickle. If God's called us, then
we stand. God called Christ to do the will
of His will, the Father's will. And Jesus was not going to be
pressed or manipulated by His family or by His friends or by
those who loved Him most. He was not willing to subject
Himself to the will of another person when the will of the Father
is what matters. So Jesus remained in Galilee.
But after this, after a little while, his brothers had gone
to the feast, then he went. You see, he says, my time has
not yet come. He's not talking about the hour
of his death, which he does talk about sometimes in the Gospels.
He says, the hour for me to go into Galilee has not yet come.
After his brothers left, he went in privately. What's that mean?
That means he just sort of snuck in, unnoticed. Nobody really
knew who he was. He didn't go in with his family.
Why? For several reasons. One, the Jews were looking for
his family. And they were looking to see, okay, we'll look for
Mary, we'll look for Joseph, we'll look for these boys, look
for his sisters. We're going to go, we're going
to find these guys, and we're going to pick Jesus out. We don't really remember
what He looks like, but we're going to find Him. You know,
they didn't have Facebook to go, oh, I know that guy, let
me look him up. Oh yeah. They didn't really know who He
was or what He looked like, so they were looking for Him. Jesus, in the plan of God sovereignly,
waited. so that he could just sort of
mix in with the crowd. This lone man, this lone man walking around
that nobody knew who he was, Jesus went at the Father's timing
and the Father's purpose so that he'd be unnoticed in His entry.
This is the last time Jesus would leave the region of Galilee before
He died. This is it. He'll never return
back to Galilee again. For he will be detained, and
he will be tried, and he will be crucified in Jerusalem. And
we see that this is true, what I'm saying, because I don't make
it up. I see it in verse 11. He went in privately to be unnoticed
with the Lord's impeccable timing, because the Jews were looking
for Him at the feast. And they were saying, where is
He? They were looking. Where is this Jesus? They were
walking around asking, why were they looking for Him? Because
they wanted to kill Him. We already saw that. After this,
Jesus went about in Galilee for six months. He would not go into
Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Feast of
the Booths was at hand. Jesus did not go there, but when
He did make it in there, the narrative says that the Jews
were looking for Him as He arrived. They were already looking for
Him. Before He even got there, they were looking for Jesus.
Now here is the Feast of the Jews and the spiritual leaders
of the Jewish people, and they're supposed to be about the matters
of the Feast, and what are they doing? They're concerning themselves
with Jesus. Why? Because they want to kill
him. Why do they want to kill him?
Because he claimed to be from God. He claimed to have the ability
to forgive sins. He proved he was divine because
of the power that he had, which they would say was the power
of the devil. But they knew better than that. They wanted to kill
Jesus. And in some sense, I believe
they wanted to arrest Him before He could be noticed by many people.
They wanted to get to a place where they could sort of quietly
apprehend Jesus without public spectacle. Because, I mean, here's
the thing, as we'll learn in just a minute, there were a lot
of people muttering in verse 12. Some of them were saying,
He's a good teacher. I mean, what does the mob do when all
of Israel is in one area and you're arresting their good teacher?
who half the people may have favor for. It can get a little
sticky, because after all, the majority is dangerous if they
all rise up together. So here They wanted to try to
get Jesus out of the picture before He became really in the
picture. And we see the circumstances
through which Jesus was living, walking, ministering during this
day, during this week. And it says in verse 12, And
there was much muttering about Him among the people, while some
said, He is a good man. Others said, No, He's leading
the people astray. It's really interesting how people
will keep their mouth closed until they get an audience. It's
really interesting that when we get a majority of people together,
whether it be in a barbershop, a beauty shop, or whatever, people
always have an opinion. Today we can assemble without
ever leaving the comfort of our own home. We can assemble on
the World Wide Web and in social circles. We can build communities
where everybody can hear our opinion. We can billboard-plast
everything that we love and defend and think is awesome, but yet
Even if our opinion is wrong or a little bit ill-tempered,
we keep it to ourselves, but when we see that people like
it and want to get behind it and want to support it, we love
to flaunt it. That's no different today. The human condition is
no different in 2,000 years. Philosophically, the psychology
of humanity is not changing. It's certainly not evolving in
any great way. It's actually devolving, if we
could be honest. People are enamored with their
own voice. They're enamored with their own
instant gratification of somebody loving them and what they have
to say. The Jews were just like the people of today. They had
their own Instagram, they had their own Facebook, they had
their own social media platform. That the endorphins that ran
through their body when somebody clapped for them, or gave them
the thumbs up, or told them that they were great teachers, or
supported them in their disdain toward Jesus Christ, this gave
them power, and hope, and authority. Because the majority there would
follow after them. As we'll see why in a couple
of sentences. But people begin to voice their
opinions about Jesus, and in large groups, there's a level
of safety in being loud and expressive. But even here in this first century,
they weren't necessarily bolsterous, but they were able to say what
they thought. And some of them would say, well,
Jesus is a very good man. Now see, this would be the kind
of crowd that we would want to hang with. Jesus is a good man.
Oh, he's a great teacher. I really love Jesus. You know,
he healed my mother. Or he taught me some interesting
things. That's about as superficial as most people's Christianity
go. That Jesus is just this good man written down in a good book
to talk about good things to give them a good life. Because
it's the antithesis of this. The other side of the fence,
these people what? Said that he was a charlatan.
He was leading people astray. And see, we all would probably,
subconsciously, we would side with the people that said that
Jesus is a good man, and then we would come to the place of
being frustrated with the people that say he's a charlatan. How dare
you talk about my Jesus that way? My friends, there are thousands
and thousands of people that I know that I see often throughout
the years who would talk about Jesus in a blasphemous way. They
call him a good man, but then they teach something wrong about
him. You know the difference in the people who said that Jesus
was a good man and the said that he wasn't a good man? Nothing!
Neither one of them could see Jesus for who he was. They were
just following whatever social trend happened to be more appealing
to them. Negative people like to be negative, positive people
like to be positive, and you've got these guys that can be negatively
positive and positively negative. And everywhere you turn, there's
always a crowd for us to join in with. These people didn't
see Jesus. They were both unbelievers. Those
that said He was a good man and a good teacher, they weren't
believers because they didn't see Him. Jesus isn't a good man.
Jesus isn't a good teacher. Jesus is God. Jesus is the One
that's come down from heaven. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Without
Christ, you cannot have eternal life. Without Christ and His
Word, you cannot hear the Word of God. That's what Jesus told
the Jews in John 5. You don't know me because you
don't have the Word of God in you. You can't hear me because
the Word of God is not in you. If the Word of God were in you,
you would know me, you would see me, you would hear me. You
search the Scriptures because in them you think they have eternal
life, but they speak of me. Moses is who's going to indict
you because he wrote of me. Abraham, as he'll say in a few
chapters, rejoiced in my day. Because before Abraham was, I
am. This is Jesus. He's not a good man. He's not
a good teacher. He is the God of heaven. He is
the God-man. He is the absolute epitome of
perfection. Not by the standard of men, but
by the standard of God. Everything He did is righteous.
He obeyed God the Father as a human being in every way, impeccably,
perfectly. Because if He had not, His death
on the cross would have afforded nothing. But because He did,
His death on the cross afforded absolute, absolute atonement,
certain atonement for His people. Jesus Christ paid for the sins
of His people perfectly because He is the perfect sacrifice.
It didn't matter really the opinion of Jesus then, and quite honestly,
it doesn't matter about people's opinion of Jesus now. Sometimes
we find ourselves really bound up. We find ourselves bound up
with people who teach wrongly about Jesus, and we get our little
game face on. We get triggered, and we get
all frustrated, and we wonder what we're going to do, and especially
if it's online. For those of you who are not
online, you don't know what I'm talking about, but, I mean, you know,
there's somebody wrong on the internet right now, and we've
got to fix it, type of mindset. I remember that commercial that
I saw years ago, this guy's, I think it was an internet provider
commercial and he's on the computer and he's just going and going
and going and going and going and it's like you see the sun coming up and
down and up and down and his wife, and he finally finishes
and he pushes the computer back and his wife comes in and she
goes, what's wrong? He goes, I've just finished the internet. I've
seen it all. You know, it's impossible. As long as there are more people
in the world, there's going to be more opinions and more data
to conflict with. We don't have to become warriors
against false teaching because quite honestly there's no command
in the scripture at all except inside what? The local assembly
where we are to correct false teaching. So you come in and
hand me a book and it's by such and such about Jesus calling
about some stuff, I'm going to say to you that's bad and this
is why and this person is not a believer and this person in
fact is a heretic. But I'm going to use that term
lightly so that I can prove it. But I'm not going to make a blog
post about this because it's really not important to take
all the masses who have never heard of this and now point them
to the poison. But that's what we like. We like to have an opinion
on things and we like to go after people whose opinion differs
when it really doesn't matter, does it? It didn't matter that
Jesus' brothers... Did Jesus go after his brothers
for their wrong opinion? Did Jesus say, you guys are just
dumb. You guys are idiots. You guys
are heretics. You're trying to get me to do something to God
the Father. What's wrong with you? Don't you know what the Bible says?
Don't you know? Don't you know? No, he didn't. He said, you go
on up and do what you're going to do. You want to play games with
your faith? Go right ahead. As for me, I'm
following the Father. As a matter of fact, you need
to go on up. The world loves you guys. The world hates me. And if you want to be counted
with me, you're going to be hated like I'm hated. But you don't want to
be hated because you love the world. So you go on up. That's
what we do. That's how we should have our
mind in the resolve of truth. Nothing in the darkness, listen
to this beloved, nothing in the darkness, nothing in the darkness
can ever overcome the light. And you know the darkness is
the majority, right? It's the majority of religion. It's the
majority of false gospels. It's the majority of world faiths.
It's the majority of cults. It's the majority of philosophy.
It's the majority of empiricism. It's the majority of everything.
It's the majority of every thought and opinion in the world but
the darkness. And this majority will not overcome
the minority of the light of Christ for He is the God of heaven
and what He has decreed will come to pass. And He's going
to save His own and He's going to keep His own. And as hard
as it is to see some of our brothers and sisters in the faith walk
away from the faith, beloved, we cannot be overrun with burden
because of it. Because God will not let His
people go. He will not let us fail. He will
not allow us to fall away. We will stand. And we will hear
the Word of God and we will help each other. In the hardest of
times, just when we think we cannot hold on any longer, the
Holy Spirit will drag us right out of what we think is ultimate
doom. Because we are His and He has bought us and we will
never be cast away. How do we have joy in the midst of all
kind of pain? Because of that truth. These opinions of Jesus did not
matter. Our opinion of Jesus doesn't
matter. You realize that, don't you? Our opinion of Jesus doesn't
matter what we think or what we don't think or how we look
at things. What matters is that Jesus is
the truth and the truth of Christ is the truth. So what we think
outside of that truth is irrelevant to the truth because only what
Christ has revealed of himself is what is true. So we can have
all sorts of opinions. And beloved, when I say it doesn't
matter, I'm not saying it doesn't matter to you. Because if we
have an opinion of Christ rather than understanding and seeing
the truth of Christ, we're probably unregenerate. Now we can be an
error. We see the Galatians that have
been an error, but they're not an error about the gospel. They were just trying
to, they were being bewitched to try to add to the gospel that
had already been given. We see the Corinthians where
he says, there's some heresies among you. We know this church had
a lot of heresies. What were their heresies? I mean,
they were talking about how you could live in sin. They were
permitting all sorts of things. And Paul says, this is wrong. This
is false teaching. It doesn't align with the truth
of orthodoxy. They had a lot of opinions on what the Bible
meant or what the apostles had tried to teach them. And they
had tried to make it work for their own appeasement. It doesn't
matter. Guess what? It doesn't change.
This is what I mean when I say it doesn't matter. It doesn't
change the truth of who Christ is. Jesus' own brothers had a
different opinion of Him than who He really was, and it didn't
change the outcome of the work of the Father through Him. It
didn't change the outcome of the Gospel. It didn't change
the outcome of their own salvation, because in the right time, just
as God the Father called Jesus to go to the cross, to go to
Capernaum, to go to, what, Sychar in John 4? Or wherever else the
Father called Him, the Father will call those who cannot see
and have a different opinion of Jesus today to truth through
the hearing of the truth of Jesus tomorrow, if He so chooses. So we just keep teaching the
truth. We keep teaching the truth because it's only in the truth
that people are set free from the lie. It's not in continually
telling that the lie is a lie. Great. Where's the truth? But you know what that does?
and calling out the lie as a lie continually, it gets you a following.
And that's what they did for Jesus. Jesus is a liar. He's
a good teacher. See, that's a lie. He's not a
good teacher. That's a lie. See, everybody
was talking lies about Jesus and their own opinion. Jesus
is not to be approached with the opinion of men. He is to
be approached by the revelation of God through what He teaches,
the Word of God. Jesus is the truth. He is the
life. This muttering, of course, included the Jews who wanted
to kill him. They wanted to kill him, and
they were out there talking about it. I'm sure they were spreading
the idea, oh yeah, they overhear people talking about how Jesus
is a charlatan. They walk right up there in their authoritative
guard. Oh yes, you know that's true. That's true. That's how
a lot of people with influence, a lot of people with a platform,
they love to be the dissenting opinion against the truth. Because
by their authoritative role, they think they're authoritative.
Jesus had no authoritative role in the eyes of men. He had no authority. He was a
nobody. Is this not Joseph's son that
we know? The son of Joseph that we know? Is this man not from
what? Where is he from? Does anything good come from
Nazareth? See? He wasn't authoritative. He had
no place in the world. He had no hierarchy in Judaism.
He had no position of authority with the Sanhedrin. He had no
pharisaical training whatsoever. He was not taught formally by
any person whatsoever to be in the place of a teacher. So even
those who said He was a good teacher and didn't know He was
God, that really egged on the Pharisees, didn't it? That egged
on the Jews. So they would continue to blaspheme
and to bring false witness and false accusations against Jesus,
continuing opinion after opinion after opinion. And people would
slander Christ because they hated Christ, because He told the truth
of who He was, and He told the truth about who they were. And
beloved, if we are counted in Christ, we'll be hated by the
world. Let me tell you this, if majority of your friends that
love you the most are worldly, you're probably not expressing
your faith adequately. Did you hear what I said? If people who hate Christ feel
comfortable just doing all sorts of things together with us, we're
probably not adequately sharing our faith. Now I'm not saying
we gotta be repulsive, But we do have to be responsive.
Because I can guarantee you, an unbeliever who hates the gospel
is not going to come to your house and eat a meal and listen
to you talk about how awesome Christ is. Are you doing that? You'll grow into that. It's not
spontaneous, it's not overnight. You can talk about what you know,
but beloved, I pray that you know. You know what's easier? What's easier for us? When we're
oppressed, Well, it'd be easier for me when I'm down, when I'm
overwhelmed, when I'm burdened and I don't know what I'm going
to do. Pick up the phone and call somebody who can agree with me. I tell
you what, that John Brown, he's just something else. He's driving
me insane. His dog got in my trash again this morning. True
story. Nothing like going out to church
and seeing trash all over your porch. It's just great. It's easy just to be overwhelmed
and find somebody who agrees with you. It's easy to be overwhelmed
and then just slander somebody. My friends, people are going
to slander you if you're in Christ. Like they slandered Christ, they will
slander you if you're counted in Christ. Jesus' own brothers
would not be willing to be slandered. They wanted Jesus to fall into
their way. Because it was slanderous enough
to have to be the brother of a man that was so hated. You
know? Gosh, Jesus, could you just get
your life, could you just simmer down now? About all this teaching
about the Father, and the Gospel, and ah, coming in your kingdom. I mean, for crying out loud,
you told people to eat your body. I mean, you've lost your mind,
Jesus. You've been out walking in the
desert too long with these twelve weirdos. And by the way, one's stealing
from you. You know, people saw that. But are you counted in the Gospel?
You'll be counted in the persecutions of Christ. We're not promised,
beloved, we're not promised an easy life. We're not promised
a peaceful life. We're not promised that in Christ
and this world. We are promised persecution. We are promised
hatred. And listen, the hatred that most of our brothers and
sisters in Christ around the world experience is life-threatening. There's no difference in the
persecution that we receive in this community because of our
faith and our stance on the gospel than the persecution that I might
receive if I go to my neighbor and say, your dog tore the trash
up all over my front porch. It's the same uneasiness, you
see. Why? Because we think peace is
no problems. Peace is not no problems. Well,
peace is not without problems. Problems are going to come. Anyone can be a good person,
as they claim Christ to be. Anyone can claim to be in Christ,
but those who are in Christ should be known to be in Him. Are you
in Christ? Are you counted? We who are in Christ are not
conformed to the patterns of this world, Romans 12, 1 and 2. We
do not conform to the patterns of this world. We do not conform
to the thinking of this world. We do not get absorbed with the
political stance, with the cultural stance, with the social stance,
with the justice stances of our culture. We're not absorbed by
these things. They're foreign to us. We're
like, these people can't see the truth that's in front of them because
they've not been born again. We don't conform to the pattern
of the world this way. We don't conform to the pattern of this world
when it comes to professing to be in Christ and to be complacent
about our faith. We cannot be complacent when it comes to the
things of Christ. Beloved, hear what I'm saying.
I'm saying that we who are born of God need to recognize the
severity of the war that is happening within our own minds, within
our own homes, within our own communities, within our own church. And we need to be active in our
faith. We need to press into the Word
of God. How many times a week do I say you need to be reading
the Scripture? Through the Bible, God heals
our hearts. Through the Bible, God causes
our minds to be at ease. Through the Bible, God gives
us, even when we can't write down the outline of what He's
taught us, He gives us the knowledge of His mercy and wisdom. It is
a divine work of Christ. We don't need to stay ignorant
either, church. Being a good person, being a
Christian, is not about not cursing and being kind to others and
having scripture verses on our desk and God pictures on our
wall, having a bracelet that says, Go with God on our wrist
or a bumper sticker that says, Haunt for Jesus. That's not Christianity. Christianity is being born again
by the Spirit of God, through the Word of God, by the divine
pleasure of God's will, through the finished work of Jesus Christ,
where He satisfied the wrath of God against you so that you
would not suffer the death that you deserve because of sin. And
He's born you anew and given you repentance, granted that.
He's given you permission to have it. He's given that to you
as a gift. And He's gifted you faith that you might see and
believe. And then in all the rest of your days, you will grow,
sometimes wearily, into having a faith that endures. And sometimes
you will walk just as beautifully before the Lord and beautifully
before the world that people say, that surely is a Christian.
And then sometimes you'll roll your eyes so hard, it's like
a semi-truck turning over, and somebody will go, there's no
way that person's saved. And you'll roll your eyes again. That's what your Christian faith
is. You're counted in Christ through the thick and thin, through
the hard, through the easy, through the tough. You're counted in
Christ. But sometimes circumstances disallow
the flesh to be bold, don't they? Sometimes things get so bad,
we don't know how we're supposed to stand. We don't know how we're
supposed to pray. We don't know what we're supposed
to do. We don't even know if we're going to survive the week, much
less the year. What are we going to do? Well,
do the simple thing that God has called us to. Be in fellowship
together. Be under the Word of God. And
take our eyes and put it in the face of someone else besides
ourselves. because God will work through
these circumstances. Even when we are so scared to
be bold in our faith, there's nothing else to do. The Spirit
of God will work in us. We will not fail, for He is faithful
when we are faithless. When we are faithless, He remains
faithful. Who? Christ, because He cannot
deny Himself. That's what He is, a faithful Savior, a faithful
friend, a faithful God, a faithful Redeemer. He has finished the
work of salvation and you have been gifted it, beloved. You
didn't earn it, you didn't want it, but He gave it to you anyway. Through the hearing of the Word
of God, the Spirit of God gave you eternal life. There is no
greater joy than that. And we don't have to play games
with words and have to worry about all these deep things that
the world likes to argue over. We can rest in the simple truth
of Jesus Christ alone is our salvation. He is our righteousness. He is our sanctification. He
is our wisdom from God for the sake of our joy through the praise
of His glorious grace. When we're joyful, you know what
joy looks like in the midst of death? We thank God for who He
is and what He's done to save us from eternal damnation. that
we so desperately deserve. But sometimes fear, look at verse
13, fear can drive us away in our flesh, can't it? I know some
crazy people who say, well, anybody ever scared of Jesus aren't saved. Moving right along, we'll talk
about dumb things when we're not trying to talk about something
important. Because that's a dumb statement. If I told you every time I was
fearful, you'd be getting texts and phone calls every few hours.
Just have a fear alert, like a little thing on my watch, and
when it sees fear, it just texts the whole church. Y'all change
your numbers. Pastor's fearful. Oh my gosh.
Pastor's burdened. He's worried too much. You know?
And it could be anything, well, are they going to tow to my truck,
or did the trash on my front porch again, or somebody in the
church is dying. Somebody in the church is losing
their faith. My kids won't listen. What could it be? There's fear
that's always there. People were scared of the Jews
in this day. Now it's different than what we see in John 12 where
it says, they dare not confess Christ for they love the glory
that comes from men. They were fearful of losing their
own prestigious position in society. That's not what they're talking
about. These people were scared to speak out and say, no, Jesus
is Christ. Because they didn't want to die.
Yes, God gives a measure of grace in that moment when we are faced
with death. We can say, kill me. but we can't sit on our couch
as we're watching the news and go, you know what, I'm just going
to die for Jesus today. No, we're going to stay home. I'm going
to run out there, I'm going to tell everybody about Jesus. And
we start looking around and go, well, you know, I just love Jesus
inside. That happens. The fear of the
Jews. These people did not speak openly of Him. Those people that
could see Him. Fear drives many of us to silence.
Fear drives many of us to worry instead of pray. That's a type
of silence. Fear drives our culture to silence. But see, who gets
the accolades? The noisy, squeaky wheels of,
I'm going to stand for Jesus. All right, great. Then preach
the gospel. No, I'm not going to put up with
this kind of stuff. I'm boycotting Walmart. Starbucks is evil. There's a
goddess on there without a bra on. They took the Christmas tree
off the cup. Drink the coffee and settle down.
Well, don't drink the coffee. That's not going to settle you
down. I'm not making fun of it. I'm just saying this is not standing
for Jesus. Drink Starbucks. If you think you can avoid the
world, if you think you can not put money in Babylon's pocket
living in America, you're crazy. The very paper that our money's
printed on is Babylonian. The very idea of it. And it all
belongs to God. The good, the bad, the evil,
the righteous. It all belongs to Him. He will use it for all
of His purpose. And in the end, everything that the world has
will go up into destruction. It is garbage. But we can stand
for Christ by proclaiming the Gospel. I just don't know what
I'm going to do, our friend might say. I can't live like this anymore.
You're right, you can't, but Christ died so that you would
have eternal life. So put your hope there. I don't
have the answer for you in this other thing, but I do have Christ. You know what will happen? If
that person, by the will of God, is born again through the teaching
of the Gospel, they will have an affinity with you in the truth
of the Gospel, and they will come to you for counsel from
the Gospel. But if not, they won't call you
anymore. But as long as we feed people worldly wisdom, as long
as we try to make people look like the so-called Christianity
of the world, which is no Christianity at all, they'll eat it up. They'll lick it off the floor.
They'll slurp it up out of a mud puddle on the street rather than
reach up, as we sing, to the banquet table of Christ. You
know why we eat from the banquet table of Christ? Because He snatched
us running in the mire of the slop of a pigsty and He shook
us into righteousness because He clothed us with His own and
He sat us at the banquet and said, now be satisfied. That's
the picture. But these Jews were tyrants.
In our culture here, we don't really have a reason for true
fear, but we still have to face the music of unbelievers, of
our bosses, of sometimes even people in our own home. But when
we're facing that type of persecution, we can look face-to-face in Christ,
and we can see the glory of God in the fullest, because we can
see the suffering of Christ and the persecution of Christ, and
we know that we are counted worthy to be persecuted for His namesake. And these Jews were tyrants,
and they would imprison and have executed those who spoke of Jesus. But beloved, we can speak the
name of Jesus without that type of fear. And we see what happens
in Acts chapter 6, in Acts chapter 7, in the stoning of Stephen. We see what happens there in
Jerusalem, in the church, the Christian church in Jerusalem,
when they killed Stephen. There are some men there in Jerusalem
that dug up his body out of the stone pile and loudly lamented
over the death of Stephen and gave him a proper burial. And
they themselves most likely, at least at the minimum, were
arrested that day for that. Because it is against the law
to bury a person condemned by stoning. as part of the punishment
of stoning, is that your body, your corpse, decomposes under
the pile of rocks as a visual penalty and reminder of your
blasphemy. And they were accounted. They
spoke boldly the gospel. And persecution started by the
will of God. And beloved, it's never really
stopped. We have an odd persecution in America where it's all social. We don't want people to think
ill of us. We don't want people to not like us. Friends, if people
hate Christ, why in the world would they ever like us? And
I know a lot of people use that as an excuse because they're
polarizing and pompous and they're just jerks. They say, see, they
don't like me because they didn't like Christ. They don't like
you because you're terrible. And you smell bad too. But we can live. in a world that
hates us because Christ is sovereign over that. The majority, beloved,
I hate to say this, is hardly ever right. It's hardly ever
right. You never find a place where
the majority sticks together on the truth. It's usually the
other way around. Oh, they'll stick together against
the truth. They'll stick together to refute the truth. And here's
the crazy thing, is that a lot of, quote, religious Christian
people in our culture, especially in the United States, they think
they're doing the Lord's work, but you've never heard the gospel,
you've never seen the Word of God, you've never heard them
pray for their enemies. They just bark and fuss and complain
every time you turn around, and they try to drag us into it.
And when we're not dragged into it, they call us weak, just like
they called our Savior weak. People like that like to set
up themselves and set up this straw man of saying, now people
will say, we're not doing the Lord's work, but look at our
persecution. But do you know the Jehovah's Witnesses say the
same thing? Oh, we're persecuted because we're doing the Lord's
work. Islam says the same thing. Mormons say the same thing. Everywhere
you look throughout history, all the cults, all the unbelievers,
even those unbelievers in the name of Christ, they're all persecuted. Look at the majority of where
the world is. It's not in the Gospel. Many
congregations this very hour in our communities are not hearing
the Gospel because they're not hearing the exposition, the story
of Scripture. I mean, I could come up with
a six-point outline off the top of my head with one verse out
of this text, and it would be extremely intuitive, That's not
bragging. It would be extremely, let's
see, applicable to your life. And you'd be like, wow, that's
something I can go home and deal with. But it's not truth. Tony
Robbins has never spoken the truth in his life. Zig Ziglar
has never spoken the truth in his life. Can you use that stuff?
Absolutely. But what is truth is Christ. The majority, when they don't
get the minority to fall in line, what do they do? They terrorize
it. And Jesus was not going to be
terrorized by His brothers. He was not going to be terrorized
by the Jews. He answers to the Father and
He has no fear of any man. Let's look at verse 14. You see
the circumstances that we built there. It's that environment
of hatred and animosity toward the truth of Christ. Christ Himself
was the pinnacle of hatred. People hated Him. He was the
picture, the poster child of hatred. They hated Him. To be
hated. On a verbal topo there, it's
going to make me say that Jesus was hateful. But in verse 14, it shows you
just what Jesus did by the will of God the Father. In the middle
of the feast, about the middle of the feast time, Jesus went
up into the temple and began teaching. Now, if you were about
to die, and everybody there was 50-50 on your side, and the other
half wanted you dead and had the authority and the power to
make you dead, fear could cause you to not be seen. So people
would say, well, Jesus went up into the thing by Himself so
He could sort of not get captured. Well, He went up in there by
Himself so He could not be numbered with those people who didn't
believe in Him. Because it was not God's purpose for Him to
be numbered with them. but it was God's purpose for him to
wait to the middle of the feast events, then what? Not to just
be seen and walking around, hanging out, how you doing, good to see
you, yeah, I'm Jesus, good to see you, oh, you've heard of me,
great. Let me teach you a little bit here. Doing a little evangelism,
little pockets over here. No, brother went up into the
temple in the midst of the whole of religious society and stood
there and began to teach publicly. The largest crowd in the middle of it all, and
he pops up and begins to teach. That's what he does. He's not
shying away from the call that God the Father has put on him.
He's fulfilling the absolute divine plan of God. And he goes
into this feast, and he begins to teach into the temple, because
the time was right, the feast was underway, and the crowd was
at its peak. And Jesus went there, And it was the last place the
people who really loved Jesus wanted Him to be. Don't go there. You're going
to die. We don't have to go. And then,
you know, you see the other narratives. What does Thomas say? Let's just
go with Him and die together. We're just going to die with
Jesus. I've lost it all anyway. Let's
go down in a blaze of glory. Jesus was in the last place He
should have been in the flesh. Beloved, when we're in the midst
of it all, and we feel like there's nothing to be found that gives
us hope, it's the last place we want to be in the flesh, it's
the best place we could be in Christ. Because in our weakness,
He is our strength. He is our power. He is our hope. We find too much hope in the
absence of stress. As Christians, we find Christ
in the midst of stress. And the Jews, as he began to
teach, look at verse 15, marveled. They're thinking, this guy, I
mean, here he is, oh great, we'll get him, he's trying to disrupt
the temple. Remember when he came in here a couple of years ago, he turned
all over the tables. He messed up our money. He shooed
out all of the livestock. The money changers, man, we were
making good on that. Here he is. And they say, how does this
man teach? How does this man teach this
way? He's never been to school. He's never learned under the
rabbinic tradition. He's never been to prepare to
be a Pharisee. Who is he to teach this way?
He's not even a rabbi. Who is He? How does He teach
by all of this authority? Friends, consider the difference
of Matthew 7 where it says, And Jesus finished these sayings.
The crowds were astonished at His teaching. And you know what
else Matthew writes? For He was teaching them as one
who had authority, and not as their scribes. You see the difference? They
couldn't believe this man would say, I tell you the truth. Amen, amen, I say to you, you
must be born again. It is true. It is true. I say unto you. Jesus
would say that. You think, what's the big deal?
Brothers and sisters, if I got up here and started telling you
what I thought and what you should do and I tell you what to do, who
am I to have authority to do that? Christ says, the Lord says,
the apostles say, the Bible says, the Scripture says. That's the
authority. Christ is the authority. The
scribes could never preach on their own authority and never
did. They didn't even adhere to Scripture. They adhered to
the citations of those commentators throughout their lives. That's why I personally have
a problem with young pastors who do too much citations in
their teaching. I don't care what John Calvin
had to say about anything. I don't care what any other...
I don't care what I have to say about anything. It's not about
me. It's about what Christ has said about everything that matters,
you see. We learn the Word of Christ,
we hear the Word of God. Exposition teaches the story
of Christ and teaches the Word of Christ. And we see Christ
face to face. We see the Father when we see
the Son. Jesus spoke authoritatively. He was not some messenger. He
is God. And so verse 16, Jesus answered
them. You know, they didn't come up
and say, oh, look at this marvelous teacher. I mean, they wouldn't
dare say that. Jesus knew their thoughts, and they were saying
amongst themselves. They marveled. Just as the Scripture
teaches us that Lucifer, in his heart, desired to share the glory
of God, and God threw him out of heaven. Sometimes we think
that Satan went up and just put his finger in God's face. No,
he thawed it, and God threw him out of heaven. Jesus answered them, "'My teaching
is not Mine, but His who sent Me.'" Again, the very reason
they want to kill Him. And He reads their hearts and
minds. Not reads, He knows their hearts and minds. Jesus doesn't
learn as God. He learns as a man, but God doesn't
learn. So the God-man then is aware
of what they are thinking, and he speaks the very thing that
caused them to want to kill him to begin with. He says that his
words, his teaching, his doctrine is not his own, but belongs to
the one who sent him. John 5, as I've already alluded
to, Jesus is not just speaking the Word of God, He is also doing
the work of God. As the Father speaks, so I speak.
As the Father does, so I am doing. As the Father was doing, now
I am doing. Remember those? He's basically saying that if
I raise my hand, then God is raising His hand. If I say a
word, then God is saying this word. If I do this work, then
God is doing this work. And they wanted to kill Him.
What Jesus is doing is what God is doing. He reiterates this
irritating truth to these people that He is from God. He is from
the Father. He is from heaven. He is God.
And so the teaching of Scripture cannot be refused as just some
mere idea from man. Paul says in Hebrews that we
do very well to pay attention. Peter says we should not ignore
Scripture. Because when we do, We ignore
God. I remember being young and having
four channels on television, and when the president came on,
it just ruined your week. You're watching Looney Tunes,
and then there's Jimmy Carter. And you're going, oh, I hate
this guy. What's he talking about? Ruined. But everybody's, shh,
shh, shh, the president's on. It's not like that anymore, is
it? It's like, oh, great. When's the president not on?
But it was important. Why? Because it was authoritative.
And if something special came in, especially, you know, Dan
Rather or somebody like that, Walter Cronkite, those voices
that just demanded attention. Ladies and gentlemen, this is
an important message. I mean, you know, oh my gosh, this is
important. Turn up, stop. Spit your food
out. You got to pay attention. This is authoritative. Somebody
authoritative was saying something authoritatively. God speaks when Jesus speaks,
and Jesus speaks when His Word is read. Friends, when the Word
of God is read, it is authoritative because God is speaking. No matter
what mouth it's coming from, it is God speaking. We can't
refuse it. Though we can't ignore it, we
can't refuse its authority. We can pretend that we don't
have it. Romans 1 says many pretend that they don't have it by continuing
to do the things that would suppress the truth, the wickedness that
would suppress the truth, but God will turn them over to reprobation
and they will continue to do the things that suppress the
truth. The voice of God is the voice
of Jesus, is the voice of Scripture. No matter the teacher, when it
is exposed, the story is told, it is truth. One would do well
to listen. About what? On matters of teaching,
which is doctrine. On matters of correction, which
is discipline. On matters of worship, which is devotion. No
man can ignore Scripture, but even if he does, a believer will
not ignore Scripture. You might think you're ignoring
it, but a believer will hear the voice of his or her shepherd
and they will rest in the conviction of God. And they will walk in
the correction of God. Why? Because if we sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who
is our propitiation, 2 John 2. And I'll close with these, and
we'll pick up here in verse 17 next week. Jesus says, if anyone's will
is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is
from God or whether I'm speaking of my own authority. Jesus is rebuking these Jews.
He's saying, you can't hear Me because you do not do the will
of God. He is reminding these Jews that they cannot hear Him
because they do not have the Word of God in them. And He is
removing the argument that they had in their hearts by saying,
you cannot speak to Me as having the authority of God's Word yourself
because you do not know God. But I come from God and I speak
from God. He says that anyone's will is
to do the will of God, he will know that I am teaching the Word
of God. What is it that the will of God
is to be done? What is it? We have to remember
where this comes from in John chapter 6. First, it is not the
moral, perfect life of the Jews. They had a perfect life. So Jesus
couldn't be talking about that. They were not living in immorality.
They followed the Mosaic and the Moral Law very well. Second,
it's not the fruit of a new life in obedience. which is the same
as the Jews who followed it. It's just different on the timeline. But it is believing in the perfect
righteousness of Jesus Christ. And if it is not from faith,
it is sin. This is the work of God. He says,
what must we be doing to be doing the work of God? What is it that
the will of God is for our lives? And Jesus says, this is the work
of God that you believe on the Son whom He has sent. That is
the ones who know the voice of God. Those are the ones who recognize
the authority of Christ and follow it. Those who have been born
of God. A lost man cannot follow Christ,
even if he goes through the motions. But a saved person is following
Christ because they believe on Christ. They can discern spiritual
things. The natural man cannot do it.
The church comes together, as I said earlier, and we live for
the sake of each other because it is what Christ has taught
us to do. Some people are not spiritually
discerned, and you may find yourself in that place sometimes. And
I think as believers, we can find ourselves not spiritually
discerned when we are not in the Word of God. And we can also
find ourselves not spiritually discerned when we're not in the
church of God. But friends, sometimes people
find themselves continually not spiritually discerned because
they're not in the faith. Because we can sit here, and
we can agree, but it doesn't mean we're born again. Maybe this message today has
struck your heart, and God has used it to give you spiritual
ears that He's granted you repentance and faith. Walk therein by faith. We cannot have Jesus in our own
way. He comes as He is, full of grace and truth. We cannot
have Jesus on one side of our lives and the world on the other.
One will hate us and the other will not. We do not want Christ
hating us. And we will hate one and despise
the loved one and despise the other as well. We cannot say
that we are in Christ when we're not believing in the gospel of
grace. but find ourselves trusting in our own methods, our own salvation
experience, our own faith, our own will, our own decision, our
own movements, our own evidences, our own assurances, our own fruitfulness.
We cannot have Jesus if we do not have Jesus. We can't have
Jesus of Scripture if we don't know the Jesus of Scripture.
How do we know the Jesus of Scripture? By listening to the Word of God
together. By reading the Word of God alone. By sharing the
Word of God with each other. Beloved, we all have life in
Christ. And because we have life in Christ,
we are His body. And because we are His body,
we have an intimacy that surpasses the comprehension of the world.
My prayer and my point is that we should hear the Word of the
Lord and walk therein. I pray that you would be in prayer
desperately for your family, for your household, and for each
other, that Christ would sustain us no matter what comes our way. Let's pray. We thank You, Lord,
for this truth, for the purposes that You've established in Christ
Jesus, Lord, for the peace that I have in my heart and mind that
Your Word gives me. Lord, knowing that there is nothing
that can separate us from Your love that is in Christ, we are established before the
foundations of the world to be Yours, and You purchased us through
the blood of Your Son, and there is nothing that can take us away. God, I pray with all authority,
by the name of Jesus, for each other. I pray for the marriages
of our church. I pray for the health of the
bodies of our church. I pray for the spiritual war
of our church. Lord, I pray for the joy of our
church. God, I pray that Your will be
done, and that You would restore all things in Christ, and that
You would establish a people for Your glory by the power of
Your grace, that Your name would be made much of and be great
in our culture and community. Lord, that at whatever cost it
comes, would You hold us together, Not that we might do church,
that we might be the church. We thank you for this remembrance
and this reminder. In Christ we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening. We hope
that this message has encouraged you in the faith. Subscribe to
these messages and other teaching resources and podcasts at anchoringfaith.org. More information about the church
can be found at gracetruth.org.