Gospel of John chapter 5. I could this morning finish this
chapter, or I could tarry for a couple of weeks, a month, or
better, and we'll just have to see. We'll have to see where
we go and where the Lord takes us in this context here. I want to read chapter 5, verses
30 through 47. I can do nothing on my own, as
I hear I judge. And my judgment is just, because
I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. If I
alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There
is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the
testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John,
and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony
that I receive is from man, But I say these things so that you
may be saved. He was a burning and shining
lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in His light.
But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John,
for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the
very works that I am now doing, bear witness about me that the
Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has
Himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard,
His form you have never seen, And you do not have His word
abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom He has sent.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have
eternal life, and it is they that bear witness about Me. Yet
you refuse to come to Me that you may have life. I do not receive
glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love
of God within you. I have come in My Father's name, and you
do not receive Me. If another comes in his own name,
you receive him. How can you believe when you
receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that
comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse
you to the Father. There is one who does accuse
you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believe
Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you
do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?" There's a couple of things that
we need to understand here. One argument. This is one argument
that Jesus gives us to these Pharisees about His
authority. It's an argument that Jesus gives
us in the Word here through the Evangelist John about how His
power works. About His ability to create. About His power and His divine
nature. This teaches us also that the
hearers to whom Jesus is speaking could not hear. We looked last
week where Jesus told them to not marvel. Don't consider and
wonder what I'm saying. Do not look at what I'm saying
and think, how can this be? For there will come a time and
it is now here where the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God. That's what Jesus is telling them. Now, don't forget
why he's having this conversation to begin with. He went into Jerusalem. He went into the pool there of
Bethesda, Bethsaida, and healed one man out of many and then
hid himself because there were many invalids there. He violated
the law according to the Jews by healing on the Sabbath and
then commanding a man to stand and take a journey on the Sabbath
while carrying his bed. mat, a straw mat, like a beach
towel. And when this man walks and presents
himself to the Pharisees and to the Jews, the Jews are not
concerned with the fact that this 38-year invalid is walking. They're concerned with the fact
that this man violated their law. And let me say, as a way
of reminder, their law is their custom. Their law is their tradition. Their law is their misinterpretation
because of the judicial blindness of God. It's their wrong interpretation
of Scripture. How we can all be reminded of
how fragile our wisdom is. So much so that Paul would tell
the Corinthian church that the stupidity, not that there is,
but the stupidity of God is greater than the wisdom of man. And the
weakness of God is greater than the strength of man. So that
God chose to use what is lowly to shame the wise, what is stupid
to shame the wise, what is weak to overpower the strong, what
is nothing in the world to bring to nothing the things that are
something. That's Paul in Corinthians 1. And in the same way, Jesus took
that same nature on to become a nothing, as Paul would teach
the Philippian church. A nothing that became obedient
unto death on a cross, though He was in all His fullness, God. And as we've seen, that Jesus'
intention in all of His ministry was to give glory to God the
Father, to submit to the will of God the Father, to do the
works of God the Father, to teach the words of God the Father,
and in turn, Those who said that they knew God as Father would
then reject the very One who the Father had sent, and in doing
so, they remain dead. Their condemnation, as Jesus
is told in John 3, they are condemned already, for they do not believe
in the Son of God. They do not believe in the One
whom God has sent. Friends, I'll say this over and over again.
Church, we are never going to sufficiently Comprehend the vastness
of the immeasurable, ineffable glory of God in all of the eternities
of eternities that we shall be given before Him. We will forever
be in awe of the same teaching over and over again. And it is
not because we look into it and then forget it like James would
argue. but that we look into it and we absorb it by the grace
and the power of God through the Spirit and then we are in
awe and we are in wonder and we wonder how we ought to apply
it and we apply it and then we see it again and we apply it
again and the gospel is the ever-present power of God unto salvation for
us and unto preservation for us through Christ. I have always been accused of
having no application to my preaching, to which unbelievers are correct. But for the church, the application
is primarily and foundationally and perfectly to be in awe of
Christ, to be in awe of God, to be in awe and worship with
every fiber of our being the person of Jesus who is God. In our community at large, in
our communities at large, no matter where we go in this country,
we can find people who are constantly talking about the experience
that they have with God. As a matter of fact, it was in
my youth where a man wrote a book about experiencing God. And though there was some tidbits
of incredible truth in there for the whole, trying to find
a diamond in a marshmallow vat without getting sticky. You can
get sticky when you bog down into humanistic tradition and
philosophy. You can get sticky with the world.
And if you've ever played that game that came out in the early
2000s, it's just a ridiculous game. It's a Japanese game. You
play it on the Xbox and you just lose all thought. That's why
I don't play games anymore because I lose all thought. A little
side note, you can waste a lifetime playing games. But this particular
game was about a little guy and he would walk around and things
would stick to him. And after a while he'd roll around and
then he'd become a ball and everything would stick. And that was your
job. You just roll around destroying the city and everything would
stick to you. You see how big you could get before you blew
up or died or whatever the game decided you did. And then what's
that got to do with anything? Nothing, really. It's just a
ridiculous thing to say. As ridiculous as using philosophy to understand
God. It's as stupid to sit down and
posit that which the Scripture does not teach us and carry away
by other wind of doctrine. It's as stupid as those who would
stand in pulpits across our country, supposedly in the name of God
and by the authority of Christ, and supposedly be ministers of
His grace and of His gospel, and stand and say, you know,
the Bible is not necessarily true. Or the Bible is not necessarily
authoritative. Or we need something more as
a church. We need to do something different as a people. We need
to have some type of engagement with something other than Christ. In that same mindset, there are
some who would say, the Bible is true all the time. And yet
in their staunch dogma, they failed to read it correctly.
And these were the Pharisees. The Bible is true. The Bible
is God's Word. The Bible is authoritative. So
it's not always those who dismiss the authority of Scripture. It's
also many who stand on the authority of Scripture, who then would
also reject its natural teaching. And in doing so, they reject
the supernatural teaching. We are not looking for a word
study. We aren't looking to see what
the word cosmos means or the word world means. It's important
to know, but how do we know? We know what the word world means
in John 3 because we read the context of John 1, 2 and 3. We don't need to dig. and mine
for mystery. We need to behold the mystery
of God revealed through the pages of Scripture. Friends, we will
not sufficiently live out our faith if we are not actively
in the Word of God every day. Muscles die when they're not
used and faith fades when it's not used. Truth evades us because
our mind begins to wander. In our mind, because that song
we sang years ago, 2007, I changed the lyric of that song. The song
we just sang. No, not that one. Come Thou Fount. Where it says, prone to leave
the God I love. I'm like, there's no way I'd
leave the God I love. I'm not prone to that. God's regenerated
me. We're going to change that church. We're going to sing prone
to grieve the God I love. And then as I grew up and realized,
I didn't need to write my own doctrine. I realized that if
it weren't for the grace of God, if it weren't for His Word, we
would leave Him. If it weren't for the Spirit sealing us, we
would leave Him. Because even as Christians, our
flesh is hostile to God. Our flesh is hostile. Why? Because
we love our flesh. Our flesh loves itself. But at
the same time, we have a different nature. We have a different outlook. We have a different sight and
understanding. The Spirit of God gives us a
different heart and a different mind, but yet we still are bogged
down, as James would teach us in his epistle, that we are tempted
by that which our flesh already desires. When I was in Atlanta at a conference,
I didn't really go to the conference, but we met with a lot of brethren
who we're about to start doing some ministry with, some teaching
with, and we went to this hibachi place I've never been in a hibachi
place where they cleaned out the oil pit in front of you. And so we're sitting there, we're
all looking at the menu and this guy comes along and like, this
big black eggshell filled, fat lard filled goop starts running
out in front of us into this bucket. They put it on the table
and they go to the next group. Now I was not tempted to eat
that. I was not tempted to order, honestly, after I saw it. It
was a little disgusting. My flesh did not feel any enticement
for anything edible as I saw that. So thankfully it takes
a while after you get the salad for them to go back there and
kill the cow and come out and cook it. You know, that kind of thing.
What's the point? I wouldn't be tempted by that.
But had he reached underneath the table and pulled out like
a hundred dollars worth of filet mignon. Big old shrimp, size
of your face. and drop them in the floor. I
mean, oh no! Why don't you waste that food? Oh my gosh, people
are starving in America, starving all over the country, and I want
that $100 steak. The irony. We would be enticed of the things
that our flesh wants. Friends, our flesh wants to be
God. Our flesh wants to be a God.
Our flesh wants to be in control. Our flesh wants all knowledge
and understanding. Our flesh wants honor and glory
and power and wealth and everything. Our flesh, even as The Redeemed,
wants power. And we'll take it any way we
can get it. But by the grace of God, Christ has overcome that. By the grace of God, we all have
been crucified with Christ. And we long for the day when
we're glorified and we will no longer battle with sin. When we will no longer fight
the fight of faith, but we will rest in the grace of God. See,
we rest now because it is a done work, it is a finish, but it
is a battle to rest, is it not? It's a fight, it's a war. We're
resting. But everywhere we look, back
to the point of this text, everywhere we look, there are people who
hate God and make it very well known. There's a culture that
hates everything Christian. And then there's a culture of
Christianity that hates everything Christian. That hates everything
God. that hates everything truth.
Why? Because they want to be God. I mean, give it some thought.
Jesus is speaking to a lost people, reaches out to a lost people,
reaches out to a hurting people, He saved them by His grace, and
then the very ones who are supposed to be pointing them, who are
supposed to be testifying of Him, who are supposed to be pointing
people to God, have shut them out. As a matter of fact, Jesus
says that very thing. You have shut people out of the kingdom.
Who's He talking to? He's talking to the religious.
He's talking to the religious leaders. He's talking to those
who knew with every fiber of their mind the truth of Scripture,
so much so that they had memorized the entire Pentateuch. It was a requirement. from memory. It wasn't, oh, I forgot that.
That was many years ago. It was every day a memory. How
many of us have even memorized the letter to Jude or Philemon? Or maybe even just the chapter
distinctions of a specific letter. We don't live in that culture.
We're not even required by God to do such things. It's not that
it's not good, but the Jews were required to do that. And yet
they knew with their mind the truth of who Christ was. As we
go through this, you'll see. But they hated Christ because
Christ took them off the throne of their own glory. Friends,
we live in a day when our culture wants to experience God. That's
the point I was coming to. I'm off on a little rabbit trail
there. We got him. We get to a place where we have
books written by that title, Experiencing God. Knowing God,
understanding God, understanding the will of God. I ordered a
book like that in 2004 from Amazon, Understanding the Will of God.
Oh, it's like The Will of God and then the subtitle was Understanding
the Will of God. And I don't even know why I ordered it. It
was a terrible book, but it was delayed. And I got the email that says,
The Will of God is out of stock. And I took a screenshot of that. I need to find it. It was pretty
interesting because I thought it was the funniest thing in the world
until all of a sudden it hit me. The Will of God is out of stock
and it's out of fashion. It's out of stock, it's out of fashion,
but everybody wants to know it. Everybody has an idea of what
we should do as a culture. This is how we engage. I recently read on the road that
you can experience God. Just come to our service. You
can experience God. Now I would love to think that
that particular congregation or the leaders of that particular
congregation, I say those words lightly, are coming to a place
in their life where they are going to have people show up
and they're going to open up the Bible and everyone is going
to see the face of God through the text and hear the voice of
God through the text and experience the presence of God through the
text. But I know that's not the case. As a matter of fact, some
of them will have gold dust appear out of nowhere. Some of them
will see signs and wonders that, as we've already seen, are not
the point. Jesus can do all sorts of things. Friends, this is a
very real and present reality that we live in, is that many
people who claim the name of Jesus, many people who claim
to be Christians, many people who claim to be the children
of God, are in fact the children of the devil and are reprobate
and need to hear the Gospel. Well, why do they need to hear
the Gospel and reprobate? Because we're commanded to do it. We don't get to pick
and choose who we preach to. We don't get to pick and choose.
I mean, not that I want to quote any old man, Charles Spurgeon
even once said, if the apostate or the reprobate had a tag on
them, I would preach to them. If the non-elect were labeled,
I would still preach to them. Why? Because the only hope we
have is that the Word of God goes to the physical ears of
man, and by the power and the will of God the Holy Spirit,
He opens their ears to hear, which is regeneration from which
they will believe. We live in a world seminaries
teach pastors logistics and leadership and all sorts of cultural engagement
more than they teach the Scripture. You can get a doctorate of ministry
and 36 credit hours and take one Bible course in there. You can. You can get a PhD, a
doctor of philosophy, which is a research degree. You can get
a PhD in theology by just coming up with something new. Extrapolating
a current theological system in such a way that you can find
research of philosophers who actually agree with you on that
point and paint it on a piece of paper and you're a PhD and
whatever. And there's a school for every
school of theology. There's a school for every doctrine.
I recently learned that there is a particular doctorate degree
that you can get in the doctorate of ministry and teaching people
the Bible. That was the title of the diploma, teaching people
the Bible. And yet in that class, you don't
learn any Bible. You just learn how to teach. I'm not here to dog on people's
education. I'm just here to say that our culture has lost its
mind. And the mission field is not just those who are unchurched,
but more so those who are churched. And that's where Jesus is revealing
to us through this discourse with the Pharisees. The Scripture
has been lost as a whole. We've learned that the power
of the words of Christ is the power of God. The power of the
word is the power of Christ. We've learned that the power
of the word is the power of salvation. That Jesus has already said,
previous to this in verses 25-29, that the dead will be raised
to life, spiritually, in the hearing of the words that He
teaches. And then also that the dead in the day of judgment,
all the dead will be raised to life, some unto everlasting life
and some unto everlasting judgment. so that Jesus declares Himself
to be God, doing the work of God, speaking the words of God,
with the authority of God and all the power of God and the
judgment of God, to boot. I was rebuked this morning by
a gentleman because I used 2 Timothy 3, chapter 2, where Paul tells
Timothy that the Lord's servant should not be quarrelsome, but
be gentle and with endurance and patience, endure evil and
teach others that God may grant them repentance and lead them
to the knowledge of the truth, whereby they would escape the
snare of the devil. who captured them to do His bidding. And I
just made the comment that if we are falling prey to these
charlatans and false teachers, these people are tools of the
devil. May God grant them repentance.
And this person told me, he says, he was shaking his head, he told
me that I was part of the psychological abuse of Christianity in America.
As he prepared to go teach a church this morning as a pastor, It's a very real problem. The
reason we don't see it so often, church, is because we don't live
in the culture as Christians. Let me tell you what I mean by
that. We know a lot of stuff about
a lot of things. We engage in our activities every day. If
we are Christ's people, are we not engaging in the Word, and
are we not engaging in the culture with the Word? And part of our job as elders
of this congregation is to help equip you to do this work. Not
just internally here between us in intimacy and love and affection
and disciple one another and to meet each other's needs, but
also, equally important, is to go out into the world and to
profess the truth with gentleness and respect. In the Lord's time
and in the Lord's way with the personality that He gave us.
With the circles that He's given us. Even John the Baptist was
a temporary match, as we'll see. Let's look at the Scripture here.
The words of Jesus, verse 30. I can do nothing of my own, as
I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek not my
own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Here we've already
seen this recapitulation of Jesus. We've already seen Jesus say
this. We've seen Jesus say this, and that He is not doing what
He wants to do, but He's doing that which the Father. As a matter
of fact, He starts out this entire dialogue, He says, the Son can
do nothing of His own accord in verse 19, but only what He
sees the Father doing. And then He says, likewise, what
the Father does, whatever the Father does, that the Son does
likewise, for the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all that
He Himself is doing, and greater works than these He will show
Him, so that you may marvel. And that's what he says, as the
Father raises the dead, the Son raises the dead. As the Father gives
life, the Son gives life. The Father gives the Spirit without
measure. The Father loves the Son without measure. This is
all to tell us, and the Pharisees understood it very clearly, that
Jesus is claiming to be God. He's claiming to be God in all
aspects of His nature and authority and work and word. And the works
of Jesus is not just the miracles. As a matter of fact, that's a
very small piece of the works of Jesus. The majority of the
works of Jesus is the words that He says, are the words that He
says. The works of Jesus is what He
speaks. That's what he's arguing here. When I speak, that's the
greater work. Okay, I heal the man, whoop-de-doo.
Listen to me. Listen to me. When you hear what
I say, that is the greater work. It's the greater work of the
Spirit, you see. So you have to choose. You have
to choose digging a hole for the sake of someone or teaching
them the Scripture for the sake of their soul. The Scripture
is more important than the hole where they will get water to
live in their bodies. It is more important to dig into
the well of the water of life than it is to dig a well for
a family to live in their physical bodies. If we can do both, do
both. If you have to choose, preach.
Do not do this one without this one for the sake of the fact
that you say you love them. That's one of the reasons missions
is so wicked. Because we give everybody everything
for the sake of their flesh. And then we wonder, why do they
leave when we try to plant a church? A thousand people coming up for
water and one person, one family to plant a church. You'll see
the reason that is in John 6. Because what Jesus said was a
greater work than what He did when He fed 5,000. And Jesus does and says all that
He does so that we give glory to the One who sent Him. It is
the words. Jesus is not exercising judgment by His own authority,
but He is exercising judgment by the authority of the Father,
the judgment of God the Father, and that He hears because He
has the same ears as God, because He is God, and He knows the mind
of God because He is God, so therefore He and the Father have
the same mind, so therefore they have the same will, and the will
of Christ is the will of God. And this is what they're saying
in their hearts. God will judge you, and he's like, I'm the judge.
And now they're saying, well, you know what? Who does this
man think he is to tell us these things? He doesn't even have
any witnesses, because isn't that the way it worked in that
day? You could not testify on your own behalf. You had to have
someone else to come. And the more the better. At least
two, according to the Mishnah. You had to have two. witnesses
to stand on your behalf. If you have, even today, if you
are accused of a crime or accused of something and the detectives
and investigators ask you where you were last night at three
o'clock in the morning. And you say, well, I was at the
huddle house. If there's not people who don't know you and
aren't kin to you at the huddle house, who can corroborate what
you say, they don't believe your testimony. Why? Because we liars.
That's why. We are liars, especially when
it comes to saving our own skin. We're gonna lie. Just like Rahab. Just lie. But Jesus is capable
and competent in order to, as God, He has the authority of
God, He can speak on His own behalf, but they wouldn't accept
it, would they? So Jesus knows their heart. And He says in verse
31 and 32, If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is
not true. Now, this is not a didactic statement. What do I mean by that? It's
just not a statement to teach us that Jesus couldn't speak on
His own behalf. Jesus is speaking to the nature and the culture
of His listeners. Jesus is saying what they are
thinking. Jesus is saying what the law
said. Because they've already accused
Him of breaking the law, so He's saying, okay, let me put it in
a paraphrase. You would say, if I bear witness
about myself, my testimony is not true. So Jesus, as a man, according
to the law, could not testify of himself. Then he says in verse
32, now this is key. There is another who bears witness
about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about
me is true. You hear that? It is true. Who is he speaking of there?
God the Father. He's speaking of God the Father there. Because
there is a certainty about the truth of the One who bears witness
about Him. He, according to the Jews, could
not be trusted to be God by His own testimony. And so they're
sitting there wondering, you know, who else can confirm this
for you? Isn't that what they murmured
and mumbled against Him and grumbled? Isn't He the Son of Joseph? Isn't
He the Son of Acarmite? Isn't He from Nazareth? What
good comes from Nazareth? So these are the testimonies
of Jesus. And Jesus is now saying He's
God. So they're thinking, oh, I know who He's talking about.
He's talking about John the Baptist. And so Jesus answers them in verse
33. No, you sent to John. You sent
people to John and you asked him, who are you? And by what
authority do you baptize, remember? What authority do you baptize? And Jesus says, and he has borne
witness to the truth. John the Baptist bore witness
to the truth he proclaimed in the spirit of Elijah. Make straight
the passage of the Lord. Behold, the kingdom of God is
at hand. Change the way you think. Change your mind and believe
in Him. Repent. Believe the gospel. Kingdom of
God. So the Jews sent people to seek
John, to seek out the truth of his authority. And John spoke
of Jesus and pointed to Jesus. Behold, the Lamb of God that
takes away the sin of the world. See, all this is in play here. And Jesus says, you don't believe
my testimony. But for a while, you believe
John's. People don't believe the testimony
of Christ because people want to believe in their own rendition
of the gospel. And our culture has done a really good job, I've
said that several times today, I want you to understand. Our culture,
and when I say culture, I'm not talking about this horrible thing
that's happened in the last 12 years, or the last generation.
I'm talking about the culture that we've been dealing with
since we set foot on this land. The culture of intrinsic, selfish,
personal liberty. I want to be free from the crown.
I want to be free to do what I want to do. I want to be free
to live how I want to live. I want to be free to have what
I want to have, and I want to do it. Oh, wow, we can't take
what's not ours, you want to bet? We took it. The dirt we
stand upon today belonged to somebody else, and we took it. And then we established a government
to secure it after we stole it. Let's just be real, our culture
is a culture of many gods. Our culture is a culture of self
divinity. So when I talk about the culture,
I'm not just talking about the current state of affairs. I'm
talking about who we are as a people. So we bear witness, John the
Baptist bore witness about Jesus And people didn't believe it
because they want to believe their own rendition. They want to have their own way.
They want to have their own religion. They want to subject the gospel
to their own works. See, that is the gospel of America.
Work. It's all about Jesus. But if
you really love Jesus, you'll do this. If you really love Jesus,
you'll do that. If you really love Jesus, you'll
do this. And guess what? Those, you will do these, are not even
listed in Scripture as things that we should do. That's the
trouble. If you want to be saved, if you're
truly born again, you see, these conditions of salvation, these
conditions of evidence, these conditions of truth, these things
are not found in Scripture. That's why when we hear the Gospel
of John, and on Wednesday nights where I've been teaching through
the letter to the Romans, it is so hard for us in our flesh.
We're like, where does it go? Paul knew that as well. Jesus
understood that, that the Pharisees would never relent. They would
never give up. their flesh. It had to be a divine
work of God to take away that heart of stone. It has to be
a divine work of God to open up the eyes of the blind spiritually.
It has to be a divine work of God through which He alone gets
all the credit and all the glory and everything in it. And for
the regenerate people who gather together, that is what the church
is, the ecclesia. The gathered ones who are regenerate.
We get together and we get to read the apostolic teaching to
the regenerate people who gather together. The New Testament,
not one word of the New Testament was ever written for the intention
of a lost person. It was written to the church. The Bible, the New Testament
is not a tool to go out into a blind and dark world and teach
them how to live, and teach them how to act, and teach them how
to transform their lives. Because we are good enough, America,
to do that. And if we decide we want to change
the way we live, we can just manipulate the Bible, or the
law, or anything else, and live the way we want to live, and
still say it's right. There's a way that seems right to man,
but in the end, it is death. People want to subject the gospel
to their own works, to their own understanding, and here,
like the Jews, to their own personal exemptions. Well, I'm obeying
God over here, but I'm not going to obey God here. What is the
disobedience of the Pharisees? The disobedience of the Pharisees
is that they refuse to be subject to the gospel of grace. Grace
is the greatest offense to a Pharisee. I had a Jewish man attend our
church one Sunday. He was visiting in the bay. We
were in California. And he came up afterward, and
he was born again, he believed the gospel, but he told me, he
said, man, that message you preached is such an offense to our people. And he said, even as a born-again
believer, even as a Christian, it still stirs these things in
me when I hear that because of how I live and how my parents
live and how my grandparents live, so perfect and so holy
and they do so many good things, that that's insufficient before
God, and that it is filthy. It is wicked, it is demonic,
it is satanic, it is evil. He said, that bothers me. And
he said that, and I'm like, that bothers me too. It would bother me if
I'd ever trusted in those things. It's terrible, isn't it? Yet
only by the grace of God can we lay them down, but we still
fight the battle. We still fight the fight. We still want to be
Pharisees. Why? Because they get glory from the
Christians in the circles that they walk in. Oh, look at James. Don't look at me. Those of you
who hang around me and hang around my house, I am a man. Though
I may not exercise my anger, I can't keep it from coming into
my mind. Though I can love my neighbor, and I'm not talking
about any specific neighbor, because many of you know my neighbor.
Though I can love my neighbor, I'm supposed to love my neighbor,
it doesn't mean that I don't want to get upset with them sometimes. It's because I'm supposed to
submit to the authorities of our government. It doesn't mean
I want to just go stomp a mud hole in them every now and then.
But we put those things to death by the grace of God. But it's
not what establishes our righteousness. And we cannot stop it. We cannot
stop the thoughts. We cannot stop the emotions.
We cannot stop the feelings. They will forever be present,
beloved. But so is the grace of God forever
present. so that even though we may mature,
even though we may grow, even though it only takes a second,
we may not have been bothered by things for a lifetime, and
all it takes is a second. All it takes is one or two. All
it takes is the smell of something that you hated as a child to
go, ugh, to turn your stomach. Oh, I remember when Mama used
to make that stuff. I remember, you know, when I
got sick off of that stuff. You ever got sick on food and
smell it later and go, I'm not gonna eat that. That's what happens. But what
the world wants to do is have a conditional view of salvation,
and this is death. Faith alone in Jesus Christ alone,
period. Alone, alone, alone, alone, alone,
alone, and nothing else. There is no other way to eternal
life. There is no other way to please God. There is no other
way to live as a Christian. There is no other way to live
in obedience. It is faith, faith, faith through grace, grace, grace. The other way around, actually.
Through grace. What saves us? Grace saves us. not my daughter,
the grace of God. We are saved by grace, the mercy
of God through Christ. He did all the work, He put it
all in play, He finished it completely, and that is our salvation. It's
effectual because God is merciful. How do we know we believe by
faith? See, that's the thing. Saving
faith is believing in the simple, finished work of God for salvation. Not anything else, not another
condition, not anything else. These Pharisees believed in all
sorts of works and conditions. And they did not believe the
testimony of Christ. Look what he says, he says, though I'm
reminding you of John the Baptist, verses 31, 32, 33. Look, in verse
34 he says, not that I need to receive testimony from man. John
the Baptist, he gave testimony about me, but so what? So does
this bush. So does this sky, according to
Romans 1. So does this grain of dirt. So does the eyelash
that just landed on your cheek, Abraham. So does that plop of bird poo
that just landed on your phylactery. It's a phylactery. Well, the
Bible says to keep the Word of God in front of you, in your
eyes, in front of your heart, so they would wear it. in front
of their eyes and in front of their hearts. But they were obeying
and spitting on rocks on the Sabbath so they didn't harvest
or work. Jesus does not need our testimony
in order for Him to be true. He says, I say these things that
you may be saved. Look at that. You know why? What is it? I want
to preach that text. I want to move on, but I want
to preach that text. It seems like there's so many little sermons
in here I want to just go back to. We don't need the testimony of
men to believe. We don't need the evidence of
men to believe. We need to hear the words of
Christ. Friends, you don't need to sit down and have these long,
dragged out debates and discussions with unbelievers. Teach them
Scripture. Read them Scripture. God will supernaturally save
them. if He is going to save them through the hearing of the
words of Christ. You don't even need to worry
about which verse or how many, as long as you're not... I mean,
I guess so. You could read the genealogies. And God will strike
a nerve and regenerate them and they go and they look and they
see just the sovereignty of God and the salvation of man through
the genealogy and the lineage of Jesus Christ. I think any
of it works, but I think if we want to be. We write with it.
We teach the Scripture. We read it. We know that the
power is in the Word of God. The words of Christ. Christ is
the Creator by speaking. Christ is the Creator and the
Savior by speaking. Christ speaks. And he goes on in verse 35 to
tell us who John was. He didn't need John's testimony.
And he says, I say these things so that you may be saved. You've
got to believe in me. See what Jesus is saying? Don't
believe John, believe Me. Well, we want to believe God,
then believe Me, because God sent Me. The Father sent Me.
You see this? It's not rocket science. It's
not Greek. It's easy. Psalm 132 says, There
I will make a horn to sprout for David. I've prepared a lamp
for My anointed. There's a prophecy there of John
the Baptist. A lamp for his anointing. Now I don't know about you, but
see we live in a day and age where I've got some flashlights that
can outshine a Mack truck, a little old flashlight. But for the most part, I remember
the flashlights of the 80s. You walk slowly and you look
down, remember? And then you hit it a few times
and it would get a little brighter and then it would go down a little
bit. And the battery was this big and the bulb was this big.
The thing was this big and it weighed four pounds and it had
a strap on it. That was the flashlight we had in the 80s. And it was
cool for your dad, but then when you had it, you know, it's heavy. And then the streamlights came
out, and they were this long to a kid. But they had like $400
worth of batteries in them. $5 flashlight, you know? But they still wouldn't shine.
Well, that's a bright light, is it? What are we looking for? You got to know where to look
to find something with those things. So imagine how We've got these
torches that are LED that never burn out, batteries never die.
You shine them in the sky, planes go, you know. Are y'all listening? What about the lights of Jesus'
day? A little ceramic bowl like this with some oil in it and
a wick like that. And they carry it around and they light it.
You ever try to find something with a lighter? I have. And you better hope you've got
one of those grill lighters, because if you're holding one like this and you're looking,
you're liable to singe your eyebrows. What's that smell? Your bangs,
that's what it is. Or you're liable to scald your
thumb. What do you do? You're just looking.
Can you read the Bible? There's no light there. It's
not this large luminary. It's not this big signal whereby
the whole world goes, what in the world was that? It's nothing. It's nothing and
if we're not holding it, it's barely going to let us be able
to see. Just a few steps ahead of us, the light that John the
Baptist was, was no real bright light at all. It was just a small
lamp to stand and say for those who are in proximity, here comes
God and His gospel. Here comes God and His gospel. Here He is. Look. And if we see
others who are occupied with other things, they wouldn't even
notice this light over here. He made a big influence. He had
a big impact. But it was just a temporary flame.
He wasn't the light. Christ is the light. And that
light is the life of men, as we see in the prologue of this
gospel. A lamp is a small and temporary
light, nothing lasting, nothing large, but just the same. It
is effectual when it points to the right thing. John the Baptist
was just a flicker in the history of humanity. And we should strive
to be a flicker. Not a bonfire. Not an explosion. See, this goes against the American
mind. Everybody wants to be the biggest
church. Everybody wants to be the biggest ministry. Everybody
wants to do this. But listen, some of the biggest
churches in the world, you've never heard of them. Why? Because
when you get outside your circle of where that light shines, that's
the end of it. I mean, what's the name of Spurgeon's
church? What church did Martin Lloyd-Jones
preach in? What church does John MacArthur preach in? I'm just
trying to think of some popular people who people watch and listen
to. And I'm not advocating for these people, I'm just saying,
I mean, did Jimmy Swaggart ever even pastor a church? And why
was he preaching? Or Roberts? Why was he preaching? And what's the name of the churches?
What do they call themselves? We don't know. We don't know
anything except they're big preaching heads. And we think, oh my gosh,
look at these guys, whoo! If they're not pointing to Jesus,
if we're not effectually bored out of our mind with the personalities
of a preacher, who doesn't preach and point
to Christ, we're missing the point. Tony Robbins is an incredible
orator. If you don't know him, he's the,
like, nine-foot guy that makes a million dollars who just says,
you can do it. He smiles, and they pay him a million bucks.
And everybody's like, I can do it. I'll be golly. Oprah. You get a toaster, and
you get a toaster, and we all get a toaster. Hallelujah. Oprah
for president. I mean, you know. I mean, we've got all this noise
in the world, all this noise in the name of Christianity,
all this noise in so many so-called churches, yet are we pointing
to Christ? We all want to be the big and
the most popular and the most famous. But there's seven billion
people in the world, and we can think of a thousand. Are we even
really famous? You think my brothers and sisters
in Christ, you think our brothers and sisters in Christ who are
right now hiding and trying to have Bible study? Well, they
will be. Or either have. I can't remember what side of
the world. In Kabul, you think they care who's on YouTube? You
think they care how many likes are on their Facebook page? They're
just happy they have a face. What's the point? John the Baptist
had to get out of the way. He was just a tiny little flicker.
And we should also be a tiny little flicker. We get out of
the way. How do we get out of the way? We don't put our personalities
and our philosophy in place of truth, because when we do, we
subject Christ to us, instead of the other way. We point to
Christ. We point to Christ as a people
who are in submission to God, and get this, by the authority
of the Word, we point to Christ as a people who are in submission
to one another. Just like the text that Pastor Jesse read this
morning. We are submissive to one another because that's how
we are submissive to Christ. So if there's not a one another,
we're not submissive to Christ. If we're trying to be our own
thing, we're not submissive to Christ. We must point to Christ in that
submission. We must point to Christ in unity. And unity is
forbearing and forgiving. That's what unity is. Unity,
of course, is knowing we're just assuming a lot. We all believe
the right teaching. We all believe in the true gospel.
We're not here with like 35, 40 different views of how we're
saved. We all believe the right gospel. But in that, that's a
given. If we don't believe the right
gospel, are we even regenerate? We teach. The Bible teaches that
unity is seen in forbearing and forgiving one another, not holding
each other's sins against another. So much so that Jesus in His
teaching, in His parables, say that those who are not forgiving
and do not forgive are not forgiven. That's some bold statements by
God Himself. We point to Christ when we're
in that place. We point to Christ when we teach the whole counsel
of Christ. Not a portion that we deem right. Like the Jews
who taught the law and then they taught the law wrongly. They
were wrong. This is what, how we point to
Christ. We teach the whole counsel of
Christ. Jesus is not this man that lived to show us how to
live. Jesus is not this good teacher. who gives us a lot of
good life lessons. He's not like Muhammad or Buddha
or any other world religion leader. He's not like the prophets of
the Old Testament. He's not like a pastor. He's not a pastor.
He pastored no one. He is the Great Shepherd. Pastors help
keep things in order. I left you in Crete that you
may put in order what remains. Why? By teaching Christ and subjecting
yourself to one another through the Word of God for the sake
of Christ. That's the point of the church. That's a proper ecclesiology,
not this business mind garbage that we have today in our culture. We point to Christ. Even so,
man's testimony of Christ is not vital for the salvation of
people. Our testimony in that town, I'm
not saying we don't proclaim, that's how God saves, through
mere human beings. We, as brothers and sisters,
we teach the Scripture. And through that, people are
discipled. And through that discipling,
what happens? God brings to life dead sinners. But our testimony
is not vital for Christ to be truth. It doesn't matter what
we say or what we don't say. Someone told me this week that
Paul was a liar. The Apostle Paul. They have taken
their New Testament and just eradicated anything Paul teaches.
Which in turn, they have to cut out all of John, all of Peter,
The book of Hebrews, James, of course, and what's left? We've got the histories and the
Gospels, but they agree with Paul, so cut them out. So we've
got nothing. We've got maps. Well, Jesus used to live there, and
He walked here, and He died there. How do you know that? The map
doesn't tell you that. Oh, I guess it doesn't. The map doesn't tell
you that Jesus lived there. See how silly that is? That's where we are. The testimony
of Christ, and us is not vital, for he has a greater testimony."
What is it? It says they rejoiced in John's testimony for a little
while. See, they saw John, they confronted him. They're like,
what are you doing? Why are you teaching? More importantly, why
are you baptizing? That's what their problem was.
And then they rejoiced in it. They tolerated. Oh, look at John.
Look at John. Look at Herod. We love John, but John pointed
to Christ. And now they don't tolerate Christ,
but they tolerated John who pointed to Christ. You see how that is?
What's Jesus doing there? He's rebuking them for their
fleeting, selfish, superficial trusting in John the Baptist.
They thought he's no problem. He's no sweat. He's just this
weird guy with bugs in his teeth. Long hair, doesn't bathe, wearing
animal skins. That was before it was popular. We love the gospel. We love the
preaching of God. We love the truth, they would
say. Oh, not anymore. Hebrews 10 has
a little bit of something to say about that. If I had time,
I'd read the whole chapter, but all in all, we see. Hebrews 6
says something about that, too. We experience, and all of a sudden
we go, that worked for a while. You know why? Because it was
a human response to truth. It's like the parable of the
sower. The seeds that plant. Some of them look like Christians
for a long time, and then all of a sudden they just go, Done. Because they're not trusting
in the gospel of Christ, the grace of God. And you always wonder, why is
it always the most zealous people who seem to fall away from the
faith? Because in their zeal that seems like affection, it's
really self-righteousness. It really works. Remember so-and-so
used to preach outside and used to be a pastor and now he sells
cars? That'd probably be what I'd have to do if I wasn't in
ministry, sell cars. And I hate selling cars, so I'd be standing
out in front of the cars with a cup. What do we do? Man, I can't believe
that happened to them. Believe it. Believe it. Jesus says there's a testimony,
and John, though he had a testimony, it's not the one that matters.
You rejoiced in John's testimony, but you rejected it. Verse 36
and 37 and 38. We'll close them in these statements.
Jesus is saying, the works that I do, the works of God, verse
36, but the testimony that I have is greater than the one of John.
For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the
very works that I am now doing, bear witness about me that the
Father has sent me. You see that? The words that
I am speaking to you this very moment, Jesus says, are the testimony
of God who sent me. For they are the words of God." The works of Jesus are His words. And they speak on His behalf.
And the Jews would think, well, this isn't enough. You're still
testifying. See, it's sort of like a circular reasoning in
some sense. You know, we're going back to
the beginning, we're using this which we're trying to prove as
an argument to prove it, etc. You're saying your testimony
isn't good, and John's testimony isn't good, but now you're saying
the words you say. You see what he's doing? He's saying, the
Father, the Father is the One who testifies of me. The Father
is the One, and verse 37, and the Father who sent me Himself,
born witness about me. Now see, that's hard to trumpet,
isn't it? I mean, I've had that conversation
the last few weeks. I've had somebody tell me, well,
I have the Holy Spirit in me as well. And just because, you
know, what do you do? You have the inrun of the Holy
Spirit. Everything you say about the Bible is what's true. What
about what I have to say? Well, what you're saying is not
found in the Bible. Well, God revealed it to me. The God of
the earth. The God of the enemy. The enemy of God. The God of
the powers and principalities of darkness. Satan revealed it
to you. Well, I've seen the work of God.
I've seen miracles. Satan performed those miracles. It's not about
interpreting Scripture. It's about reading English. It's
about reading sentences. It's about reading the context.
It's about repeating, really. That's what preaching is. Right
preaching, right doctrine, right theology is just saying what
the Bible is saying. Just say it and maybe expound
upon it just a little bit. But it's not necessary to even
expound, is it? Not so much. but it does slow us down that
we might digest it a little more. See, this is not your meal, beloved. The meal is when you go home
tonight and you pick it up and you read it. That's the meal.
This is the menu. Preaching in the assembly, I
believe, is the menu. Yes, you're being fed, but at
the same time, it's not enough. And listen to what Jesus says.
The Father who sent Me has Himself borne witness about Me. His voice. This is tough. You think you've
heard from God. You've never heard His voice.
You've never seen Him. And you do not have His Word
abiding in you, for you do not believe the One who has sent
Me. He attacks the internal claim
of the Jews, that God was their Father, they lived to honor Him,
they knew Him, they obeyed Him, they heard His voice through
the prophets, and they had the authority to judge according to Scripture.
Wow. Those people that said to me,
I have the Spirit of God and I believe differently, or who
do you think you are to interpret it that way? My answer, and I'm
the one that says, well, I read the Bible too. Somebody told
me that recently. I'm like, really? Somebody says,
I've done an exhaustive study on several words and I know.
One guy trying to argue with me that the Tanakh, that we need
to go back to the Law. Really? And your search of salvation
comes from where? Well, I don't believe that. Paul
was just, he got kicked out of Judaism so he had a bone to pick. That's why he wrote these things.
I see that the only place we really find a deep exposure of
justification is Paul. Plainly. I mean, it's there,
it's everywhere, but without Paul, what do we have? Without
the Scripture, without the New Testament? See, the Jews did
the same thing. They began to read the Bible,
and they were thinking, we have the Word of God, we have the
authority of Moses, we have the prophets on our side, is what
they're thinking. And Jesus in verse 38 says, you
don't even have the Word. You don't have the Word abiding
in you. You don't even have it in your hands. I see it dangling
in front of your face, but it's not there. The Word of God is
not there. It's not in your heart. It's not in your mind. It doesn't
abide in you. You, if you had the Word of God in you, would
believe in Me. And you would believe that I
was sent by the Father. So those people that say, I read
the Bible too. I want to answer. I don't, but I want to answer.
Yes, but you read the Bible to prove what your flesh wants to
believe. You go through and you find the verses. Find the verses. I don't tell
people to read verses. I tell people to read letters and to
read the Gospel of John. It does them no good to go read
John 3. It does them no good to read John 3 when they're already
presupposed or predisposed to not believe. They're going to
go in there, well, I'm just going to read, I'll show you. No, just
go read the whole Gospel of John. Just go read the entire letter
to the Romans. Go read the entire... Go read the book... Go read the
letter to the Galatians. Paul's first epistle. Jesus was harsh. You don't have
the Word abiding in you because you don't believe. I know this
because you don't believe. I know this because I'm God. Not just
believe who He is, but believe what He says about Himself. See,
Jesus says He is God and that He is the only way to life. You
don't have His word abiding in you, Jesus would say, because
you don't believe Me. What is this thing that Jesus
teaches? He teaches the good news of God. He teaches His divine
nature, that He is God. He teaches His work and His words
are effectual for salvation. He teaches faith. He teaches
everything related to the gospel of grace. There's something that we'll
talk about in the weeks to come, You are not required to have exhaustive
knowledge of Christ. But in order to be saved, you
must have sufficient knowledge of Christ. And sufficient knowledge
is found very plainly. Listen to me, plainly in the
Scripture. Plainly. He is God. He is man. He obeyed. He died. He rose from the dead.
And only through Him are you righteous. Only through Him are
you justified. Only through His work can you
be redeemed. Christ did it all of this gospel,
Paul would say, according to the Scriptures. Sufficient. The Holy Spirit of God can wake
us, regenerate us, and cause us to believe by hearing the
truth. And in verses 39 and 40, and
I'll quit there, You search the Scriptures because you think
that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear
witness about Me. Yet you refuse to come to Me
that you may have life." See, these Pharisees had everything
that they had in assurance and confidence because of who they
were and what they knew. But they did not know Christ.
And so when it came down to the end of the day, they argued in
every respect, everything, that would say, we know the truth.
We know God. See? And God Himself in the flesh,
the God-man, said to them, you do not know, because the Word
of God does not abide in you. And you think you can find salvation
through the Scriptures. What does that really mean? And
I'll preach on that in the weeks to come as well. But here's in
a nutshell what Jesus is saying. You're going to dig through the
pages of Scripture, and you're going to find the things that
you think will ensure your salvation. and you're going to act on them
and walk in them and do these things, and you are missing the
point that it is Me. It is Me. It is Me that will
save you, and only Me. And that's what Jesus is saying.
And that's what I'm saying to you, beloved, today. No matter
what roller coaster of a train wreck that seems to befall you
this day, no matter how frustrating or hard or burdened you might
feel, Christ is sufficient for your salvation, and Christ alone
is sufficient for your joy, and Christ alone is sufficient for
your confidence and for your assurance. And as a people, as
a church, as the body of Christ, in our small little area, in
our small little segment, we will point to Christ, who is
the light, who is the life, and who is the truth. Let's pray.
We thank You, Father, for giving us truth. We thank You for allowing us to see and to believe. And I pray, Lord, as we do every
time we gather, that You would continue to teach us and to grow
us deep in the knowledge of this grace. That You would continue
to mold us into the pattern of Your call. That we would continue
to profess and to believe and to point to Jesus Christ the
righteous. And that we not spend so much
time engaging the world in debate and argumentation, but Lord,
that we would spend more time in prayer and in proclamation
of the Gospel. To prepare us for that, Father.
Drive us to Your Word. Drive us to the truth of Scripture
as we continue to just walk in this life by faith and not in
the flesh. We praise You for Your love for
us. In Jesus' name, Amen.