Turn again to the Gospel of John
chapter 5. You'd think we'd be through with
chapter 5 by now, but it is nothing compared to what we'll do when
we get to chapter 6. I saw an article this morning,
I don't read a lot of news during the Lord's Day, and try not to
read any news hardly on Sunday, but sometimes it pops up. And
this morning, about six o'clock, an article popped up with the
New York Times that said that if you talk in the right ear
of a child, it listens better. And then I thought, well, this
is too good to be true. I'm going to read that. So I
read the article and basically it went something along these
lines that if there is noise in the room or there's other
conversations taking place that a child, even if you're standing
in front of it, cannot hear equally with both ears and instruction.
So the better thing to do is to lean into the right ear and
speak to the right ear because neurologically, that ear is processed
by the brain quicker. To which I thought, well that
worked when I was a child and it came along with bloody pinches.
So the bloody pinches seemed to work. But I thought that was
a very interesting article, not only as a father, but also as
someone who was preaching this morning out of John 5, where
Jesus is talking about hearing the Word of God. And more explicitly,
hearing the Word of the Son of God. And that through the hearing
of the Word of Jesus the Christ, that some miraculous things take
place. That He has the authority to
judge by His Word, and He has the authority to give life through
His Word. And so as we look at this text
this morning, I just thought to myself how hard it is for
us as parents, as I read that article, to get our children
to hear everything we want them to hear. How much more impossible
is it for us as sinners to hear the voice of Christ? That's why
it takes more than just the right ear in the sense of which ear
is being listened or whispered to. It takes more than just the
right environment. It takes a supernatural work
of God. In the same way, we need to recognize that as we share
the gospel, and this is a reminder from weeks past, as we live in
this life in response to the gospel, as we live by the power
of the gospel, we are not responsible for what people hear. We are
responsible for delivering the message. Then God, as He wills,
will allow those He intends to hear, to hear. So that the onus
of responsibility for regeneration is not on me, but it is on God. But yet it is our responsibility,
and it is a heavy responsibility, to proclaim the gospel. So let's
look at John 5. I'll read verses 24-30, some
of this being review. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever
hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but is passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an
hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice
of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the
Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to
have life in Himself. He has given Him authority to
execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel
at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs
will hear His voice and come out, those who have done good
to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil
to the resurrection of judgment. 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." Let's pray. Father,
I pray that as I cover this text and recover some of the previous
points, Lord, that we would have ears to hear. Father, that there
would not be an unregenerate soul among us, but Lord, by Your
mercy and by Your power, Father, You would bring us to life. Bring
our church family to a center that sees the power of grace.
Lord, bring us to a place of brokenness knowing that there
is nothing that we can do except be instruments in Your hands,
that our faith in itself is even a gift of Your mighty, divine
mercy. And Lord, as I preach this morning,
I do so in frailty, I do so in fatigue, I do so, Lord, with
a lot of things on my mind, Father, a lot of families, a lot of burdens
among us, Lord, that can carry themselves to me. in my spirit,
Father, and it hurts, and it's overwhelming. So Lord, help me
not to take these things in my power, but Father, rest upon
the power of the cross, to rest upon You, to rest upon the finished
work of Jesus in everything that we do. Lord, so important it
is that You work through the preaching of Your Word this morning,
that it is not even necessary that I am here, for if I were
not, You would have another. And so we thank You, God, for
Your sovereign work to redeem Your people. And we thank You,
Father, for Your sovereign promise to grow Your people. So grow
us this day. Let us be in awe. Let us worship
with a full and true heart. And Lord, let us take this gospel
into the darkness so that You would bring Your sheep home.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I want to review a little
bit as we get started this morning Several things that we've learned
over the last few weeks. One is that the authority of
God is the authority of Christ. We see that Jesus has spoken
to that. The Son can do nothing of His own. He is dependent upon
the Father, and in the same way, the Father is interdependent
upon the Son, in that they work together in unison, in unity,
yet they are distinct in their personhood. They are eternal. God the Father is eternal. God
the Son is eternal. God the Spirit is eternal. I've
emphasized the fact that we as Trinitarian evangelical Protestants
need to understand this and have some sense of a grasp on what
the Trinity is as the Bible teaches it. But at the same time, we
often don't ever think about it. And there is something that
we need to be reminded of every day is that the enemy knows the
Scripture and the enemy can twist the Scripture so cleverly that
he can deceive multitudes, and he has, and he does every day. He deceives the multitudes. But by the power of Christ, by
the power of the words of Christ, We can teach what is true. I had a call, I don't know about
y'all, but I've been getting a lot of just odd scam calls
on my cell phone lately. I thought those things were off
limits, but I guess no one has a home phone anymore, so they've
got to do something to make money. And I answered the call and it
was a recording, would you like a warranty for your automobile?
And I thought, no, but I want to get a good live person on
the phone. So I got a girl on the phone and her name was April.
And she said, would you like to learn about a warranty? And
I just played with it for just about 10 seconds. And I said,
a warranty on your automobile is very important. But isn't
our life more important? Wouldn't it be neat to have a
warranty with our life? We don't have a warranty, we
have a guarantee. And I gave her the gospel. And
then she tried to talk to me about Christmas trees and all sorts
of things that are paganistic and all. And I'm like, I don't
even know what you're talking about, and this is what I need
you to do. And I asked her and implored
her to read the Gospel of John and the letter to the Romans.
And she actually seemed interested in that, even though she was
hostile before. But no matter who you meet, they're going to
have a belief system. Everywhere you go, every person
that comes out of the door of a congregation this morning in
America has a belief system. And I'm willing to bet you that
8 out of 10 of them don't even believe in the triune God. I'm
willing to bet you that 8 out of 10 of them, if they were given
the opportunity to answer the question, how do you know that
you have eternal life? By what assurance do you stand? Or on what assurance do you stand?
They would not even be able to articulate a simple gospel narrative. So our job is important, church. We come here. We learn. We grow. We hear the Word. It encourages
us. It equips us. It establishes us deeper in the
faith. God does that supernaturally through the hearing of His Word.
Then we are better in our homes. We're better in our being, in
the sense of our faith, and our hope, and our assurance. But
it's not for us to hold. It's not for us to hold hostage.
It's not for us to keep with us. We must take what we are
and what we know to the darkness of the world. And not assume
that just because someone says, Lord bless you, that they are
talking about the Lord of the Bible. Not just because someone
says, yeah, amen, Jesus is Lord, that they are actually talking
about the Jesus of the Bible. Because we know that though we
may have the right doctrine on paper, many of us have not cognitively
processed the idea of Jesus being eternal. The idea of Jesus being
God. We just accept it and we move
on. So that when we are confronted
with people who do not believe that, and this text that I'm
in today is one of those texts that they use to try to say,
Jesus is not God. but that the Father gives Jesus
some authority, so therefore Jesus can't be God. But we've
already seen that that's not true. We've seen that the authority
of God the Father is the authority of Christ the Son. And so that
the Word then of God is the Word of Christ. that the Word of Christ
is the Word of God, vice versa, that the work of Christ is the
work of God, that the will of Christ is the will of God, that
the power of Christ is the power of God, and so on, and so on,
and so on. And in verse 24, we looked at
that verse last week, We see that the Word of Jesus Christ
is the power of God, and that God, Jesus, the God-man... This woman yesterday said, did
some people believe that Jesus was the God-man? I said, absolutely.
The Bible teaches that. Well, what Bible, she asked.
the Christian Bible. And she's right. How many Bibles
are there? She said, well there's a religion
for everything and I appreciate all the religions. And I said,
I can concede to that. I can concede that religion is
an interesting and intricate reality in our day. It's an incredible,
insurmountable hill of philosophy that has expressed itself in
many ways for people to believe many things. But the Bible in
itself says that it is authoritative. The Bible in itself is myopic. The Bible in itself is dogmatic.
The Bible in itself states that it alone is the final court of
arbitration, that it is the full authority over all things, over
heaven and earth. And it points not just to its
pages, but to the person of its pages. And His name is Jesus.
He is the Holy Anointed One of God, the Christ. He is the God
of heaven, the Creator of heaven and earth. And He is the King
of kings. and the Lord of lords, and the ruler of all." He is
God. Eternally, forever, He is God. He's always been God. So therefore,
when Jesus, even in His incarnation, even though He took on humanity,
like we see in this text, Jesus, when He spoke, spoke authoritatively
as God, and powerfully as God, so much so that He could speak
in judgment. Who He is and what He says is
authoritative in judgment. So that when Jesus Christ says
something and it's written in this scripture, it is authoritative. Why? Because God has stated it. We don't have to come to the
table of giving evidence for the authority of God, and then
giving evidence for the existence of God, and then giving evidence
for the philosophy of God, and then showing archaeological evidence
for the validity of the Word of God in order for someone to
believe. in order for someone to worship.
For it is the work of God, the Son, who speaks the truth of
God, who authoritatively has the right to judge as God. And the irony, remember the context. Who is He speaking to? He's speaking
to the Jews who were judging Him in their hearts. He's speaking
to the Jews who they knew they could not touch this man, but
they in their own minds thought God will judge this man as a
blasphemer. And now Jesus then says He and
the Father are doing the same work, that the work that the
Father was doing until now He is doing. And it baffled them. It blew
their minds. Because Jesus, the Word of God,
is the power of God through His Word to judge and to give life. He has power over life spiritually.
He has power over life physically. Only God has power over life.
We often think in our world, and I don't know if you remember
the Kevorkian days, when the debate first came to our culture
that there is a possible, warranted time when we should be able to
assist people in suicide. And everybody had the philosophical
argument, and then the Hippocratic Oath argument, and all these
different things, I should do no harm, and you know, you can
philosophically argue, well, it's really harmful to let someone
live, etc., etc., etc. When as a Christian worldview,
then it became an issue of rights, and it became an issue of faith,
and it became an issue of everything, except for the contextual reality
of the Word of God that says that God is the authority over
life, and no man has the authority to take it. despite what we believe
or what might be good for us in our own culture. There is
a way that seems right to man, but in the end it is what? It's
death. It's destruction. We are not
God. Jesus is. So even in His humanity
when He spoke as a man, He spoke as God. Because He is God. And it really bothered these
people. He goes several times to this
reality that not only is He authoritative as God in His speaking, His work,
and His authority, and His power, but He proves it over and over
again. He proves it. And then He continues
to remind His hearers, I was sent by God the Father. You honor Him, but you dishonor
Me, and by dishonoring Me, you dishonor Him. By not believing
in Me, you do not believe in Him. For the prophecy of God
is the fulfillment of My presence. I am Messiah. And as we saw last week also
that the words of Christ are the power of God and the words
of Christ also provides the pardon of God that we see in the second
part of 24. Whoever believes and hears and
believes in Him who sent me, continuing that authoritative
connection, that divine reality, that eternal essence of His divine
nature, in person. He sent me. He who believes in
Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment.
And these Jews are thinking about judgment. This man's going to
stand in judgment. Jesus says, I am the judgment.
I'm the one who judges. I bring judgment. I decide judgment. I rule in all ways. My word is
what is judgment. Really? He's already told Nicodemus
that. It's not the first time they've
heard it. He told Nicodemus, for this is the judgment, that
the light comes into the world, but the people love the darkness
rather than the light, because their works are evil. And they
don't come to the light lest it be seen that their works are
evil and exposed. But those who do come to the
light do so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been
carried out in God. Nicodemus was baffled about being
rebirthed. He was baffled about the work
of the Spirit. He was baffled about the coming of Messiah.
He was baffled about the teaching of Moses. He was baffled about
all the things of the Old Testament. He was convoluted and clouded
and confused. And he was like, really? Is this
really happening? Is this man really saying this?
What does all this mean? My seminary didn't teach me these
things. Well, nothing's changed. Seminaries aren't teaching men
to rightly divide the Word of Truth today either. Not well. They spend more time teaching
them how to incorporate and assimilate people into the ministries of
the church rather than they teach them about the power of the Word
of Christ. Enough on that topic. The Word
of God gives pardon by the grace of God in power. It's not an
offer. It's an authoritative command.
It's not an option. It is something that God does
through the power of His Word. He commands people to hear and
they hear. He commands people to believe,
and they believe. This is the point of this text. Remember? He commanded a 38-year-old
invalid to stand up, and he did. He commanded him to walk and
violate the Sabbath, and he did. And he took up his mat as well.
Jesus can command because He is God. He has power over life. In verse 25, this is all review.
The Word of Jesus Christ is presently powerful. We don't look at the
past of the ministry of Jesus. We're not looking today and saying,
oh, if we were only alive then. Oh, how amazing it would be to
see Jesus in His earthly ministry. But Jesus actually said what?
Greater things than these. Greater things than these. Because
this is not the greatest thing. proving His power over creation.
I mean, if I grew a tree out of that guitar right there, y'all
would be amazed. I probably should work on that.
It'd be a good magic trick. But if Jesus came here, He wouldn't
grow a tree out of a guitar. He can make an oak tree rise
up as if it were 150 years old and destroy this building, and
we would all be in awe. Wow, that guy's got power over
creation. He grew a tree. Wow, that guy's
got power over the body. He repaired legs. He gave eyes
back. He raised the dead. They still
didn't believe. Why? Because these are temporal
things. These are temporal examples of God's authority, of God the
Son's authority over all things. But greater things are seen today,
beloved. In verse 25, we see that. We
see the hour is coming and is now here. Now yes, if we get
into the bogged down ditches of eschatology and we start talking
about Matthew 25, we start talking about Daniel, we start talking
about all these different things, we can bog down in something that
I don't believe Jesus was speaking about. The plain essence of this
text is not trying to hide or intertwine some eschatological
or end times teaching. What Jesus is saying to these
people is you're thinking about the majesty and the power of
God of old, you're comparing it to who I am today, and you're
hearing me talk about my ability to judge and my authority over
life, and you're judging me, and in doing so, you are judging
the Father. Because remember, they hate Him
because they want to kill Him, remember. Why? Because He made
Himself equal with God. But He says there very authoritatively,
"...truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming." And then
He says, "...and is now here." And listen to what He says. The
words of Christ have power over life. "...that the dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God." So Jesus, in essence, is
saying, right now the dead hear the voice of the Son of God.
My voice they hear." Now I want to say that we can understand
two things in that, is that the Jews that were standing there
were dead spiritually, and they were hearing the voice of the
Son of God. And there were others who were there who would hear
the voice of the Son of God, and the second part of this phrase
here, and those who hear will live, they had true ears to hear. You might say, well, what's the
difference? Were they speaking into the right ear of the ones
who heard, like I mentioned earlier? No. God, the Holy Spirit, through
the words of Christ, who mediates the life-giving Spirit, brought
them to life that they may see and hear and believe. Friends,
we are inundated in our culture with people who hate the gospel
of grace because it removes, as we've said time and time again,
it removes man's authority, it removes man's ability, it removes
man's divinity, or what he thinks he has. It removes it. And we are subject to God as
a gracious Father in all of it. So here, the words of Christ
are presently powerful. It's not a past thing to look
at, it's a present thing. Jesus has authority and power
through His word this very day. You don't have to see or hear
Jesus, as Peter would say, though you do not see Him, you love
Him. You do not now see Him, you love Him. And you rejoice
with a joy that is inexpressible. It's inexpressible. Why? Because
we are knowing and hearing Christ this very day. I've said this
for 12 years, that salvation is not an experience, and salvation is not a point
in history, it's a present reality. Jesus Christ is our righteousness,
Jesus Christ is our Savior, Jesus Christ and His Word is active
and living and breathing, Hebrews 4.12, and when it comes forth,
the Spirit of God, even like Brother Mike read this morning
out of Philippians, though there were many who decided that they
would like to stick it to Paul, just stab him in the back when
he was in prison, and they go out there and preach under false
pretenses, because their gospel was correct, Paul said, let them
preach. Because the power is in the Word
of Christ, not me. Not the preacher, not the presenter,
not the evangelist, not anything that man can do. It's in Christ. It's in His Word. So He authoritatively
preaches, He authoritatively commands, and it's a present
thing. So here in verse 25, Jesus tells His audience that the power
to raise the dead is in Him. Now they understood full well
that the only person who could give life and take life was God.
So Jesus continues to dig himself a hole of persecution. Jesus
continued to dig himself an anonymity between He and the Pharisees. Grows deeper and deeper and deeper
and deeper and deeper. He has the power to raise the
dead. The dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those
who hear will live. Remember John 3. Remember the
Spirit that gives life. Remember John 3 when Nicodemus
said, how should I be born again? Do I go back into my mother's
womb? I mentioned this last week. And Jesus says, you see the wind
and you see what it does, but you do not know where it comes
from nor where it goes. So is the Spirit of God that
blows where it wishes. And oh, I could do a lecture
right now on how people try to manipulate the Spirit, who is
the person of God. The Spirit is not a force. The
Spirit is not a presence. The Spirit is God. God is the
Spirit. God, the Son, God, the Father,
one God, three persons, eternal, distinct, worthy as God, worshipped
as God, honored as God, powerful as God, with all the divine prerogative
to each of them. It's His. God the Spirit, the
giver of life, blows where He wishes, not where we tell Him
to. So we can't command God to save
anybody. God commands those who are dead
to come alive. And Jesus is speaking to people
who in every fiber of their being, in every element of their mind,
in every thought, every synopsis that popped into their mind,
they felt worthy of being alive and thought themselves so alive
that they were blind to the truth. Today, you hear the voice of
the Son of God and you live Those who hear the voice are those
who hear the voice of God. Those who hear by the Spirit
are those who have been regenerated, redeemed, justified. You realize salvation is really
regeneration. Regeneration is salvation. Faith
isn't salvation. That's faith in faith. Salvation
is the work of God to bring a dead person alive, spiritually. It's interesting, isn't it? Because
almost all of us are thinking, where is my assurance? Where
is my hope? How do you preach that gospel
the same way Jesus just did? The words of Christ, if you hear
them, you believe in the one who sent Him, you have eternal
life. What does Jesus say? He says a lot. He says more than
we could ever see. He says more than could ever
be written down. But what is written down is sufficient. The
Word of God is sufficient for salvation. We are sufficiently
saved through the Scriptures. We don't need anything else.
We don't need new revelation. We don't need new apostles. We
don't need anybody else to come along and give us new ideas.
We don't need a new perspective on Paul. We don't need a new
perspective on Christ. We don't need a new perspective
on the Bible. We don't need a culturally relevant gospel. We just need
the words of Christ. Beloved, you need the words of
Christ for your assurance. How do I know that I have eternal
life? For the Word of God says that if I believe in the One
whom He has sent, I have life. I have passed from judgment.
We'll talk about that at the end of the sermon. I've passed
from judgment into life. You know, one of the clear indicators
that you don't grasp, it doesn't mean that you're not born again,
but you don't grasp the power of the words of Christ, is that
you live in constant fear of your salvation. Fear is opposite
of faith. Now, does fear creep in? Yes.
Does fear of this momentary lapse of belief? You better know it.
But Paul says that those who are faithless, when we are faithless,
he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. We do not have
to fear judgment. John would say in his first epistle
that perfect love casts away fear. That doesn't mean that
we don't have trepidation. That doesn't mean that we don't
have a holy reverence for God. Yes, we do. Why? Because we love
Him. Because He's God and we know
what He could have done with us. We know what He righteously
and justly could have done with us. But instead, He put our guilt
on Jesus Christ that God became man and took our sin debt. I was thinking about this this
weekend, that guilt is so easily risen within our hearts. I mean,
if we were to stand up and have a testimony day and all testify
about the guilt we have, oh my goodness, we just go right on
into next Sunday's message. All of us can say, well, I feel
guilty because I'm not a good husband, or I'm not as good a father,
or I'm not as good a mother, or wife, or sister, or child,
or teenager. I'm not as good a Christian as
I need to be. I'm not a good student of the Bible. I'm not as good
a church member as I need to be. And I've got guilt. Oh, I
have these thoughts. I have these feelings. I'm still fighting
some of these sins. I have all these things happening in my
life. And I'm guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. And then
what we do every day is we stand up in our guilt, and we stand
up in our flesh, and we try to eradicate the reality of our
guilt by working out. to please God. And you know what?
There's nothing wrong with pleasing God, but it's not going to take
away our guilt. It's just going to add to it.
It's going to add to it if we look to the absence of guilt
by the measure of our lives and not the measure of Christ, not
the words of Christ. We listen to our own thoughts,
which is philosophy, rather than we do the truth of God and the
truth of God's Word. There's much to be said there,
but for time's sake we'll move on. Here he is believing on the
Son who was sent by the Father, God eternally. The promise of
God and the power of God in the resurrection is now. See, we
often look forward to that day, and we should look forward to
that day when the dead are raised in Christ, when we have a new
body. Some have stopped even looking forward to that. They
look forward just to dying and going and being at rest. That's
not a bad thing either, is it? To die is gain, we heard this
morning. The promise and the power of
the resurrection is now. Jesus could say authoritatively, Jesus
speaks now, and now as He speaks, in the presence of His ears,
He gives life through His words, His truth, His power. So God
the Spirit is who He sends by His words, and it is through
the Spirit that they have life. So that those who believe, though
they die in the flesh, they are alive in Christ. Though they
may suffer in the body, they live in Christ. And those who
die in the flesh, who will hear, and who hear the voice of Christ
today, have the certainty and the assurance of their salvation,
not just spiritually, but the assurance of their salvation
physically, because Jesus says there will come a day, as we
see in a few minutes, when the dead shall be raised. And that's
a certainty. It's a certainty. Jesus, the Word, through His
Word, mediates the Spirit, the life-giving Spirit. Now that's
a review. The question on the table today
in verses 26, 27, 28, 29 is how has Jesus have this type of life. How does Jesus
have the authority? How does a mere man standing
before the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees have such audacity
to say He has the life of God? Let's look at it. Well, we know
because He's eternally God. We've already established that.
Jesus has established that here already. He's eternally God,
the Son. in all His ways, and all His
person, and His all His being, as Paul would tell the church
of Colossae, that the whole fullness of deity indwelled Him bodily."
So, we've seen this before. It's not new here in John 5.
Actually, it was not new in John 1. But for this study, it's in
John 1, 37 weeks ago we saw it. Thirty-seven weeks ago today,
we saw... Actually, thirty-nine weeks ago,
because I had thirty... No, forty. Forty weeks ago, thirty-seven
sermons. Forty weeks ago today, we saw,
in Him was life. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God. In Him was life. Life. Life is in Him in the beginning. From the beginning. Eternally. Jesus has had life in Him. Why?
Because He's God. He's with God. And we've looked
at verses 16 through 18 down in the prologue, and we've seen
that the God who sits at the side of God makes God fully known.
The one and only God. Jesus, the Christ, sits and makes
known God. This might seem really weird
to us and the way we speak in our culture, but let me tell
you something. It's just as tragic when unbelievers think about
this. It's just as tragic, no matter if you're on the phone
with someone who you do not know, or you're standing face to face
with your neighbor, or your spouse, or your family member, and you
tell them continually, authoritatively, that Jesus Christ is the living,
eternal God. It blows their mind. Because
if anybody will believe in Jesus as a man, and anybody will believe
in Jesus as a historical figure, well most people. There are some
people who don't even believe we exist today and they can see
themselves, but that's a whole other group of people. There
are many who believe that Jesus is a good teacher. There are
many that will say that Jesus is certainly used by God as a
prophet and a teacher and an example. But when we come to
the stress of it, of saying, no, Jesus is God. So therefore,
He's authoritative over you. I'm going to tell you something.
You get some weird looks. You know where you get them?
In the foyer of churches. I've had more weird looks when
I would guest speak at a congregation or before a congregation when
I would guest preach and there would be a lot of conversation
going on right before the sermon and I'll say something and then
have to get up on the stage because service was starting. And you
see these people, they're not listening to anything else I
said because they're so confused about what they just heard me
say in a private conversation. And it usually has something
to do with either the rapture or the age of accountability.
whatever that is, or the authority of the Scripture, and that because
the blood is not as in this Bible as much as it is others, or the
vows have been taken out, that it's not corrupt, or eschatology,
like end times, or who the Antichrist is, and sadly, that Jesus is God
eternally. I think Wednesday, Brother Edward's
going to teach on the eternal sonship of Christ, unless you've
changed your mind. I think it'd be good for us all
to try to be back here Wednesday night at 7 o'clock. It'd be good
to see that. Why? Because it is an absent
thing in our culture. But it is the most misunderstood
and most damnable ignorance that can befall the culture in which
we live. Jesus is nothing if He is not eternally God. He's
just a man who will stand before God in judgment and because there
was no Christ to atone for his sins, He shall be cast into hell
if He is not God. Eternally in the beginning Jesus
was the Word, and in Him was life. Like God, so also the Son
has life. Like God the Father, so also
the Son has authority. Like God the Father, so also
the Son has power. And God has life in Himself.
Therefore Jesus has life in Himself, because life comes from God,
and Jesus is God. So the Son then has life-giving
power and authority eternally as God, as the Son of God, equally
as God. and all life is in Jesus Christ,
so that when He says very authoritatively, I am the way, I am the truth,
and I am the life, there is no question. There's no question.
No question at all about who Christ is and what He can do. Imagine Jesus Christ alone, eternally,
holds the judgment of all creation in His hands. And yet, the whole of creation
do not receive Him, do not cower before Him. But that segment
in Philippians this morning is a great segment to read for this
text. There will come a day when all
will hear the word of the Son and all will bow down before
Him. Jesus is Lord. Every knee will bow and every
tongue will confess that Jesus is God. 4. This is how we know. Verse 26,
"...as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the
Son also to have life in Himself. And He has given authority,"
verse 27, "...to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are
in the tombs will hear His voice, and they will come out, and those
who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done
evil to the resurrection of judgment." The Word, the Son of God, has authority to judge because,
look at this, He is the Son of Man. Let me talk about that for
a second and then we'll back up to verse 26. A lot of people
think, well, Jesus has the authority to judge because He is human.
Okay, so there's a human judge over humanity. But why could
not any other man have that authority? Didn't God give authority over
to judge to other men, to judge the works of men? Does He not
do that now according to Romans 13, that the authorities and
the powers of governments He creates, He destroys, He rises,
He falls. We cast the votes, but God determines
the outcome 100% of the time in His sovereignty. Nothing we
do in this life is outside the purview of God's perfect plan. And here's the Son of Man. Is
this the Son of Man of Daniel? Is it just because He's human
or is this the Son of Man of Daniel? Is this a fulfillment
of prophecy? Well, absolutely, but that's
not what Jesus is talking about here either. It's not there. It's not the humanity of Jesus,
though that is true. One of the reasons He took that
title above all things is because He is a human being. But all throughout Scripture
we see that the prophets of God, especially in Ezekiel, O Son
of Man, are called Son of Man. It's a divine title given by
God as a foreshadowing of the One who would come to be the
Son of Man. so that those like Jeremiah,
like Ezekiel, like Hosea, like Isaiah, like Moses, like Noah,
and all the prophets of old who spoke the Word of God, who preached
to the spirits in prison, who preached the Word of God, the
very authoritative Son, eternally, who is the living Word, was also
authoritatively preaching to them at that very time through
the mere human mouths of men. So then as we hear the Word of
God through my mouth or anyone else in this place, or if a cat
by some divine power were able to meow out the Scriptures, we
would be subject to the voice of the Son of God no matter who
speaks it, for it is God's Word and it is God speaking. So that
the Son of Man from a prophetic point of view, place to see that
now Jesus not only does He come as a fulfillment of all the prophets
of old, as we see in Hebrews 1 as God has spoken through,
but now perfectly God the Father speaks through God the Son. Perfectly. Without veil. He speaks perfectly. He reveals Himself in such a
way that there's no question who God is. For not only do we
hear the culmination of God's Word throughout the ages in the
person of Jesus Christ, but we stand and behold Him face to
face as the Son of God without fail. We see Him face to face. He makes God known. He is light. He's the prophet
of God fully and perfectly. He is life. He is full of what? Grace and truth. From Moses we
receive the law and for millennia people tried to fulfill it. And Jesus Christ came to fulfill
it and to show He is the fulfillment of the law. He is our righteousness. It is grace and truth. Jesus
Christ, the Word of God, makes God known as God. So then, therefore,
Jesus has all authority because He is eternally God, now revealed
fully to the world and now become, in some sense, like the world
because He took on flesh. What a crazy story. that God
would become human. What a weird bunch of crazy people
we are. Do you realize how stupid that
sounds? That this mystical spiritual being from folklore and myth
out of some ancient book written by a hundred people became a human being. And we
believe that stuff. Now imagine that. Imagine how
ridiculous we are. Why is it so easy for us to accept
the gospel of grace in our culture and yet still not be regenerated? Why is it so easy for us to accept
Christianity in culture without accepting the truth of Scripture? Why is it so easy for us to do
churchy stuff in a culture when we don't want to hear that Jesus
is God and He has authority over us? Because we live in a place
where This story, it fits our lifestyle. You should hear that, church.
It's okay. As a matter of fact, it's a little
bit weird not to believe in God in our world, in this world,
this part of the world, in the Bible belt that's tied on so
tight our heads popped off. Cut off our circulation. Jesus Christ through His Word
is revealing to us the very fullness of God. So therefore He has authority
to make judgment because He's God. Jesus judges and makes judgment
and people reject it. reveals the Father and people
reject it. Jesus reveals Himself as the
prophet of God and people reject it. He reveals God perfectly
and fully, but people reject it. Why? Because we are depraved. It's easy for people to accept
the minutia of spirituality, so-called spirituality. It's
easy for people to get involved in church. when there's a lot
to do and in some sense their proximity makes them feel at
ease with their spiritual deadness. But there is nothing else to
do when confronted with the Word of God alone except either believe
it or reject it. And so when we come to Claxton
and we start a church and we're excited about what the Lord is
doing because people are hearing the Word of God God is changing and transforming
them, saving them and drawing them. And we're excited and then
everybody else says, well that's all you do? No, it's not all
we do. There's a lot that comes from
what we do as a church to learn and to hear the Word of God.
That's called ministry, but it's not administrated through programs. It's between people. And when all we have is the Word
of God and everybody else seems to think it's not important.
Friends, I was told just Friday by a local man that there are
pastors in this community who have said openly that they do
not think that the teaching of the Word of God is sufficient
for anything in our culture. And they stand in pulpits this
very hour. anecdotal sermonettes when the Word of Christ is power. It's like showing you a picture
of a sandwich when you're starving and saying, just think of this.
Or better yet, let me juggle. Take your mind off of it. You're
not entertained? Let me juggle fire. How about
we see the one who baptizes in fire? How about we see the One
who has the power to take dead bones and bring them to life?
How about we see the fullness of the glory of God through the
hearing of the teaching of Scripture? And how about God the Father,
through the work of God the Son, by the power of God the Spirit,
brings us to life and ignites us into A holy zeal with truth,
in the Spirit, with joy and suffering. The Word of Christ is not just
a future judgment. It's a certain judgment. It's a current judgment. And
the Word of Christ has authority and people reject it. And Christ
has authority for judgment eternally, not just life. The Pharisees
made a judgment against Christ temporally. And I know what they
were thinking. They were thinking, this man
is wickedly Crazy. He's insane. He needs to die
because he's causing problems. This man has lost his mind to
think he's God. To think he has the authority
to judge us and we're already judged him. Who does he think
he is? Then he says, well, the time
is here. I'm judging you now. The dead are hearing the voice
of the Son of God. I mean, come on, it doesn't take
a 235,000 IQ. No such thing. But it doesn't
take a genius level IQ to understand that, oh, we're the ones listening.
We must be the dead ones. But they were so blinded they
couldn't see that. They probably saw it later. Probably were offended
by the very fact this man said he had the power. But now, it's
not just a temporal thing. It's not just that I can heal.
It's not just that I commanded a man to violate your rendition
of what Sabbath means and the Sabbath law. You judge me, but
I am the judge. That's what Jesus is saying.
And Jesus is saying He has the authority in judgment. And He
has the authority to give life eternally, not just temporally.
This is not about just healing a man today. It's about healing
a man forever. That's what the gospel is. That's
what the Word of Christ does. That's what Christ does to save
the lost. Not the lost who need a foot,
or a leg, or an eye, or an ear. The lost who need a new heart,
spiritually, that they may be circumcised, not by hands, but
by the Spirit and with fire. That they may be baptized into
the work of Jesus Christ, that they may be regenerated by the
work of God the Spirit, so that therefore now, though they die,
they live eternally. And even though their bodies
rot in the dirt, even though a lion may have devoured the
meat off their bones, even though they may have drowned at sea,
or whether they have burned in a fire, When Jesus comes in judgment
and He says, come out, all the dead in Christ shall rise. All
the dead not in Christ shall rise. And as we see, we will
stand in judgment. See, that makes us scared. That makes us scared. But how
can Jesus do that? For the Father has life in Himself.
So therefore, He has granted the Son also to have life in
Himself. I see people like to get all tangled up in that because
it says He's granted the Son. But what has Jesus already said
about Himself? When they said, what are you
doing, basically? Who told you to take up your
bed, paralyzed man? Jesus. And Jesus, knowing their
thoughts, begins to speak. And they are asking in their
minds who this man thinks He is. And He says, I'm God, eternally
the Son of God. And they can't stand that. But Jesus has also said He does
nothing of His own accord. He does nothing of His own will.
Look at verse 30. He repeats it over and over and over and
over again. I do nothing except that which
the Father sends me to do. That which I'm doing is the work
of the Father and now I'm continuing it. The words that I speak are
the words that the Father speaks. This congruent, interdependent
reality that Jesus and His humanity is still the eternal God He is
still the Son of God. And I know it seems like you're
repeating yourself, Tippins, but so is Jesus. See, that's
the point. Jesus is repeating Himself to
reiterate this to them, to remind them. Why? Because when we hear
a little bit of a text, we forget what we've already heard. And
we call that pretext. So we can take verse 26 and we
can say, oh, see, the Father granted life to the Son. Yeah,
that would work if that's all we had. If we had the index card
of John's Gospel, and we played around with some
of it, and we had like six verses, we could take six verses and
we could put them together to make them say that Jesus is not
God, He's just a man, but God granted Him authority, some divine
authority. Why would He do that? But we don't have to come to
that point and argue it, do we? Because Jesus has already said
He was eternally God. Jesus has already proven that
the work of the Father is His work, that the authority is His
authority, that His Word is His Word, that His power is His power.
So we know that that doesn't mean anything except that what
Jesus is doing in exercising His authority over life is granted
Him by the Father, for He does nothing of His own accord. He's
not there to give glory to Himself in His ministry, but yet He is
there to give glory to the Father. There's much more to be said
about that text. But beloved, I think the prologue
of John and everything that we've read up to this point proves
it very clearly. Jesus is God and has authority
of life. But what is their response? What is their response? They
marvel. And when you see Jesus say, do not marvel, what do we
say? What are they really saying? Jesus is saying, why do you look
surprised? Like some of us when I said there's
pastors in this community, people who say they're pastors who don't
believe the sufficiency of Scripture and therefore they will not teach
it. They refuse to teach it. Not
because they're just ignorant of it. They refuse to teach it. There's
a big difference. There's a big difference in somebody that's
just never been taught correctly and just copying what he's seen
versus somebody who knows better and says, no, I'm not going to
teach that. I don't believe it. And some of your faces are like,
oh. We shouldn't be surprised. That's what the Pharisees looked
like in front of Jesus. They're like, what? What the world are
you talking about? How in the world is this true? Do not be surprised. Do not be surprised at this.
For the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear
His voice, and they will come out, and those who have done
good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil
to the resurrection of judgment. Now this is a really interesting
statement that Jesus makes here. And I'm going to preach on this
again next week, those two verses. span them a little bit more in
the context of what we see. But in simplicity, Jesus is saying,
I have the power of life and I'm going to raise the dead and
I'm going to judge them. That's what He's saying, simply. I'm
going to raise the dead. I'm going to call them out of
the tombs. And you know what's really crazy? I would love to
be a fly on the wall in a couple of these guys in John 11 when
they're out there waiting for Jesus to get to Bethany. And
they see him come, and they open the tomb, and they smell Lazarus'
body. Imagine. And it's like you open the fridge
and go, okay, those pork chops have got to go. That's Lazarus. Not on refrigeration, but in
the desert. And they're thinking to themselves,
okay, you remember when he said, hey, you remember when this guy,
oh, here's this idiot. Remember when he said he's going
to raise the dead with his voice? Let's see what he does. You smell
that? Oh man, we're about to make him
look like a fool. And he says, Lazarus, come out.
And there's this dude coming out. Bound in his grave clothes. And
Jesus says, unbind him and let him go. You know what they did?
They hauled Tal to their private meeting place and they said,
he's got to die. Because he is exactly who he says he was. He
is exactly what he says he was. He's doing exactly what He said
He would do. He has the authority He said He had. He is God. We've
got to kill Him. And we've got to kill Lazarus,
too, because Lazarus is evidence that this man is who He says
He is. Have authority and judgment and
life eternally, not temporally, but eternally. Do not be surprised
because the judgment is coming. Do you know the judgment is coming?
See, remember I started out and I talked about guilt. I talked
about fear. We know the judgment is coming. Jesus talks about
it in this gospel. He talks about it in Matthew's
gospel. Paul reiterates the day of the Lord in many places. We
see in the apocalyptic writing of John. We see the judgment
playing out in different views. But why do we fear judgment so
much as a people? Sometimes the law of the land
keeps us from doing things as human beings. as a restraint,
because some people don't want to pay the penalty of what they
do. So sometimes the idea of judgment will keep an honest
man honest, as my dad has always told me. And sometimes, and most of the
time, imagine you working for $30,000 a year, you're putting
your life in harm's way every single day, and you make an arrest
and you see a million dollars cash in the back of a car, and
you're the only cop there. Isn't it tempting just to stab
a few pieces in the ear? But you know what? Two things
can keep a man from doing that. One is that God has put in him
a heart and a conscience that he knows that stealing is wrong.
Whether he's regenerated or not, and he doesn't want to violate
his conscience. In that same way, as a Christian, we would
not want to sin against God because we want to honor Him, we love
Him. But most of the time, it's like if I get caught and I go
to prison, this guy's going to be mad at me twice. So it's the restraint sometimes.
Friends, we ought not be restrained by the fear of judgment as Christians. It's a real thing. We're not
going to be raised from the dead and convicted of our guilt because
our guilt has been put on Jesus Christ, the very one who says
that He has the right to judge, so that Jesus as God judges Himself. Why? Well, there was no judgment
to be found with Christ, was there? He's innocent. He's holy.
He's the righteous. He's God. He's also man. But
Paul tells us that God the Father, if we can, put Jesus Christ the
Son on the cross to be propitiation so that the judgment of God is
satisfied through the person of Jesus. So what about this doing evil
and doing good? Well, what is the doing good? If I said, what
is the doing good? I'll just give you a preview
of John 6. We escape judgment, number one, by hearing with hearing
ears, Romans 10, 9. By hearing the words of Christ,
through that the Spirit gives us true hearing so that we are
now believing. The regeneration comes and we
hear and believe. You understand that? The work
of the Spirit. Regenerates us. We're saved. Salvation comes
and we hear and believe. It's not the other way around.
It's a big problem, if it is. Theologically and philosophically,
it's a big problem. Logically, it's a big problem. So that we hear and we believe
and we escape judgment. We've passed from death into
life. Why? Because of the life-giving
words of Christ, the eternal God, who mediates the life-giving
Spirit, who brings us to life through His Word. So then this authority that Jesus
has to judge when He raises the dead, those who have been atoned
for through His sacrifice are innocent. Are we innocent of sin? No. But our guilt has been paid. Our debt has been paid. So therefore
there is no charge against the elect of God. But those who do
good are those who, what? Believe and hear the words of
Christ. You do well to hear the words of Christ. You do well.
Beloved, how many times do I have to say this in our hearing? Read
your Bible. The young girl I was talking
with yesterday on the phone, what verses did you want me to
read again? I said, no, no, no, I want you
to read the entire Gospel of John and the entire letter of
Romans. If you have questions, go to
gracedruth.org and look me up. Oh, not verses? No, I want you
to read it as it was intended to be read. I want you to read
your Bible. We escape judgment. By hearing
the words of the Son of God today, we are given eternal life. We
have eternal life this very moment. Though the fullness of it is
not yet realized, it is ours in Christ Jesus. Not by fear,
but by faith. And Jesus then in verse 30, and
of course we're going to go through these last three verses again
next week, has all authority. as God, but He does nothing of
His own accord. So, to judge Jesus, and what
Jesus is saying, is to judge the one who sent Him. To condemn
Him is to condemn the one who sent Him. To judge the one who
has authority to judge, the life giver, is a dangerous thing. We do not indict nor convict
God. He indicts and convicts us. So no matter what we say that
we believe or don't believe, no matter how rational we may
think our arguments are, no matter how blind or passionate the world
may be, it is a matter of the work of God through His mercy
and the hearing of His Word that people believe. So what do we
do in response to that? We rest in the sufficiency of
grace. and all the workings out of our
salvation is done by Him who wills and works for His good
pleasure through the hearing of His Word." You want to be
a fruitful Christian? Then study the Word and be in
the body. Let's pray. Father, the preview
in my mind of John 6 is just so hard not to leap into What
is it that we must be doing to do the work of God? Here is the
work of God, that you believe on the Son. You believe on the
Son. Father, we thank You for granting
life through Jesus Christ, who has always been the Giver of
life, the Creator of life, the Judge of life. We thank You that
we are, though not worthy to be called Your children, Lord,
in Your love for us, You have adopted us as sons and daughters.
And Lord, I know the weather and the silence and the fatigue
of life and everything else we deal with throughout the week
sometimes can catch up to us when we assemble together, but
Lord, even though we may be sluggish in our outward appearance, Father,
we are elated inwardly in joy. And I pray that some of the areas
that I was not able to cover this morning in this text, that
I can do so effectually by Your grace and mercy next week. Lord,
that what has been talked about and discovered this point, Lord,
would cause us to worship even deeper than we were before we
arrived. That we would have clarity. That
Lord, that by Your power, by Your Spirit, Lord, You would
drive us to the Scripture later today and tonight and tomorrow.
And Lord, that You would awaken in us a passion and a zeal for
Your Word, that we would be interested in helping to teach each other
and to minister to each other and to equip each other. And
Father, I pray for all that we plan to do as a congregation,
all that You've brought us through. Lord, the place that You have
us this very moment, Lord, is the place that You've ordained
for us to be. And so we rejoice in it and we
long to see that which tomorrow will bring. But You haven't promised
us tomorrow, so let us live for now. Let us live today in the
present power and promise of the Word that You send through
Jesus Christ, Your Son. And it's in His name we pray.