It's good to continue in the
gospel of John today, John chapter 5. We're going to be here for
a few more weeks before we move into John 6. This coming Wednesday
night, I'm going to do a Q&A. I've put a cap on, Romans 5,
and then we're going to have a few weeks of different teaching
throughout the month of February. Specifically, you're going to
hear from some of the other brothers in the church to be able to exercise
their gift of teaching as well as put some on display so that
we can check them out and make sure that they're still up to
par. and also give me the opportunity to get back into the groove of
the Tuesday night classes that we're about to start and get
that theology studies done. But not this coming Wednesday,
but the following Wednesday, my dear friend in the Lord, Dr.
Eddie Dalcor from L.A. is going to be here that week,
and I'm going to let him teach. And I know our Wednesday night
crowd is sparse. I know it's tough. But if you could make
it that Wednesday night, it would be a great blessing for you to
come hear this man. He's humble, so he would die. So I'll say this when he's not
here. He's a very learned man. He's a very humble man. And he
knows how to rightly divide the word of truth. He's a genius
when it comes to the Greek grammar. and I'm sure he's going to teach
us something deep on Christology. I'm excited about it. I wanted
to give him the pulpit, but he doesn't really want that. He
wants to hear what I have to say about John 5.26. So anyway,
that's going to be a good opportunity for us as a church, so I want
to encourage you to do that. Also, if you're not listening,
I know that everybody can be here. If you're not listening
to the teaching on Romans, I really think you should. I really think
you should get into the habit of trying to make an hour or
45 minutes every week in addition to what we do here on Sundays
to pay attention to that teaching. It's quick. It's not as thorough
or as slow-paced as what we're doing in John. So we're only
about an 18-month journey on Wednesday nights, but it is so
connected to what we see here in John's Gospel from a doctrinal
point of view. It's just, I can't believe I
haven't thought about teaching John and Romans together before.
It's been so good for me, and I pray that it's been good for
you. So if you're not able to come, I pray that you would definitely
at least listen to that. So enough of the commercials.
Now let's get to the Word of God. John chapter 5. It's hard sometimes when we do
the exposition and we go verse by
verse by verse by verse. We go verse by verse by verse
by verse and it's good that we do that because that's the way
the Scripture is supposed to be taught. That's the way the Scripture
is supposed to be learned. That we learn it in its context,
we learn it in its totality so that we are able to comprehend
it. But at the same time, if we're
not following in our lives, now listen to me, if we're not following
in our lives the continued reading of the Scripture. If we're not
taking seriously what we learn on Sundays and making it part
of our Bible study and our time in worship at home, then we're
really, what we're doing is just getting sort of like the aroma
of a good restaurant. We've got a Burger King that's
coming here, you know. That Mike and I have been talking
about the smell of Burger King. I mean, it's almost, it's like
a siren or something, you know, that just pulls you and you smell
it. You're not even hungry, but you smell those Whoppers cooking
and you go in there. And it never smells that good,
it never tastes that good, but it smells that good. When we're
not in the Scripture, When we're not following after what we've
been learning together as a whole, every single day or throughout
the week, listen what happens. We only get the aroma of the
meal we never eat. If you're coming here thinking
this is eating, this is not. This is the buffet preview. And what you will get most out
of this text is when you take it home and you continue in it.
Because this is just one hour of listening to me talk about
what the Lord has said and saying and showing us as it applies
to us as a whole. But for you individually, for
your household, it is important that you stay in the Word of
God. And I know that I sound like a broken record. But the
only way I know for you to have the joy of Christ is to be in
the Scripture. The only way I know for you to have the power of
God in you right now actively living and working is to be in
the Scripture. It doesn't matter how you do
it. It doesn't matter how formal or how relaxed it is. It doesn't
matter if you're cutting the grass or washing the dog. You
can take time to meditate on Scripture. How many of us, if
we were to really be honest, have earbuds in our ears and
we're listening to music, we're listening to videos, we're watching
this, we're watching that. I know what a Netflix binge looks
like. I see it on your Facebook pages. You just watched 355 hours
of Lost or something. And I'm thinking, 355 hours? Could we spend like a third of
that in the Bible? We'd be in good shape. We'll
be in good shape. So I'm not here to convict us or to make
us guilty. I'm just telling you if you want
the power of Christ in you, you've got to be in the Word. And that
my job is to get you and to whet your appetite and to teach you
and to instruct you in what the Scripture is and look over you
as you then take it home and read it and study it. So John
chapter 5, the point in all that is it's so hard. I want to start
back over in verse 20, but we're really in verse 24 and 25 this
morning. That's the only thing I have time for. But in verse
20, we see that Jesus is responding. Remember what's happening here.
You see how easy it is just to make this an academic pursuit?
Oh, we're going to learn something more about who Jesus is. We're
going to learn a little bit about what Jesus has to say. But if
we disconnect it from the occasion, if we disconnect this particular
piece of Scripture, which is in the same breath, exactly what
we've already been learning, if we disconnect it, then we're
going to miss the very point that God has intended in the
recording of His Scripture. We're going to miss that this
man that He healed is the reason He's talking to the Pharisees
in the first place. We're going to miss remembering that the
reason that Jesus healed this man is not for this man's good,
but for the friction between Him and the Jews. We're going
to miss the opportunity to understand that Jesus proves Himself to
be God because He can heal. We're going to miss out on understanding
what it is that Jesus has already told the Jews, that all authority
has been given to Him, that He is working. Because why were
the Jews mad? The Jews were mad at John the Baptist because he
was baptizing, not because he was teaching. The Jews were mad
at Jesus because he did things on the Sabbath that they felt
were not supposed to be done on the Sabbath. They violated... He violated their law, and in
their mind their law was God's law, but they were talking to
God and could not see Him. We'll know in chapter 12 of John
that we see that there's a judicial blindness amongst Israel as a
whole. That they're not allowed to see, they're not allowed to
hear, they're not allowed to believe, they're not allowed
to comprehend. And that any man left to himself, any woman left
to herself, any child left to themselves, without the power
of the Holy Spirit, through the Word of God, will never, ever
be born again. And that is also part of what
we need to understand and remember in this text. Because we're not
just in John 5, we're in John 3. We're in John 1 as we're in
this text. We're in the Gospel of John,
so therefore all that's been taught is continually necessary
for what is being taught now. So with that, Jesus has said
in verse 20, let me just read down through verses 20 through
29, and then I'm going to focus clearly on verses 24 and 25.
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 as the Father raises the
dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom
He will. The Father judges no one, but
has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son,
just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent Him." Truly, truly, I say
to you, verse 24, whoever hears My word and believes Him who
sent Me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment,
but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, again, 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,
and 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."
Let's pray. Father, I thank You for this
Word and for this truth, Lord, and there's so much here I get
jittery when I think about what I want to say and how much I
want to just reinvest our time in the totality of this gospel
thus far. Father, how I would love to just take four hours
this morning and just start over and bring us all back to the
place where we are today, but Lord, I have to trust in You
and not me. And so I pray, Father, that as I preach, Lord, that
I would be not the one heard, but that You would be heard,
that Your Spirit would be heard, Lord, through the Scripture that's
taught clearly here, Lord, that as we're reminded of what we've
learned, Father, that it would not just be, oh, we can check
it off our list, but Father, that it would be, wow, what a
mighty God you are, what a great Father you are, what a wonderful
Savior we have. So Lord, let the application
be that first and foremost, above all things. Hide us from our
own flesh. Lead us away from our own minds.
Lead us away from our own burdens. When we see that Jesus taught
us to pray, Father, to lead us not into temptation, but deliver
us from evil, Lord, we best keep in mind that our flesh is just
that evil. help us to run and put off the
flesh and to put to death the humanity of our being, the depraved
portion of our existence, and trust fully in Jesus Christ by
the power of the Spirit, Father, that You've gifted us faith that
we might worship You and live for You and glory in You and
exalt in You. And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. Jesus says, greater works than
these. Greater works than these. Greater works than these. And
when someone hears those words, they often think in our culture,
and let me talk a little bit about some things that are very,
very much important to us as a community. We think that miracles
are greater works. We think that the miracle of
resurrection, and the miracle of healing, and the miracle of
interpretation, and the miracle of tongues, and the miracle of
all these things are these gifts that we see in the Scripture.
We think that these are the amazing things that we want to see God
do again. But why would God do the sorry stuff in lieu of the
glorious stuff? Why would God do stupid things
that aren't anything in place of doing the greatest thing?
And that's what Jesus is telling them. You're going to marvel
because I gave a man his body back? You're going to marvel
because I gave someone eyes to see? You're going to marvel because
I called Lazarus and his rotting corpse out of the grave? What
they do, Jesus is saying, this is nothing. This just proves
that I have the power. You want to see real power? All
humanity will be subject to the Word of God. All humanity will
be subject to the Son of God. All humanity will be subject
to the words of the Son of Man. And this is greater works. Greater works. So Jesus, not
only is He causing problems with the spiritual leaders of His
day, He's showing them that what they think is awesome is really
nothing. I mean, we look at, it's the
same thing Paul teaches in Romans 1, is it not? That all men are
without excuse, but we look at the intricacies of the cosmos.
We look at the majesty of creation. We look at just the infinite
measure. I know that's oxymoronic, but
we look at all of that and think, wow, what a mighty God there
is. And the Bible says it's nothing,
that it just adds to our guilt. It adds to the judgment of God
that He pours upon us, who live in unbelief that we see the creation.
We worship what we see and what we experience more than we worship
the One who calls us all things to work together for our good.
We're longing for that next feeling, for that next emotion, for that
next wisdom, for that next whatever. We want to feel something and
touch something and carry it home so we can look at it and
worship it. And Paul says in Romans 1 that
God turns people over to a reprobate mind because they choose to worship
the creation rather than the Creator. And beloved, the greatest
idolatry that we see in our world today is the idolatry of self
and flesh. That is the greatest sin. It
is a greater sin to worship yourself and to love yourself more than
your neighbor than it is to create an idol and bow down to it. Because
you're bowing down to the idol of self. And beloved, Jesus Christ
and His wonderful grace, the power of God, saved us from such. Saved us from the wrath of God
that comes upon such. And that's what Jesus is talking
about. Jesus is saying there's a greater work than this. There's
a greater miracle than these things. For the man who was healed
would die again in his flesh. Why? For the weight of his sin
is death. The blind man who had eyes to see those eyes would
stop seeing and they would rot out of his skull. Why? Because the wages of sin is death.
Lazarus died and came back to life, his rotting corpse restored
as he waddled out and Jesus says very prophetically, unbind him
and let him go. But he died again because the
wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal
life through Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the greatest thing. This is the greatest work. The
greater work. So Jesus says that there are
greater works. The first one we looked at last
week, that God the Father has given all judgment to the Son.
Verses 20-23. In verse 22, remember we talked
about the patriarchal reality that a father and the sons that
he had would do exactly the same work that he did. Jesus wasn't
known as a carpenter. He was known as the Son of God.
He was doing the work of His Father in heaven. At the age
of 12, don't you know that I should be about my Father's business?
He wasn't being sassy. He was just reminding His earthly
mother and earthly father who He really was and what His business
was all about. So here we see then Jesus with
His Pharisees looking at Him and thinking of Him and saying,
who is this man? And God will judge him. And then
He says, but I am doing the judgment of God. The Father judges nobody,
but I judge. Wow! He could have just punched
him in the throat and gone my route and got a better response. Maybe he got 39 lashes and be
led on his way, but no, he had to go to the cross. And let me
show you something, beloved. With the blindness of depravity,
no matter how learned you are, just like the Pharisees, there
is no amount of learning that will cause you to be born again.
We remind ourselves of that with the discourse with Nicodemus.
Why did Jesus talk to Nicodemus by himself, and why did John
record it? So that we all could remember
that. And we all could remember that
it is by this dialogue with Nicodemus that we see now here in John
chapter 5 where these Pharisees have heard from Nicodemus. Now
they come back and talk to Jesus. Now they come back and they've
made their mind up, this blasphemous man must die. That's why they
wanted to kill him all the more, because he made himself equal
with God. And the sinful things in their mind that he was doing
made sinful the work of God. But the greater work is, number
one, judgment. And the second one, what we see here in verses
24 and 25, is that God has done greater work, and that Jesus
has the authority to give life. Jesus has the all authority to
judge, and Jesus has all authority to give life. And this is not
something that Jesus was granted. This is not something that Jesus
did not have and now has. This is something that Jesus
has always had. Jesus is eternally the Son. He
is God the Son eternally. I want you to hear this. Church
goes, this is Trinitarian doctrine. Doctrine means teaching. This
is the teaching on the Trinity. We have one God who is three
persons eternally. God did not become the Son. The Father did not turn into
the Son. The Spirit is not the power of God moving. That's modalism. God did not transform from the
Father to the Son and become the Son. That's oneness Pentecostalism. That's what they call it. And
the Spirit of God is not this force that carries around the
power of God for us to claim. That's a word of faith. And it's
all wicked. It's all wicked. Jesus Christ
is the God of creation. Jesus Christ is eternally God
the Son. But yes, He did have an incarnation.
He did take on humanity. But it did not devoid Himself
of His divine nature. He did not cease being eternally
God the Son when He was also the Son of God in His flesh.
And that's what we see here. And that's what we'll see next
week. very clearly. But Jesus is saying now this
greater work, not only is it judgment, but it's life. That
means I can quicken the dead. I can quicken the dead. Now wouldn't
we love to have that ability? You know, we talked about the
ability of healing, the gift of healing. No one has had the
gift of healing since John died. No one. Only the apostles had
the gift of healing. There's a difference in the gift
of healing, as we've been reminded recently, and the act of God
healing through someone's prayers. There's a big difference. The
apostles had the gift to touch anyone they chose and God would
heal them. The apostles had the gift to
touch any person they deemed necessary and give them the Holy
Spirit. It's crazy stuff and we don't
understand it all, but that stuff is over because there are greater
works to be seen. Greater works. Jesus can quicken
the dead. And He can quicken the dead in
this very room. Some of you, I pray or not, but if you are
without faith, you are dead. You sit here and you breathe
and your eyes see and your ears hear words, but you are dead.
You are dead spiritually. Jesus Christ and His Word alone
can quicken you to believe. can bring you to life. How? Here. hear the Word of the Lord. That's why it is imperative,
church, that not only do we teach the Scripture because it is the
only way to eternal life, but we also teach the Scripture because
it is the only way that the church grows in maturity. It's the only
way our lives begin to transform, our minds begin to transform
and not conform. It's the only way we're overcoming
the flesh and being able to put it to death and being able to
stand in the face of the enemy and just rejoice. The Scripture. It's the only
way we'll understand. It's the only means through which
we can worship God is by hearing the Word of God. Verse 24, truly, truly. This is sort of like Jesus swearing
that something is true. I swear what I'm about to say
is true. The Greek word for truly is armen. The English transliteration of
that is amen. It is so, it is so. When Jesus
does these double verilys, you know that? Verily, verily. We've
seen some of that. Truly, truly. It is true, it
is true. It is so, it is so. It is done,
it is done. What Jesus is about to say is so imperative that
we better pay attention. We better pay attention to it
all, but Jesus, when He said that in the presence of His hearers,
it was well understood that what was about to be said was of utmost
importance. And so Jesus says, I say to you,
Whoever, or if you have a King James, whosoever. Whoever hears
my word. Whoever hears my word. That's
what he's saying. What does he mean? It means if
you're out here and you're hearing what I'm saying, Jesus speaking,
whoever hears my word. Now the irony is there were men
standing there who could hear his words physically, but who
could not hear spiritually. Why? It said that. We've already
seen that. John 3. We know that you are come from
God. Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus is like, huh? Born again? I go back into my
mother's womb and come out once more? Do not marvel that I say
to you, you must be born again. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless
one is born of the water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the
kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is
flesh. That which is born of Spirit is Spirit. What must Nicodemus
do? Nothing. For the Spirit, just
like the wind blows where it wishes, the Spirit of God blows
where He wishes. People hate this doctrine. People
hate this teaching and by hating it they hate Jesus the Christ
Himself. I want you to hear that church.
This is not something that we are working out with differences
of interpretation. This is a clear grammatical positive. This is dogma like you've never
seen. Jesus said that unless you are
born again, you cannot see and you cannot enter into Him. And
the only way to the Father, the only way to eternal life is to
be in Christ, not in the church, not in leadership, not in the
ministry, not in a Bible study, not ordained, not with a PhD
or a DD or a poop HD, nothing. Check and see if the kids are
listening. You say poop in a sermon, kids are like, what? Some of them are shaking their
head like, I can't believe he said that. But it's worthless. These things
don't bring us into Christ. Christ brings us into Himself.
And Christ does so through His words. See, that's the beauty
of it. Because the way so many of us
have been taught through the years, the way so many people
continue to purvey a false gospel is they're begging and imploring
people to sit down and come to terms with what they believe
so that they might rate the right decision to accept the cognitive
illustrations of Scripture and thus check it off of their academic
belt or wristband or whatever it might be and say, hey, I've
got the right doctrine. Or the Jews had the right doctrine,
but they couldn't believe it. They couldn't see it. And then
after a while, they started twisting it. Friends, we have the right
doctrine, and in our culture, over the last 150 years, it's
ticking away to something else, to no gospel. It's adding to
Christ. It's adding to the truth of Scripture.
It's adding to the words of Christ. You've got to hear Christ, and
then you've got to do this and that, and that, and make some conditions.
You got to do all this stuff. You know what the condition of
salvation is? Christ died for you and you believe
in Him. That's it. You must believe. How do you
believe? You must be born again. How am
I born again? By the hearing of the words of Jesus. It's too simple. Jesus was very
clear not to prohibit the children from coming and sitting under
His teaching. Why? Because a child will believe
everything. I've given that illustration
before. You know, Abigail's a little bit too old now to fall for it
because she's seen it too much, but when they're two, one and
a half, two, two and a half years old, you just close your hands,
you say, guess what I got? She could be watching you do
it. And they're just intrigued, what's in that hand? Nothing
here. Guess what I got? Let me see."
And they'll try to pry the hand open for an hour to see nothing. Then they'll go, it vanished.
There was nothing there. It's so gullible. But believing
the gospel is not about gullibility. It's about a supernatural work
of God who brings to life a dead person, gives ears to hear, gives
a mind to understand, gives spiritual eyes to see and perceive. And
it's a constant, ongoing thing. We believe the gospel every day
forever. We need the gospel every day
forever. It's not an event in history. Our salvation is not
what we did or what was done to us. Our salvation is what
Christ is doing for us today. He accomplished it on the cross.
He redeemed us there, but our faith holds in Him now because
He's faithful. Jesus, whoever hears My words,
he calls hearing, comes through hearing. What Paul would say
in Romans 10, verse 19, that hearing He comes through what? The words of Christ. Hearing. It is the natural means of speaking
through which hearing comes. But it is the supernatural means
of the new birth that spiritual hearing comes. Jesus speaks of
the spiritual hearing here. Jesus gives life spiritually,
which results in life physically, not today, but eternally. Jesus has the power to give life. So whoever hears My Word, are
you hearing the Word? Let me ask this question. Do
you want to hear the Word? This is something that I have
to be very careful with. I charge you today, church, to
ask yourself, do I want to hear the Word of God? You might say,
no. To which I will say, then you're
not in it. I know you're not in it. How many addictions befall
us every day? How many grams or milligrams
or tetragrams or tons of caffeine do we consume? Church. Some of
you brothers, I know, because sometimes we'll fight over the
last mountain dew. It's mine! We're under church discipline
because we hurt each other. It's an addiction. We need it. We think about it.
We want it. We've got to have it. Why is the Word of God not like that
for us? Because we put it aside. Like for those many, many years,
I never ate any sweets. The first few months, I couldn't
think anything but sweets. I dreamt about cake. Krispy Kreme
signs in my dreams. Six, eight months later, I'm
like, I don't care. Two years later, you can put
one in front of me. I don't want that nasty, man. That's garbage. That's what happens with the
Word of God. When we're not in it, we don't want it. Because
there's always something else pressing in front of us. There's
always something else on our mind. Beloved, let me tell you something.
It is the discipline and the practice of being at the feet
of Jesus in Scripture that gives us the desire to be at the feet
of Jesus in Scripture. That's why it is an imperative
to be under the teaching of the Word of God together as a command.
So that there is at least that. that may be a catalyst for you,
as I'm teaching you today, to ask the question, do you want
to hear the word of Christ? Well, have you heard it already? Have you heard the gospel of
grace? Are you listening? By the Lord's grace, He will
let you hear. But what does this hearing do? Over here is my word. It's not just about recognizing
the sound, though John 10 might say that. It's about believing
in what we hear. Believing on Christ. Believing
in Christ. Believing and trusting who He
is. What is the Word of Christ? Well, everything we see before
us. The totality of Scripture is
the Word of Christ. Are we believing the Word of
God? See, higher criticism would say,
oh yeah, but the Bible's good, but the Bible's not authoritative. when we've lost. Because then
who are we by our own judgment to decide what is true and what
is not true? I'll tell you how we do that in our flesh. When
we think the Bible is not authoritative, that the Bible in its totality
is not the Word of God, thus the words of Christ, we get to
choose what best suits us. We get to choose the fun parts
about redemption, the fun parts about blessings. We get to twist
it how we want. As a matter of fact, we can take
one sentence and out of that sentence refuse some, receive
the other and go, I'm not so sure about the rest. That is
one of the most ridiculous displays of idiocy that I've ever seen
function in our culture. To take a context and believe
part, but not all. Because it suits us. That's what
we do. And the remedy of that is that
we're in the text. I've shared with you, and I think
we've bought all these out of them, but they might get more.
Those readers New Testaments. There's no numbers and things
to get in the way. There's not footnotes. There's
not like a study Bible. You've got one line of text and
700 lines of pictures and other things. It does have its purpose,
but when you read the Bible, you need to read the Bible. You
need to put your pen up. You need to put your pad away.
You need to read the scripture. And then all of a sudden you
may get the pad out. Then you might get the pen out. Then you might
decide to go get the study Bible out. And you think, well, I better
not go any further because this has bogged me down all week.
The dinner's burned. The electricity gets cut off
because you forgot to get up from the desk to pay the bills.
Wouldn't that be a wonderful testimony? I'm being silly. But I wish we had that kind of
fire in us. And it's not about time. It's
about treasure. Whoever hears my word and believes,
believes Him who sent me. See, believing the gospel of
Christ is believing God. Now let's take that and expound
upon it just a moment as it relates to an application in our culture.
How many people do you run across every single day, God bless,
God bless, God bless? I mean, it's flu season. I sneezed
the other day inside of a store and from, oh, it was the grocery
store. And I think over the intercom, somebody said, God bless you. I mean, we use the phrase. We
use the word God like we do when we're trying to think of something.
And that's not the point. I'm not saying quit using the
word God, but it is in vain. What's vain mean? When you use
it for no reason. Like, oh God, where's my watch?
Or, oh God, where's my hair bow? Are you asking or are you just
using His name? But everybody likes to talk about
God. Or even many people like to talk about Jesus. Oh, Jesus.
Bless Jesus. I love Jesus. Do we love Jesus? Not us, but they. Do they love
Jesus? And Jesse will tell you, the
first question out of my mouth, first question out of his mouth,
somewhere in those conversations is, what are you reading in Scripture? And they'll be like, oh. You
know, that's where that word comes in. Because they don't
know. They don't know. Are you in church
this week? What did your pastor preach about?
What text? There's an indicator of whether
or not you're in a true church. What verses did your pastor teach
you today from the words of Christ? Well, he taught about being a
good daddy. Great! Dr. Phil talks about being a
good daddy. Oprah talks about being a good daddy. Whoop-de-doo! I'm not trying to be cavalier
and I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm trying to get to the point
of what Jesus is saying here. When we can use the name of God, we
can talk about the blessings, we can do all sorts of stuff,
but if we're not hearing the Word of God, we aren't even hearing
the voice of God. Because when we believe in what
Christ says, we are believing in God Himself. And that's what
He says, "...Him who sent Me." Whoever hears My Word and believes
Him who sent Me has eternal life. Because everything, you hear
it all the time. Maybe you don't, maybe you don't get in enough
conversations about spiritual things. And I pray that that
would change for you this year. Just put yourself out there.
You hear them come up, you feel it in your heart, you get that
sickness in your stomach like, that guy just said something
ridiculous about the Lord. He just, I can't let that go. Just don't hold the gas pump
as it's running, put it back. Hey, come here, man, let me ask
you a question. What do you mean by that?" And then he just goes
on and on about, God did this, and God said that, and God blessed
that, and God did that, and I learned this in church, and... Oh, then
you just wonder. It's about the Word of God. Are
we hearing? Everybody wants the ticket to what God has, and what
God has is a Son. Everyone wants the blessing of
what God is offering, and what God has already offered is what?
A Son. And see, that's what's beautiful.
Now here's the kicker. Every one of us in the room are guilty
of this all the time. Because even though we might
learn this, think about this for a second. Even though I might
be teaching this to you, we're all in a place where we can very
easily pick and choose what we want to hear. And so it is by
the grace and mercy of God alone that we're able to actually comprehend
and see and rest in the sufficiency of the Word of God. It's not
because we're super special or super spiritual. It's not because
we're pastors or teachers or leaders or deacons or elders. It's because God in His mercy
has given us grace. It's because God has established
in us the ability to hear His Word. Because we believe Him
who sent the Son. Whoever hears My Word, hearing
comes through hearing the words of Christ, we know that we have
eternal life. We know that we have eternal
life because we believe in the One who sent Jesus. What about
Him? I believe that God exists, people
will say. It's not about believing God exists. Believing God exists
is a given. Everybody believes God exists.
Every atheist I've ever met believe God exists. Every physicist I've
ever met believes God exists. Now they like to play that they
don't. They like to pretend that it's not there, but they believe. But do we believe what God has
said and what God has revealed concerning His Son? As this chapter
goes on, Jesus talks about the testimony of the Father, the
testimony of the Spirit, the testimony of the Word, and His
own testimony of Himself. Jesus is life. He created the
world and everything in it. Remember what I told you when
we were going through the prologue? Remember what I told you? That we would
go and see the outline here of John's gospel, then we would
see it played out? Now listen to me. Pay attention. Because
in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the
Word was with God. And verse 3, all things were made through
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
And verse 4, in Him was life. And the life was the light of
men, and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
is not overcoming. So here we have this recipe, this outline. Jesus is the Word who created
the world. Jesus is the Word who is the
light of the life of men. Jesus is the Word who heals the
body. Most importantly, who heals the
soul. Jesus is the Word that commands and all things bow to
Him. Jesus is the Word who judges,
and Jesus is the Word who gives life. It reminds me of the prophet
Isaiah. what God said through Isaiah.
Incline your ear, verse 3 of chapter 55. Incline your ear
and come to me, hear that your soul may live, and I will make
you an everlasting covenant. My steadfast, sure love for David. See, the words of Jesus give
life through the Spirit. Did you hear that? The words
of Jesus. Many of us, most of us, all of
us, are we concerned about the salvation of our children? Let me say this to you, church.
You better be concerned about the salvation of your children.
Don't live in a cavalier way and consider that the fact that
your children are living well and moral, that they're okay
in the eyes of God. For if your children do not believe
in the gospel of grace, they will perish and stand in everlasting
judgment. So be concerned, but do not be
worried. For the promise of God is that whoever hears My word
and believes in Him who sent Me has eternal life. That's where
our hope comes. What does that mean? How can
I ensure that my children are going to be saved? Well, can
we? No. How can we ensure anything? But God's Word is true. So if they are to be saved, if
they are to be sealed, the only way that it will ever take place
is if the God in heaven prompts you to continue to teach your
children the Scripture above all things. So what if they can't
read? They need to read. And then they could read for
themselves. But I think parents, sometimes we feel like that our
children need better math skills and reading skills than they
do doctrine and Scripture. That's garbage. Because God used ridiculously
stupid people to do ridiculously stupid things that were absurd
to the eyes of reason and to the minds of logic. And they
preached Christ and Him crucified. And through the preaching of
Christ and Him crucified, God saved many. As a matter of fact,
after the disciples, after the apostles were whipped and beaten
and then let out, what did they do? They went out into the courtyards
of the prison and began to preach the gospel that they just had
their backs torn open for, after being warned not to do so. And
what does the Scripture say? What's the narrative say? What's
the history say? That everyone was amazed, listen to this, at
the wisdom of these unlearned men. Why? Because Christ is our wisdom
from God. crisis or righteousness? How do they get there? I mean,
I was that guy in my 20s with my mentors and they just opened
their mouths and the Bible just sort of fell out. Wow, I want
to remember that. I want that. I want to hear that.
I want to be able to do that. Teach me that. Hey, can you write
down a list of everything you just did? One of my mentors was
like, I don't even know what I just said. I thought, what
a dummy. But it's true. It's true, we aren't able to
sit here and sufficiently say, we've conquered Scripture, we've
memorized these things, and we've put this doctrine together in
such a systematized way that we're experts at it. You know
what an expert of Scripture is? A humble person, who knows he's
not an expert, who intimately involves himself or herself in
the reading of God's Word, so that when the time is right,
the Holy Spirit will bring to mind that which is necessary. I used to think I had to make
a whole bunch of notes when I preached, and I used to. It was laborious,
and it was boring, and it was overwhelming. People's pencils
would break. Their ink pens would run out. 739 references in 30 minutes. Let the Lord, through the text,
bring it to your mind. But guess what? If it's never
been there, it's never going to be there. The Word of Jesus
gives life through the Spirit. It was Jesus and His words who
gave. In Ezekiel 37, you see that picture
of the gospel? Where God, the Son, asks Ezekiel
what? You think these bones could live? And He says, You know, Lord.
You know. Only You know. You want to live? Christ knows. And what was it
that brought those bones to stand? What was it that brought those
bones to flesh? What was it that brought the wind of life to these
dead corpses? The Spirit of God through the
Word of Christ. And beloved, what we see here
is greater works than these. I use the illustration a lot
when I'm teaching middle school kids. And I say, you know the Bible
has zombies in it. And they're like, what? It's like preaching another song
of Solomon at a high school. Every mom in the room is going,
well, the Bible's not coming back out of my house. Yeah, there's zombies in it.
There were dead bones that God spoke to through the preacher
Ezekiel, and through preaching, God the Spirit brought these
bones to life. And that's nothing, because the
hearing of the words of Christ has brought us to life today.
Are you alive? Yes. You believe in the One who sent
Him. There's so much more here. Jesus has shown then that His
Work is the work of God the Father. His words are the words of God
the Father. His authority is that of God
the Father. His honor, His judgment, and
His power is the same as God the Father. So now He reminds
His hearers that God the Father has sent Him. And Jesus has been sent to the
lost to seek them, to save them. Believing in the words of Christ
is believing in the words of God. In essence, the faithfulness
of God in all ways is seen in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
But he says, whoever believes in me, whoever believes in my
words, or hears my words and believes in Him who sent me,
has eternal life. What does that look like? We
can see it all throughout Scripture. In Colossians 1 we see He has
delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us
to the kingdom of His beloved Son. Life! Not death. Those who do not believe are
already condemned. We've already seen that in John
chapter 3. Believe and live, but those who do not believe
or are not believing are condemned already before they fail to believe
in the only Son of God. He does not come into judgment,
Jesus says, but He has passed from death to life. I could preach a sermon on just
that text. Isn't that really what we want, church? We want
to live! I mean, after all, we don't even
speak the language anymore, anywhere! But there is never an absence,
maybe much in this town, but in other places, there's never
an absence of a bumper sticker that says Carpe Diem. We want
to live! We want to seize the day! We
want to enjoy life! We want to live! Is that not
the approach of the cults as they come to your door? Too early on Saturday? Is that
not the approach? When you open the door and they
say, hey, are you looking for peace? No, you know, I like chaos. I think I'll start with you and
just throw some hot water on them or something. I mean, when the Masons were
out of town, I was getting their mail and there happened to be some walking
down the street one day. And I'm like, oh gosh, let me
get to the truck. The guy comes up. And he says, are you looking
for peace? And I couldn't just lie and say,
no, I love problems. I mean, you know. So he hands
me the literature and everybody's looking for peace. You can have
a life of abundance, he said. You can live fully today. And there's a lot more to be said
about that. That's what the world's looking for. And the world, if
they don't want to hear that Jesus' words are life, that Jesus
is life, because they don't want the Christ. They want what the
Christ can give. They manipulate the Scripture
to give them what they're looking for. And that's why, beloved,
that the gate to righteousness is narrow. Listen to that. Don't get mad at me, Jesus said
it. Get mad at Him. The way to righteousness is narrow,
here's His words, few will find it, but the path to destruction
is wide, many go therefore. You've passed from death into
life. Since you've been born again,
not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed through the
living and abiding Word of God, 1 Peter 1.23. You've been born through the
living and abiding Word of God. What's the point? This could
be like a sermon on Sola Scriptura squared. We all are concerned
about salvation. We're all concerned about our
children. We're all concerned about our neighbors, I pray. We're
all concerned. We have a burden. What do we
do? Number one, we are in the Word
of God. Because whether you're in school,
whether you're at a job, whether you're at home, whether you're
doing work on the highway, whether you're in a cell, as a believer,
your whole purpose of existence is giving glory to Christ and
living for the glory of God, so that as you do any of those
things, you do them unto Christ, as if it were Christ who is your
master, because it is. And also, we are there for the
purpose of being a light in the world, that we could always give
a reason with gentleness. for our joy in the midst of suffering,
in the midst of joy, in the midst of anything. That we're always,
but we can't give, if I don't have a dollar and you need a
dollar, can I give you a dollar? No! So then both of us are beggars
and we're like, let's find a guy with two dollars and then we'll
both have a dollar. Beloved, don't be caught in this world
without the Word. And we got our phones, Earbuds,
we get our pocketbooks and our briefcases, we get our keys if
we can find them. We get everything, but we take
our Bible with us. People think I'm uber-spiritual
because I carry a hard copy of Scripture almost everywhere with
me, but I do that because if I don't, I won't. I won't use it. I'm not going
to dig up on a telephone. I can find 12 scriptures on this
book right here before you can get the Gospel of John open on
your app. Just whip back to 1 to 3. Can you do 1 to 3 like that?
No. You do what you want to do, but I expect that God will use
the Word, so I take it. And more than that, I expect
that I need it in me because I want to use it. If I need to
help somebody and they need a dollar and I don't have a dollar, if
I need to help somebody and I don't have the Word in my heart that
day, that day it's not going to be used that day. I mean, we can drive to work
listening to the Word of God. We can cut grass. We can do all
sorts of things. But I pray that you would have
a hunger and a thirst for Scripture because it is the life It is
life. It is where all life is. You
have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, Paul says
to the church of Colossae, and that is in the Word of God. Your
assurance comes through the words of Christ. And you might say,
well, we get the point. We get the point. We've passed
from death into life. And we're looking forward to
that life. You've got it already. See, that's
where when we engage with the cults, we engage with the world,
people mistake what an abundant life is. They're looking for
that next treasure. They're looking for that next
experience. They're looking for that next
prize. When the only person in the Word
of God, the only person in the New Testament, listen to this
church, the only person in the New Testament that promised the
world to anybody was the devil promising it to Jesus. You hear that? The only person
in the New Testament that promised riches to anybody was Satan,
promising it to Jesus in the wilderness. The only person that
promised health to Jesus was Satan. He says, just throw yourself
off, and the angels won't let you hurt your... won't even strike
your foot. That's health. You're hungry, you're starving.
Turn these stones to bread. The only person in the New Testament
that offers the world is Satan. God promises suffering. God promises
blessings. God promises provision. But God
doesn't promise the world. He surely doesn't promise your
best life now. Because those that live their best life now,
I hate even using that phrase, it's the best it's ever going
to get. And most people are looking for
it. And we as Christians sometimes just say, well, we can't wait
till that day when we receive eternal life. We can't wait till
that day when we're resurrected. We can't wait till the day the
Lord comes back. Why are we waiting? Yes, I want a new body, badly. Tired of headaches, tired of
arthritis, tired of fatigue, tired of eating, sometimes. But what does Jesus say in verse
25? Again, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming. See,
that's what we're looking for right there. An hour is coming.
It's coming. Jesus is on the way. It won't
be long now. And we've been seeing that for
2,000 plus years. Almost here. Well, that's why people make
millions of dollars picking a date. And they know they're wrong.
They know they're lying. But they'll cash in before anybody
notices. Because you get up there and
you move enough numbers around, you put a couple of moons in
front of it. Best seller. Especially if you
use the word blood. Or the word light. Or the word
life. And you look at all these things
and you start saying, wow, these people have predicted the coming
of Jesus. How many times in the last ten years has the prediction
of Christ's return happened? Hundreds. And people have made
out like bandits. And the Bible says no one knows
the hour of the day and no one should try. But we're looking
for that day. Yes, we all look for the day
when the Lord shall come. But friends, I said to you an
hour is coming, then Jesus says, and is now here. It's not the
first time you've heard that, is it? We heard it just a few... well,
a chapter before where He's talking to the woman from Sychar and
He says the time is coming and is now here when true worshipers
will worship neither on that mountain nor this one, but in
spirited truth. So that goes to show you that
the blessings of this life in Christ are ours today. In fact,
Paul, when he's talking to the Ephesians, Paul just flat gives
us a lot to consider. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual
blessing in the Beloved. In the Beloved. All of them.
Everything that God is and everything that God has is ours in Christ
Jesus. It's all ours. What is it? Life. Christ is life. His Word is life. We are alive. No matter how bad we feel, no
matter how close we are to death in our bodies, we are alive in
Christ. What else do we want? In our flesh? A lot. Let's just
be honest. Let's don't try to sound uber-spiritual. Well, nothing. I'm content. We
are not content. We are content today because
we're in service together. It's all a little spiritual and
we're enjoying some reminders of the truth, but as soon as
we get out there, we're going to be like, I'm not content.
I want food. And then somebody will suggest going out to eat,
and somebody will suggest going home to eat, and somebody will
suggest going and spending $20, somebody will suggest going to
Taco Bell and dying anyway. Either through the food that
you consume or the weight and the line that you get. I quit. So here, The hour is
coming and is now here. What is this that is here? When the dead will hear the voice
of the Son of God, and those who hear will live." You see
that? You're alive. I gave away the
punchline before I read the rest of the verse, sorry. You live. The hour is coming. Imagine the
Jews. I want you to think about the
conversation that's happening here. Imagine the Jews, here
they are, and they're thinking, this guy needs to die. They judged
him guilty of blasphemy. Made himself what? Equal with
God. And they're thinking, this guy needs to die. Jesus knows
that. Why? Because he's God. And they would think, well we
can't do anything about it because Rome has our hands tied, but
God will judge him. And Jesus knowing this then says,
Father doesn't judge, I do. What? What excuse are they going
to come up with next? I mean, imagine they all had
to get dentures that day because they ground their teeth out.
Talking about gnashing of teeth? You know why there's gnashing
of teeth in judgment? Because people hate Jesus. Not
because they're in torment, because they hate Jesus. They hate Jesus
for His judgment. They hate Jesus for His authority.
And they hate Jesus for putting them in a place where they are
subject to it. The Jews would say, well, God
will judge him. And Jesus says, well, all judgment is given to
me. And Jesus said, the Father doesn't even judge, but I do.
And then the Jews are like, who is this guy? He really, really,
really needs to die. And then Jesus says, I have the
power to give life. You see the irony here? You see
the strange, mystical understanding and the knowledge that Jesus
has as God? He knows the hearts of all men. No one had to testify
to Him what was in man. He knows man. Now there was a
man, and now there was a woman, and now there's several men. He needs to die, and He needs
to be judged. And Jesus says, Well, I am the
judge, and I am the life. What's next? They don't believe
Him. There's nothing for them to say.
And then they're saying, it's coming, the hour's coming, and
then he really pulls the rug out from under him and he says,
and it's now here. These Jews are amazed. They're frozen. They
have nothing to do. What are they going to say? The hour's
here. They're considering the reality that Jesus is proclaiming
that His authority is not in the future. His authority is
not coming. He's not trying to take anything
from them. He's already taken it. He's not
usurping anybody. They all stand underneath Him.
that He's now here, and not just His authority, but His Word,
which is life. So therefore, life is here."
What is it? It's the gospel. It's the good
news of Jesus Christ. It's the work that He was doing,
which is the work of the Father, which is the work of God. And
it's the redemption and the life that He has in His words. It's
what's coming. It's what's here. The dead will
hear the voice of the Son of God. So let's put it in perspective. Right now, the dead are hearing
the voice of the Son of God. That's what Jesus is saying to
them. And they're thinking to themselves, who's dead? Jesus will ask them in the future,
He'll say, you know, are you guilty? Are you blind? No, no, no, we're not blind,
we can see. Well, then your guilt remains. But you say you can see. The
dead will hear the voice of the Son of God. They are currently
hearing Him now in this dialogue. And we, beloved, are hearing
it today. The present power of resurrection, the present power
of life, the present power of God is at work in the teaching
of Scripture right now in our hearts and minds. Everything
that we are is subject to everything that He says. Those who hear, though, are not
the Jews. They will not hear because they
do not want to hear. And they don't want others to
hear. And they could not hear. But those who do hear, they live
today. We're not worried as whether
or not we have salvation. We're certain we have salvation.
We're not longing to have eternal life. We have eternal life. We're longing for this temporal
life to be through. But Paul would say to live as Christ.
Why are we looking for the die which is better? Let's live for
Christ. Let's live in the life that He's
given us. Beloved, we live in this moment in Christ. We're
not promised this next minute. We're not promised tomorrow.
We're certainly not promised next week. Those who hear will
live. Jesus is the life this very moment. He is the gospel, the power of
God, the Word of God. And as we've seen, the darkness
will not overcome it. Jesus Christ speaks and is speaking
today. And today, beloved, through Scripture,
greater works than any miracle that could ever be performed
is happening in front of you. And that's the point. I mean,
ask yourself this question. What is it that if you had a
wish that Jesus would grant, what would it be today? See how crazy that sounds? Because
it's a trick question. It's a terrible question. Because
there's nothing we could wish of Jesus that He hasn't already
given. And if we have an answer to that question, it just proves
that our flesh is still in hostility. and it pushes us to the grace
of God and the mercy of God and the peace of God that surpasses
understanding who is Jesus Christ, the Living Word. Your hope is
in Jesus Christ, the Living Word. The darkness will not overcome
us, beloved. The darkness will not overcome Christ. The greatest
work of Jesus Christ, the greatest miracle in all the cosmos is
life eternal in Jesus, life internal in the Word, life eternal. As I've said and mentioned earlier
in the sermon, the supernatural signs and wonders are a joke
in comparison. Jesus Christ is the God of all
things in His speaking, in His living, in His being, in His
purpose, in His power, in His authority. And He brings life
and He creates in us a new heart. How is it ours? How do we have
it? By faith. Faith alone in the Word of God. Let's pray. We thank You, Father,
for this wonderful reminder, for this wonderful teaching.
Not that it's wonderful because I said anything, but Lord, that
the Word itself is wonderful. We thank You, Lord, that You
have given us ears to hear and eyes to see. And I pray that
as we continue about our day and our week, that we would be
caused by Your Spirit and stirred by the Spirit, Lord, to get into
the Bible. Help us to have a pattern of
discipline. Even if we feel that it's ineffectual,
help us to get in a pattern of discipline to be in Your Word
every day. so that by Your Spirit, Lord,
we would meditate upon it. That through Scripture, Lord,
we would continue to have the peace that is ours in Jesus Christ. Lord, greater things than these.
The greatest thing, Father, is Your love for the Son. The greatest
thing, Father, seen through that is Your love for us. That You
might be glorified in it. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.