We're in this dialogue that Jesus
is having as a way of reminder with the Pharisees after He healed
the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda. John chapter 5, we
see that this healing was done for the purpose of stirring division
with the Jews. Also the fact that the Jews had
no interest in the power of God to heal this man, but were offended
by the fact that Jesus commanded this man to take up His mat,
which was a violation of the Law of Moses and the rabbinic
tradition of the Sabbath. Jesus then, as He finds this
man in the temple, He goes to him and makes this man aware
of who he is, and then this man runs back to the Pharisees and
says, it was Jesus who healed me, reminding us, remember, that
it's not the focus of the mat and the violation of the law
that this man who was healed is dealing with. He continues
to remind his hearers, the Pharisees and the priests, that he has
been healed. They keep coming back saying,
who told you to violate the law? who told you to take up your
mat, who told you to walk with it, who told you to do these
things. So Jesus, because He is God, He comes and He says
to them, Look at verse 16, and this is why the Jews were persecuting
Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. Verse
17, and we'll continue to read, But Jesus answered them, My Father
is working until now, and I am working. This is why the Jews
were seeking all the more to kill Him, because not only was
He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own
Father, making Himself equal with God. So Jesus said to them,
"'Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His
own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever
the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father
loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing, and
greater works than these will He show Him, so that you may
marvel.'" For 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, 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." Let's pray. Father, I pray that
Your Word, Lord, would do its work this morning. Lord, that
You would bring us to an understanding of this text, that we would see
deeply what it is that You're showing us about Your Son, Jesus
Christ, the fullness of all Your essence and authority embodied
in the person of Jesus who came to this earth and took on humanity.
And Lord, it is unbelievable for us. It is in our natural
state, in our natural mind, in our logical thinking. Father,
it just makes no sense to us. But by faith and through Your
Spirit, Lord, we see it and we rejoice. We exult in it. We exult in Him. And by doing
so, we exult in You. We have our joy in the center
of our passions in Jesus Christ. And therefore, we also have the
center of our passions in You. We honor You by honoring Christ. For there is no other way to
You, Father, except through Your Son, Jesus. And we thank You,
Lord, that You have given us the ears to hear and the heart
to believe and the mind to understand and the eyes to see Your ineffable
glory in the face of Jesus Christ, who gives grace and truth. In
Jesus' name, Amen. I begin by showing you, as we're
here in verse 19, as a way of reminder for last week. Truly,
truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing out of His own accord,
but only does what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the
Father does, that the Son does likewise. This is an illustration
by Jesus to His persecutors. that what they were upset about
is actually the work of God. Not just the healing, but the
command to do things which they felt were not correct to do on
the Sabbath. So here we know that Jesus is
actually calling Himself God because He is saying that He
is equal with the Father in His work. And you might not find
that really as interesting as the Jews did, which is why they
sought all the more to kill Him, because He'd made Himself equal
with God. Why would they be upset with that? Why is it bad to call
God your Father? Well, because what Jesus was
doing in their minds was something that God would not do. God would
not violate the Sabbath. God would not heal on the Sabbath.
God would not tell someone else to do something that they knew
was wrong on the Sabbath. And have you ever asked yourself,
I know in a town like this, when you're around and you're up and
coming in the world as a teenager, when people meet you without
your parents, there's one question that they always ask you. Who's
your daddy? Who's your daddy? And my father
and I, we don't look alike at all, so we never get that question.
But I've been in Washington, D.C., I've been in Dallas, Texas,
I've been all over the country where people have come up to
me and said, do you know a guy named Randall Tippins from Georgia?
Yes, I do. But you get that question. Nobody
knows who kids are. So the only way we can understand
who children are is like, who are your mom? Who's your mom?
Who's your dad? And in this patriarchal society in the first century,
your father was important to you because you didn't have a
choice as to who you were or what you did. If your daddy was
a carpenter, you were a carpenter. You didn't get any other choice.
You could not pick to become a ditch digger, or a mason, or
whatever. You had to be a carpenter. If
your daddy was a pig farmer, you became a pig farmer, which
there were very few of those in this culture. If your daddy
was a sheep herder, you became a sheep herder. If your daddy
was a wallpaper hanger, you became a wallpaper hanger. And there
was no other option. So that what your daddy was,
you became. So when Jesus was doing His work,
He actually was saying to these people who understood very clearly,
My Father is the one who does this work, and My Father is God. Which was a blasphemous thing
for them to hear. Who is your daddy? You are who your daddy
is according to this culture. Your profession was that of your
father with no exceptions. Jesus speaks clearly to His audience
in these beginning verses in two ways. He says that I'm doing
the work that my father is doing and I come from him and continue
his work. And it's interesting this morning,
talking with Brother Mike over breakfast, he made the mention
of a Bible study talking about the God of the Old Testament,
the God of the New Testament, and how we, in our culture, like to divide
these two gods, as if God has changed. He doesn't change. He's
immutable. He never changes. He never changes
His purposes, or His plans, or His message, or anything. He
operates equally throughout any dispensation of time. And so,
here is the God of the Old Testament doing the work that He does in
the minds of the Jews, and here's the God of the New Testament,
the same God doing the same work in the same way to the person
of Jesus Christ. And they could not stand that.
Why? Because they had a caricature of God in their minds. They worshiped
a false god, a false... It doesn't matter the name to
which you place your worship, it matters the person that you worship. If we worship
the true God of heaven, then we worship the true God of Scripture.
Talking with a couple of men this past weekend, the comment
was made about how this one particular fellow gets a lot of questions
in his email every day. Just tons of questions, theological
questions. Much like we do Q&A as a church. And the questions
that we get in the beginning, you know, they're sort of superficial.
We're learning. But as we've gone through the
years, the questions are getting deeper. The questions are getting
more where we have to go contextually. It's just not, sometimes they're
not very simple. Because as we study, the deeper our questions
get. But what happens most of the
time in the world of the church, of our culture, is that people's
questions are so simply answered if they had just ever read the
Scripture. So when someone's in the church
for 20 years and they have a question to say, is Jesus the Son of God? And they've been in church for
20 years and they've never heard that. They've never read the
text. Something is very much amiss
with that circumstance. Something's very much amiss with
that conjoining of a person that professes to be a Christian and
the person that's in the church and the person that doesn't even
know the basics of what the Bible teaches from Genesis to Matthew. And so the Bible is non-changing. Jesus is saying, God is my Father,
and in essence, I am the fullness of Him. God is my Father. In chapter 8 of John, we'll see
the Jews begin to claim some patriarchy, don't they? Ah, who
is it? Abraham is our father. Who do
you think you are, Jesus of Nazareth, son of Joseph? Is this not son
of Joseph and Mary the carpenter? Why is He building a porch for
me? Why is He teaching me in the temple? Who is this guy not
building my porch or fixing my swing or getting my children
a seesaw made? Who are you, Jesus? Go build
a chair." And Jesus is like, I'm doing the work of my Father.
Did He not say that when He was 12 years old? And Joseph and
Mary are leaving with the multitudes after the census and they go,
oh my goodness, where's Jesus? Several day journey. We've lost
our kids for 30 seconds in the mall. They were gone for a while. They go back and there's Jesus.
He's safe in the temple and the Pharisees are sitting there listening
to this man, to this boy teach. See, I know what our mothers
would have done. I know what we would do as fathers
and mothers. We'd snatch our children by the ear and pop them
on the butt and stick your butt in that car. You don't scare
me like that. But Jesus says, do you not know that I'm supposed
to be about my father's business? Do you not remember? He was doing
the work of the Father then, even though He was trained as
a carpenter by His earthly surrogate Father. And he's doing the work
of the Father now. But the Jews are like, no, Abraham's
our father. And get this, if Abraham were the father of the
Jews, and the Jews would have marveled in the day of Jesus,
and they would have worshiped Jesus, and they would have honored
Jesus, because it's honoring the Father. And Jesus rebukes
them by saying the negation of that very thing. He says, if
Abraham were your father, you would honor me, for he gloried
in my day. He rejoiced. I have chills thinking
about that. Abraham gloried in the day of Christ. He rejoiced
and they rebuke him and say, who are you? And yet not fifty
to say, Abraham rejoiced in your day. And Jesus answers in the
most deistic way He can. He says, before Abraham was,
I am. God have mercy. But they don't
stop there. You'd think that they would just
like... I mean if I were the Pharisees, I was like, we need to move town. It's about time for an Egyptian
church plant. But they didn't stop. They go
from Abraham to say, well, we'll trump this. God is our father. God is our... He won't say anything
about that. You know what Jesus does say?
He said, that can't be because you're liars. You're doing the
work of a liar by lying. And the only father I know that's
been lying forever is the devil. So you're the children of the
devil. Now see, if I posted that on Facebook, people are like,
man, James is being rude, but Jesus said it out of His mouth.
So how do we do that? There's a little side note here.
If we need to rebuke somebody, then just quote Jesus out of
the text. Don't be this really bad fella
that wants attention. Just quote Scripture. And a better
thing would be to pray that God would, as Paul teaches young
Timothy in the early days of his pastorate, pray that God
would grant them repentance by teaching them with patience and
love and endurance, enduring evil with all patience. So in
chapter 8, the Jews argue their patriarchy and Jesus says, you're
not the children of Abraham because he rejoiced. You're not doing
the work of Abraham. You're not doing the work of
God because you're liars. So your father is the devil.
What does this mean? What is this text really showing?
That Jesus is coextensive with His Father. That means that every
action, every action that Jesus done is the action of God the
Father. That everything the Father has
ever done, the Son also did it. We see that very clearly illustrated
in the teaching of Scripture when the Bible tells, when Paul
says to the church of Colossae that he is the visible image
of the invisible God, that He created all things, and that
He holds together all things by the word of His power. See,
that's the work of God. God the Father does that work,
God the Son does that work, and God the Spirit does that work.
They are one God. Even John, in his gospel, very
first chapter, what does it say? All things are made through Him,
and without Him was not anything made that was made. Jesus is
God. Jesus is the primary object,
as we've seen last week, that God loves the Son without measure.
He's the primary object of the greatest divine love of the Father.
God loves the Son. The Father loves the Son. And
let me illustrate this for you in just a way. For those of you
here midweek, if you haven't, if you can't come midweek, I
pray that you can get into the church website and listen to
the midweek teachings on Romans. We're going very quickly. We're
not taking as much time. It'll still be a year and a half,
two years on Wednesday, but it'll be four plus years here in John's
Gospel. But as we see that the love of
God toward us is not something that we get to boast in because
we're not worthy of it in our being, but because God is all-wise,
because God has satisfied His wrath, He places that justification,
He places that propitiation, He places that expiation on those
whom He loves by faith and the one who satisfied His wrath to
begin with. That is Jesus Christ. so that
we should not beat ourselves up with guilt, for there is what
we see in Romans 7, I mean 8, no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus. Why then are we unforgiving with
ourselves? Why then are we unforgiving of
each other? How is it that we have been forgiven
through the work of God Almighty, the Son of God, and His sacrifice,
and His obedience, and His resurrection? We have peace with God the Father,
but we cannot have peace with us, because it is sometimes that
the flesh is not able, but the Spirit is able. That's why we
have to have all patience. That's why we have to have all
endurance. That's why we have to recognize that there will
be trials and trouble and tribulation, and it's not always beheadings
and burnings and being fed to lions. Sometimes it's just feeling
like that one of us in our household is a lion. Sometimes it feels
like our boss or our co-worker is a lion. But the application
goes far beyond this temporal world. The application of Jesus
Christ as the object of God's love gives us an eternal security
that's beyond measure. Because if we, just like Brother
Dave read out of James 1, how often do we look at ourselves
in the mirror and forget who we are in relation? That's a metaphor
that's a parallel of sometimes we look into the Word and we
walk away and forget what it says. I don't know about you, I've
never forgotten what I look like. If I see pictures of myself,
that's me. Who is that? Now I have heard my voice before
and wondered, who is that redneck I hear? Sorry. But we don't forget what
we look like. But we forget what the Word of
God looks like. We forget what God looks like. We forget what
Christ looks like. That's why we must always be in the Word.
That's why coming together gives us an accountability. to be in
the Word, to hear it, and that through hearing, God does a divine
work. Where is our assurance? Not in who we are and what we
look like, not in what we've become or what we're striving
for, but it's in the love of God for the Son. You see, God,
before the world began, before God created anything, His purpose
was to redeem a people for Himself, through Himself, by Himself,
for the glory of His own name. So that our assurance is in the
fact that God loves the Son, the Father loves the Son without
measure, and that will never change. And so the love of God
then for us is bound up and sealed in the love that the Father has
for the Son. And so when we measure the love of God toward us, we
can easily come up with an argument and debate with the Word of God
and say, but I know you love me, God, but you don't know me.
He does know me. And He doesn't love you because
of what He knows about you. He loves you because of how much
He loves the Son. That's what this is supposed
to show us. We have a grand delusion in our culture, in our world.
Everywhere you look, and when you read articles, and when you
read especially missionary pamphlets, and updates. You know, missionaries
give updates once or twice a year. And you read these things, you
see that there's a grand delusion of what the love of God really
is. And a grand delusion of what the love of God will really give
you. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, Job would say. Blessed
be the name of the Lord. So when the Lord takes, it is
not because God does not love us, but if we know what Hebrews
teaches, it may just be that God is preparing us for an eternal
weight of glory, 2 Corinthians 4, that's beyond all comparison.
Why? Because the ultimate end of our
joy is knowing and experiencing the love of God through Jesus
Christ, which is effectual for any circumstance, whether it
ceases or not. It's effectual. The love of God
the Father for the Son is the greatest of all divine loves.
This is the crux of the movement of Jesus' earthly obedience.
This is why Jesus followed the Father. This is why Jesus taught
these things. Because the love of the Father
for Him. You notice when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, you know
what He didn't pray? You know what popular culture will teach
you about the love of God? I remember the song that used
to be sung, and that I've sung many times in my childhood, that
when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. Okay? I want to challenge that thinking.
I want to say that if I was on the mind of Christ on the cross,
then Christ's mind was affixed to something that was not worthy
of His attention. I would say that the only person
that Jesus was thinking of on the cross was the Father. Why? Because that's what He prayed.
He didn't pray in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oh God, these poor sinners. If I
don't die, they're going to perish. Oh Lord, I really want to do
something different. Maybe we can get with Peter.
He's got a sword. And take over Rome. Maybe we
can do something different. These poor sinners. I've got
to do this for them. No. We are the benefactors of
the work of God. It's the reason it happened in
time and in eternity. But the purpose of it, the focus
of it, was the love of God for the Son and the love of the Son
for the Father. And Jesus cries out in the garden,
take this cup from me, but not my will, but yours be done. See, so we know that the focus
of Jesus' ministry was for the glory and the honor of God the
Father. We have hope in that, beloved. lest we think too much
of ourselves, lest we think that we are so amazing that God should
love us. Listen, we are amazing because
we are not worthy of love. But God in His wisdom and His
affection loves us anyway, so much so that Paul would say,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
has caused us to be born again to a living hope. Peter, I mean.
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. The effectual outcome of God killing Jesus
Christ and raising Him to life was not so that we could stand
and go, what a people are we. We didn't just sing, what a people,
did we? There's another song we like
to sing, the church is one foundation. It's not the beautiful people
that make it, it's Jesus Christ our Lord. What a Savior. So as we exalt, that means we
find our joy, and it's expressed through exalting, which is expressed
in worship, and thanksgiving, and love, and honor, and glory,
and focus, and life. Romans 12, 1. And the thoughts,
and the words, and the actions of our being is centered when
we exalt in Jesus our Savior. We are exalting God our Father,
you see. And it is certain for us that
God's salvation is effectual because He has a love for the
Son beyond measure. He also loves us. But He could
not love us if His love for His Son was not immeasurable. Why? Because it is through the
work of Jesus whereby God is righteous in His love for us.
If God loved me without Jesus, then God would be wicked. Why? For God cannot look upon sin. God cannot love wickedness. As
a matter of fact, the psalmist would say that, that God does
not love wickedness, does not love evil. Well friends, by that
measure, there is none in the midst of us who are worthy of
God's love if God cannot love sin. Oh, no, no, no, no, you're
missing the boat, Pastor. Listen, I'm not missing the boat.
I grew up in the same culture you did. Hate the sin, love the
sinner. That doesn't work for God. God's
not going to have a bag of lies to bring judgment on. God's going
to have a bag of liars. He's not going to have a whole
case of murder. He's going to have a whole case of murder.
It's not because of unbelief that we're guilty. It's because
we're sinners that we're guilty. And because we're sinners, we
commit sin against God. The Pharisees were committing
sin against God this very day. But the love of God for Jesus
and the love of God for us is the effectual way in which we
have security in our salvation. You see that. I'm not diminishing
the love of God for us. I just want us to put it in the
right channel. God loves you, church. If God did not love you,
He would never have sent the Son whom He loves without measure
for you. He sent Jesus for you so that
you might be the righteousness of God. You see that. God's love for the Son as I've
been saying the last few minutes, is the central security of the
believer. That God the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves
the Father. And thus, in that vein, does all for the sake of
the honor of the Father. And what does Paul say in Ephesians
chapter 1? How many times does he say that
the outcome of the church and her redemption is what? To the
praise of the glorious grace of the Father. To the praise
of the glorious grace of God. Beautiful. Beautiful. And whatever
befalls us, whatever comes upon our shoulders in this life as
God's people, it is as we saw this morning in James chapter
1, all good gifts and things come from God. It is a gift,
and Romans 8 would teach us that all things work together for
good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
And 1 John would teach us how that love is possible. How is
it that we can even love God in our sinfulness? Because Jesus
Christ the righteous is loved by the Father, and God the Father
loves us, and because He first loved us, we can now love Him.
It is a reciprocating thing. For there is no real love in
the heart of humanity that's not somewhat selfish. When's
the last time you really just laid your life down for the person
that hates you the most? While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. While we were enemies, Christ laid down
His life for us. What is it John would say? There is no greater
love than this, that a man would lay down his life for a brother. How about the teaching of Jesus?
We lay down our life for our enemies. Why? Have this mind
among you, Paul would say to the Philippian church. which
is yours in Christ Jesus. Though he was equal with God,
he did not take equality with God something to be grasped,
but he gave himself up and became obedient, obedient even unto
death on a cross. So this is the love of God for
the Son. And the love of God for us, as
I've already said, is not a secondary or lesser love, but it needs
to be in the right way of thinking. But ultimately, God's love for
us is an outcome of God's love for the Son. For the Son was
sent for that reason, that the love of God might be manifested,
that the righteousness of God might be displayed, that God's
love for us might clearly be shown. What other application
do we need in this life? What other measurable outline
of what we need to leave with for today is more important in
our homes and in our lives and in our jobs and in our raising
of our children? What more do we want from a pulpit than that? Jesus is worthy of the work that
God has given Him. Jesus is charged by the Father.
What does He say in John 6? I can't wait to get there. He
said, All that the Father gives to me comes to me, and all that
come to me I will never cast out. He's charged by the Father
to seek and save the lost and that He would lose none. None! He would lose none. That's amazing. So we know that Jesus is the
one who works salvation. We see there in verse 21, Jesus
has the power and the authority to raise life. Jesus has the
power and authority to give life to the dead. Jesus then in verse
22 has the power and authority to judge. So our hope is in the
love of God for the Son and the Son's love for the Father, and
that Jesus will do all that the Father has decreed and commanded
for Him to do, and the salvation of the people of God, those who
believe in the gospel of grace, those who trust in the work of
Jesus Christ and not themselves. That's what the gospel is. That's
what salvation means, that we believe in Jesus Christ and the
work He's done on our behalf. Not what we can do to please
Him, not what we can do to follow after Him, but what Christ has
done to appease the Father. Maybe some of us this morning,
this is the first time we've ever considered the love of God
the Father for the Son as our assurance. I think it's something that needs
to be in our mouth more as we share the gospel in the world. So then in verse 21 and 22, as
I've already mentioned, we see, as the Father. We already know
who the Father is and who Jesus' Father is, but He starts to say,
as the Father. As the Father raises the dead.
As the Father gives them life, so also the Son gives life to
whom He wills. So now we see this in a bigger
picture. What did Jesus just say to the
Pharisees? Greater things than these you will see that you may
marvel. Greater things than what? A 38-year-old paralytic walking? Lazarus coming out from the grave? Yes, greater things than these. Greater things than these, Nathaniel,
you shall see that I knew you were under the fig tree and saw
you. There is a Jew of all Jews, and
which is no guile." That's what he said, and Nathanael says,
how do you know me? The Father raises the dead, and so does
the Son, to whom He wishes. So now we see this mutual connection
with God the Father and God the Son in that they're not divided. The Father's not doing His work
over here, and the Son doing some work over here that's cohesive. No, where the Son is working,
the Father is the one who is also working. That's what we
see. And it's greater than miracles
of things. The work of God to give life
and to raise the dead now belongs to the Son. It is the Son's work. It is the Son's responsibility.
That means that all the authority of God the Father belongs to
God the Son. All the authority of God Almighty
is found in Jesus Christ, who is God Almighty. Eternally. Eternally. And Jesus, as a human
being now, is worthy of the work of the Father. Now this is where
it starts to get interesting. Not just that Jesus is divine
and part of His nature, but He's also truly human. Not just fully,
but truly. He's truly human. And Jesus then
is worthy, even in His humanity, to continue to do the work of
the Father. What? Now my mind is blown. It should
be. We ought to sit there with our mouths agape, wondering,
why? Why? Because it's a mystery,
and it's a miracle, and it's majestic. That little Russian
comes easy. There's some notes. You can take
those down. But He is God. He is also God incarnate, truly
human, obeying God the Father fully and perfectly. Although
the Jews then charged Him of violating the law of God, violating
the law of Moses. So here we see as the Father
is raising the dead, now the Son is raising the dead. It's
a continuation of the work of Jesus as it is the work of the
Father. Now watch this in verse 22, now
judges. So He can raise life, that's
amazing. But the Father judges no one. Oh my goodness, you see
that? See, the Father gives life, the
Father raises, the Son gives life, the Son raises. This is
a cohesiveness. Now all of a sudden, now judgment
has been given to Jesus the Son and now the Father judges no
one. What is Jesus doing here? Because all the while He knows
the heart of the Jews and He's saying to themselves, they're saying
to themselves, this man has no idea what God's going to do.
God's going to judge him. God has judged us rightly, they're
saying. And we're worthy of the affection of God. Now this man
who is violating the law is saying that God loves him without measure.
And now calling this God his father. Who is this man who is
violating the law saying he's worthy of the love of God without
measure? You see the problem? This is not just doctrine and
theology. This is a fierce debate of which
the Jews have nothing to say. As Paul would say in Romans 4,
that their mouths may be shut when the Word of God speaks.
When Jesus spoke, they had nothing to say. And now God is the judge
of all, but He says that the Father judges no one and takes their argument away.
Well, God will judge this guy. Now the Father judges no one.
Now Jesus is saying, but has given all judgment to the Son.
I make judgment in place of the Father. That's crazy, y'all. If somebody walked into our life
and said that they had the authority to make judgment because God
stopped, we'd call somebody to coax them outside into the van,
tie their arms up. And here is this blasphemer,
according to the Jews, saying that God, not only is He doing
the work of God, but now He has taken the work of God for His
own. This is difficult. The Father
ceases, in a sense, not truly, but the Father ceases judgment
and the Son now judges. The Father here, what we see
theologically, never acts in isolation, just as the Son never
acts in isolation. They are not two beings doing
their own thing, but two persons of the same being doing the same
thing. The Trinity is a very difficult
thing, and I believe we as a church would do well, and by the Lord's
grace, if we can see it come to fruition, I've got some brothers
who are very equipped to teach about the Holy Spirit that maybe
in October we might have a little mini-conference on that. What the Father is doing, now
the Son has taken this authority. Jesus has the authority to judge
as God, and He has the authority to give life as God. Does that
sound familiar? In John 3, when He's talking
to Nicodemus, Jesus says these words, "...whoever believes in
Him is not condemned. But whoever does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name
of the only Son of God." In verse 19, "...and this is the judgment,
that light has come into the world, and people love the darkness
rather than the light, because their works were evil." So what's
the outcome of this judgment? So that they may honor, look
at verse 23, the Son. Why has Jesus been given all
authority to make all judgment? So that they may honor the Son.
We've already seen they honor the Father, they honor the Son,
they honor the Son, they honor the Father. All may honor the
Son just as they honor the Father. And then Jesus says in verse
20, that whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father
who sinned. I hear all the time in atheistic
circles. I hear in the realms of astrophysicists, if you know
any, who will say that that's just silly, silly, silly, silly
to think that Christianity has the end runs on truth. But Christianity,
according to the Scripture, declares absolute truth as its own. Not
only as its own, but declares that Jesus is the truth. Not
just truth about who He is, but He is the truth in His essence.
He is the truth in His being. He is the truth in His work.
He is the truth in His words. And then the Word that became
flesh, dwelt among us, is now canonized here for us. It is
measured. That's what the word canon means.
It's the measure and the rule of faith. It is complete. No one can add to it. We cannot
have revelation. God cannot speak to us outside
of His Word. He can teach us. can bring us
faults and things of that nature, but it's not revelatory, it's
explanatory by the Holy Spirit to understand what we are reading
in the Word. It is a divine work of God. So
here in verse 23, honoring the Son is honoring the Father. It's
very simple. So that the Father and the Son are equal in all
ways. What have we seen thus far? The
Father and the Son are equal in essence. That means everything
that God the Father is, Jesus God the Son is also. And then
all, I like to use this phrase, it's not mine, but it's historically
been used. I like to say that all the prerogatives
of God, the Father, also belong to God, the Son. That's everything
that is due God, the Father, is also due God, the Son. Every
attribute of the divine nature, of the essence of who God, the
Father, is, is equally also representative of God, the Son. Everything that
Jesus is, is everything that God is. So that the Father and
the Son are equal in essence. They're also, as we've seen,
equal in authority. Equal in authority. That whatever
God is ruling over, Jesus then also rules over. Do we not see
that? I mean, listen to Paul in Ephesians. He said that in
chapter 1, verse 10, that God will put all things under the
feet of Christ. What does it mean to have something under
your feet? In an authoritative sense, in this day, in the first
century, to have someone under your feet means that you had
conquered them. So Jesus is the conquering ruler, king of all
things. All things are subject to Him. They're under His feet.
The authority of God is the authority of Jesus. Jesus is God. Isn't it weird that as we think
about this stuff, even though we've been taught rightly, even
though we've been taught Incompletely, we all have. None of us have
an exhaustive understanding of these things. We learn, and we
learn, and we learn, and we learn. But isn't it interesting that
it's still, though we have been taught rightly, we also now have
a little bit of a frustration in our spirit and mind. We're
trying to piece this together in some way that, what makes
sense? Why is it important? Because all of us, in some way,
have subjected Jesus as a lesser God. Not purposefully, but just
philosophically. We've got the Father, and He's
the King of it all. And then Jesus the Son, He's sort of powerful.
And then the Spirit, whoo! We don't talk about Him, we're
Baptists. That's what we've done. And that's
what Jesus is. They didn't just look at Jesus
as just a lesser God, like the cults. The Pharisees are looking
at Jesus as an abomination. So that in the same way of thinking,
if we're not being taught the divinity of Christ and proper
Christology from the pulpit, from our study of Scripture,
guess what we are doing? We are making Jesus lesser than
the Scripture teaches that He is. So when we say, in Jesus'
name, when we pray, it's just this colloquial minutia that
we repeat. When we pray to God the Father,
we do so by the authority of Jesus Christ, who is God, you
see. When we trust in Jesus Christ,
we're trusting in the authority of God for salvation. We're trusting
in the promises of God for salvation. We're trusting in the work of
God for salvation. What more do we need? Nothing. For anything else we could gather
is nothing in comparison to the glorious work of God in redemption.
This is the greatest miracle of all things. Greater things
than these you shall see, Jesus tells Nathanael. He tells these
people here and He shows them in the redemption of His people
on the cross at Calvary and He vindicates His claims and His
promises through the resurrection of the dead. For Jesus even says,
I have the power to lay down my life and I have the power
to take it up again. It's going to take us so long
to get there. I just have to keep bringing it up. So that the essence and the authority
of Christ is the authority of the Father. The action, the work
of the Son is the work of the Father, and now the honor of
the Son is the honoring of the Father. You see that? Next time
somebody comes and knocks on your door on Saturday morning,
just take them here. You know who Jesus is? He is
the one and true and living God who by all power created the
heavens and the earth. He is equal in all essence and
action and authority and work and honor to the Father who is
God, Jesus Christ the Son is also man. He is God in the flesh
and He is eternal. He is the judge of all men. He
has the power, as we'll see next week, to condemn and to give
life as He wills. And Jesus even claims in the
verses following this, He says what? He says, I have the power
to speak and all men, all humanity will hear the voice of the Son
of God and will rise from the grave. All people. Everyone. Some unto everlasting
judgment and some unto everlasting life. Jesus is honoring the Father.
So the essence of authority, the action, and the honor of
the Father belongs to the Son and vice versa. And Trinitarian
doctrine shows us distinct persons in the Godhead, but it only teaches
us that there's one God. And this is how we understand
these things. All honored as God, all working as God, all
speaking as God, but distinct in person. Distinct. This is why, as I mentioned before
the service, the exclusivity of Scripture and the learning
of Scripture and the preaching of Scripture is so essential.
Why? Because to dishonor Christ in
any way is to dishonor God. To dishonor one is to dishonor
them both. We must not permit others to
defame God by belittling or downgrading the authority of Scripture. Listen
to me, church. When we hear people in our lives, we don't get cagey
and ragey, gentleness, prayerful, spiritual, breathe a little bit. We must have a heart to teach
those who are in error, not hurt them. not hurt them. We must have a heart to correct
those with gentleness and respect. We must have a heart to see the
truth be taught. When someone defames or belittles
or downgrades the authority of Scripture, by doing so, they
downgrade the authority of Jesus Christ. By doing so, they downgrade
the authority and the divinity of God Himself. You see that. So don't listen to the philosophy
of this world. So, you know, the Bible's good
for some, it's good for others, and they're going to claim to
be a Christian. Or they're going to claim to be a Christian, and
they're going to come and say, you know, the Bible's not as
authoritative as we once thought it was. You know, it's just a book we need to learn
from, glean from, take what's good, throw out the rest. You
might say, who does that? Everybody does that. And that's
a hyperbolic statement. Everybody does that. United Methodist
Church is about to split, as it did in the Civil War, over
issues of the authority of Scripture. The Presbyterian Church split
over issues of the authority of Scripture. The Baptists, how
many Baptist denominations are there? A bajillion. And you don't even have to actually
be any, you don't even have to have any credibility to be a
Baptist. You just wake up one day and go, I'm Baptist. And you
just go out and start a church. You don't have to have any ecclesiastical
credentials. I mean, even Kingdom Hall you
have to go to school. Mormons got to change, got to
do mission work. So everybody that stands up with the Bible
and says, well, I believe in Jesus, while they continually
give application, supposedly by the authority of Christ that
violates the teaching of Christ, is a downgrade of the authority
of God. And it goes deep. And in the
weeks to come, we'll see more of what that looks like because
it's not new. It's been happening since the Garden. Adam and Eve
downgraded the authority of the Word of God by the temptation
of the devil. And I'll remind you, church,
that the devil works through the teaching of Scripture to
deceive God's people, and they are deceived sometimes. Not to
lose their salvation, but they're deceived to run in after this
winds of doctrine. What do you mean not lose salvation?
Listen, you're not regenerated because you have all the right
answers. You're regenerated by the Spirit of God through the
hearing of the gospel. And then it's our job as the church together
to assemble and teach rightly, and to be accountable to one
another as we learn. Those and these things that we've
seen right here are greater works. But the greatest work that we
see is that we hear and believe. Look at verse 24 in closing.
"'Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My word and believes
Him who sent Me has eternal life.'" You see that? "'The Father sent
Me, and if you hear Me, you hear the words of the Father, and
if you believe in Me, you believe the word of the Father, because
the Father is who is speaking as I am speaking.'" and I have come to give life."
He says that He does not come into judgment, who is that? Those
who believe the Word of Christ, but has passed from death to
life. That's a perfect text for baptism, isn't it? A perfect
text. Now ask yourself this question.
Do you believe in the words of Christ? Are you trusting fully
in Jesus Christ and His words today? Are you believing in the
finished work of Jesus? Are you still working your salvation
out in your own ability? Church, don't think I'm just
talking to someone who's visiting. I'm talking to all of us. Are
we believing in Christ? I'm not talking to the guy who
might listen to this sermon next week, in a gutter somewhere,
on the phone. Talking to us. Are we believing
in the works of God through the Son of God? And thus by believing,
have eternal life. That we've passed from death
into life. That's what we want to see. That's
what we want to know. That's what we want to believe.
And I pray that you would believe in the work of the good news
of Jesus. By trusting in what He's done for you to satisfy
the wrath of God. against You. Let's pray. Father,
I pray, Lord, that as we continue our service, Lord, that You would
be honored and glorified in all that we do. Father, that You
would just continue to teach us, continue
to give us understanding, continue to help us to be learners and
doers of Your Word Father, that we would just continue
to grow more intimate with You through the Scripture, that we
would see that as we behold Your face, as we behold the face of
Your Son, we are seeing Your face. And that one day as we
leave this life, we will see You face to face. And Lord, one
day even our bodies will be reunited together as one people. Eternally,
intimate, perfect, sinless, glorious. So that all the praise would
be for You. All the glory would be for You.
All the honor would be for You. Until that day, Lord, help us
to live this life reflecting these things. In Jesus' name
we pray. Amen.