And you don't want to hear a
recap of my week. But there's always, without fail, no matter
what, there's always someone who comes to the table of the
discussion and they cannot put their mind around the simplicity
of the gospel of Christ. It must be more, it's like Brother
Mike read this morning out of Deuteronomy and then reiterating
in Romans 9 and 10, how there's something in our human nature
that feels like we must do more. We must have something else on
the table in order to earn or work or show an effort in some
way that God might be pleased with us. Grace is offensive. You might want to ask the question,
what is the stumbling block that's mentioned there in that text?
Because it's perfect. It fits so in line with this
text that we're in today in John chapter 5. Where the Jews are
offended that Jesus healed on the Sabbath and then commanded
a man to take up his bed and walk because they violated what
they figured was a way of honoring and obeying God to such a degree
that He was pleased with them. What is the offense? Why is Jesus
a stumbling block? Is it because that Jesus was
sort of taking their thunder? Could have been. Was it because
that Jesus was just, you know, He was this nobody, and they
were somebody, and He had not become a Pharisee, and He became
a rabbi in tradition of His teaching without going through the proper
channels. He didn't graduate seminary, you know. He didn't
have His rabbinic ordination, but He did. As we'll see a little
bit next week. No. It was that when Jesus came
on the scene and began to preach, And when Jesus came on the scene
to begin to expound and exposit the Word of God, the Scriptures,
it took away the traditions of man and our idea that there is
something left in the work of God for us to do. And He preached
grace. And grace offends those who find
themselves sufficiently obeying the Lord. It's not wrong to obey,
it's a requirement. It's not bad to say, I'll follow
after Christ or I'm obeying what is taught to me in Scripture.
It's a mandate. It is something that we must
do just like our lungs must breathe and our heart must beat. It's
part of what it was created for. We were created for holiness,
but yet not even in the best of days shall we ever find it.
As a matter of fact, the most pious of this world, if we compare
them by the judgment of God's righteousness and we look through
the eyes of God, the most pious person that exists or ever will
exist in this world will be seen through the eyes of God as wicked.
The righteous works of humanity are filthy because they are not
perfect, therefore they are not righteous. We do not get accolades
for doing that which is required of us. We don't get up every
day and say, well, you know, look at there. My vocal cords
are working. Awesome vocal cords. You're such
a wonderful vocal cord. But oh, surely if we get up and
we try to speak, we're going to curse those vocal cords. What
is wrong? What's happening? Something's wrong. Something's
wrong in humanity when we do not walk in perfection. It's
called sin. And grace is an offense to the
one who thinks they can. Grace upon grace upon grace. The call letters of our congregation,
Grace, Truth, Church, comes from the 14th verse of the first chapter
of John. We have received grace upon grace. From Moses we received the law,
from Christ we received grace and truth. It's because that's
who we are if we are in Christ. We are people who have received
the truth of God, who is Jesus Christ, by His grace. We have received the gospel of
grace by the power of God's mercy and love for us. We are not here
this morning because we've managed to work up enough righteousness
that we are appeasing God's holy demands. We are here this morning
out of affection. We are here this morning out
of an obligatory, supernatural love for the Lord Jesus Christ
that's obligated to Him because of who He is and what He's done
on our behalf. Eight years ago, a young man
was praying with us on Wednesday night and he was probably twenty... twenty at the time. maybe 19,
and he asked could he pray during this prayer time. And he began
to pray and he said something that is not new to my ears or
to my theology, but it shocked the audience in the hearing of
these words. He worshipped God in his prayers
to such a degree that it was almost like a doxology of the
Apostle Paul. And then he began to say, and
God, you are ultimately and infinitely worthy in this way, even had
you never saved a soul. And I could hear the lids of
the old men in the room open, shaking the rust off. Who is
this young buck coming here preaching this crap to me? Yes, God is
worthy, even had He never given grace to anyone. but because
He has." Oh, what a joy! What a celebration! What a salvation! Even the reprobate will bow before
Him for all of eternity and say, Jesus is Lord. Even the reprobate
will give Him His glorious due. By the grace of God, we sit here
today. Just as Jesus met this lame man by the pool of Bethesda. So has He met with us individually
through the hearing of His Word and healed something greater
than our bodies. He's healed our everlasting soul.
And that is what this text shows us this morning. Sermon's over.
Thank you. Go home. Turn with me to John
chapter 5. We've seen the healing. We've
seen Jesus do the work of this miracle where He commanded this
man to stand up and take His mat and walk. We
saw what happened after this man did this. Jesus hid Himself
from the masses for there were many. The point of Jesus going
to this area and healing this man was that He might bring conflict
between the righteous and the lost. That He might bring conflict
between the religious and those who have eyes to see the truth.
that it might be recorded for our benefit to realize that we
are off the hook. We are off the hook as recipients
of grace in trying to appease God's justice. And now we are
more intimately engaged in our obligation out of affection to
walk in a manner worthy. I've always troubled myself with
that song that we sang, the second song this morning, here at the
altar. Because we think of the altar,
we think of coming down here. The altar is where we stand. The
altar is where we are. The altar is where we worship
God if it's in the car, or in the bathroom, or the shower,
or on the floor of our living room, or sitting at our table,
or sitting here amongst the saints. We worship in spirit, in the
mind, with the heart. And we worship in truth, in that
the Word of God is revealed to us, the fullness of the picture
of who God is through Jesus Christ. So that we are at the altar of
worship at every part of our day. I guess a good question
in that vein would be, how are we in our worship? We can put
our church face on. In Grace Truth, we don't really
put on our church clothes, but we put on our church face. We
put on our church mind, we put on our church attitude. Nothing
wrong with that, but at the same time, do we have the same level
of intimacy and the same tenacity of worship? Do we have this passion
of worshiping Christ throughout the week? Even more so, because
we long, we long to focus on who He is and what He's done
for us. And that's why this was written
for us. Not that we would... Just learn something new today
and go, okay, I have my Sunday school checklist and I've learned
something new. Cool! You know, I can learn all sorts
of things. I can learn some things about Jesus. But these things
that we learn about Jesus today, because the Spirit of God dwells
within us as His people, they have an effect in us. Dr. Queller prayed that we would
apply it to our lives. What's the application of applying
the truth of Jesus Christ and what He's done in the narrative
of these pages? What is the application for us today that we might worship
with a fullness that is misunderstood by the world that looks upon
and thinks, what weirdos? I mean, how weird is it to even
get up early on a day off and come to gather around, facing
the breeze of frigidness, and worship some God we cannot
see. It makes better sense to the
cults or those who work for their righteousness to come and at
least do something and say, look, we're coming to offer to our
God some kind of offering that can help us in His economy of
mercy and grace. The mercy that God gives us is
through the body of Jesus. through the death of Jesus, through
the blood of Jesus, in which we are submerged, in which we
are covered, in which we are buried, in which we now live
and are raised. Just like the pictures of the
Holy of Holies, the blood of Christ is sufficient for our
righteousness, sufficient to satisfy the wrath of God, sufficient,
according to the writer of Hebrews, that there is nothing else necessary. It's done. John 5. Look at verse 13. Now the man
who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn.
This is his review. As there was a crowd in the place,
afterward then Jesus found this man in the temple and said to
him, See you are well. Sin no more, that nothing worse
may happen to you. Referring to the reality that
this man being lame for 38 years is nothing compared to eternal
judgment. The man then went away and told the Jews that it was
Jesus who had healed him. And verse 16 is where we are
today. And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because
He was doing these things on the Sabbath. 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 him, verse 19, "'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,
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." And we'll stop
there today. Let's pray. Father, I pray that
as we look at this text, as we understand what You've taught
us and what You are teaching us here, that we would marvel. That is the ultimate application
of this. that we would marvel, that we
would see, that we would believe that Jesus is the Son of God,
the living God, come as a man. And that by believing in Him
and in His name, we would have eternal life. These things are
written that we may know this with all certainty, with all
assurance. with all hope, and most importantly,
with all power. So Father, I pray that with all
the power within You, through Your Word, by Your Spirit, God,
that You would awaken us to see and celebrate the joyous reality
of the gospel of grace in us. not let us sit here and contemplate
all the depths of our depravity and the wickedness of our soul
or the shortcomings and the sins that we've committed this week
or this day or the hour before coming here, but Lord, that we
would stand without conviction of guilt and that we would celebrate
in the hope of Christ. That even if you bring us to
a place of conviction, it is that we celebrate the gospel
of grace and the repentance of our mind. and that we would behold
the beauty of the work that You have done, that we see clearly
in the work of Your Son. And it is not just the work that
You have done, but Father, it is the work that You are now
doing in the lives of Your people. Behold, let us see Your hand.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. There's a lot here. There's several many contextual,
excuse me, topical sermons that could be derived from this text,
but contextually this morning we will deal with what Jesus
does in His answer. This is Jesus' answer to the
charge that the Pharisees have made, unspoken charge, that they've
made in their dialogue with this healed man. This man goes and
he is healed after 38 years and the Jews, when I say the Jews,
I'm meaning the Pharisees in this text, The Jews look at this
man, not amazed at his healing, not concerned with his needs,
could care less about anything except that he had a three-pound
wicker mat under his arm and he broke the law of God. Who
told you to take up your mat? Who told you to walk over here?
It's a sin to walk over here. I'll remind you, church, as we
looked at last week, it's very easy for us to get into this
mode of wondering just how far we can go with our sin. How far
we can go before we start making God angry. It's like the old
joke back about 12, 15 years ago with this church that did
a parody of the Jesus, old Jesus videos. And Jesus is walking
around in this crowd in this video, and He comes across and
He's saying, well, I know what you did, and I saw what you did,
and I heard what you said when you hit your thumb with a hammer.
And you're all sinners. And he goes to this one guy and
he says, yeah, I saw you, you drank wine last night, not way
too much, just enough to make me angry. And that's how the
Jews looked at the Sabbath. They were trying to find a way
to get away with whatever they could do, just enough not to
make God angry. Beloved, you cannot live that
way. You cannot live that. You know what we can do? What
does it take to make God angry? Nothing. Breathe. If we were
judged by the righteousness of God, our very breath is wicked,
because our very existence is an affront to Him. But oh beloved,
because we are in Christ, Because Christ finds us in the midst
of all the depraved, and the sinful, and the broken, and the
diseased, and the dying. Because He looks at us the same
way Jesus looked amongst that crowd at the pool of Bethesda
and said, this is representative of all of humanity. That each
one of us are in dire need of someone to get us into the water
and make us whole. But it's not the water of man's
traditions. It's not the pools. that man
can build that can heal us. It is the Son of the living God,
Jesus Christ the righteous. That is who can heal us. And
it is not about the body. It is not about the life forming
into the likeness of Jesus. It is about the creative work
of God the Holy Spirit. Through the hearing of the gospel
of grace, that He comes into the heart of a wicked, depraved,
dead, blind, and incapable human being, and brings us to life
by His mercy, for His glory, because He has a love for us
that is eternal. because we are worthy in His
mind as objects of mercy to be born again. Not because of what
we have done, because of what Christ has done. Do not belittle yourself, beloved. There's a difference in unworthiness.
and righteous mercy. You are an object of God's mercy
because of Him, not because of us. We are not the cause of God's
love for us. He is the cause of His love for
us. And that is good news because nothing you do in the good or
the bad can cause God not to love you. And I can say that
to you, beloved, because you believe. If you do not believe,
that might not be true for you. Be careful. Be careful with the words that
we ascribe to God. Here in this text, this man told
the Jews. They were just concerned. This
man says, well, this Jesus, or this man, I don't know who he
was, he told me to take up my mat. No, he didn't say that,
remember? He said, this man healed me. He told me to take up my
mat. And the Jews go back to the mad,
and he goes back to the healing. And they go back to the mad,
and he goes back to the healing. And none of them are recognizing
the authority of a man to heal a man. You see? This is the weirdness
of it. This shows you that in the flesh,
even when we have the empirical knowledge of a healing, the absolute
evidence that God has manifested His glory in our humanity, in
the human state of our mind, we will not acknowledge it. It's
pretending that it's not in the room. And Jesus answers them. Now, commentators are frustrated
by this. Some say, well, you know, there's
some parts missing here. Others try to assume, well, you
know, Jesus was sort of looming in the shadows and He overheard
it. How about Jesus is God and He
knows the heart of man? Have we not already seen that?
Have we not already seen that in the prologue of John's Gospel?
Have we not already seen that in the calling of Nathanael?
Have we not already seen that at the wedding of Cana? Have
we not already seen that time and time again? And we're only
in the chapter 5 of John's Gospel. We've seen the divine knowledge
of Jesus Christ the man. That his divine nature imparts
wisdom that only God could know. God knew what these Pharisees
were saying before they ever opened their mouths. Because
Jesus went to this place in order that they might, what? Be confronted with this. And Jesus says, My Father is working until now,
and I am working. I mean, imagine that. Here they
are, berating this man. He comes back and says, It's
Jesus. I just saw Him, and I know it's Jesus. And what they think
in their mind, and Jesus pops up in public and goes, My Father
is working until now, and I am working. That's his answer. It's brilliant! It's brilliant
because he's God. Jesus does not respond to the
issue of breaking the Sabbath directly. He doesn't go, let
me tell you what you don't know about the Sabbath. See, one thing
we find in the Scripture, especially the apostolic writings, but more
importantly in the divine teaching of Jesus Christ, we do not see
Jesus refuting false doctrine with the Treatise. We do not
see Jesus and the apostles going around with a polemics ministry.
Nothing wrong with polemics, nothing wrong with apologetics.
Some of my dearest brothers in Christ are apologists. They're
necessary. But by the grace of God, if we
stick to the text of Scripture, we will know how to defend the
truth against error. It's sort of like I heard back
in 1988 when I was visiting my grandparents in New Orleans.
A man said, we don't need to get real familiar with the fake.
In the bank, they don't look at and handle Counterfeit money
by the droves. They just know what a real dollar
feels like. They know what real money looks
like. And when a fake one comes along, they go, whoa, this is sort of
funky. When fake doctrine comes along, when false teaching comes
along, if you know the truth, the false, it's like that fake
result, that fake alert in Hawaii, right? It's like, wait a minute,
inbound missile. There's an inbound doctrinal
error coming into my ears. Something's wrong. Even if we
don't know what it's called, we might not know the historical
label that goes with it, but we know it's wrong. Why? Because
we know the truth. There's too many men in today's
world who spend more time studying error that they don't even know
the truth. And they know the truth based on the fact that
it doesn't fit with what they're studying. Instead of the alternate. It's
like if I say, hey, don't look up there, and everybody looks.
I don't want you to look over there. Don't look, Ethel. I mean,
you know, it's too late. That might have been a bad reference.
In the same way, and all the young people are going, what's
he talking about? That's all right. That was the comedy of my childhood.
All right. So in the same way, when we say
don't look at this false teaching, don't look over there, don't
listen to this guy, what do you do? You give him an audience.
That being aside, Jesus did not go and answer these people by
saying, you guys are idiots. You guys don't know what you're
talking about. Let me explain to you the expression of the
Law and the Sabbath. Let me help you understand the
details. I'll walk you through Moses, and that way you'll understand
that what you think you know is not what you know. Are you
ready? And get into this debate with him. He did not do that.
Why? Because it's not necessary. Number one, it's not necessary
to teach people truth. Number two, it wasn't necessary
because God wasn't going to open their eyes anyway, while throw
your pearls before swine. That's a little harsh. That's
the words of Jesus. A mentor of mine told me a long
time ago, quote Paul, not Jesus, because when you quote Paul and
they don't like it, they get mad at Paul, but they're never going to get
mad with Jesus. Brothers and sisters, you're going to have
to sometimes get mad with Jesus if he says something you don't
like and recognize that it's wrong. The way we think about
things, it's probably wrong. Jesus responds by just making
a direct statement. Until now, my Father is working. Now what does that give you?
That gives you an understanding that God the Father has been
working until now. So now the Father's not working
anymore. And then Jesus says, now I'm working. Now what is
he saying? That God's on break? That God
the Father's on break? No. He's showing a continuity. He's showing a continuity. This
statement makes the case that God the Father, according to
the Jews, was violating the Sabbath. Because what Jesus was saying
is that The Father was working, now I'm just continuing what
He was doing. What the Father was doing, I am doing. And so
you're charging me, without saying it, you charge me with violating
the Sabbath? You're charging God the Father of violating the
Sabbath. How dare you? What are they going
to say? You know what they're going to say? We've got to kill this guy.
That's what they said. We cannot overcome His wisdom. We cannot
challenge Him in this. He's right! Kill Him! Kill Him! Kill Him! See, the Jews weren't
misunderstood. The Jews weren't misinformed.
They had the oracles of God. Of all people, they should have
seen this. No, they did see this unfolding prophetically right
before their eyes. This continuation of what the
Father has been doing, now Jesus is doing likewise. Colossians
2.16, what does it say there? Let no one pass judgment on you
in questions of food and drink or with regard to a festival
or new moon or Sabbath. So Jesus is just basically showing
these people, look, what God has been doing through the traditions
of you for all these centuries, I now continue. I am doing the
work of the Sabbath that you should have been seeing. You
should have been looking at what God has been doing. The work
I do on this day is the work of God the Father. That's what
Jesus is saying. Now how irate were they? I don't
know. I'm just so curious. Maybe it's
the American in me. I would love to have an account
of what they were doing. I would love to be a... not a fly, but
that would be terrible. We always say, I would love to
be a fly on the wall. I don't want to be a fly. I'd love to have some type of
spy in the room or somehow where I could see it. I would love
to have seen their reactions when Jesus says, until now the
Father is working, now I am working. And they're going, I mean, did
one of their heads just pop off? If it were a cartoon, their heads
would have exploded. If it were some kind of a comedy, you know,
or some absurd Looney Tunes commercial, they would have just burned into
ash and fallen into the floor like the Wicked Witch of the
West or something. I mean, it would just have been something
inside of them that they had nothing else to do but be irate,
to be furious. They were infuriated that this
man, this human being, dared violate the Sabbath to begin
with. How dare you heal anybody? You notice they never admitted
that, though they knew it. They never focused on it. How
dare you tell this man to pick this straw up and walk? Who do you think you are? Well,
he was guilty of violating their Sabbath. There was no question
about it, but Jesus says that the Lord was working and now
I'm working. What we do understand this side
of the cross is that the Sabbath day is a command to abstain from
the fruitful labors of humanity. We give up our earnings for that
day. It doesn't mean that we don't
do anything. As a matter of fact, the Sabbath by definition is
for us to stop and see the work of God. To behold what God is
doing. God does not stop. God does not
rest. The Bible teaches that. And the
Sabbath is not a time for us to just Honor God in not doing
anything. It's a time for us to see what
God is doing and be in awe that you may marvel. Do you marvel
today? If we take this first day of
the week as a Sabbath in its image, are we in marvel mode? Are we in awe? Are we standing and going, wow! God doesn't stop working. And
I can stop my work so that I can see the work of God. I mean,
let's just put it to a psychological thing. I mean, how many of us,
when we're busy during the week, have a lot of time to sit and
contemplate God? I mean, your boss is calling. Your kids are
calling. Your spouse is calling. Whoever else is calling. Water
pipe bus. Tire goes flat. Got to drive here. Got to drive
there. Oh, we're out of milk. Got to go back. Got to do this. Got to pay the bills. Gotta check
the antifreeze. What else is there? I mean, how
many billions of things do we do collectively every single
week in our mind? When do we have time? Praise
the Lord for Sunday. that except we go home and our
fish tank is burst, we don't really have to deal with anything,
except maybe frozen pipes or whatever. We do whatever we have
to do, but we have given this day off so that we can behold
the work of God, contemplate on His glory, contemplate on
His work, contemplate on His... And friends, I don't know about
you, but I love the time. I love the day, I love the opportunity,
not just to be engaged in the Word and teach the Word to you,
but also to look at your faces and to pray for you as I preach,
and to understand that afterward, when we're talking and we're
doing and we're going out through the week, that God by His mercy has given
you a moment of rest that you may see His work and that you
may carry it home with you. And you may carry it in your
heart and mind. You may be in prayer, effectually,
because of the work of God that He's doing in you right now.
We want to hear a testimony about all these great miracles. But
friends, there is no miracle. This man's legs coming to life
is not a miracle in comparison, as we'll see at the end of this
text. It's not a miracle in comparison to what God is doing in your
heart right now through the teaching of His Word, through the reminder
of that which you already have known for a long time. When we are doing the work of
God, Jesus is arguing here, we are not disturbing the requirements
of the Sabbath. The work of God includes the
needs of others. We talked about that last week. The work of God
is that this man carried his bed. That's a work of God. Why? It's evidence of the miracle
of creation. It's a natural outflow of the
work of Christ, of the work of God, that He was healed. And
I've been laying on this mat for a long time. I'm going to
take it. It no longer carries me, but
I carry it. See the picture? Subtle and simple. Jesus further introduced, I am
working. This direct claim that He is
the Son of God. He is of God. He is from the Father. He is
the extension, if you will. That might not be the right word,
but He's the visible image of the invisible God. We'll just
use Paul's words. No one has ever seen God, John 1. But the
God who is at His side makes Him known. Verse 18. Jesus introduces the direct claim
that He's the Son of God, first, by the evidence of healing to
begin with. Who but God can do that? Only God. Second, He makes
the claim that while the Jews consider His work a violation
of the Law of Moses, it is really the work of God the Father who
was doing the work to start with. It is God who has done this work,
and Jesus is the One in the hand through which it was done. So
therefore Jesus is God, but He's not the Father, and the Father
is not the Son. There's a distinct issue here
at work. So we don't believe in oneness.
We don't believe that God is in different modes, and that
God became the Son, and now He's the Father again. No, it's Jesus
the Christ. He is eternally God the Son.
Here on earth, He is the Son of God in humanity as well. And
the Son of Man, which is the title that Jesus took to talk
about Himself more than any title. But it's not the only titles
that Jesus took. He claims that the work he's doing is nothing
more than God Himself working as He does. One and the same.
I am God. The Father is God. And we are
working together. And I've picked up what He is
doing. What He does, I also do. Consider this. The Jews were
angry with Jesus because they saw the divine healing that He
gave this man. And they were upset because it
threatened their hold on people. And they were upset because it
Jesus' divine authority gave others the right to violate the
law of the Sabbath. Because the law of the Sabbath
was man's doing, not God's doing. The traditions of the Jews put
people in a bondage. The work of God sets people free.
Regulations and laws and things of that nature are to show us
that there is no hope outside of mercy. and that there is no
mercy outside of grace. And there is no grace except
through Jesus Christ the Son. Take up your mat and walk. It
was authoritative. It was empowered by the fact
that Jesus calls the man to do it. He gave him his legs back.
And the man quickly obliged to get up and walk for the first
time in 38 years, carrying whatever it is that Jesus had told him
to carry. Here, carry this dog, carry this
cup of coffee. He looked like a juggling act
walking through Jerusalem. He'd have done whatever. And
Jesus said that this was God's work. The healing of this man
was God's work, making Himself clear that He had authority over
creation. He had authority over the illness
of this man. He had authority over the law
of Moses. And He had authority that no
one should condemn Him for seeing and enjoying the fruit of the
work of God. And then he's claimed that this
work as his own. He is doing this work as the
Father has been working. Now I also work. And this is
a direct claim that He Himself is God. People always argue,
where does it say in the Bible? Where does Jesus say, I am God? Well, right there. I mean in chapter 8, I think it's
verse 56, 57, 58. Before Abraham was, I am. He
takes the divine title. Egoemi, I am of God. The very time we hear God say
what His name is, when Moses says, Who are you? He says, Tell
them, I am. God needs nothing after that.
In verse 18, this is why the Jews were seeking all the more
to kill Him. They were already upset. They'd already like to
see the man die. But there really wasn't a violation in Roman law
that could kill him for violating the Sabbath. Yes, they could
have had him whipped and imprisoned. But oh my goodness, you know
what happens when you take someone who is freeing people from the
bondage of their oppressors and then you put their leader in
prison and whip him? Oh! He's a living martyr. He's a
living martyr. And there's always a chance they're
going to break him out or start a movement. No. They would have loved to have
killed him, but they couldn't kill him except now they had
a legal reason to kill him because he was usurping their very authority.
And by doing so, as you'll see later in this gospel, he even
usurped the authority of Caesar himself by calling himself the
Lord. So the Jews, having picked up
on Jesus' direct intention, they picked up on Jesus' direct intention,
desired more now than ever to kill Him because He was breaking
the Sabbath laws according to their traditions, though He wasn't,
and because He claimed to be God with this intimate expression
of God as His own Father, not the Father objectively, but My
Father subjectively. God is my Father. I am His Son. It was very normative in Jewish
worship to call God Father, the Father, as we see in John 4.
The Father is seeking worshipers who worship Him in spirit and
in truth. But Jesus says He's my Father.
I am His Son. No one else makes that claim.
Even today, no one else makes that claim. Yes, we are the children
of God. He is our Father. But we are
not, I am not the Son of God. Jesus Christ is. You are not
the daughter of God in that context, divinely. Jesus Christ is the
Son. He is the only begotten. But
now we all are sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ,
grafted in. He is our head, so then His body,
all the attributes of His people, they wear Him, who is the Son. Jesus presented then here what
I believe is a taste of the true Sabbath of God. The taste of
the true Sabbath of God. It was only found in Christ. The Sabbath is only found in
Christ. It's not temporal like the Jews
thought. It's not through judgments like the Jews thought. It's not
through rules and regulations and traditions like the Jews
thought. Brothers and sisters, I pray that you're not Jewish
in your thinking about the rest of God. I pray that you don't
look for a way for your life to be at rest outside of Christ. I pray you don't look for your
life to be at rest in lieu of eternity. I pray that you understand
this small picture of Jesus being the Sabbath is enough for you. This is a taste. that teaches
us that though the Jews refused the Sabbath of God, they only
did so because they rejected Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He came to His own, and His own
did not receive Him. But all who did receive Him,
who believed in His name, He gave the right to become the
children of God, who were born, not of the blood, nor the will
of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of the Father. And there it is. We see who you
are, we know who you are, you've proven who you are, and you authoritatively
speak of who you are, but yet we will not receive you. That's
a willful, fleshly rejection of the Sabbath. But yet all the
while they followed the law of the Sabbath perfectly, and dishonored
God with every breath, dishonored God with every prayer, dishonored
God with every offering, dishonored God with every sacrifice. They
dishonored God. and they thought they were honoring
Him. Jesus Christ is the Sabbath. We partake then in the work of
God when we assemble together each week, as I've already mentioned,
because God has worked in us. First, His power of regeneration
through the Spirit, the supernatural unity and affection that He's
given us by the Spirit, according to Paul in Colossians. And when
we assemble, we enjoy a type, a picture of the rest of the
Lord. We're sitting here engaging and
learning and hearing, and though it's a one-way communication
orally, it's a two-way communication mentally. I speak and teach and
then I'm thinking and you're thinking and we're engaged by
the Spirit of grace. We are engaging in the learning
of Christ and by doing so we are at rest and the world around
us doesn't matter anymore. The problems that we're dealing
with before we got here don't matter anymore. What matters
is Christ and He is the rest. And when we finish and we leave,
then we've got to figure out what are we going to eat? Do
we need to buy gas? Are the children's coats on?
Is my heater working? And the rest is over. Because the only eternal rest
that we will ever find is in Jesus Christ. How do we know that? Look at verses 19 and 20. How
do we know that? It's because Jesus' authority,
Jesus' authority is the authority of God. 19, 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. This
reiterates His divine nature. For whatever the Father does,
that the Son does likewise. Here Jesus reveals His dependence
upon God the Father, not independence. Jesus is showing here that He
can only do what He sees the Father doing. Now that's a bold
statement. It's almost like, I mean, let's
put ourselves in that picture a minute. Here is Jesus, He goes
around and He says something. He goes around and He does something.
He violates the laws of tradition according to the Jewish law,
which before Rome would have been a capital offense, stoning.
Not lock you up, not fuss at you, stoning. You strike a match
on the Sabbath, you die. You walk a journey over a thousand
feet, you die. yards, maybe a thousand yards.
You do this, you die. You cook, you die. You pick up
a handkerchief and you move it to this drawer, you die. And now they don't necessarily
kill them that way because Roman law wouldn't allow it. And here
is Jesus doing these things, saying these things, acting this
way, And the religious leaders that we all look up to are rabbis,
are spiritual heads who we hope that through their piety they
might teach us how to be right with God. Even though we know
we go home every time and we really are trying to hide some
things from them because we don't want them to know that we can't
keep it. What do you do if a kid gets
sick? You can't pick up a towel to clean up the sickness without
enduring the judgment of God. according to the Sabbath law.
So here we have Jesus doing these things. And Jesus says in our
earshot, what do you mean what's wrong with what I'm doing? The
Father is doing this. That's why I'm doing it. It's
the Father's work that I'm doing. God the Father is saying these
things. I'm His mouth. I'm speaking. He will later say,
I and the Father are one in divinity, not in person. I know it's a
mystery. And it's not our intention this
morning to dig it out. But Jesus has a dependence upon
God the Father. Jesus knows who He is. And Jesus says then, He
is God. Understand that the Jews understood
that. Jesus says that He is God. He can take I Am as His own title. He can take. God, as His own
title, John 1 18, the God who is at His side makes Him known. That's what the Greek says. That's
what your Bible should say. Second, we can see that Jesus
not only is He God, but He is submissive to the Father as the
Son. He is submissive in this relationship
as the Son of God to the Father, that He only does what is revealed
to Him to do or to say by the Father. This is certainly true
of the relationship of the Godhead, most expressly in the incarnate
Christ, who is eternally God the Son become flesh. Thirdly, the Scripture there
says, "...of His own accord." The Son cannot, can do nothing
of His own accord. Look at that there for a moment.
It is best understood as, from Himself. That's the literal translation,
and maybe in the King James you might have that, from Himself.
It means the same as, of His own accord. If we do it of our
own accord, it is our own free will. Jesus Christ is not doing
His will, but the will of the One who sent Him, which because
He's God is His will. You see. But He doesn't do it
in His own authority, but He does it by the authority of the
Father. This is mind-blowing for a mortal man, a flesh-and-blood
man, who Jesus was truly a flesh-and-blood man. Mortal, He died. But also
eternal and immortal in His nature, in His divine nature. He took
on mortal flesh. It's amazing. He and the Father, though one
God, are distinct eternally as persons. Consider the obedience
of Jesus Christ, the Son, with all authority, yet also with
all submission. It makes good sense when the
Paul tells the church to be submissive to one another, and the wives
be submissive to their husbands, and children be submissive to
their parents. And we see the picture now, as though Jesus
was equal with God in all ways, did not take that something to
be grasped, or thought it not robbery. It's a little difficult
to grasp. "...but made himself a slave,
obedient unto death on a cross." In the same way, we have the
mind of Christ. Paul commands us to have and then tells us
we do have. Beloved, we have the mind of Christ. We take our
rights too seriously. We take our entitlements too
seriously. We take our desires and our nuances
and our pet peeves too seriously. We take offense too easily. When Jesus Christ, who is the
God of heaven, submitted Himself on earth, when He could have
just as easily came in all of His glory and expressed Himself
as God, as Judge, and condemned all of creation, through which
all the heavenly hosts for all of eternity and eternity and
eternity would have worshipped Him for His glorious judgment.
But no, God in His wisdom saw it fit to create a people for
Himself and give them life in spite of them through the work
of Jesus by sending His Son to become like mortal men that He
may obey and then obey the command of God to be holy and then to
die so that God could be the just and the justifier of all
who have faith in Him, in Christ Jesus. Jesus did the work of
God in His earthly ministry and in His life on this earth. And
He is doing the work of the Father today because He keeps us and
He secures us and He defends us for an eternal salvation that
is incorruptible and imperishable. So in response to that, what
do we do in application? We spend our time, well spent
when we spend our time, looking at Christ. We spend our time
in great investment when it is eternal in its outcome, when
we spend time in the Holy Writ. We spend good time when we consider
the ways of Christ with everything we look at with our eyes, and
everything we take in with our ears, and everything we put into
our mouth, and everywhere we go with our feet, and everything
we touch with our hands. We do well to consider Christ. We should not look at ourselves
for our measuring because we will always find deep fault. and always see the immeasurable
distance between us and the ineffable glory of God. It is much more
profitable that we look at Christ and see that He is not far from
God at all. As a matter of fact, He is equal
to God in all ways. And yet in His love for us, He
came to dwell among us and submitted Himself to the Father through
the submission of His own body and His own earthly life to the
authorities who hated Him and who wanted to kill Him because
He displayed His divine power for the benefit of lost people. So what do we do? We peer to
Christ. We behold Him and we know Him with a passion and a
supernatural gaze given us by our Lord and Savior. Well, who
is Jesus? Okay, we see that He's God. We
see what He does. We see that He's doing the work
of God the Father. That's great. But how do we know we are secure?
Look at verse 20. 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. Don't forget
who Jesus is speaking to. He's speaking to the Jews. God says, as the Baptist, this
is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. This is My
beloved Son, to whom I have revealed all things. This is My beloved
Son. to whom I have given all things
into His hands. This is My beloved Son, under
whose feet I shall subject all the cosmos. This is My beloved
Son, in whom the fullness of My deity dwells. This is My beloved
Son, who shows you face to face the fullness of My glory, that
Moses could not bear to see the shadow of the back of My robe,
and that if any other man had looked upon, he shall die. You
see face to face. This is My beloved Son. all authority, all dwelling,
the fullness of all power, all purpose, all the words and all
the work of God through His hands is revealed to us and we behold
it." The Jews looked at Jesus in the face and rejected that
very thing. And by doing so, they rejected
God directly with great offense, while they all assumed they were
honoring Him to persecute this man. Greater works than these. It's
not the only time Jesus says that in this Gospel. He says
it to Nathanael, doesn't He? You think that's something? Greater
works than these shall you see, when you see the Son of Man and
angels ascending and descending upon Me. See, Jesus has opened
heaven for us. It's not an escalator that we've
got to put a token in and try to get in line. Jesus and His
body carries us to the Father. Jesus in His body prepares us
to be righteous immediately. God the Father isn't looking
out and saying, okay, you're almost ready, you're a long ways
from ready, and you're close. When Jesus died on that cross,
when you believe in the effectual work of Jesus Christ, you are
prepared for the presence of God then. So what you do and what you don't
do after that you will answer for as you are disciplined, as
you are rebuked, as you are encouraged, as you are exhorted, and you
and I work together in this wonderful world as we look and peer to
the finished work of Christ as our hope and assurance. Greater
works. You think this healing's amazing?
It's nothing. Why? Because this man's legs
would stop working again when his heart stopped beating. You
think this healing is great? It's nothing. If Jesus were to
say this, He would say, this is nothing but a temporary display
of my power. You've seen nothing yet. I did
not come here to heal the body. I came here to heal the soul.
I came here to heal the hearts of my people, to restore them
to the Father, to establish them with this true and eternal covenant.
I will reveal the love of God for His people, and I will satisfy
the Father's righteousness for them." This is good stuff. And
doing this miracle, if Jesus were to say it, why didn't He
just go ahead and say it to them? It wasn't necessary. But by doing this miracle, I
will be subject to your death that you prescribed for me, thinking
you're honoring the Father, when at all end you are destroying
the work of God. But by doing so, you are doing
the work of God, that I might be offered up as a sacrifice.
Greater things you shall see." How ridiculously blind are we
without the grace of God? We are utterly blind. We are
utterly lost. We are utterly hopeless. And
that's why we wring our proverbial hands every second of our lives
when we take our peer, when we take our peering, our gaze off
of Jesus. Jesus satisfies righteousness
for us. Jesus is the head of the church.
He is the beloved of God, and because of that, God loves us. He has loved us, and because
He has loved us, He has given His Son for us, His beloved Son,
for our salvation, who is our salvation. We know the love of
God because He first loves us. John would reiterate this in
his first epistle, where he would say in chapter 4, verses 8 and
on, he would say, anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love. And he would come on then to
say that, therefore, so we know, and we have come to know and
to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and
whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. Jesus would even tell the Pharisees,
the greatest of all the commandments is to love the Lord your God
with all your heart. Perfect passage for this morning. And
to love your neighbor as yourself. What is it that is so difficult
about that? You know what's so difficult
about that? Because we want some type of hope in something we
can touch and do. Best sellers in the Christian
circles are things you can do to get your life on track. Things,
a list, we love a checklist. We don't even like to read prose
anymore, we just want the checklist. Bullets, and we want the bullets
to be colorful with pictures. We want graphics with subtitles,
that's the better one. Memes, that's what they're called.
They're not new, they're just on digital format now, they've
been in books for years. Friends, the gospel of grace is simple. And it is only by the power and
authority of Christ that we can stand and continue to peer into
His love for us. Grasp it. The application here
is so simple, it's too easy, and we don't want to hear it.
But it's this. Believe in who Christ is, and
trust, believe in what Christ has done, and continue to look,
and continue to read, and continue to grow, learning the same thing
over and over and over again until your dying breath. Because
then and only then you see the power of God that surpasses all
logic and reason and understanding, that we can rejoice, and we can
hope, and we can live. Let's pray. We love You, Father, because
You first loved us. We praise You, Father, because
You are worthy to be praised. Lord, You are high above us all. You are holy and righteous and
glorious and powerful. You know everything about us. And Lord, in that knowledge,
we deserve Your justice. But in Your mercy and in Your
love and in Your infinite wisdom, You purpose to satisfy righteously
that judgment through Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that we would gaze
upon Him, that we would see Him, that we would know Him more and
more every day. And Father, that those among
us, Lord, this day that have not believed, Lord, that You
would give them the eyes to see this simple gospel. this Good
News that is effectual and powerful, for which we are not ashamed,
because it is Your power unto salvation. Let us proclaim it
with boldness. Lord, I pray that not only do
we teach it to ourselves and to our homes and to our friends
and to those we love, but we would also teach it to those
that we do not know and those that seem to be our enemies.
that maybe we would glorify You that our enemies would be our
brothers. Because Lord, we were Your enemies. And while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us. He who had no sin and knew
no sin became sin that we might be Your righteousness. Lord,
I pray that You would save us. from unbelief, that You would
keep us from temptation, that You would lead us into the paths
of righteousness by faith alone in Jesus Christ. And let us hope,
no matter how hard our hearts might weep, in the finished work
that is certain to save and to give us satisfaction in the midst
of great pain. In Jesus' name we pray.