And the world was made through
him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his
own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him,
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children
of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh,
nor of the will of man, but of God. Lord, over this next hour, father,
we will hear a lot of words. thoughts, commentary, exhortation,
admonishment. We'll have a lot of thoughts
that go with them, Father, and You know us better than we know
us. You know what has really burdened our souls today. You know what has really frustrated
our minds. You know the apprehension that
we have right now in our spirit, Father. Some who may feel as
though they don't want to be in this assembly today, but Father,
We know that Your Word is true. We know that Your Spirit works
only through Your Word to bring life to the dead, to bring light
out of darkness, to bring sight to the blind. And so I pray,
Father, that not just for Your people, but also for those who
may not be alive this morning, that the hearing of the Word
that we just heard would bring to life every soul. That every child here would hear
your word and pay attention to the preaching and understand
what it is that you are communicating through the scripture. For Father,
we hear a lot of things throughout our lives, a lot of words, a
lot of thoughts, a lot of things that we see and read and are
inundated with information, but Lord, nothing is more important
than what we've just heard. Nothing is more powerful. Nothing
is more authoritative. So Father, please speak this
morning through your spirit to each of us. In Jesus name we
pray, amen. We will be looking today at verses
11, I mean, excuse me, 12 and 13. Now, as we start, I want you
to think about the rights that you have. What rights do you
have in this life? As Americans, we could initially
come to the idea of the Bill of Rights, those things guaranteed
by our Constitution that are unavoidable, irresistible. They're guaranteed for all human
beings who live under the banner of this sovereign nation. Think
about the rights we have in our own home. with property or freedom
to drive and go where we want to go in our own communities.
The rights that we have as citizens of this United States to sit
here with our Bibles open publicly telling everyone we are the church
of Jesus Christ and we can come and assemble without fear of
the government coming and telling us we must choose to serve either
the state or God. We have rights. But ask ourselves,
if we will, what really do we have the right to? Because when
we think of rights, we often think, this is what I deserve,
this is what is due me, this is what I'm entitled to. Now,
the parents in the room are going, yeah, entitlement. These children
we have today, entitled to clothes, food, oxygen. You children believe
that you are entitled to that. Well, not really, but we give
it to you anyway out of the goodness of our hearts. Plug it up for,
that's great. But ultimately, all of us have
some sense of entitlement, and in some ways it's good because
it matches the sovereignty of our nation that God has established
and given us certain rights that we are entitled to. The right
to speak freely, or the right to vote, or the right to not
be oppressed by the government, to let our property go. police
being able to come in and just take things for no reason, or
being accused and sentenced without trial. I mean, these are good
things, aren't they not? I think they're things that display
a type of righteousness, a type of goodness, a type of rightness
that is beneficial to humanity and to community. But I want
you to think real hard about the rights that you have this
morning. Is our right to something an opportunity as Christians
for us to demand it. And you might think, what are
you talking about? Well, I'll tell you in just a
moment. Remember Paul's missionary journeys? Remember Paul's evangelism? Where Paul went in and began
to preach Christ after being part of the ruling class that
became a nothing. Had everything, then had nothing.
He even tells the church of Philippi, I've had much and I've had little
and I prefer little. For in Christ I can do all things
who gives me strength. So that's the context there.
He's talking about financial and material things. He can do
much with little, he's free. Because a lot of times with our
rights then comes responsibilities. We have rights to own property,
but with that right, we have responsibility to pay for that
property, to pay the taxes on that property, to be a steward
of that property, to clean that property, to rake that property,
to mow that property. So even with our rights, they
are a binding thing. They bind us up in a way that
we even with freedom become slaves to something, even sometimes
our liberties. So ask yourself this question, what is it then
do you truly have the right to? Yes, as Americans we do, but
what about as Christians? And I'm not talking about cultural
Christians. I'm not talking about Christians who just do the church thing.
I got my A today from my Jesus sticker on my shoulder. I did
church. You didn't do church, you are
church. And you're not church unless you're gathered with the
rest of us. You are not church by yourself. Because the very
definition of a church is gathered. That's what it means, the assembled
ones. So you're not the church by yourself. You are just an
eyeball or a toenail or an ear. or a mouth. Many of us are mouths,
myself included. But what good is an eye by itself
without a head, without an ocular nerve attached to the brain?
What good are we as a hand sitting on a shelf? That's just macabre.
That's weird. Or a bag of toenails, like I
like to say. What good is that? You ever been someplace and seen
people leave their toenail clippings? It happens. Or their fingernail
clippings? It happens. You step on one and see what it feels
like. It's out of place. It doesn't belong there. The
same thing is true for a Christian not assembled with the rest of
the saints. It doesn't belong there. It doesn't belong alone. It doesn't belong sitting aside.
And beloved, the point that I'm getting to is ask yourself, do
you really have a right to be here? Do you have a right under
heaven to assemble as God's people today? I'm gonna say no, and I'm gonna
say yes. Because we don't even have a
right in our humanity to call God daddy. Good song choice. Good song choices. We don't have
a right to say God is our father. We don't have a right to say
I am a Christian. We don't have a right under heaven
and under the authority of the word of God to say this is what
I am and I have a right, you can't tell me otherwise. We don't
have a right to tell God He will save us, He will adopt us, He
will free us, He will redeem us. And that is the point of
where John is writing this text. It is the point from where he
comes from the beginning that in the beginning was the Word
and the Word was God and the Word was with God. Till next
week when we see, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among
us. The outline of this that we've been going through already
over the last seven weeks shows us very clearly the argument
of the rest of the text. Don't forget that. We're not
just learning this system or that doctrine or this teaching.
We're not just learning this theology and then we're moving
on to the next theology. We're learning the outline of
the issues that the gospel of Jesus Christ performs for us
in our understanding of it. We're learning the teaching that
this gospel writer is showing us under utterance of the Spirit
of God Himself, that we might know Christ and believe in His
name. And in believing in Christ have
what? Eternal life. That's the point
of this writing. Jesus says that eternal life
is knowing God and the son whom he has sent. And these things
are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and
in believing you may have life in his name. So this outline
that we've been going through over the last seven weeks is
to give us the infrastructure. When we painted these walls and
ceilings, When we did all this work up top, we had scaffold
here. And the scaffold was necessary
to establish the work that we needed to do because I'm not
14 feet tall. And as I was strapped to the
top of that thing and Levi was pushing me around, it violated
every OSHA ordinance known to man. But when we got finished,
we took all that down. And that's sometimes a misunderstanding
about an outline. Well, here's the outline, now
let's go to it. The difference in Scripture is that we need
to look at this prologue like a scaffold, but we build upon
it. It's a skeleton. It's the infrastructure. It's not a set-up, take-down
thing. It is the roots, it's the foundation, and the pillars,
and the beams that hold up the whole structure. So for us to
get into John chapter 15 or John chapter 20, we need to always
have the infrastructure and the foundation of John 1 in our minds. If we read the epistles of John
without the infrastructure of John the Gospel 1 in our minds,
we miss the point. If we read Revelation without
all of those in our minds, we miss everything. We start looking
at the picture book of Revelation going, I wonder who that is.
Is that your third cousin from your grandma's side? I don't
know. Why don't you look at the infrastructure?
Why don't you look at the legend? Why don't we look at the scriptures? Friends, this scripture today
teaches us two things. One is that we don't believe
in Christ because we are hostile toward Him and because we hate
Him. Remember? We've learned that over the last
six weeks, have we not? And that we live in darkness. But that
God in His infinite mercy, because of the great love with which
He loved us, shined His light into the darkness. He is the
light. He came into the light and He shines in the darkness
and the darkness will not overcome it. Well, friends, when we think
of darkness, we have to recognize that that's our right. You know what right we have?
To stay in utter darkness. You know who disagrees with that
statement? People who think much of themselves. You might think, well, I disagree.
Maybe you just don't understand it. Why would the people who
think much of themselves disagree that we deserve utter darkness?
Because when we believe that we don't deserve darkness, we
look at ourselves as though we're sort of like God, that we're
good. We look at ourselves and we don't see the selfishness.
We don't see the hatred. We don't see the murderous spirit.
We don't see the lying tongue and the gossip. We don't see
the laziness. We don't see the escape and the
abuse of substance, the abuse of food, the abuse of time, the
abuse of leisure. We don't see the greed, man,
I gotta get more money, I gotta get more money. We don't see
the selfishness, it's all mine. We don't see it. We don't see
it because we love ourselves so much that we actually could
stand beside Lucifer and say, how you looking there, man? You're
looking pretty good. He says, yeah, I know, look at me. We have a right to
darkness. And if we don't believe we have
a right to darkness, we are blind in the darkness. Because we've
already learned that no one believes. Not even God's, quote, chosen
people of Israel. They refused Him. And they knew
full well with every fiber of their cognate that He was Messiah. And they refused Him anyway.
Why? Because the natural man is hostile to God. You know why
we're hostile? Because Christ takes our rights
away. He takes the right of darkness away. He takes the right of loving
darkness away and he gives us life. And when we love the world
of darkness more than we love the light of Christ, we fight
it. And that's where we sit this morning. That's where we sit
this morning as we look at this. And many people claim to have
rights. People say, well, I've got a right to that stuff because
that's my great granddaddy's property and I'm the only living
heir. I want it. Well, is it really
yours? Is it ours just because we birthed
the right family? Many of us may think we're okay
with God because we're in a long lineage of Christians. We're
in a long lineage of pastors. We're in a long lineage of churches.
My family or so-and-so have been part of this church for six generations,
not so with Grace Truth, six months. Although generations,
we are getting some generations now. Israel and all of created humanity
refuse their God. refused their creator, the one
who came as the light of the world. The Jews considered Jesus
unworthy of their lineage, unworthy of their heritage, unworthy of
their power and honor and glory. And the world and all who lived
in it hated him, and they still do. The natural man cannot receive
Jesus Christ because he expects something different from him.
No people group, no nation, no specific people with borders
or kings or kingdoms or governments are God's special people. No
one has been given or afforded a special relationship to their
entrance into the kingdom of heaven. No, it is the light that
shines, not the darkness that comes into the light. John 1,
12 and 13. But to 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, excuse me,
not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of the mind, but of God. And this is the text this morning. And beloved, let me tell you
right now, this is the king crown of this prologue. This is the
point that John's been waiting to make, that he makes in 30
seconds and I take seven weeks. And sometimes I ponder what good
is exposition. And then I remember that I don't
know anything myself, so I must study it. So I guess we're all
in good company. Let's take this a little by little.
Receive him. Now the language there in receive,
if the English word were used in a contemporary context of
evangelism. What do you hear? I'm gonna bark
on some things right now, and for those of you who don't know
me, don't throw me out with the bathwater, and please don't put me in the
garbage. Just look at the full context of everything I've taught
over the last few years. But when we think about receiving
Jesus, what's the first thing that pops into our mind? Well,
I prayed to receive Christ. And then we usually hear it as
my personal Savior and Lord. Well, great, I ordered the chicken. Really? What in the world? You
just lost us. Well, I'm hungry. I'm thinking
about chicken. No, I'm not. I'm thinking about how I pray
to receive Jesus is in the same vein, the exact same thing I
do at a restaurant when the waitress says, can I help you? And you
say, I'd like sweet tea. And I'd like to order the chicken
with a side of broccoli. I've received by my own choice
and volition, the food that comes out. And guess what happens?
I've told them that's what I wanted and they bring it to me. And
if it's not right, what do I do? I have a right to return it. We'll get it before it's over.
Receive Him. Receiving Jesus Christ is not
about what we agree with. It's not about what we've done.
And if you don't believe me, you'll believe God in a minute
because the gospel writer here, under the utterance of the Holy
Spirit, explains it very clearly. But it's odd to me that throughout
the last 20 years of ministry and even in the college campuses
and in large forums and in debates and all these different things
that I've done through the years, this is one of the texts that
everybody likes to pull out and prove that there is a obligation
upon man in his power to do something for his own salvation apart from
just believing in God or believing in Christ. And they like to exercise
this mindset that faith in Jesus Christ, believing, is an action
of some sort that we do with the mind and the body and the
mouth. It's not. Where did that come
from? I've asked scholars, everyone that I have an opportunity to
talk with about this, I've asked scholars, show me in the scripture,
in context, where that's taught. And no one has ever been able
to, no one has ever been able to show that to me. They show
me a sentence, or they show me a prepositional phrase, or they'll
show me the predicate of a sentence. See that? Stir until thick. What does that
mean? Stir until thick. And you're like, man, you're
really on food today. I'm just, it's, it's coming to mind. We eat the
bread of life. It's not what Jesus uses throughout
this gospel. Bread and water and food that
you know not of. And he tells Nicodemus, if you can't understand
earthly things like food and birth and water and wind, you
can't understand heavenly things, you can't understand spiritual
things. So sometimes our befuddledness is because we're not spiritually
minded in our thinking. What are we looking for? What is it that we see here? To receive Jesus Christ is explained
here. It means those are the ones who
have believed in His name, not accepted Him. As in, there is
an offer on the table, there's some juice down here, and I'm
just gonna go in and pick it up and drink it. Oh, I've accepted
the juice. I've received the juice. You have. But that's not
the context of this language here. And I'm not going to misinterpret
it. I'm not going to twist it to
make my theological bend. I'm just going to teach it as
it sits here. All people rejected Jesus Christ.
But some people, what? Received Him. Isn't that the
opposite of rejection? We reject something or we receive
something. Now, there are some things in
this life that are outside of our control in our reception.
If I wanna give you something, there's things that I have that
I can give you that you cannot refuse. Really? Yes, if I have a virus and sneeze,
I will give it to you. You can't refuse it. Now, you
may have the immune system to fight it off, but you'll still
receive it. If you accost me on the street and I put my hands
on you, you will receive that. You're not going to say, okay,
go ahead, hit me right here. Now kick me in my leg. I'll let you
do that. No, you're going to receive it
and there's nothing you can do about it. If someone is driving
and they come alongside you and they T-bone your car, you've
received their hit. You've received the accident
and you didn't say, okay, here it comes on the count of three.
Now, boom, bring it on. No, you just get it. So the idea
of reception is not about freedom. It's just an obvious statement
of the truth. There are some people who do receive Jesus and
believe on Christ, even though the whole world rejects Him.
This is probably foreign to some of us, because we equate the
gospel message with, pray this prayer, do this, and you're saved. Where is that? Romans 10, nine. It doesn't talk about that. What
does it talk about? Come Wednesday night. What in the world are we getting
out? What kind of theology are you
teaching us? I'm not. I'm just reading what John wrote.
And when we hate the gospel as unbelievers and then we hear
this gospel as unbelievers, it is through the hearing of this
gospel that God brings us to life. And when we're believers
and we begin to grow in our understanding of this gospel, guess what? We
worship God more and more, and we love Him more and more, and
we praise Him for His glorious grace more and more. Let's get
on to the text. Everyone rejected Him, but some received Him. The
Jews had forsaken Christ, and others now were up for adoption
in their stay. Let's just think about that for
a second. He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.
Now, this wasn't a mystery. This wasn't going, Oh, Jesus
is going, Oh no, my own people, they didn't believe. He knew
they weren't going to believe. He said it in Isaiah six. He
would not allow them to believe because they judicially hardened
their hearts and blind their eyes. We've talked about that
two weeks straight. Well, I don't like that. We don't
have to like what we read. We just have to agree that it's
true. Krispy Kremes are not good for
me. I know that it's true. I don't
have to like it. Now others are up for adoption.
Receiving Jesus Christ is being adopted by God. Receiving Jesus
Christ is believing in His name. See, look what it says there.
This is not a causation. It doesn't say right here, if
those, it doesn't say, those who received him, who believed
in his name, because they believed, he gave them the right. Does
it? Does it say that? I mean, look at your Bible. I
don't know what, if it says that, raise your hand, because I'd
love to know what Eugene Patterson's been up to. Is that his name? Yeah. He wrote the message. No, it says, but to all who did
receive Him. So what do we have there? We
have a group of people. We have a group of people, all,
none came, none received Him, none could see, none loved Him.
His own people didn't receive Him. They didn't see Him. They
didn't love Him. But some received Him. That's not saying that if
you receive, then you're born of God. It's not saying if you
do this. It's just stating there were some that did. How is it
if none do, some have? Well, we'll see that in just
a second. Believing in His name and receiving
Him is the exact same thing. So, all who did receive Him,
those are the ones who have believed in His name. They're the same
people. You can say, you know, James
is the guy at the podium, and wearing a sweater in the summer,
and all these other different things. speaking loudly and using
his hands. He hasn't hit the mic yet. I
mean, you can identify each other with a lot of different identifiers.
You could speak statements that are true. It doesn't mean that
they're causations of certain things. I'm not standing here,
ergo, I have a sweater on or because the microphone is on,
ergo, now I'm a pastor, but all the ones who preach in this pulpit
will be elders or elders there in training. That's how that
works. Those who believe in His name
is the same as receiving. Believing in Jesus Christ means that we
trust, that we trust in Jesus Christ. So if we're trusting,
if I say trust in Frank, everybody's gonna say what? Who's Frank? And I'll say, well, that's Frank.
And then you're going to call somebody because I'm pointing
at an invisible guy. But despite that, you're going to say, well,
what's Frank done that I need to trust in him? Why do I need
to trust in this guy? What has he done for me? Well,
he's accomplished your salvation. From what? Why did I need saving? From what? Well, before you sat
down, there was poisonous snakes all over the floor. and they
were invisible, and He could see them, and He snatched them
all up. So you need to believe and thank
Him. That's not even a good example
that Frank saved you. Why would we not just believe
in Frank? Because I tell you to, because we don't know anything
about him. So trusting in Jesus Christ means
that we know who He is, and we know what He's done, and we know
what He's done on our behalf, and we believe in it. We believe
in Him, and we believe in all that He's promised. Do you see
that? Saving faith is not, yep, it's true. How's it true if it's
not effectual? How is salvation, saving faith
in Jesus Christ as our Savior true if we're not believing that
He saved us, you see? We can sometimes get bogged down
in making everything so difficult and so academic that we miss
the point that Jesus even says, do not belabor the children.
Don't keep them from me. For unless your faith is like
theirs, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven." What's that mean? They simply believe what you
tell them. One of my nephews told Abigail
the other day, she said, I hate tomatoes. He goes, tomatoes make
you strong. And for a week, she's been asking
for tomatoes. I want a tomato. Why? Because it makes me strong.
She believes those tomatoes make her strong. Not so sure that
they do, but they're at least better than vanilla wafers. Maybe. But this identifier, this identifier,
those who received Him and believed in His name, has nothing to do
with the action of believing. It's not saying if you believe
in His name and if you receive Him. It's just saying those who
did receive Him are those who believed in His name. These are
the ones who what? What happened? We'll look there. He gave the right to become children
of God. You see it? The ones who believe
are the ones who received. The ones who received Him are
the ones who believe on His name. Those that have done that, those
that are identified that way, those people who are believing
in Him are the ones He gave the right. I see a lot of translations
play around with this, but let's think about it for a second.
What did Paul tell the Romans, chapter 11? What's he say there?
He says, now, if their sin means riches for the world, and if
their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more would
their full inclusion mean? What's he talking about? The
failure of the Jews to believe in the Messiah. But this right, this giving of
God is a right to become the children of God. Now we get to
the point where I open the sermon this morning. Do we have the
right to become children of God? Some people say, I have the right
because I believed. I have the right because I prayed.
I have the right because I joined the church. I have a right because
I've been in church my whole life. Yes, I have the right to
become a child of God. Let's think about that as we
continue. This right, this becoming a child of God, are we the children
of God before we believe? No. No, we're not. Not effectually. We may be eternally. We understand God's decrees.
We understand His sovereignty. We understand His immutability.
We understand all these deep things that cause us just to
warm over. And it's not because we're so
moved by it. It's because our brain's on fire.
And we just can't contemplate it. And so we're thinking about
these things, but as the scripture teaches, if you want to have
eternal life, you must believe on Jesus Christ. And John is
showing us now that this believing is the work of God. That this
receiving is the mighty hand of God and His generous kindness
and mercy. These people were given the right
to become the children of God because they were adopted. To
become a child of God is to be taken out of our current lineage
and to be called a child, to have new parents. It's a legal
action. You know why it's a legal action?
Because if we just swap kids, we can change our minds and we
go back and get... I hear horror stories sometimes of people who
end up being foster parents and having a child until it's like
seven from birth, and then that child gets taken away. But you
know what? It's not their child, they're
just keeping it. If we're not the children of God, and we're
just hanging out with God, calling Him pops, and all this kind of
stuff, hanging out with the church, calling everybody brother and
sister, and all of a sudden, but we're not a child of God,
when the day of reckoning comes, we will be standing with our
true Father. And if we are not a child of God through adoption,
if God has not bought us through the Son, through His true Son,
that we might become His children, guess what? We are still the
sons of the devil. We are still in darkness. We
are still lost. God gave the right. This is not in power. This is
not power. He gave the privilege. If your
Bible translates that word right as power, I want you to, in the
margin, I'd really like for you to black it out and write right
there. But don't do that. Just make
a little margin note. The real word should be right. He gave them the right. to become
the children of God, the privilege. What is a privilege? It's not
a right, is it? He gave them the privilege of
being a child of God, and they did not do anything for it, because
they could not see Him, nor could they love Him, nor could they
believe on Him, because that's already been established. So
what is it that has happened in the lives of these for all
who have received, all who have believed on His name? If we use
an older English word, not an old English, but an older English
word, the whosoever. Whosoever is a pronoun of those
who are doing something, whosoever are believing, whosoever have
received, whosoever are trusting. So the trusting and the believing
and the receiving is who identifies the whosoever are. Because Jesus would say to Nicodemus
in John 3 that whosoever believes on the Son would have eternal
life, but whosoever believeth not is condemned already. Same
word. And I emphasize that because
there is a large group of absolutely myopic, ignorant people who want
to say that whosoever opens a universal atonement. That Jesus has suffered
and paid for the sins of every human being. And if that is true,
beloved, Why are we here today? Why not just eat, drink, and
be merry, and live our happy lives, and grow our happy homes,
and just become the best citizen we can, knowing that nothing
can stop us, no matter how dark, wicked, or evil we may be to
the core. Christ paid for it all. If Christ
paid for the sins of every human being that ever will live, here's
a newsflash. Do the math. Whose sins are still
in debt? None! That's universalism, and
it is evil. So, for whom did Christ die?
For those who received Him, those who believed on His name, those
whom God gave the right to be His children. The Jews boasted. They thought they had the empowerment
to be the children of God because they had walked for so long in
them. They had lived so long to the
glory of God. This empowerment is not an offer. This is the work of God with
full effect. This is the work of God that actually does something. It's not the work of God that
offers something. God didn't establish the magic for you to
reach out and touch. God sealed your salvation, beloved. Now, the argument usually comes,
well, that's not a very evangelistic message. I could argue that it
is, But are you here this morning saying I'm lost? I'm coming to
find the truth. No. The message of the evangelist
is very easy. God is holy. You are evil. God is just. His judgment is
upon you. There is nothing you can do to
escape it. You are condemned. But God in mercy sent Jesus Christ,
who is God, who created the heavens and the earth, into the womb
that He created. And He grew in stature and fullness,
and as a human being, but still God, He fulfilled all the righteousness
of God in obedience. And then willfully went on the
cross so that He would die the wages of sin that He did not
commit, that in your place He would satisfy the judgment of
God's righteousness. If you believe in Him for that,
You have eternal life. How do you know that He was God?
Because He was raised from the dead. And the Bible says that
He is. And you know, there's no convincing
that needs to take place there, because in hearing that message,
just simply, very superficially, just like that, the Spirit of
God goes, and He blows. And people's hair stand up on
the back of their neck. Sometimes they feel weak, sometimes they
just go, oh my goodness, this is sort of strange, this guy
needs to go. Whatever they may think or feel doesn't matter
because the work of God in them through the Holy Spirit brings
them to life at that message when God wishes. So we're not
here to recap the evangel every 30 seconds. This isn't street
preaching. This is preparing the church
for the work of the ministry that includes As its foundation,
the adoration of God for His glorious grace. That includes
as its empowerment, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the power
of God for which we are not ashamed. Not only to salvation, but everything
we need for life and godliness. that it establishes the authority
of Jesus Christ through His Scripture above all of us whether we like
it or believe it or not. So we're not here to just speak
to the lost. We are the church beloved. We
are the saints of God. We are the redeemed. We are the
righteousness of God. We are the ones who have believed
because God in His mercy has put Christ on the cross to pay
for our sins and we are His. We are His children. and we are
here to worship as His children. The Jews boasted in their heritage,
in their choices, in their lineage, in their actions, but none of
these things would make them God's children. Being made a
child of God is grace. It's graciousness. It's an unworthy,
unwarranted gift of favor that we don't have a right to, you
see. We don't have a right to be forgiven. We don't have a
right to be called the children of God. But, oh, He has called
us that. John, in his first epistle, chapter
three, verse one, what does he say there? Oh, see, so he goes,
oh, oh, see what kind of love the Father has given to us that
we should be called the children of God. And so we are. We are His children, and we are
born into Him by His power, not our own. How do you get that? Look at the next phrase. But
all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave
the right to become children of God. Now see, if we stop there,
we can infer a lot of things. We can say, well, I had the right,
so I took it. I had the option, so I invested in it. I had the
opportunity, so I walked through the door. But He doesn't give
us that option because the very next phrase says who were born. Who were born. See, God is in
the business of birthing people, not begging people. You hear
that? God births people into Him. He does not beg them to come
to Him. If you don't believe it, that
this is necessary to understand everything Jesus says in the
rest of this gospel narrative. Friends, when Jesus talks about
believing, and coming, and receiving, and engaging, and eating, and
drinking, friends, He's talking about the work of God. He even
says it in John 6. What must we do, the masses ask
Him, to be doing the works of God? Jesus says, this is the work
of God that you believe on the sun. That's it. This is the work of God that
you believe on the sun. You believe it's the work of
God. Why do we hate that message?
We don't, but why does the world hate that message? Because it
takes away our rights to be in darkness. who were born, we as
believers were begotten of God spiritually. That's the point
that we're seeing here. Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
was begotten of God. He's the full essence of his
nature. We're not little Jesuses now. Don't get me wrong, that's
a heresy too. If you've never heard of it, good, it's sort
of died on. We're not little Christs. We're not little gods,
as so many of the word of faith people call us. It's ridiculous. We're not creative, power, we
don't have that kind of stuff. The Bible doesn't teach that.
But when it says we were born, we were born because God has
forgotten us. That means our life, our new
life, of course our old life too, but not our sin. Our sin
didn't originate with God, it originated in our flesh. And
we continue to pass it down through the spiritual DNA of our earthly
father who's Adam, who sinned against God. We were forgotten. Our new life
originated in God, not ourselves. We were born, we were dead in
sins, but now we've been made alive in Christ. We who were
sons of Satan, as Paul would say to the church of Ephesus,
objects of wrath, objects of destruction, like the rest of
humanity, now have been made alive in Christ, beloved. For
by grace you've been saved, Paul would insert as a parenthetical. How, the question. How did we
come alive that we might receive and believe? How did we do that? Well, that's what this gospel
teaches us next. Some people start to get really
fussy when we go to this text. And this is where the pride of
our human nature starts to rise up like an ugly dog. You know
what an ugly dog is, right? It could be loyal to the end,
but he's so ugly. You don't want to touch him.
Wagon tail, head down, submissive. Oh, poor thing. Needs to eat.
I'm not touching it. Friend, that's the human nature.
And it teaches us that it's loyal and faithful and friendly and
hopeful and trusting. And we hear this, but you know
what? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I came to my own salvation. I'm
the one who authored my salvation. I took hold of that brass ring
of glory and I climbed the ladder of grace. That just sounds evil,
doesn't it? That's the language of the American
culture. That's the language of people
with liberties. That's the language of someone
being able to take credit for their own success. And many of
us have done that in life. At the same time, we understand
that we don't say we go here and do this and do that, but
if the Lord wills. Some say, I chose the right thing
and then God adopted me. When scripture teaches that we
have been adopted, we didn't choose to be adopted. We've been
made a child, not tolerated and cared for, but treasured and
purchased. In Luke 3, we hear these words,
bear fruits in keeping with repentance and do not begin to say to yourselves,
we have Abraham as our father. For I tell you, God is able from
these rocks to raise up children for Abraham. So the very next
thing that we see is how did they come to become the children
of God? Look what it says there. They
did not do so, they were not born of blood. Now what does
that mean? That means it doesn't matter
who you are, or who your daddy is, it doesn't matter who your
granddaddy is, or what line you're from, or what tribe you're from,
or how incredibly Rich, your pedigree is, you do
not have a holy pedigree. And the Jews claim that for themselves. We are the sons of Abraham. And
Jesus says, you are the sons of the devil. You're the sons of the devil.
Now, I've said that to my children, to which my oldest, when she
was about seven, says, well, you're the daddy. I mean, you
know, that kind of stuff. You're the child of Satan, but
you're my daddy." I mean, touche. But friends, it doesn't matter
who we are. It doesn't matter who we are, where we come from.
It doesn't matter how long a line of Christians we have. There
is no holy pedigree. You know how often I hear, and
Jesse probably could say the same thing, people talk about
when we ask them about their spiritual lives, we ask about
their spiritual place. if they're believing on Jesus.
Or even ask the simple question, are you a believer? Oh yeah,
I've been in church my whole life. Well, great. I've been wearing jeans for 12
years. I mean, what does that make me,
Levi Strauss? Well, my grandfather founded
the church I'm in. My great, great, great uncle
sold the land to the pilgrims. I don't care. That's not what
I ask you. That's not what Jesus is going
to be concerned with either. This is to tell us that there
is no holy pedigree. There's no long-lasting. I've
served in the church since I was 12. You ever heard anybody like
that? It grieves my soul when I visit
people who are confined to a retirement home or who are very old in life. like a 93-year-old woman one
time that I met with just weeks before she passed away. And she
told me this when I questioned her about her faith in Jesus.
Are you trusting in Jesus these last days? You know, I've served
in the church for 68 years. And I said, honey, if you served
in the church for 6,800 years, you will bust hell wide open
when you die. And the family didn't like that. And I said
it softly and kindly. I said, if you're not trusting,
you don't have to trust in Christ but 0.68 tenths of a second to
have eternal life. But if you're trusting in the
fact you worked in the church all these years, those seven decades
are bringing nothing but judgment on you. And by the Lord's grace,
I pray that she believe. Friends, we don't have a holy
pedigree. It's not about our blood. It's not about the things
that we've done. It's not about the lineage of
our spiritual family. It's not of the will of the flesh. I could just preach a whole sermon
on this. It's not our right. We don't have the opportunity.
The flesh of man is not the agent of causation for redemption.
The flesh of man cannot do anything. Our flesh is darkness. It loves
the darkness. Our flesh can't see. Our eyes can't see. Our
heart cannot love the Lord. We do not birth out of our own
goodness. We do not come forth as spiritual
children of God because we found the little spark of light deep
within our soul and we fanned it into a roaring flame, into
a roaring inferno. No, there is no fire in us. As
a matter of fact, Paul, when he writes to Timothy, he says,
fan into flame the good deposit entrusted to you. Remember the
days, Timothy, when we put our hands on you, when we prayed
with tears, and you received the Holy Spirit. Trust not in your lineage, though
your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois, they taught you all the
Scripture. Hold fast to those things. It's
not enough. The Lord had to birth you, Timothy.
fed into flames this truth, fed into flames the gospel, this
deposit that's been given to you. Blow it into the inferno
that it needs to be and go out and singe the world on fire for
Jesus Christ. Do the work of an evangelist.
Not of the flesh, not of the will of the flesh. We are not
enabled in our flesh to become children with the mark of righteousness.
It's not in us. James would state it this way,
of His own will, God's own will, He brought us forth by the Word
of Truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.
We do not willingly make God our Father. But thirdly, we see
there, it's not of blood, it's not about our pedigree, or our
holy pedigree, or our spiritual pedigree. It's not the will of
the flesh. We didn't find or tap into that goodness. We didn't
tap into that really awesome place. and come to the right
place and come to the right conclusion, nor is it of the will of man.
And the weak word there is andros, husband, head. Nor is the will of the mind.
There'll be a better rendering of that, of the decision of the
mind. The choices we make, the actions
we do, these do not make us children. Church, hear this. This is not
what creates in us eternal life. And then we close with this understanding,
how in the world then, if it's not of blood, if it's not in
me, if it's not who I'm from and what I've been doing, and
it's not a decision for me to make, then where in the world,
how in the world have I been adopted? It is the will of God.
You see that? It is the will of God that He
shined the light into your heart and He brought you to eternal
life. It is the will of God, it is
the work of God. And beloved, I'm telling you right now this
day, no matter what it is, no matter what it is that is causing
you to doubt your faith, The only hope you have in doubting
your faith, in doubting your spiritual place, in doubting
your adoption, in doubting your eternal life, is that Jesus Christ
satisfied God's judgment against you on the cross. The only hope
you have is trusting in Him. that He accomplished that. Your
faith in Him. So it even goes back to our security
and our assurance in the work of God to birth us anew is not
in what we've done to keep it. It's not in what we've done to
please God. And not in who we've become and how many children
we have who are in the ministry or what kind of church we might
be in or how awesome our missions are. It's about what Christ has
done. It's about who Christ is. It's
about what God the Father has done and the power of His gospel
to bring you to salvation. And it is that same power that
seals you in salvation. By the same Spirit you are birthed
is the same Spirit you are sealed. Friends, it's not just a mystical
thing that God has done either. God did not do the work of redemption
through some mysterious, invisible place. And just tell us that
on the mount of the Lord, this took place for you. He didn't
take his son and sacrifice him there hidden. He sent him to
become like us. The word became flesh and dwelt
among us. I pray that you will believe
in the living word, who is Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord, this word, this chain of
letters and sentences can become so infantile
in our approach, Lord, that we can just skip right over them.
So less important because we just want to get to the other
things. God, what we've heard this morning, what we've read
there in this gospel is extremely vital to the rest of our understanding
of what remains. As we'll see those who supposedly
believe but don't, those who confess Jesus but don't truly
have salvation, those that seek in their lineage and seek in
their religion, those who hold fast to the heritage of all the
following of Israel. Father, that those that seek
after Jesus to become the sign giver, to prove who He is, and
so on and so on. Lord, those who came to faith,
those who received Him, are those who believed in His name, are
those who became your children because you willed it so. And
Lord, I pray right now that we would wholeheartedly hear this message, that our children
are hearing it. They're hearing it now, Lord.
Help us to be good parents. A bad parent is the parent that
gives their children the world. A wicked parent is the one that
pacifies their child's materialism and selfishness at the cost of
their soul. So Father, the greatest thing
we could do for our children this week is to remind them of
what God has done through Jesus Christ. Help us to be good parents and
not put it on the pastor to make sure he reaches our children
or that we hear the word together and we teach it to each other.
Father, I pray that our children would be saved, not through some
act of their own or self-determination or incredible will. Let us not
be proud of the accomplishments of our children if they reject
the gospel. And let us not be proud of our
children when they receive the gospel, but let us be thankful
to you for such a thing. Father, I pray that we take this
gospel out. And we share with the world the
truth that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and paid for the
sins of sinners. His body was crushed and His
blood poured out because I sinned against You, Lord. And in order
for me to be forgiven, He had to die. And as we prepare our hearts
to remember that cross through the Lord's table, Lord, I pray that you would work
in us greatly. What a privilege it is to be called your children. And we pray this in Jesus name.
Amen.