Thank you, Joe. I want you to go to the book of Acts with me. Acts chapter one. Acts chapter one. And I'm just going to read one verse and then I'm gonna go back over here in just a few minutes to John chapter five. But I want to read Acts 1 and verse 1. The former treatise, the word treatise is report, word, gospel. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.

Now, the inspired writer of the Book of Acts is Luke. And of course, Luke wrote the gospel narrative that bears his name. So when he says the former treatise or the former word, the word is logos, the former word, the former report, The former book that he had written is a reference to the gospel according to Luke.

And he says, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, the order of that statement is very important. Of all that Jesus began to do and then to teach. That which Luke wrote, as well as Matthew and Mark and John, that which those men wrote can be summarized with this statement. They dealt with all that our Lord Jesus did and all that he taught, his instruction.

You see, the four gospel narratives, there's only one true gospel, but we call it the gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Mark, the gospel of Luke, the gospel according to John, those all have to do with the Savior. And they have to do with that which he did and that which he taught, consider the things that he did. Other than what is written about our Savior in Luke chapter two, as to his experience in Jerusalem when he was 12 years of age, other than what is written about him, what he did then, Nothing else is revealed or recorded about his actions, about what he did and what he taught till he was about 30 years of age. But even then, not everything that he did is recorded.

If you look back, you're at Acts 1.1. Look at the very last verse of John 21. Verse 25, and there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written, amen.

So not everything that he did could ever be recorded. but his extraordinary deeds. That's what's referred to here, the miracles that he wrought. Not all of his miracles though, but those miracles that served to prove him to be the son of God with power.

The miracles that gave clear evidence that He was God over all, blessed forever. The ones that are recorded were recorded by the Holy Spirit and who inspired these men to write the first four books of the New Testament were given to reveal our Savior's authority. His deity and His power and dominion over all things.

He had power over the devil. This is revealed in the things that He did. He had power over disease. He had power over man's depravity. And I'll give you one more word that begins with D. He had power over death. The miracles proved that he was the Messiah. And then there are the things that he did regarding the salvation of his people. His life of perfection, his life of obedience was necessary.

Adam broke God's law. God gave him one rule. God gave him one law and he broke that. And in Adam's transgression, we all fail. Somebody had to honor God's law. Somebody had to live according to all the precepts, not only live according to them outwardly, but do so with a pure motive for glorifying God.

And our Lord Jesus did that. And then there were his actions, the things that he did for us by way of redemption. The old writers, those of you who have read some of the Puritans or some of the old commentators, many of them speak about or spoke about and wrote about the Savior's active obedience and his passive obedience. And you know the difference in in those two words, active and passive. If somebody's active, he's doing something. If somebody's passive, something's being done to them.

But our Savior, in his life and in his death, his was an active obedience. He laid down his life for the sheep. He took upon himself the fullness of the transgressions of all of the elect of God. And then he submitted himself to die on the cross And before he died, he suffered the wrath of the Lord in his own soul and in his own body. That was an active obedience. He was obedient, the Apostle Paul said in Philippians, the second chapter, he was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. All of his obedience, those were the things that he did.

HIS COMPLETE OBEDIENCE TO GOD IN HIS LIFE AND IN HIS DEATH. AND THERE'S A VERSE YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOOK AT IT, BUT IF YOU WANT TO MAKE NOTE OF THIS, IN JOHN 8, 29, THE SAVIOR SAID, HE THAT SENT ME IS WITH ME. THE FATHER HATH NOT LEFT ME ALONE, FOR I DO. ONCE AGAIN, HIS EMPHASIS IS ON WHAT HE DID. I do always those things that please Him.

And of course He said, I lay down my life for the sheep. That was what the Savior did. He endured the wrath of God. He honored the law of God and then died to suffer the penalty for us breaking the law. After all, the wages of sin is death. That's the wages of sin. The justice of God pays. Wages and the wages of sin is death.

Christ paid the penalty for sin and by that he obtained eternal redemption for his people. He took hold of redemption and he satisfied all the demands of God, thereby bringing in everlasting righteousness and he paid our sin debt in full. the things that he did. And then consider the things that he taught. Because here, Luke writes, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, that his book, the book of Luke, and this applies to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, had to do with all the things that Jesus began to do and then to teach.

Consider the things that he taught, his glorious sermons, his various parables, whether delivered to the multitudes or delivered to his disciples. Never a man speak like this man. He taught with authority. But here's what I want to try to get in your minds. The things that Jesus did paved the way for the things that he taught. He would perform a miracle to get the attention of the people, and then he would teach. And you see that through Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and you can read of our Lord's miracles that he performed. but especially in the book of John.

For instance, last week I preached from John 6. It started off with something the Savior did. What did he do? Do you remember? He fed 5,000 men plus women and children. That's what he did. Well, then on the basis of that, he began to teach, I am the bread of life. I'm the true bread that came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. Eat my flesh, drink my blood, he said.

And that which paved the way, so to speak, for his teaching, was the miracle that got everybody's attention. And then He taught them. But that which He taught them, the vast majority of them didn't want to hear. So they left Him and followed Him no more.

I'll give you another example in John chapter 9. The Savior healed a man of his That's what he did. And a good bit of John chapter 9 deals with that event and all the ramifications, all the results of what happened as a result of what he did. And then the Savior began to teach, and you'll notice that the end of John chapter 9, it just flows right into John chapter 10, where He began to teach, He's the shepherd and we're the sheep. It's what He did opened the way for what He would teach, for what He would have to say. I asked Joe to read that passage of scripture in John chapter 5. What did he do? What did the Savior do?

Well, he went to a pool where people were waiting for the troubling of the water by an angel. Here are all these diseased people, lame people, blind people, deaf people, all sorts of ills, all sorts of problems. And they were waiting to get into the water when the water was troubled by an angel. This man was lame from birth, 38 years. And he waited. And when the angel came, according to the purpose and providence of God, and troubled the water, this man couldn't get into the water to be healed.

And our Savior made his way to that location. It's the Passover. He's in Jerusalem. And he goes there to Bethesda, five porches. He goes there and there's a great multitude. The scripture says, Joe read it a while ago, in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk of blind halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.

And our Savior entered into this situation, into this location. And there was a certain man there, a certain man. He was there by the providence of God. In fact, he was born lame according to the providence of God. This is where our Lord is going to manifest His miraculous ability in healing this man. He's gonna do something. See, that's what we're talking about. He would do things, and then upon that basis, he would teach. So, he healed this man. He saw him, and he knew he'd been there a long time.

Why, Christ is providentially in charge of all things, and he had purposed an old eternity through this, that this man be born lame, couldn't walk. I don't know, maybe he crawled as a baby, but his legs weren't strong enough to support him. He couldn't walk.

And our Lord ordained all of this in order that the Lord Jesus manifest His glory, manifest His deity, manifest His power over disease. Remember, Our Lord, He manifested His power over the devils, the demons, death, destruction, depravity, all of these things. This gives Him, the Savior, an opportunity to not only perform a good work, but infuriate the worksmongers. And he did not back down from this opportunity to sting them and to set them on their edge. And their hellish hatred of him would be vented. They were ready to kill him. They wanted to kill him. And our Lord's in control of all of this as well.

So the miracle paved the way for our Lord to number one, heal this man and manifest his glory. And then it opens the door for our Lord Jesus to teach. That's what I'm trying to drive into your brain. All that he did and all that he taught. And our Lord Jesus, he healed this man and he said, take up your bed and walk. And it was the Sabbath day. And our Lord is showing he was the Lord of the Sabbath. And so the religious leaders began to question this man. who healed you, and he said, a man named Jesus.

And they got upset with our Savior, and they sought to kill him. Verse 16 says, and Joe read this, therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to kill him, to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath day. They're ready to kill the Savior. You get the picture here? They accuse him of violating the Sabbath and they wanna kill him on the Sabbath. That's how crazy these people are. They gonna break the Sabbath themselves because they think he broke the Sabbath, but he didn't break the Sabbath.

He's the Lord of the Sabbath. And He is our rest. I would remind you that the Sabbath day was given to the Jews in the law. That law was not given to Gentiles. We have never been under the Sabbath day law. Our Sabbath is Christ our Savior. He has entered into His rest and we enter into the rest that is in Him. He is our Sabbath. We celebrate no holy days, no religious days. We say you celebrate Christmas, don't you? It's not a holy day. Well, what about Easter? That's not a holy day. Yesterday wasn't a holy day, it was Saturday. Today is Sunday, it's not a holy day. We worship the Holy One who is our Lord Jesus Christ.

But anyway, what this man, what the Savior did for this man opened the way for him to teach, for the Savior to teach. And that which he's going to teach in a in a very unmistakable way, in a very direct way, in a way that He will not be misunderstood. He's going to teach them that He's God. He's going to teach them that He's divine. Now, folks, everything our Savior did upon the cross of Calvary is of value because of who he is.

Now, if he's not God, if he's just a man, if he's merely a man, and I know people say, well, he was a good man. Yeah, well, he was. They say he was a holy man. Oh, he was. But if that's all he was, he couldn't save anybody. and what he sets before these people, these religious blasphemers.

By what he did, he showed his power and opened the way for him to teach of who he is. You see, the very heart and soul of Christianity of truth, the true gospel is who is Jesus of Nazareth? Tell me who he is. Can you show from the word of God? Well, this morning I preached from John chapter one. John the Baptist said he's the lamb of God. John the Baptist said he was the son of God. That's what he said.

And if he isn't the son of God, no matter how nice of a man he was and full of compassion and so forth, he couldn't save anybody. The only one who can save a sinner is God. The only one whose death could satisfy the demands of a holy God He had to be God himself. He had to be man to suffer, to bleed, to die, to endure the wrath of God as the substitute and surety of all the elect entrusted to him in the covenant of grace.

He had to be God and he had to be man too. He's the God man. And there are a lot of religions who will say of Jesus, they'll say he was a great man. Gotta go further than that. He was a holy man. Gotta go further than that. The issue is, when our Lord walked this earth, was he God? God incarnate? And without controversy, verse Timothy three, and without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness. God, God, eternal God, almighty God, sovereign God, God of absolute dominion, God of infinite knowledge, God was manifest in the flesh. I believe that, don't you? I sure do believe that.

But when these Jews, when they heard the Savior say in verse 17, my father worketh hitherto and I work, they sought the more to kill him. These are killing words. This stirred up such a fury within them. that they were ready to put him out of business. We're going to turn the lights out on him. We're going to kill him.

Because not only had he broken the Sabbath, but he said also that God was his father, therefore making himself equal with God. And then he begins to set forth teaching. And the teaching is this. that he's the divine one. He's the son of God. And of course, to the Jews, he was the worst kind of blasphemer when he said he was God. You remember, look over in Matthew. Look at Matthew chapter 26. Matthew 26. Our Lord, he's now appearing before the religious tribunal. Matthew 26, look at verse 60, verse 59.

Now the chief priests and elders and all the council, that's there's the Sanhedrin, they sought false witnesses against Jesus to put him to death, but found none. Yea, though many false witnesses came, yet none were, they found none that sounded like they knew what they were talking about. At last, two false witnesses came forward. They seemed to be fairly reputable. And they said, this fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three days. He said that in John 2, but he's talking about the temple of his body.

And the high priest arose, Caiaphas, and said unto him, Answerest thou nothing? What is it which these witness against thee? But Jesus held his peace. And the high priest answered and said unto him, I adjure thee, I call you to an oath. Now he's got to answer. If he had remained silent here, his silence would have been an admission of guilt. An admission that he had blasphemed.

So he says, I adjure thee legally before this court by the living God that thou tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son of God. Jesus said unto him, thou hast said, you said it. That's what the Savior said, you said it. I am the Son of God. Nevertheless, I'll say this to you. Hereafter shall you see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven.

And then the high priest read his clothes, saying he hath spoken blasphemy." What was the blasphemy? That he was the Son of God and saying, yep, you said it right, I'm the Son of God. What further need have we of witnesses? Behold now, ye have heard his blasphemy. What think ye? And here's the Sanhedrin, these religious leaders, supposedly the most holy men in all of Israel. He says, well, what do you think? What's your verdict?

They said, behold now, verse 66, what thank you they answered and said, he is guilty of death, because he claimed to be God. He claimed to be God. You see, if he wasn't God, he couldn't say. Since he was God and is God, don't ever think that when our Lord Jesus came, he somehow or another laid aside his deity.

There is no division between the Savior's humanity and divinity. He's one. And I know lots of times for the sake of us trying to grasp his sufferings And the reality of his humanity, maybe we try to divide him, but he is indivisible. He is forever wedded to our humanity. He will never lay that aside. There'll never be a divorce. He'll never cease to be man, he'll never cease to be God. All God and all man, the perfect man, the only righteous man who's ever lived. And that righteous man established righteousness for all of his people by his obedience unto death, even the death of the cross.

So here in John 5, they're ready to kill him. And he begins to answer them, John 5. And I just have time to just, I'll just touch on these and you can read it more in depth later. So in verse 19, the Savior says, John 5, 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.

For what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. In other words, the Son of God is so in union with the Father, He does nothing independent of What the Son does, the Father does. What the Father does, the Son does. He's proving His deity. Everything that the Father is, Christ is. Of course, He has His own special person within the Godhead. And there's no confusion of the Father and the Son and the Spirit in the Godhead, but that which one determines to do, all three determine to do, and it cannot be any other way. There is a unity of the Godhead in all the things that happen. This is what our Lord is saying.

In verse 19, here's another proof of His deity. Or verse 20, the father loveth the son and showeth him all things that himself doeth and he will show him greater works than these that you may marvel. And he goes on building and establishing the fact before these Jews who despised him that he's God. He says, In verse 20, he's talking about the knowledge. He has the same knowledge as the Father.

There's no creature capable of understanding and knowing the mind and will and purpose of God in its totality, right? That would be impossible. We, to a degree, understand the will and purpose of God, but not thoroughly. We have just an inkling of understanding.

But our Lord Jesus knows the fullness of the will and the mind of God because He is God Himself. He's one in knowledge with the Father. As the father raises up the dead and quickneth them, even so the son quickneth whom he will. In sovereign rights, the son is equal with the father. It's the fourth proof of this deity, which has been proven in what he did when he went to Bethesda. Hear all these sick folk, if he had asked for a hand raising, how many of you want to be healed? Unless they had a withered arm and couldn't raise it, everybody said, hey, heal me, heal me.

It wasn't a healing service. Our Lord never held a healing service. Those who were healed by His power and by His mercy were then instructed in His truth. And those whom He healed, it's as though He separated them from the mass of sick people, such as this man who had been lame for 38 years. Nobody else was healed.

Because you see the son quickeneth whom he will. He gives physical healing to whom he will. He gives spiritual healing to whom he will. I suspect that some of you, you know by experience what this is. Maybe others in your family, they've heard the same gospel. They don't believe. They're nice folks, you love them, you appreciate them. But they haven't been quickened. How come you've been quickened? Because the son quickeneth whom he will. Quicken is to regenerate.

You've been born of the Spirit and brought to faith in Christ Jesus. You've been gifted with spiritual life. And with that spiritual life came the gift of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord passed over others in your family and called you. That's an instance of the sovereign will and authority of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, when He died on the cross of Calvary, He did not die for everybody. He died for those who were the chosen of God before the foundation of the world, chosen unto salvation. He died for His people, not everybody. Calvary was not an effort to save everybody. It was an accomplishment of redemption of the elect of God.

In verses 22 and 23, in divine honor and worship, he's one with the Father. Verse 22, for the Father judgeth no man, but committeth all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. A friend of mine was talking to two Jehovah's Witnesses, as they call themselves. And he asked them, he said, do y'all worship the Lord Jesus?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Is he God? He is a God. Is he the God over all, blessed forever? Said, no, but he is a God. So you worship him? They said, yes, we worship Jesus. Said, well, why are you worshiping him if he's not the God over all? If he's not divine, if he's not deity, if he's not equal with the Father, you're actually worshiping an idol if Jesus is not God. It's like those people our Lord spoke of, you honor me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. And there are lots of people who honor Jesus with their lips, But they don't know Him, they don't worship Him. You see, honor is due to the Lord Jesus Christ because He's God. We worship Him as God.

He's one in divine honor and worship with the Father. And He's one in imparting spiritual life with the Father. Those who hear His Word live by that Word. And then he goes down, and I've gotta hurry, because my time's about gone, but in verse 27, and the Father has given him authority to execute judgment also, because he's the Son of Man. All judgment has been given to the Son of Man, who honored the Father by his substitutionary death upon the cross of Calvary. That's the reason it's worded this way, because he's the Son of Man.

Who is this one who honored God? Who is this one who died on the cross? Who is this one who came back from the dead? Well, he's the son of man. He is that. And he loved to use that title. And at the same time, he's the son of God. And this is what infuriated the Jews, his claim to deity. So make sure you understand, if he's not worshipped as God, he's not worshipped at all. And that which validated and gives value to his life and to his death is the fact that he's God. and God can't fail. He's one with the Father in salvation.

And within the Godhead, and we begin to talk about the Godhead and the Trinity, we're in deep water then. We're in waters that we can't comprehend. He who denies the Trinity is a fool, and Brother Mahan said he who tries to explain the deity is also a fool. We believe that which we cannot explain.

But you will worship Him as the God-man, or you will perish in your sins, because He's the only Savior there is. So what I want you to do, and you know, I would challenge you when you get home tonight, maybe, or some other time, Go through and read about the miracles that our Lord did in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And so often, not in every instance, but so often, it's what He did that is mentioned first. And then what He taught, His instruction is based upon that. He got people's attention. This was, by the way, this idea of speaking in other languages, speaking in tongues, got the attention of people. And then the disciples preached the truth. What he did, all that he did, opened the way for all that he taught. And there's a wealth of material that he taught We're still learning by bits and pieces. As Isaiah said, here a little, there a little. Line upon line, precept upon precept. All that Jesus began both to do and to teach. Well, let's get those black folders out again and turn to number 17. Number 17.