John 3:31-36 (The Supreme Christ)

The Shepherd's Church

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So we've said each and every single week, the purpose of John's gospel, so that you would believe, so that you would believe and have life in Jesus's name.

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John 20 31 says it like this. This is the purpose statement for the gospel. These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the son of the living God, and that by believing in him, you may have life in his name. Anytime in the

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Bible, you see the words so that you were talking about a logical order of how things happen.

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These things occur so that other things can occur. John has written truth in the word of God.

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John has written facts about who Jesus Christ is in the word of God. And if you believe those things, then you will have life.

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You don't have life in order to get truth. You're not trying to perform and become a good

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Christian so that you can have life. You have life because you've believed in the truth of the word of God. John doesn't say you must believe in order to have truth or you must live a good life in order to have truth.

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John says that truth has come in the person of Jesus Christ. Truth comes first in the gospel of John, actually.

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Truth has been written so that you and I can believe. The chain reaction of the gospel of John is truth, then belief, and then life.

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And we can't mix up that order. Truth, then belief, and then life. That's the order of the gospel of John.

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Now, is it any wonder then if truth comes first? It comes before the so that.

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Is it any wonder that John begins his gospel with the most concentrated dose of truth that has probably ever been written in the

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Johannan prologue, John 1, 1 through 18? It is an exploration of Christ centric truth.

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That just means Christ centered reality. And these things must be believed if we are going to have life in Jesus's name.

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If these things have been written so that you will believe, that lets us know that there are essential truths that must be believed if we're going to have life.

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And John 1 sets out some of the most essential doctrines of the

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Bible, that if they are believed, you will have life in his name. And if they are rejected, you will be condemned.

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What are these essential doctrines that we find in John 1? This is a little bit of a refresher, and I'm doing this on purpose because this is a unit.

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John 1 through 3 is a contained unit, and we're closing it out today. So I want us to end where we began with truth.

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What are the truths we learn in John 1? That Jesus Christ is eternal, that he's divine, that he's co -equal with the father, yet he's also distinct in his person.

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That he's truly God, but also in his incarnation, he is also truly man. That he's the only one who brings salvation to sinful human beings.

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He's the only one who could make payment for our sins. He's the true lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice. And yet he's the one who came down and dwelt among us as the true temple of God.

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He's the only one who can bring light to darken man, and he alone can save sinners.

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It's an exclusive salvation. It's through Christ and Christ alone. We see in John 1 that he's also the creator of the cosmos, but yet he's the humble babe who entered through the virgin's womb into a backwater town like Bethlehem in order to save his people.

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He wrote himself into his own creation. These are crucial and eternally important truths that we must believe if we're going to have life in Jesus's name.

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If we don't believe those truths, we believe in a false Christ. If you reject those truths in your carnality and your flesh, you will be condemned.

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Whether you're sincere or not, whether you're passionate or not, whether you're religious or not, you can be sincerely wrong and be on the wrong side of eternity when it comes to truth about Christ.

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Almost every single heresy in the Christian church began with the perversion of John chapter one.

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Almost every one. For instance, the Jehovah's Witnesses, which is just a rebranded version of ancient

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Arianism, which says that Jesus was just a created being. If Jesus was just a created being, he is not

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God. And if he is not God, you have no life in his name. It's an important, eternally significant truth.

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There's others like the Mormons today that say Jesus is God, but he's somehow less than God. He's not equal to God.

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That is false. That's a false Christ and false Christ do not save.

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Some like the Gnostics believe that Jesus was not fully human because humanity is sinful and the flesh is evil.

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So Jesus wasn't truly human and to believe that you have a false Christ. Jesus could not stand in our place if he wasn't truly man.

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He's fully God, meaning he's powerful enough to save us. He's truly man, meaning he could, in fact, stand in our place.

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There's many in this region, especially called the Unitarians that believe that God is one God and one person.

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The Bible does not say that. The Bible says that our God is one God and three persons. If you believe that, then you've believed a false

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God. It's eternally significant. There's some like the Modalists who say that God is one

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God and he switches forms so that when Jesus came to earth, it was the father coming as the son.

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And when he ascended and lives in the hearts of believers, it's the father and the son coming as the spirit, but they're not one

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God and three persons. To believe that is to be an error. And I believe it's to accept a damning faith, not a salvific faith.

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There's some like the Universalists. There's a lady who lives down the street from me who's a Presbyterian, a

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USA pastor who believes that all roads lead to God. She preaches in her church every Sunday, whether we agree with that part or not, she preaches in her church that you can go any possible way to God.

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That if you're a Buddhist and you're sincere, then you can get to God. If you're an atheist and you're sincere, you can get to God. That's false.

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There is one way to God and that's through Jesus Christ. That's it. Doctrine is critical.

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Even though in modern evangelicalism, doctrine is a term that we often like to yawn at.

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And we often feel like that it's a boring thing to understand doctrine. If you get these doctrines wrong, you're not saved.

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Doctrine is important. Heaven and hell lie in the balance between just a few critical doctrines.

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John one begins with truth that we must believe in order to have a relationship with God.

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Truth comes first. Well, John three closes out this section,

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John three 31 through 36. And John again writes a concentrated dose of truth for you and I.

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He begins with truth and he ends this section with truth. But what I find fascinating about this section is that John is not writing this necessarily and only so that you'll have faith.

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After talking to Nicodemus, after sharing John three 16 and some of those other glorious truths, this truth is written so that you will have joy.

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This truth is written for Christians so that you will know how to live a joyful, fulfilled and full life knowing who

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Christ is. If you know who Christ is in this passage, it will set you free to be the most joyful person on planet earth.

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I said online yesterday that if comfort is your God, then 2020 will be the worst possible year of your life.

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But if Jesus Christ and the triune God is your God, you can have joy. And the truth that we're going to share today is going to help us understand how.

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So we're going to be in John three 31 through 36. I'm going to pray and then we'll read these glorious words together.

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Holy spirit, I pray that you would reveal the importance and the significance of these texts.

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Holy spirit, I pray that you would excite our hearts. Holy spirit,

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I pray that if we are the kind of people who are prone to moderation, that Lord, we would, we would feel praise and a little bit of excess over this passage.

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Lord, I pray that we would, that we would approach this like a heavenly banquet, a feast that shows us the beauty and the majesty of Christ.

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Lord, I believe that you did not only die just so that we could raise our hand and go to heaven.

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You died so that we could see you as the most glorious and beautiful being in all of the universe, that we could find you all satisfying, that you could be and will be the source of our greatest joy.

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Lord, we are not saved just to go to heaven. We are saved so that we can eternally be with the one that we love most.

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And that is you, Christ. Lord, help us even today to get a glimpse of just how beautiful you are.

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It's in your name we pray. Amen. Turn with me as we read john 3 31 through 36.

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John, the gospel writer, says this, he who comes from above is above all and he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth.

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He who comes from heaven is above all what he has seen and heard of that.

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He testifies and no one receives his testimony, but he who has received his testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true for he whom

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God has sent speaks the words of God for he gives the spirit without measure.

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The father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. He who believes in the son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

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Today, we're going to look at one point in seven sub points. I had to work in at least some biblical number there.

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One point, the supremacy of Jesus Christ, but we're going to look at it from seven different angles. The first we're going to cover it more generally.

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Jesus Christ is supreme. It means that he's above all. He's higher than all. He's greater than all.

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He's better than all. He is supreme. John says, he who comes from above is above all, which is what

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John is saying. What the Christ that John is putting before us is a supreme Christ who's infinitely more worthy than anything that we could ever imagine.

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The word all has no limits. He is above all. We think about supremacy.

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There's a lot of different images probably that could come to your mind, but what

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I want you to hear is that Jesus Christ is supreme. And what that means is that he exists as the one who is totally superior to all others in power, authority, and status.

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He has limitless authority. He has boundless power, and he has unrivaled status.

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We do not believe in a weak Christ. We do not believe, and we are not saved by an impotent savior.

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We were not born again by a frail Christ or weak Christ or a fun loving Christ who sits in heaven eternally consumed and infatuated with us.

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We serve a Christ who gives ultimate glory to God, who God beloves more than anything, and who is totally supreme.

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You and I are born again to a supreme Christ who has all authority in heaven and on earth. And in this text he has all wrath at his disposal because the father who loves him has entrusted everything into his hands.

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You know when we think about a limitless Christ we think about the fact that he's the one who's master and we're the ones who slaves and there's not a single area of our life that he is not supreme over.

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We live differently than that, don't we? We live like we're supreme and that Christ is an addition to our life that we we bring along with us.

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He's the one who's going to punch our ticket to heaven. But yet if we understand his supremacy, we'll know that there's not a single

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Adam in the universe that he does not look at and say, mine. It affects every aspect of our life.

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There is no such thing as a sacred and secular divide. There is not the holy parts of your life and then the unholy parts of your life.

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There's not the sacred parts and the secular parts. Jesus Christ is supreme over all of it and he's supreme over our individual existence.

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Because of the fact that we've been made in the image of God, we have significance as human beings.

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We have status, we have propensities towards thought and power and we have sacredness.

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We've been endowed with sacredness, therefore it's wrong to kill another human being. But if you think about the value that we have versus the infinite value of Christ, you have to understand that his life is the most precious life conceivable, maximally supreme.

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I was thinking about it this way this week. If we're thinking about Christ's life is more supreme than anything else, more supreme than us, you think about it as value.

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If you and I could live a perfect life from beginning to end and we could be our own savior and Lord, there is no possible way.

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But if it were possible, we could amass for ourselves enough value to save ourselves at the end of our life.

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Not so with Christ. Christ and his infinite worth died on the cross and he saved billions and he didn't have to borrow from heaven's banks and he didn't have to take out a loan or go on credit.

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Christ could have paid for everyone that he paid for a million billion times because when you have an infinite sum of something you cannot ever be exhausted.

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Christ is infinitely supreme, infinitely valuable. And if you and I have been purchased by an infinite

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Christ, bought and paid for, we are his possessions. He has every right to tell us how to live our life.

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He has every right to tell us what we ought to do with them because we are his. If you think about it, it's the supreme offense to look at a

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God who is infinite and supreme and say, no, I'm going to do my way and not yours. I heard someone call that cosmic treason.

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It's even worse than that. It's cosmic treason on an infinite level. So if Christ really is supreme, then all of our life must come into submission to him.

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And this is not legalism. Legalism says you must obey in order to be saved.

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What we're saying is that you are saved by the work of Christ. Now, therefore, because of what he's done, obey, joyfully obey.

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He's supreme over every facet of our life. He's supreme over our families. There's no husband who's a

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Christian who can rightly say that my bride means more to me than Christ or my husband means more to me than Christ.

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You might say that, but that's an error. If Christ is supreme, he's more valuable than any relationship in your life.

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He's more valuable than the children in your life. Their schedules, their schools, their sports, none of that could ever possibly rise to the level of being equal to Christ.

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He's supreme over our Christianity. Since he did everything to purchase us and we did nothing to save ourselves, there's nothing he cannot ask of us.

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Now, you may be living in fear or guilt or shame and the

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Lord may be asking you to do something and you may be saying no, but if he's supreme and he's the one who's calling you, he's the one who's going to equip you.

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He's supreme over our calendars, even though our calendars often tell a different story. You know, we sometimes say,

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I just don't have enough time in my life, but yet we've made every decision on how to fill our life. We've made decisions as if our lives and our calendars are more valuable than Christ.

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Our families are more precious than Christ. Our schedules are more pressing than Christ. Oftentimes, I know

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I do this as well. I take an inventory of my life and I say, I haven't spent that much time with Christ, but I've done a lot of Netflix or I've done a lot of everything else.

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He's supreme over our possessions. If you think about it, everything that we own is just the product of future garage sales and dumps.

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The stuff that we collect and amass now are going to be the reason our children are frustrated at us when we're dead on what they're going to do with all of this crap.

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And yet those are the things that we cling to and we want to give us joy. Our cars, our houses, our jobs, those things can't give you joy.

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Those things take from you. These things are distractions, especially in consideration of a supreme and perfect Christ.

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Jesus says these things are from below. He's not saying that they're evil. It's not a sin to have a house.

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It's not a sin to have a husband, a wife, a family, a job, a calendar, none of that. But he's saying that there's something that's better than that.

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There's something that's supreme over that. And if we live our lives with the supremacy of Christ in mind, we'll have joy.

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We'll have joy every day, every step, no matter what happens to us. Think about Paul. Paul in a prison cell at the end of his life says,

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I've learned the secret of being content. Earlier in the book, he says, why? Because to live is Christ.

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To die is gain. If we start and if we begin to understand that every facet of our life falls under the supremacy of Christ and we'll have joy.

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We won't look for our spouse to satisfy us or make us significant or anything else. We won't look for that relationship to bring us joy.

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We won't look for the election or the nation or the world or everything that's going on in society to bring us joy.

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We will look to the risen Christ and we will say that he is enough. He's enough for me in this season.

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He's enough for me when I'm depressed. He's enough for me when I'm anxious. He's enough for me when I'm trying to find my happiness and everything else.

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Christ is enough. And for the Christian, he is more than enough. He is everything.

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All these things get in the way of us enjoying Christ and I'm bringing them up because I don't want you to live with misdirected affections.

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I don't want you to live in love with things that aren't going to bring you joy and peace and hope. I don't want you to live with things that are not ultimate becoming ultimate to you.

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I want Christ to be ultimate to you. I want Christ to be supreme to you. Your life, your family, your job, your situations, the state of the world, all those things are things you steward, but they are not

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Christ. I want you to be connected to the fount of living waters that never runs dry.

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I want you to be connected to the well that always has a supply. I want you to be connected to the living

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Christ so that you never are in despair. You never lose hope.

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He's supreme over all of those things. He's supreme over our finances. If we're talking about the areas of our life, he's supreme over our wallets.

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He has entrusted us a measure of wealth in order to live and serve him.

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Some of us have been entrusted with less and that's okay. If you think about it,

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Christ who made every atom in the universe made the paper. He made the trees that make the paper that make our currency.

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He made the nickel that becomes our coins. Everything is his. When we white knuckle our finances, we're saying to God, no, this is mine.

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Nothing is really ours. Nothing. Everything has been given to us as a gift.

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Everything has been given for us in order to steward. Abraham Kuyper, I alluded to this quote earlier.

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He said it like this. There is not one square inch in all of the universe over which

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Christ who is Lord over all does not say mine. All of it.

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So if he calls you to give to a church, give. Give joyfully. If he calls you to give to a missionary who's going to go and take the gospel to some part of the world that you've never seen or heard, give generously, give joyfully.

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If he calls you to adopt a child and to bring that child into your home, but you're worried about your finances, don't. If God called it and if it's

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God's will, then it's God's bill and he's going to take care of it. Matthew 633 says, seek first the kingdom of God.

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Seek first the kingdom of God in every facet of your life and everything that you need will be given to you. I've learned this lesson so many times, at least when it comes to finances.

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When we decided to plant this church, we had no job, no promise of income.

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We just had the calling of God. And I was fearful.

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I was terrified. I was afraid I was going to lose relationships. I was afraid

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I was going to not be able to pay for my family to eat. I was afraid that we were going to have to sell our house and that we were going to have to move to Wyoming or somewhere.

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And yet every step of the way the Lord has provided every step. I believe in my life that the moments that I've seen

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God move most is when I trusted him most, not recklessly. But if God has laid something on your mind, he is supreme and he will help you accomplish it.

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Don't live in fear. Don't be afraid. Don't live in anxiety. If God has put that on your heart, then do it and watch because he will supply your every need.

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He may not give you everything that you want. You're not going to get Bentleys and Ferraris and and custom streamliner jets.

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I don't think. But what you will get is what you need because Christ is supreme.

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He's supreme over our entertainment. He's more interesting than our shows on Netflix infinitely more.

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If Christ really is infinite, it means he cannot ever be exhausted. Heaven is going to be incredible, at least for one reason, because every day you're going to be able to find out something new about Christ that is going to thrill you until your toes curl.

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And then the next day it's going to be the same thing and then the same thing and then the same thing because he cannot be exhausted.

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These earthly trivial things that we bound ourselves to are from below.

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They're not from above. It's not to say that we can't watch TV by no means. It is to say that if Christ is

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Lord over our life, he gets to say how we spend our time. He gets a right toe to give us convictions on what we put before our eyes and what we put inside of our ears on the radio.

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Christ, who is Lord of all who has purchased us for himself, gets to say what we do.

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And if we're obedient, we will listen. And if we're obedient, we will have joy again, not legalism.

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C. S. Lewis is a great writer. He said it like this. We're half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us with infinite joy.

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Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is offered to him with a holiday at the sea.

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We are far too easily pleased. Our affections are far too easily satisfied when infinite joy is offered to us in Jesus Christ.

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He's supreme over our mental life, meaning there is no higher thought that we can think he's supreme over our emotional life, meaning even on our darkest days when we're tempted to sit in oversized pajamas, eating

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Ben and Jerry's, watching Netflix, that he's supreme even then and that he is satisfying.

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Even then I find personally in my own life, the reason that I'm not satisfied is because I don't take the time just to think about how beautiful and how wonderful he is.

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I live my life so mentally lazy at times that I sit in my frustrations. I sit in my depression.

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There's something that I'm gaining out of it and I don't know what it is because I could be gaining Christ. When I look out at the world that we live in today, it's easy to be frustrated.

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It's easy to think, my gosh, Lord, what are you doing?

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And yet this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Today, God is sovereign.

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He knows what's happening in the world and he knows that we can have joy if we just will get to know him.

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He's supreme over our past so that there's nothing in your past that can keep you separated from God if you're in Christ Jesus.

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Nothing. He's supreme over our present, meaning there's nothing today that can actually rob you of the joy that you want to have in Christ except you.

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He's supreme over our future, meaning there's nothing coming that can separate you from the love of Christ.

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He's supreme over this church. He's supreme over the election. He's supreme over everything. Isn't that why

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John the Baptist ended his speech by saying he must become greater and I must become less?

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Why? It was for his joy, not legalism. Think about John the

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Baptist's disciples. They were angry, they were frustrated, and they were miserable because they were trying to become greater so that Christ could become less.

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John was free. John had joy. And the reason is because he knew the pattern.

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Christ must become greater. I must become less in every facet of my life. Christ is supreme.

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That's the first point. All these points aren't this long. That was the longest one. I just want to give you an idea. We're not going to be here for two hours.

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I wanted to lay a foundation for the supremacy of Christ. It affects every facet of our life.

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Amen. The next point is that Jesus's testimony is supreme.

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It says in verse 31 and 32, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth.

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But he who comes from heaven is above all. What he has seen and heard, he testifies.

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What this is saying is that Jesus Christ has existed eternally in heaven, having conversations with the father so that when

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Jesus comes down to earth, he only ever speaks the words of God. When you read in scripture what

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Jesus says, it is in fact the very words of God. And those words are supreme.

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And those words are good. And those words are beautiful. And those words are for our joy. And I'm going to connect this point with the next point because they work together.

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His word is also supreme because the temptation that I've seen in modern day Christianity is to look at the red letters in the

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Bible and to say that is the word of God. But to look at Paul and to say, Paul is inferior to the words of Christ or that Moses is inferior to the words of Christ.

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But if Jesus always and only ever spoke from the spirit and it's the same spirit who authored the text, then all 66 books are the word of God.

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Every verse between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22 is the very words of God.

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The book, the Bible that we hold in our hands is God's revelation to us. And it is a good revelation.

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And it is a sufficient revelation. And it is for our joy so that we can know the supremacy of Christ so that we can have life in his name.

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John MacArthur recently said it like this. They asked him, what are the essentials of our faith?

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And we talked about a few of those already. And John MacArthur said, there's one doctrine that rises above all the rest.

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I'm paraphrasing a little bit. It's not salvation. It's not the incarnation.

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It's the doctrine of the word of God. Because if you don't have a truthful

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Bible, then you can't know God. If you don't have a Bible that is without error, then how could you ever trust what it says about salvation?

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If you don't have a sufficient word, how is it any good for you when life kicks you in the teeth?

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The doctrine of the word of God is the most important doctrine in all of Christianity and is the one that the enemy attacks the strongest.

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To avoid his word as a Christian would be like to not take medicine being an epileptic.

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Your life will shake out of control. Well, if you're a Christian and you know, avoid the word of God, your soul will be shaken out of control when it could be anchored to something permanent, substantial in the word of God.

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It's like refusing water in the middle of a desert when you have gallons at your exposal. Again, to avoid the word is dangerous because the world, the flesh, and the devil are all at war with the word of God.

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Ever since God said it was good, there's been a war on truth. The very first attack was, did

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God really say? And that's been the attack ever since by the enemy. Did God really say there's only two genders?

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Did God really say that life begins in the womb? Did God really say that marriage is between a man and a woman? Did God really say?

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Yes, he did. And it's a sufficient and true word. Have you noticed that your flesh also is a great enemy of the word of God?

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You wake up in the morning and you say, ah, I'm so tired. My eyes hurt.

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My breath stinks, whatever it is. And then you skip the word. You say,

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I'll do it tomorrow. And you don't. Or you say, I can't understand it.

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Or you say that it's not that interesting to me. And we avoid that which would bring us the greatest joy and the greatest life because our flesh, along with the enemy, attacks the word of God.

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The world attacks the word of God. Look at our culture. We live in a truthless culture right now that attacks every single premise of the word of God.

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No book in all of human history has been attacked like this one. No cadre of scholars have ever quibbled over minutia of detail in order to disprove it.

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Because in this book is life. In this book, we learn about Christ, who is the light of men.

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And we also learn that men hate the light and they love the darkness. We got to cling to this word in a truthless culture if we want to have joy.

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If we don't, we're being like a boat adrift in the middle of the ocean. We're tossed to and fro by every wave, by every wind of doctrine.

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If we want to have joy as the people of God, we got to be anchored to the word of God. We got to defy our flesh, defy the world, defy the devil, spend less time on Facebook and start getting our face in the book and understand who

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God is because that is what's going to bring us joy. That's the third point.

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He has supreme testimony and he has a supreme word that will address every aspect of our life.

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The next point is that his salvation is supreme. I love how

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John does this here because on the one hand, I don't know if you noticed this when we're reading through it earlier, he says, verse 32, no one receives his testimony.

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That means no one. But then in verse 33, he says, he who has received his testimony.

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John, what are you talking about? If we understand the rest of John three, we understand what he's talking about.

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John three is went to great lengths to say that human beings, their own power and their own strength are incapable of knowing

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God. Human beings must be born again because we're born from below. Human beings must be given the spirit of God through the electing and saving work of Jesus Christ, or we won't know him.

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No one is going to receive his testimony. We're all too finite. But yet if God, by his sheer grace alone, gives you light and awakens your heart, that is when you will receive his testimony.

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That is when you will receive his word. That is when you will receive his joy. That is when the spirit of God will come in you and will make you alive.

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If you're trying to save yourself, if you're trying to do it on your own, if you're trying to understand God's word without the spirit of God, it's a futile, foolish effort.

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The salvation that Christ brings is supreme. We can't reach up and grab it, but when we've got it, it'll never let us go.

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It's supreme. Your situations can't take your salvation away from you. If Christ has earned it, Christ won't lose it.

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He says in John 10 that all whom the father had given me are mine and none of them will be taken out of my hand.

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Do you believe that? One of the things that I've heard so many Christians struggle with is assurance that they're actually saved.

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Assurance that that one time that I sinned and I did that thing that I'm still carrying guilt from, that's not going to separate me from God.

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Or that habit that I have that I can't quite shake, that's going to damn me and it's going to condemn me before God.

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Romans 8 1 says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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That's why we got to understand the word, because Christ and the salvation that he offered is supreme. It covered all your sins.

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If it could cover murderers like Paul, if it could cover doubters like Jeremiah, if it could cover adulterers like David, it can cover us.

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It is a supreme salvation. And I think that the Lord wants us to have confidence in our salvation because it was offered to us by a supreme

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Christ. That's the fourth point. John continues on, he says, for he whom

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God has sent speaks the word of God for he gives the spirit without measure.

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And I'll also say that not only is his word supreme and his salvation supreme, his spirit is supreme.

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Now there's two ways to interpret this passage and I want to unpack those for you right now because it's a very misunderstood passage.

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You can understand it the first way that we, God's people, get the spirit without measure.

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Or you can understand it the second way that God poured out the spirit on Christ without measure.

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It depends on this thing called a pronoun and an antecedent. You see, it says for he whom

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God has sent speaks the words of God, but he who gives the spirit without measure. Who is he referring to?

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If he is referring to Jesus Christ, then Jesus gives the spirit to us without measure, without limit infinitely.

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If he is referring to God, then God the father gives the spirit to Christ without measure. And there's a difference in the way that we understand that.

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I believe that this is talking about God pouring out the spirit onto Christ because none of us exist with limitless access to the spirit of God.

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It says Jesus only speaks the word of God. Jesus only thinks the thoughts of God. Jesus only does the actions of God.

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On the car ride here this morning, there were some thoughts that were not from God in your heart. Last night there were some actions, probably, that were not authored by God in your heart.

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We do not receive limitless supply of the spirit. In fact, the Bible says in Ephesians 4, 7 that to each of us is given a portion by Christ.

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You see, what we're looking at here is that God poured out an infinite supply of his spirit onto Christ and his humanity so that he could live and move and do the mission of God so that when he now saves us, he will have an infinite supply of the spirit to share with us.

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Mathematicians who work in the realm of the infinite will say things like this. If you have an infinite amount of something and you try to give an infinite amount away, how much is left?

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An infinite amount. If Christ has the spirit without measure, then he can give you and I the spirit.

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There's not a single Christian who lives and who exists who doesn't have the spirit of God because Christ has chosen to share with us his spirit, to point us to truth, to point us to righteousness, to make our affections love

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Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has the spirit without measure so that he can share the spirit again with us.

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Praise God that we have a supreme Christ. Praise God that we're not like the

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Israelites wandering around in the wilderness without direction and without hope. We have a spirit, an able paraclete, an able helper, an able guide who is with us every moment of our day.

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His spirit is supreme. The passage is that his lordship is supreme.

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His lordship is supreme. It says the father loves the son and gives everything over to his hand. That means everything is in Christ's authority and control.

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Now we've already said this a little bit, but I want to reiterate this because the father loves Jesus so much that he gave him everything.

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That means your life is in Jesus's hands. That means your death is in Jesus's hands.

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That means your family is in Jesus's hands. That means your salvation is in Jesus's hands.

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For him to be Lord means that he is ruler. For him to be master means that we are his slaves.

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You know, I think about it this way. If I were to say that I'm Lord over my house in an earthly sense,

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I could make that statement because I'm master over my house. I negotiated the terms with the bank. I paid the amount that they asked me to pay, and now

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I get to mow my yard when I want. I get to paint a wall if I want, and I get to leave it half painted for six months because I don't have time to do it.

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I get to make those decisions. Well, if Christ is Lord over his people, then he negotiated the terms for our redemption.

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He paid the full price, and if that's true, then he has the right to our life.

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He owns it, and think about it. We were the ones who left our life in dilapidated condition.

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If you ever walked up on a house where walls were missing, where it was getting ready to fall and cave in on itself, that's what we did to our life and our sin, and yet because of Christ and his grace, he came in, and he began changing us, and he began shaping us, and he began moving inside of us so that we love truth and that we love him.

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Christ is Lord, supreme Lord over all of these things. Again, I think this is why

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John ends his discussion, John the Baptist, with Jesus Christ must increase.

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He must because if you think about it, there's no greater enemy in your life than you. You're the one who does the most damage to you.

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You're the one who lies to you the most. You're the one who mistreats you the most. You're the one who causes division, causes chaos in your life.

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Given a hundred years, you would still make poor decisions that end up harming you and hurting you.

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Not so with Christ. He's Lord, says everything he does for our good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

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It may not always feel good, but it's always good. Christ is perfect, supreme

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Lord. Now, I want us to finish our time today because John just stacked the deck, six different things to demonstrate the supremacy of Christ.

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And if you're a Christian here today, these truths should not intimidate you. And these truths should not frustrate you.

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And these truths should not confuse you. These truths should be a banquet for your soul. To know that Christ is limitless should thrill your heart.

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It should cause you to be enraptured with joy. It should cause you in your weakest moments to look at your plight and say,

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I can't handle this, but I know Christ can. To know who he is should thrill our hearts, but at the end of the matter, his supremacy also can be the greatest threat as well.

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This is how John ends the section. He says, he who believes in the son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.

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Think about the dichotomy there. He who believes these truths about Christ will have eternal life.

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If you don't believe, then you have to save yourself through your obedience. Think about how that would be.

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One sin will separate you from Christ for all of eternity. So if you've ever lied, the eternal abiding wrath of God will be on you.

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If you've ever cheated, even in a game of Monopoly, the eternal and abiding wrath of God will be on you.

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If you've ever stolen, even if it's just on downloading a song that doesn't belong to you, the eternal wrath of God will be placed on you.

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In order to save yourself, you have to be perfect. And that's the standard that will be held, that you will be held to unless you believe these truths about Jesus Christ.

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It's foolishness to try to save yourself. There's no hope in that.

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My hope and my prayer is that two things would happen. If you're not a

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Christian, if you're struggling with what that means, I pray that you would not stand in your own strength for a moment longer.

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You're not guaranteed the next second. A weak heart can fail in a moment. A drunk driver can take you out in an instant.

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You're not guaranteed another moment. And I don't want you to experience the fierce supremacy of Christ and God's wrath poured out on you for all of eternity, especially when you could have heard the message of the gospel and repented.

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The other thing I want to happen, though, is if you're a Christian, I want this doctrine to be a balm to your soul.

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I want this doctrine to be a joy for your ears because we don't have to have it all figured out.

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Christ does. And we can praise him and we can worship him because he is supreme. Let's pray.

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Lord Jesus, I thank you that my mind can't even contemplate and figure out and wrap my brain around how infinite you are.

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Lord, I thank you that I can't even imagine just how powerful you are. Lord, I thank you that I in my life and our life as people who are

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Christians in this room is being held in your hands, your firm and capable hands.

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And it's no result of our works. None of us can boast. Except that we boast in Jesus Christ.

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Lord, I pray that we would take these truths and that they would excite our hearts. Lord, I pray that we would look to you and that we would worship you and that we would praise you and we would stop looking to our circumstances.

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We would stop looking to our relationships. We would stop looking to our finances and entertainment and everything else to bring us joy and that Lord, we would be the most joyful people that exists today because we understand that you are supreme over all things, that you must be greater and we must be less.

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Lord, I beg you and pray that we would understand that and that we would live that way and that Lord revival would break out in this country because of things just like this.

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And Lord, I pray for anyone who does not yet know you, that they would feel the weight of how incapable they are to obey you perfectly and how foolish it would even be to try.

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And Lord, I pray that you would speak to them and give them new birth and new life so that they can run to you and cling to you for salvation.