Active Obedience - [John 17:4-8]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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July 21, 2019

00:01: Self -evaluation is a tricky thing. It's really tricky when you're going to be reviewed by others, of course, you know, when your self -evaluation is going to be looked at by others.
00:12: But did you ever think that you're really doing well, only to find out that maybe you weren't doing so well?
00:18: I picked up a few things from the Internet. I just thought they were entertaining.
00:24: Now, I'm not going to vouch for their veracity. I'm just going to tell you this. You know, when you see like a top 10 or a top 12 list, you automatically presume that all these things happen.
00:34: I'm not really convinced totally that they happen, but I'll let you decide. I mean,
00:42: I thought, well, I could be biblical. I could use Peter as a matter of self -evaluation, you know, and his pride and everything, but that's easy.
00:49: Let's do something harder. So here's one. A woman takes her daughters, including a little infant, probably she looked like she was about two months old in the picture, to the zoo, and she thinks things are going great.
01:04: All the kids are having fun, and another woman comes by and says, oh, by the way, there's a lemur on top of your baby there, right there in the stroller, and they showed a picture of it.
01:16: Now, again, you know, it could be Photoshop. I don't know, but I thought self -evaluation. Things are going well.
01:22: Well, not so well. I've got a wild animal on top of my baby. Here's another one.
01:29: I don't know why I'm picking on mom, so let's just say it's a dad. A dad somehow confused a few events on the school calendar, and so he thought it was picture day.
01:44: Turned out it was pajama day. Sent his son to school in the
01:50: SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas, and so that is the school picture, picture of the child in his
01:56: SpongeBob SquarePants PJs. That's a parenting fail right there, in case you were wondering.
02:07: But if we're evaluating ourselves, none of us could really claim perfection, and if we did, if anybody here said, you know what,
02:13: I think I'm perfect, well, I'd have to say you're lying, right? But when
02:19: Jesus essentially prays in John 17, mission accomplished, I've done everything that I'm supposed to do.
02:26: Well, he's not only not lying, and he's not exaggerating, and he's not bragging, he's just reporting the truth to his father.
02:35: Let's turn to John 17, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 8 to just kind of fully fill in the context.
02:42: John 17, verses 1 to 8, and we're going to be focused on 4 through 8 this morning.
02:53: When he had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.
03:01: Glorify your son that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
03:12: And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true
03:18: God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
03:28: And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
03:38: I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
03:52: Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
03:58: For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.
04:13: Now, last week, we began chapter 17, the High Priestly Prayer, and the chapter can be broken down this way.
04:22: In verses 1 to 5, Jesus prays for himself. In verses 6 through 19, he prays for the 11 disciples that remain.
04:31: And then in the rest of the chapter, he prays, which I think is really going to be great, he prays for us, for those who come to faith as a result of the work of the apostles.
04:44: Last week, we looked at the covenant of redemption, because it is clear that this prayer of our
04:49: Lord, in it, much of what he's praying about is connected to an agreement between the
04:56: Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that occurred before the world existed, before any person was born, before Adam was even created.
05:07: And in that agreement, the Father chose those who would be saved, the
05:13: Son redeemed them, and the Holy Spirit sealed them, as we went through Ephesians 1, and we even looked at Philippians 2.
05:22: And here's the important principle that I want to just underscore. The Trinity, Father, Son, Spirit, always work in perfect harmony with each other, always.
05:36: And we also saw the consistency of John, the apostle, that only those chosen by the
05:43: Father come to the Son, and that is true throughout the gospel of John. And finally, we saw the definition of eternal life.
05:56: And really, it's an exclusive one. It is offensive to the ears of the world, because there's only one way to be saved, to have eternal life, and that's by knowing the
06:08: Father and the Son. And this is not a casual knowing, but placing one's complete hope and trust and confidence in Christ, because He is the only way to know the
06:21: Father. No one can know Jesus without knowing the
06:26: Father. No one can know the Father without knowing Jesus. And no one can know the
06:31: Father and the Son and be the same. In fact, D. A. Carson wrote this. He said, to know God is to be transformed and thus introduced to a life that could not otherwise be experienced.
06:42: In other words, the Christian life is different than the worldly life.
06:50: Now, this morning, we're going to look at a portion of our Lord's High Priestly Prayer. Specifically, we're going to look at verses 4 to 8, and we're going to see
06:58: His works and His words highlighted for us, what He did and what
07:03: He said. I've broken it down this way. The first, the longest section, of course, because the first point seems to be the longest most of the time, is going to be the works of Christ.
07:16: Second part, the words of Christ. And the third part really is a word of warning, and it's not really drawn from our text, but I wanted to kind of bring it in.
07:26: We're going to talk for a moment about hell, and I have a specific reason for doing that.
07:33: But my hope is that you will be encouraged at what the perfect obedience of Jesus means to you.
07:40: I want you to be encouraged by it, and I also want you to understand this about, as I say, you know,
07:47: I think I entitled it active obedience, because what we'll see is Jesus actively obeying the
07:53: Father. But this is not a comprehensive review of everything that He did during His life.
07:58: This is just the emphasis from chapter 17. So, with that said, our first point, the works of Jesus, the works of Jesus.
08:09: In fact, really, we have a self -evaluation, right? I hinted at that in the opening. A self -evaluation,
08:15: Jesus evaluating Himself. And you know what? If He was to put up a banner that just said, mission accomplished,
08:22: He would be right, and He wouldn't be boasting in any sense. Look at verse 4.
08:29: He's praying to the Father. He says, I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave
08:35: Me to do. Now, it's interesting, because the only perfect tense in here is at the end, where You gave
08:45: Me. In other words, He gave Him this work at one point, and with ongoing consequences,
08:51: He fulfilled all that the Father gave Him to do. But at that moment when
08:58: He prayed this, as He prays verse 4, and by the way, they weren't sectioned off into verses as He prayed them.
09:03: But as He's praying, and the disciples can hear Him because they're still in the upper room, I wonder if they were encouraged by what they heard.
09:12: I wonder what they were thinking as they just thought, okay, Jesus is saying He's done everything that the Father sent
09:17: Him to do. They were discouraged.
09:23: They were worried. They were thinking, He's told us He's going to leave us. He's told us we're going to scatter.
09:29: He's told us all these bad things. We've seen Judas leave, and we don't really know what's going on there. At least, most of them didn't.
09:38: This whole thing seems to be crumbling. We've got more than three years invested in this, right?
09:45: But as He prays that, mission accomplished, I've done the work that You sent Me to do. I wonder if they weren't encouraged.
09:52: I think they probably might have been. As we read it 2 ,000 years later, as we think about the countless number of believers who come to faith through the work of these men, right?
10:07: Through the Holy Spirit, yes. But these men faithfully evangelized, faithfully spread the
10:14: Gospel. When we read that, when we read mission accomplished, we ought to be saying, thank the
10:22: Lord, praise You, Father. It made me think of John 3, 17.
10:28: Not 16, but 17. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
10:37: Mission accomplished. It's what He did. He came to seek and save that which was lost, and He did it.
10:48: Also a work. He says, well, now that I've finished this, I want to return to glory.
10:56: I want to return to the Father. Verse 5, And now, Father, glorify me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.
11:09: Now, it's interesting to think about this. When we die, what happens?
11:15: To be absent from the body is to be present from the Lord. But notice that first part. To be absent from the body.
11:24: When Jesus goes to heaven, how does He go? With a body. He is the first fruits of those who have died, as Paul wrote in 1
11:35: Corinthians 15. But in humility, He entered this world.
11:42: And is it any surprise that He longs to return to His glorious, pre -incarnate, unfettered fellowship with the
11:51: Father? He's had fellowship with the Father. He's been filled with the
11:56: Holy Spirit. But there's been a little distance, not spiritually speaking, but it hasn't been the same.
12:04: He's submerged in His creation. He's surrounded by sin. He's surrounded by the impact of sin.
12:11: It's not sinful in any way to say, I'm happy that this is over and I get to go back and be with You.
12:20: This verse really just takes us back to John 1. In the beginning was the
12:28: Word, Jesus. And the Word was with God and the
12:33: Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him. And without Him was not anything that was made.
12:41: And He wants to go back to that perfect harmony, that perfect fellowship with the
12:46: Father, just as He had from the beginning. Jesus had, as one commentator said, endured the cross.
12:59: He knew the cross was coming and He was going to endure the cross in order that He might exchange it for the crown.
13:07: Turn for a moment to Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, and we're going to look at verse 2.
13:19: We're going to go to one other verse in Hebrews. That's why I'm going to have you turn there. Hebrews 12, verse 2.
13:29: Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, listen, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God for the joy that was set before Him.
13:52: Much like running a marathon. I mean, I've never run a marathon. I never will run a marathon, unless I get like bionic knees or something like that.
14:03: But what's the joy in the marathon? You know, as they enter the first mile, as a marathoner, just thinking,
14:09: I'm in the first mile. The joy comes when? It's at the end, right?
14:16: I can see the tape. That's where Jesus is. He can see the tape now. He's finishing the course.
14:25: Victory is at hand. And while the work itself was satisfying, that is to say, redeeming those who were lost,
14:33: He has longed to return to the Father's side, and now He's going to be.
14:38: And was it selfish? And we can see that He actually does it, right? Despising the shame, all the things that are surrounding
14:45: Him, all the things that are thrown at Him, all the tumult that surrounds
14:51: Him. But now He's seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He does return to the
14:58: Father's side. Was He being selfish when He prayed this in John 17? Well, no.
15:07: Well, let's just think about it this way. It was utterly selfless to lay aside His glory in the first place.
15:13: It was selfless to enter into a fallen world, to suffer rejection, scorn, betrayal, mock trials, ridicule, beatings, crucifixion.
15:28: He is a few hours from the end of His humiliation, and He is looking forward to returning to His former glory.
15:36: Now, just turn back a few chapters in Hebrews to Hebrews 7 .25.
15:45: Because in His glorification, there is one new element, an element that Pastor Mike has gone over quite a bit, but we're going to just kind of stress this.
15:55: This doesn't, by the way, this doesn't add anything to Jesus other than it gives
16:00: Him a responsibility that He didn't have before. Hebrews 7 .25, His mediatorial work, right?
16:20: He has now fulfilled His work on earth. Jesus will now begin His work as the mediator for those whose rest
16:27: He has won. Well, why couldn't He do that before? Because He wasn't the intercessor,
16:33: He wasn't the mediator, He wasn't the one who was both God and man, who had died for the sins of all who would ever believe.
16:41: Let's turn back to John 17. Back to John 17, and we're going to see the three results of His work, the three results of the work of Jesus Christ, at least as it concerns chapter 17.
17:00: First, the Father displayed. He puts the Father on display. Look at verse 6.
17:06: I have manifested Your name. He's praying to the Father. He says, I've manifested Your name.
17:11: Now, in the Hebrew mindset, a name is everything that is connected with a person, everything that in summary would be a person, right?
17:25: And He says, I have manifested, I've shown everything that there is to show or everything that can be shown, not everything that is to be shown, but everything that can be shown about the
17:35: Father. Everything we can understand about the
17:41: Father's character and nature is shown by Jesus Christ. We also see the disciples transformed.
17:49: Look at verse 6 again, the second half of it. I have manifested Your name to whom?
17:54: To the people whom You gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and You gave them to me.
18:02: Now, first notice that Jesus has revealed the Father not to everyone, not to every single person, but to the disciples.
18:11: Now, could other people have seen it? Yes, but they didn't get it. Why not? Well, this is the election.
18:19: Again, look what He says. Whom You gave me out of the world. There's this collection of people.
18:26: Right now it would be over 7 billion people that we call the world. And some of those are selected by the
18:34: Father and they are given, Jesus says, to Him. Yours they were, and You gave them to me.
18:43: Now, when we think of election, a lot of people don't like it, but if you think about it this way, it is God's particular love, of His affection,
18:50: His special affection, that He sets upon those He chooses.
18:56: He is free to set it upon whomever He wills. And it cannot be, the love of God cannot be earned, and it cannot be spurned, cannot be refused.
19:10: God never fails to save a person that He has, from all eternity, determined to save.
19:17: If that were possible, if God could choose someone and that person could not be saved, would refuse the love of God, would refuse to be born again, would refuse the work of the
19:29: Holy Spirit and the Father, then what? God would not be sovereign.
19:35: That person who refused would be sovereign. He would have more power than God. It's impossible, absolutely impossible.
19:46: And I would say, I would note here, you know, I put it this way, I said, it's very sweet of the
19:51: ESV to say that the people that you gave me out of the world, it's very kind, but it's a little bit misleading.
20:00: It's very, you know, politically correct to say people, and oftentimes I would have no problem with it.
20:06: But in this particular context, who's he talking about? He's talking about these 11 men, okay?
20:12: And the word in Greek is men, they've just changed it to people for whatever reason. But there aren't women in this upper room.
20:21: There are 11 men there and Jesus. The word and the intent could not be more clear.
20:27: He's talking about these 11 remaining disciples. And again,
20:33: Jesus is given them by the Father. The priority is the
20:40: Father. They are given from the Father to Him. And it's not that the Father is more powerful, more important, but there is, as we say sometimes here, there is an economy to the
20:52: Trinity. This is how they function. The Father chose these men before the world existed, and He gave them to the
21:02: Son. And Jesus says that twice. So this is a point of emphasis, right? The Father gave them to the
21:08: Son. The Father gave them to the Son. He says it twice. And notice also that the disciples were given, as I've said, out of the world.
21:18: Many hear the teachings of Jesus during the course of His lifetime, but they were not the ones chosen by the
21:25: Father and given to the Son. They did not have, we could say, ears to hear, eyes to see, or more maybe accurately, hearts that were able to believe.
21:39: They hadn't been given new hearts. They hadn't been caused to be born again.
21:46: And these disciples, if we were to describe them, I think MacArthur did a great job of it when he said, the title of his book, what, 12
21:56: Ordinary Men. Well, one of those ordinary men has fallen. So now there are 11 ordinary men.
22:05: Why are they ordinary? Because the Father didn't raid the seminaries, the elite academic institutions, the best spiritual ministries, whatever.
22:22: He didn't do that when He determined who would accompany and learn from His Son. He chose ordinary men.
22:28: Why? To destroy the wisdom of the wise, because His foolishness is wiser than men.
22:36: Also in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 27 to 30, we would read this,
22:41: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
22:55: And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
23:02: The gospel's foolishness and these simple men are not the men who are going to debate people into the kingdom of God.
23:12: These aren't the scholars and politicians and the elites of society who are going to convince anyone to believe these are fishermen, these are common men, because ultimately faith has to rest on what?
23:28: Not persuasion of speech, but on the power of God. The third work or result of the work of Christ, the disciples believed, they believed.
23:41: Look at verse 6, the end of it, and verse 7, and they have kept your word.
23:49: Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. Now it's pretty surprising that first part, they have kept your word.
24:00: The disciples, he's talking about the disciples, right? Really? Now imagine they're listening to that while he's praying.
24:08: Now I would say that would be encouraging, but a couple of them have to be kind of scratching their heads a little bit.
24:15: Aren't they the same guys that have all these silly questions? Aren't they the ones who even
24:20: Jesus has just questioned their faith? And he's just told them what? In 1632, behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.
24:36: These are the guys who Jesus says kept God's word. Now we have to concede that they probably could not explain the five points of Calvinism.
24:49: They probably couldn't give you a dissertation on penal substitution. They probably couldn't even give you a coherent eschatological position.
24:58: I'm not really sure I could, but they couldn't. But they had one thing right.
25:05: They knew one thing. Chapter 16, verse 30.
25:11: We believe that you came from God. We believe that you came from God.
25:20: It's like very similar to Matthew 16 and 16, when Jesus says you are the Christ, the son of the living
25:25: God. And what did Jesus say when Peter said that? He said, blessed are you. Why?
25:32: Because it's not flesh that's revealed this to you, but spirit, right?
25:38: God. This knowledge that these men had was supernatural. Only God could reveal this truth to them.
25:47: As weak and as flawed as they were, and as weak and as flawed as their faith was, it was enough.
25:54: It was enough to save them. So when Jesus goes before the father and prays, and he says they have kept your word, he is not wrong.
26:04: They had a lot to learn. They had a lot to be instructed on. They had a lot of growth to do.
26:14: But again, he affirms it in verse 8, in the second half of it. They have believed that you sent me.
26:22: And we probably wouldn't ordain them for ministry because we'd listen to them and just go, these guys don't know what they're talking about.
26:28: Let's give them some more time. But they were about to start, after the resurrection, they're about to start one of the greatest training programs of all time, right?
26:38: They're going to spend 40 days with the Lord and then several days with the Holy Spirit and Pentecost and everything.
26:44: They're going to be equipped for ministry. They're not now, but they will be. The simplest faith, the faith of a child, if it is born out over time, is sufficient for salvation.
26:59: But what's going to happen with anybody, not just these disciples, I mean, we certainly wouldn't expect anyone to grow into, say, the
27:07: Apostle Peter, what he eventually would be. But over time, the Holy Spirit, through his word, is going to produce fruit, is going to grow our knowledge of the word and our knowledge of Christ and salvation and doctrine.
27:26: And these men are certainly going to grow in a dramatic way over a very short period of time.
27:32: Now, let's look at the summary statement here in verse 7. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
27:41: Now, again, as we just consider these 11 men and we consider them versus everyone else who has heard the teaching of Jesus, the multitudes who were fed, the multitudes who heard
27:55: Him up on the Temple Mount, there's a stark contrast. When we think about the accusations that are made against Jesus, He's possessed by a demon.
28:05: He's a liar. He's a sinner. He associates with other sinners. All these other accusations,
28:11: He's illegitimate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all these things. But the disciples trusted
28:16: Him. When it says in verse 7, they know, again, that's perfect tense.
28:26: It's a one -time fixed event with ongoing results. And the way verse 7 is written, it's a little bit awkward, but it's stressing this.
28:39: If you look at everything that you have given me is from you. What does
28:47: He say that you have given me is from you? Well, of course it is. Well, He's stressing something by repetition.
28:54: He's stressing His utter dependence upon the Father. Again, this economy of the Trinity, how it works.
29:05: He's dependent upon the Father for all that He has shown and taught these disciples.
29:11: If we think back to John 14, verses 10 and 11, He said this, He said,
29:17: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on My own authority, but the
29:25: Father who dwells in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the
29:30: Father is in Me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. In other words, these things are coming from the
29:38: Father. And again, these disciples were out of the world.
29:45: They were the elect. They were sheep. They were Christ's sheep. We look at John 10, verses 24 to 27.
29:54: So the Jews gathered around Him and said to Him, How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the
30:01: Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.
30:08: The works that I do in My Father's name bear witness about Me, but you do not believe because you are not among My sheep.
30:20: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. Well, the world did not believe because they were not
30:27: Christ's sheep. They were not given to Him, to Jesus, by the Father.
30:33: The disciples had struggled. They'd gone up and down, but they loved
30:39: Jesus the man, their teacher. And now they believed in Him and His heavenly origins.
30:46: So those are the works of Jesus and the results of the works of Jesus. Now let's look at the words of Jesus, starting in verse 8.
30:57: In fact, it'll be all in verse 8. Again, Jesus is consistent.
31:13: He said what His Father... He did what His Father told Him to do. He did what
31:19: He saw His Father doing, He told us in another section of John. And He said what the
31:24: Father told Him to say. John 12, verses 49 and 50.
31:51: Also John 14, verse 10. Do you not believe that I am in the
31:57: Father and the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the
32:02: Father who dwells in Me does His works. Now, could Jesus have said things on His own authority?
32:09: Of course. He's fully God. But as man,
32:14: He has submitted to the Father. He has humbled Himself to the
32:19: Father. So He depends on the Father for the works and for the words.
32:26: Now again, the disciples were with Jesus for more than three years. And right to the end, they were asking
32:34: Him questions about things that should have been clear. They should have understood these things.
32:40: S. Lewis Johnson remarks this way. He says, There were many things that were said to them that they were totally inattentive to, like many things that pass over the minds and by the ears of believers.
32:53: They were the same. They listened to the Word of God and it didn't sink in. Right? We hear things all the time.
33:00: And we don't retain them all. So, repetition is good for one thing, but these disciples were no different than we are.
33:10: Johnson goes on, he says, Later, when they wrote their Gospels, right as they were calling these things, as the
33:16: Holy Spirit is bringing these things to mind and they're writing their Gospels, they said,
33:22: Ah, now we see what He meant when He talked about resurrection. We now know the meaning of things that happened then which we did not grasp.
33:33: So much fell on immature ears, much lay on the surface of immature minds, but their faith was a real faith.
33:43: They believed, they just didn't understand a lot of things. They needed to be instructed over and over and over again and mostly they needed the real full -time ministry of the
33:55: Holy Spirit to bring these things to light. Now, at this church we talk a lot about the sovereignty of God and I've done so this morning.
34:04: But we must also stress the responsibility of man and John does that here. Think about what he said in verse 6,
34:12: They have kept your word. Verse 8, They have received them. Verse 8, Have come to know.
34:18: Verse 8, They have believed that you sent me. There is no salvation without belief.
34:24: God sovereignly chooses, He elects, and He regenerates. But those in whom
34:30: He works must believe. And as I said earlier, will they? Yes.
34:36: Well, how do we know that? Because the objects of God's love have their hearts inclined toward Him.
34:42: I think that's a good way to phrase it. Why do people believe? It's not because God forces them, it's because He's so inclined that they want to believe.
34:51: 1 John 4 .19 We love. Why? Because He first loved us.
34:58: We sense that love of God. I mean, if you just think back to when you got saved, you realize,
35:04: I mean, at least in my own experience, what happened what? I realized that Jesus loved me even when
35:10: I didn't love myself. He died for my sins even when I thought, I don't know why anybody would die for me.
35:18: That's the love of God. And when we feel that, we are drawn to Him. Now, I want to say just a word of warning that has nothing to do with our text.
35:27: I want to read Revelation 20, verses 14 and 15. And I call this the importance of the covenant of redemption or a warning, really, to the unsaved.
35:40: And it's about hell. Revelation 20, verses 14 and 15. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.
35:49: I mean, this is the personification of death and Hades, the holding place of the dead, thrown into the lake of fire.
35:56: This is the second death, the lake of fire. Listen to verse 15. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
36:07: Now, it has grieved me. We were talking a little bit about this in Sunday school. It has grieved me to just see major leader after major leader in evangelicalism fall by the wayside.
36:19: And as I thought about it, I thought, one of the problems that we see is there's been so much focus on heaven and what we get and the positive nature of Christianity without an emphasis of what we are saved from.
36:35: In fact, I read part of an interview with Josh Harris who once wrote, you know,
36:41: I kissed dating goodbye. And now he sounds like he's separated, probably going to get a divorce.
36:47: We ought to pray for him. But worse than that, I mean, he gave an interview to an organization known basically as so -called
36:56: Christian homosexuals. And in it, he said some things that I just thought, it sounds like he's ready to just kind of, you know, chuck everything, just question everything and use some profanities and other things that you just think, how could a pastor do this?
37:13: You know, just checking out. And I thought there's just so much emphasis on the love of God, on heaven and all these things.
37:24: And we don't talk about hell as often as we should. We're not afraid of it. As evangelicals, we're not afraid of hell.
37:35: But those whose names are not written in the book of life, that's where they're going.
37:41: They're going to hell. Only those whose names are in the book of life will spend eternity in heaven.
37:49: Because as now getting back to John 17 and just thinking about it, because they are gifts from the
37:54: Father to the Son and then back from the Son to the Father, right?
38:00: And I was thinking about it and I thought, you know, I remember one of the first things that Pastor Mike gave me was
38:05: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a little pamphlet to cheer me up. And in it,
38:12: Jonathan Edwards talks about, you know, your sinners are suspended. It's as if the only thing that's stopping them from plunging into the fires of hell is the hand of God.
38:21: And I thought, you know, when we read John 17, we could think about it this way, that we are in the
38:27: Father's hands from all eternity. He transfers us to the Son's hands, right?
38:34: The Son does His work and finishes and completes it. And then He returns us to the
38:40: Father's hands. And all that time, I mean, and, you know, what's the Holy Spirit? Well, it says in Ephesians 1, the
38:47: Holy Spirit seals us. And I thought, well, He could be like the lid on the hand, right? What does
38:56: Jesus say about in John 10? He says, no one can take my sheep out of the
39:04: Father's hand. No one can take them out of my hand. It's as if hell is very real.
39:11: It's down there. It's this fiery place where the wrath of God exists. But we're in the hand of God.
39:17: We're in the hand of Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. We deserve hell, but we'll not experience it.
39:29: But we need to fear it. We need to think about it. We need to consider it.
39:35: Why? Not just for our own sake and so that we don't wander, so that we recall every single day we preach the gospel ourselves and remind ourselves of what we're saved from and then what we're saved to and all the blessings that God adds, but also to just impress upon us the need that surrounds us.
39:56: All these people who aren't in the hand of God, who aren't in the hand of Jesus, who don't have the sealing of the
40:04: Holy Spirit are bound for hell. Hell is a horrible place.
40:11: And if we understood that, if we believe that, if we internalize that, how would it change our lives?
40:19: How would it change our interactions with our neighbors, with our friends, with our unsaved family?
40:27: I was talking to someone not long ago who was very upset with the course that some in her family were taking and walking away from Christ.
40:39: I understand that. If you've ever experienced that, if you've ever seen somebody that you loved and thought was a
40:44: Christian and then walked away from the faith, it is upsetting. It can make you mad, but here's what it ought to do.
40:51: Not make you mad, but sad. That person was never in the
40:57: Father's hand, was never in the Son's hand, and is now barring a work of God on their way to hell and you need to pray for them.
41:06: You need to be sorrowful. What good does it do to get mad at them? That person needs your compassion, your prayers, and your evangelism.
41:15: They need to hear the gospel as often as possible. When I read about these people,
41:24: I mean all sorts of scandals and evangelicalism. I'm just reminded again and again, as we go, as you look at different churches and what they talk about, the emphasis is have a better life and all these other things, and what we ought to do is just be rejoicing that Jesus has saved us from our sins, that God has forgiven us our sins, that he has removed them as far as east is from the west, that he no longer considers them.
41:51: Why? Because of the finished work of Jesus Christ, because of his life, his death, the resurrection, and that because of that, and because of our faith in that, we're written in the
42:04: Lamb's Book of Life. We're written there before the world began, and we remain in there, and nobody can take us out of that.
42:14: Compassion. Focus on that. It should enthuse and infect your evangelism and your thoughts.
42:24: How can you talk to somebody and not think, you know, this person is a breath away from the eternal wrath of God?
42:35: Now, the act of obedience of Christ is that perfect righteousness that we need to inherit heaven.
42:43: Jesus is able to pray that he's done it, that he's finished it, that he's done all that the
42:50: Father sent him to do. He came to seek and save that which is lost, and he did it.
42:58: That perfect obedience, his perfect obedience is obedience to all the laws is imputed to every believer.
43:06: That's the righteousness we need to not escape hell, right? We need his death to escape hell.
43:12: We need that righteousness to get to heaven. Now, in the opening,
43:19: I said, let's do a little self -evaluation. Well, how is your obedience? Is it perfect? Is your obedience such that you would merit heaven?
43:27: Of course it's not. And it's fine to be frustrated by your failures and your sin and everything else, but ultimately what you have to do is trust
43:37: Jesus Christ. He did it. It is finished.
43:43: We rest in that. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, what great truth is contained in your scriptures, marvelous truths, things that are incomprehensible to unbelieving minds.
44:01: Father, you have granted us all of this. You've granted us your spirit.
44:09: Would you afflict our consciences as we interact with an unsaved, lost, dying world, be it our neighbors, our friends, complete strangers, or our dearest, closest relatives.
44:24: They need to hear about Jesus Christ. Find us faithful in that.