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Our son -in -law Darren is stationed there at Goodfellow Air Force Base, and so they bought
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Mary a ticket to fly down to see them and the grandkids, and so I didn't realize it until just recently that she's going to be gone 13 days, so it's quite a while.
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I actually hesitate making that known because, you know what, when she's gone, I try and do a little fasting, you know, and a little, you know, some discipline, and I just get too many invitations and commitments, and so I try and keep it low -key, actually.
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I've already got four commitments for eating, which I'm happy for. I'm not complaining.
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I'm happy for it, but. All right, here we are in John 14.
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This is the third Lord's Day that we're addressing the first 11 verses of John 14, which is concerning the departure and the return of Jesus.
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Let's read these verses once again in context. Jesus was telling his disciples,
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Judas had departed, there were only 11 remaining, let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, or rather believe in God, believe also in me.
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In my Father's house are many mansions or abiding places. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you,
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I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also, and where I go you know, and the way you know.
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Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?
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Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
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Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my
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Father also, and from now on you know him and have seen him.
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Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.
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Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me,
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Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the
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Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?
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The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the
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Father who dwells in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the
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Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.
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The outline we've been employing to address this passage has three divisions. We've taken each one for a week, giving address, attention to it.
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First is the promise of a place where Jesus was going. First four verses.
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Secondly, Jesus is the only way to God the Father, which we addressed last Lord's Day. And thirdly,
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Jesus as the revelation of God the Father. And so today we'll address this third section of this passage.
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Here we read of the person of Jesus Christ who is one in essence with his
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Father. That's important. Jesus is the second person of the blessed
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Holy Trinity. We may see that believing this biblical truth is essential to saving faith.
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If you don't believe the Trinity, you do not have faith in the true God, in the true
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Savior. And we may see that believing this biblical truth is essential, as we say.
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These verses will also help us to understand more clearly the kind of faith that pleases
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God, as the Lord Jesus is attempting to qualify and clarify and enhance their understanding of who he is.
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And he's emphasizing, of course, his relationship and his revelation of the
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Father to them. And so in verses 7 through 11, we could describe this as Jesus as the revelation of God the
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Father. Now, last Lord's Day, we addressed the golden text of John 14, 6, in which
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Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
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One point I did not make last week was regarding the initial words of our Lord in verse 6.
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Jesus declared, I am the way, the truth, and the life. This is another occurrence of many in the
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Gospel of John, in which Jesus declared his deity. The Greek words, ego, eimi,
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I am the way, the truth, and the life. As one wrote, this is the sixth of seven
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I am, formal I am statements in the Gospel, each containing I am, ego, eimi, and a predicate, in other words, a verb along with the pronoun and the verb.
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These seven formal I am statements are emphatic, there's emphasis here, emphatic descriptions of the person and ministry of Jesus, and cumulatively form a detailed picture of Jesus Christ.
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It's his claim that he is God, I am. John Owen wrote of the deity of Christ that is set forth in this passage.
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So, he, Jesus, testifies of himself, I am the truth. He is so essentially, that is in his essence, he's
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God. As he is one with the Father, the God of truth, Deuteronomy 3, 2, 4.
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He is so efficiently, not only essentially, but efficiently, as by him alone it is fully and effectually declared, for no man has seen
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God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
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And Jesus is so substantially, in opposition unto the types and shadows of the
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Old Testament. He is the substance, for in him dwelt the fullness of the
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Godhead bodily, the body of Christ. And he is so subjectively, for all divine truth relating to the saving knowledge of God, is treasured up in him, in Jesus Christ.
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In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge of God. Well, we next arrive to verse 7, which reads, if you had known me, you would have known my
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Father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him.
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Now, Lord concluded his I am statement of verse 6 with a conditional sentence in verse 7, begins with the word if, it's a conditional sentence, in which he connected himself and his work with his
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Father. The first portion of a conditional sentence, the if portion of a sentence, is referred to as a protasis.
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The second portion, the then portion, if then, this then portion, second portion, is commonly known as the apodasis.
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Now, the way it's expressed in Greek, there are actually four different kinds of conditional sentences.
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And depending on the particle that begins the Greek sentence and the tense of the verb within the protasis, the first portion of the conditional sentence, the writer is able to express different degrees of certainty or uncertainty of truth or falsehood of a statement.
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And here, Jesus is not saying they didn't know him. What he's really indicating to them is they didn't know him as fully as they should have known him.
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And that is suggested in the text itself. He was saying they had not fully known him.
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Had they not known him as they should have known him? No. Essentially, Jesus was saying to them, if you had truly known me, you would have known my
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Father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. That's the point that Jesus was making.
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Even though they had been with him for three and a half years, in spite of all his teaching and claim, they didn't really understand that he was one in essence with the
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Father. He's declaring that here to them. If you had truly known me, you would have known that when you look at me and everything
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I've done, everything I say, it's the Father on display. That's what he's asserting.
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He's informing their faith, elevating it, expanding it. He's emphasizing here that he is
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God, that he is the second person of the
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Holy Trinity. And so as one wrote, essentially Jesus was saying to them, if you had truly known me, in a sense of course they had known
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Jesus. They had known him well enough to leave their homes and friends and livelihood to follow him wherever he went.
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But they did not know him in his full significance. Really to know him is to know his
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Father. Or Calvin wrote it this way, Christ therefore blames the disciples for not acknowledging that the fullness of the
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Godhead was manifested in him. I see, says he, that hitherto you've not known me in a right and proper manner because you do not yet acknowledge the lively image of the
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Father which is exhibited in me. So he was elevating, expanding, informing them more clearly and fully as to his person.
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Now again the second portion of the conditional sentence, it doesn't begin then here, but is implied, is called the
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Apodosis and it reads, you would have known my Father also. This states that all that he was and had done before them had been a revelation of the
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Father, but they didn't know it. Had they truly known him, they would have also known the
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Father. The Father had been revealed to them all along through him, through Jesus, although they had been unaware of the fact.
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The Lord then stated that their future understanding of the identity of the Father and their relationship with him would be based on their knowledge of Jesus and the time and experiences they had with him.
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And so Jesus declared, from now on you know him, the Father, and have seen him.
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Speaking about his ministry, you've seen him. As they're recollecting all that Jesus taught, everything that Jesus did, they could now look upon that as a revelation of the
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Father all along, although they hadn't seen it, even while it was transpiring.
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And so Jesus was telling them, everything must be different from now on, for the revelation of God has been dramatically declared by the word become flesh.
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In the prologue of John's Gospel, back in John chapter 1, it was announced that Jesus would reveal the
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Father. No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the
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Father, he has declared him. And now here, at the end of his earthly ministry, in John 14, 7,
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Jesus declared that all that he was, all that he had taught, all that he had done before them, had indeed revealed the
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Father to them. In short, Jesus declared to his disciples that the better they know him, the better they would know the
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Father, God the Father. And so what Jesus is asserting was that he and his
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Father are a singular object of faith, one God.
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You see Jesus, you see the Father, one God. Now, it would seem that his disciples were not understanding the meaning and implications of what he was telling them in verse 7.
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And so it suggested, this is suggested by Philip's request in verse 8, he still didn't get it, did he?
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Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus basically had been saying,
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I've been showing you the Father for the last three and a half years, and yet Philip, you know, sees this understanding of seeing the
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Father probably in a physical or visible way, and he just wasn't getting what
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Jesus was saying. It would seem Philip rightly understood Jesus could reveal the
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Father to them, but he was wrong in the manner in which Jesus would reveal him. He had still distanced
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Jesus from his Father, didn't he? Show us the Father, as though they're two complete separate entities, rather than one essence.
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Philip had a too low a view of Jesus, even after being with him for the previous three and a half years.
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As one wrote, at one level Philip and the others truly do know Jesus, and therefore in the
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Son they have seen the Father, but they do not recognize this yet. As highly as they think of Jesus, they do not yet grasp that in Jesus God has made himself known.
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To the extent that this is still beyond them, they do not know Jesus very well.
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Philip was asking for a direct revelation or access to God the Father. Philip rightly understood that the greatest blessing possible for a human being is to come into the presence of God, to see
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God. He was as a psalmist to address God, you will show me the path of life in your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
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It's understandable that Philip wanted to see God. He was as King David who said to God, as for me
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I will see your face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when I awaken your likeness.
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But they were ignorant of the fact that they had been looking into the face of the Father three and a half years, but they were clueless.
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It is as Matthew Henry wrote, we have been made in his image, God's image, and however much we've defaced that image through sin, we still yearn for the visio deo, the vision of God.
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Moses had begged, now show me your glory, but the most he,
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Moses was allowed to glimpse was the trailing edge of the back of God's glory. The evangelist has already made it clear in his prologue that however mitigated
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God's gracious self -disclosure was in former times, in Jesus he's made himself known definitely, gloriously, visibly, but had
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Philip truly seen Jesus, he would have known that he had truly seen God the Father. We then read in verse 9,
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Jesus said to him, in way of a rebuke really, have I been with you so long and yet you've not known me
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Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the
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Father? Our Lord seemed to be rather astonished at Philip's question.
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His disciples should have known more than what they knew, or so it would seem. And Jesus declared that to have seen him was to have seen
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God the Father. As one wrote, Jesus now emphasizes afresh the mutual indwelling of the
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Father and the Son. He claims that the words he speaks are those given him by the
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Father to speak, and that the works he does are those given him by the
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Father to do. The oscillation between the words and works in verse 10 is anticipated in John 8, 28.
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I do nothing on my own initiative but as the Father has taught me so I speak. The appeal to the testimony of the works themselves has been made in John 5, 36 and 10, 37 and 8.
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But whereas formerly these things were said to the incredulous world, now they are repeated to the disciples who, however uncomprehending they may be, are most willing to believe.
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It was a significant teaching moment right at the last before Jesus was to be arrested and taken to his cross.
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Well, in order to correct the defective and deficient understanding of him by his disciples,
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Jesus asked Philip in verse 10a, Do you not believe that I am in the
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Father and the Father in me? Here we read that Jesus was in the
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Father and that the Father was in him. This is one of the clearest, fullest expressions of the deity of Jesus Christ that we have in Holy Scripture.
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How can the Son and the Father be at the same time and to the same degree in one another?
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How can the eternal, infinite God, who is Spirit in essence, be in Jesus in fullness?
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How can Jesus be in the Father in the same way and to the same degree? Only if Jesus Christ is
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God himself. And later, of course, we'll be reading about the
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Holy Spirit, how he is the third person of the Holy Trinity. And so here we have
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Trinitarian teaching being displayed before us. Speaking of two persons of the blessed
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Holy Trinity, God the Father and God the Son. Understanding of the
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Trinity is very, very important. When I say an understanding, an understanding of what's taught, not necessarily understanding the way it all fits together, because it's a mystery.
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But J. I. Packer described the Trinity in this way. The basic assertion of this doctrine is that the unity of the one
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God is complex. The three personal subsistences, God the
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Father, the subsistence of the Father, subsistence of the Son, subsistence of the
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Holy Spirit, are co -equal and co -eternal centers of self -awareness, each being
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I. In relation to two, who are you? Jesus referred to the
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Father as you. He wasn't referring to the Father as I. There's a difference, a distinction between persons.
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Each partaking of the full divine essence. And Packer says the stuff of deity, if we may dare call it that.
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He didn't want to seem to be irreverent. Along with the other two, they are not three roles played by one person.
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That is modalism. One God who portrayed himself as God the
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Father in the Old Testament, portrayed himself as God the Son in the Gospels, portrayed himself as God the
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Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts and thereafter. That is modalism. That is not Trinitarian teaching.
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That's heresy. The most popular promoter of that is T .D. Jakes. And one is
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Pentecostalism. Nor are there three gods in a cluster. That's what
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Islam accuses Christians of being, that we believe in three gods. No, the one
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God, He, is also equally they. And they are always together and always cooperating with the
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Father initiating, the Son complying, the Spirit executing the will of both the
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Father and the Son, which is His will also, the Holy Spirit's will also.
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This is the truth about God that was revealed through the words and works of Jesus and that undergirds the reality of salvation as the
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New Testament sets forth. Trinitarian understanding of God is essential to salvation.
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It follows that because all three persons of the Trinity are all one God, that each of the persons of the
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Trinity are due equal honor and glory. It must be so. If Jesus could say that He was in the
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Father and the Father was in Him, again, Packer wrote, the practical importance of the doctrine of the
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Trinity is that it requires us to pay equal attention and give equal honor to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us.
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That ministry is the subject matter of the gospel, which, as Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus shows, cannot be stated without bringing in their distinct roles in God's plan of the ages.
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All non -Trinitarian formulations of the Christian message are by biblical standards inadequate and indeed fundamentally false and will naturally tend to pull
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Christian lives out of shape. Trinitarian understanding of the
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Godhead is essential, an essential foundational truth of Christianity.
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Well, we read next in verse 10b, The words that I speak to you, Jesus said,
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I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works.
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Notice how he describes the words he spoke as the works of the Father. That's interesting, isn't it?
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And so whereas verse 10a, Jesus speaks of the equality of Him as the Son with His Father, here in verse 10b, the second portion of verse 10, we read that there is a distinction between the
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Son and the Father. You see that? There is one essence, but there is a distinction between the
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Father and the Son. As D .A. Carson wrote, the mutual indwelling is a linguistic way of describing the complete unity between Jesus and the
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Father. Articulated elsewhere in a statement such as, I and the Father are one,
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John 1030. This does not obliterate all distinctions between them. The words and works of Jesus are given to Him by the
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Father, and though the reverse cannot be said. In other words, Jesus didn't give words and works to the
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Father to do, did he? The Father gave the words and works to Jesus to do.
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That shows a distinction between them as separate persons.
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Earlier we saw one essence, one God. Here we see distinctions between the persons of the
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Father and the Son. And so in other words, here we see a distinction between the Father and the
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Son. The Father gave Jesus the words to speak and the works to do, but the
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Son does not give words to the Father to say or works for Him to do. They are two distinct persons even as they are one in essence, one
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God. Notice how the Lord alludes to the words that He spoke as being the works of the
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Father. Every word that our Lord, our Savior spoke was a work of the
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Father that He was doing through His Son. As one wrote, throughout this gospel the deeds are the signs, and the words are
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God in action. The words and the deeds of Jesus are like a revelation of God.
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Alike they proceed from the Father and reveal what the Father is like. Notice that though from a human point of view
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Jesus does them, they are said to be done by the Father and they are called His works, the
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Father's works. There is a distinction between the Father and Son, even though they are co -eternal, co -equal of one essence, one
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God. We then read in verse 11 in which Jesus said,
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Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.
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The faith of the disciples was there, but it was rather weak and uninformed.
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It was a true faith, but it was still somewhat of an uninformed faith according to Jesus.
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But here the Lord Jesus exhorted them to continue to believe on Him, even as He was stretching them to believe more.
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Specifically they were to believe that He was in the Father and the Father was in Him. And so whereas in verse 10
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Jesus asked His disciples if they believed this truth, here in verse 11 He commends them to believe this.
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Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? That was the question, do you not believe this? But here in verse 11
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He commends them, you believe this. Jesus urged them to take
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Him at His word that He was telling them the truth of the matter. And so taking
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Jesus or the triune God at His word really is the highest degree and form that the faith of a believer can attain and exhibit.
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It's not when there's physical sight of God performing some great miracle or answer to some great prayer that faith is perfected.
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But it's when there is no physical evidence, there's nothing tangible or temporal which may assure us or convince us that God can and should be believed.
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God desires that His people acquire or grow in this kind of faith, even a life of faith in which one's own actions based on what
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He has asserted and promised. Not based on what He's done or will do, not based upon what you see
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Him do, but simply because He declared it, you're to believe God. And that brings great glory to God.
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Adam and Eve refused to believe the words of God. And ever since that time God has been leading
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His people to believe Him for His words, not because they see some evidence or some proof that God is real.
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True faith, the greatest faith, is the one who believes although there seems to be nothing in his life or her life that suggests this is true.
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And yet he continues, she continues to believe on the Lord and will not turn aside. That is strong faith, sure faith, a faith that pleases
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God. It's a sinful and adulterous generation that seeks after a sign. Why should
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God only be believed if He proves Himself to you visibly or in some physical way?
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No, we ought to believe God because He is God and He should be believed, not because He can prove to your satisfaction that He is real.
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And this is the kind of faith that God wants us to have. And I think this is one of the primary, we didn't get into this, but I think this is one of the primary reasons why we can have so much unanswered prayer in our lives, if that be the case, because we should, because God wants us to continue to believe on Him in spite of what we see in this life.
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We're not going to have time to get into it, but Abraham lived his whole life in tents.
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Sarah, we're leaving home, we're going a thousand miles away, and we're going to live in tents the rest of our life because we're going to look for a city that you cannot see.
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We want a promised land that we're not going to be walking on, we're going to be living in a land that looks like that, that assures us there is a coming land, a coming city, but we're going to live not based on what we see, but we're going to live according to what
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God has promised us. And that was the faith that glorified
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God. He was a friend of God. He believed God. Although he was an old man, and Sarah was an old woman, past the age of bearing,
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God said, I'm going to have your physical descendants number as the sand at the seashore, the stars in heaven.
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Abraham believed God, and that faith in God, taking him at his word, even though he was totally incapable, humanly speaking, of bringing it to pass, he believed
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God, and that faith was counted as righteousness to Abraham. And that's the kind of faith he wants from you and me.
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We take him at his word because this is what he's declared in his word, his Bible. And he justifies us freely and fully when we believe what he said about Jesus, who he is.
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I doubt on the cross or sinners he rose again. We believe that. And frankly, most of us, there's very little that we see in our lives to really prove the fact that God is real and true to what he's promised us.
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And Jesus himself, again we're not going to have time to get there, Jesus himself said that's the kind of person that's really blessed of God.
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Thomas had problems here, not believing God. And you recall after Jesus was raised from the dead,
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Thomas still had problems, didn't he? On the first day of the resurrection,
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Jesus appeared to the disciples. Thomas was not present with them. And the disciples told
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Thomas after the fact, we saw Jesus. Unless I see the prince in his hands and the hole in his side from the spear,
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I'll not believe. And so the following Sunday evening, the Lord Jesus appeared to them all and appeared to Thomas.
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Look at my hands, look at my side. Thomas falls down. My Lord and my God, you believe because you've seen.
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Blessed are those, Thomas, who believe and have not seen. You're more blessed than Thomas because you haven't seen these things, but you believe.
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That's the kind of faith that God wants from us. A solid, steadfast, faithful, obedient faith.
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Not because we see things working out like we think he ought to be doing. Not because we see miracles displayed before us proving that God's real and true.
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But because we believe that God is God and true, and he's to be believed because he declared it.
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Regardless of whether or not we have physical, visible evidence to substantiate that.
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Now thankfully God does answer prayer and he performs miracles when he wants to. But he doesn't perform signs in order to substantiate somebody's unbelief, turning that person's unbelief into faith.
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A sinful and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. Jesus, I'm not going to show you any sign.
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You look to the sign of Jonah. You've got that sign already in the
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Old Testament. I'm not going to give you anything else to suggest so. It is just simply an act of unbelief.
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We won't go into it, but the rest of your notes deal with the nature of this faith in unseen things that is set forth in the chapter on faith,
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Hebrews chapter 11. In which the people of faith, without faith it's impossible to please
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God. And then the writer of the Hebrews describes the kind of faith that pleases God. And it's a faith of these patriarchs, the antediluvians before the flood, those after the flood, who believed
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God even though there was no evidence whatsoever to substantiate their faith.
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They believed God and they pleased God. And God is pleased with you.
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If, though your life is filled with a sense of difficulty and turmoil and tribulation, and it seems like there's no relief, there's no escape, you're wondering where is
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God in all this? He is telling you as he told these disciples. You think about that.
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You know he was soon to be arrested, he's soon to be crucified, he's going to die. There was nothing before these disciples to prove what he was saying was true.
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Oh yeah, upon the resurrection they saw it. But he was asking them to believe him and what he was declaring.
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And that's the kind of faith that you and I should have and we should exhibit. The faith in God and what he has said in his word.
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Regardless of whether or not we see it demonstrated or proven to us. And that's the kind of faith that's born of God's grace, isn't it?
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The kind of faith that only the Holy Spirit can produce. And may the Lord help us to exhibit the kind of faith that God looks for and rejoices and pleases when he sees it in his people.
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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. And for the revelation of yourself,
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Father, through your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you, God, for revealing yourself to us as a triune
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God. Help us to understand these things more clearly and fully, our God. And help us, our
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God, to continue to live in faith. And not ask or require some sign or some evidence that you're true or real.
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But help us, our God, to have a sound and true and a biblical faith in who you are as the one true