Believe? - [John 12:44-50]

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Well, I would invite you to open your Bibles this morning, John chapter 12, as we conclude
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John chapter 12. You know, there are,
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I have some really bad news for you. There are 1 .6 billion, with a B, billion
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Muslims in the world, 1 .6 billion. That's a little more than one out of every four, right?
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The good news is, this is really encouraging, there are 2 .2 billion Christians in the world.
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Okay, well, are you encouraged? Is that true? Probably not, it's probably not true, but there are 2 .2
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billion people, and of course I went to the most reliable source I could find, Google, 2 .2
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billion people. So, if we kind of laugh at the idea, or we're not sure about the idea that there are 2 .2
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billion Christians in the world, what are we to make of that? What do we do with that?
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How do we determine who is and isn't a Christian? How do we know? Because if you go around the world, what do you find?
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In a lot of places throughout the world, if you're not Muslim, you must be
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Christian. If you're not Hindu, you must be Christian. And so there are just, you know, kind of nominal
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Christians. I'm a Christian because my parents were Christian, and they were a
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Christian because their parents were Christian, and so on, and so on, and so on. And we live in an area where people are what?
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Roman Catholic, because their parents were Roman Catholic, and because their parents were
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Roman Catholic, and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all the way back to Italy, or Ireland, or wherever they came from.
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And this is just the way it is. But people don't know Christ. So how do we sort all that out?
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Well, the answer is, we don't. We don't do that.
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We don't decide who's a believer and who's not a believer. Now, is that kind of surprising? I don't, you know, when somebody says, well, you know,
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I think so -and -so's a believer, and I'm like, well, that's good, or I think I'm a believer, or I think my child might be a believer.
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I always say, that's good. I never say, you don't know what you're talking about. How do I know, right?
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The Lord knows the heart. I don't know the heart. What I can do is, I tell people the truth, and when they go,
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I don't believe that, I don't believe that, I don't believe that, then, okay, we have a problem. And today's passage is kind of like that.
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Here's the truth. Do you believe it? And if you don't, there's a problem.
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John chapter 12, starting in verse 44. And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
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And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
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If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
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For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words, has a judge.
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The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the
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Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak.
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And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore,
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I say as the Father has told me. Now last week, we saw the refusal of many of the
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Jewish people, in fact, the vast preponderance of them, to believe in Jesus.
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They just didn't believe. John mentions the signs, the miracles that Jesus has performed, and still many of them don't believe.
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In fact, if we were to kind of do a survey, if we were to Google, you know, go back 2 ,000 years and Google ancient
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Israel, what we would find is there weren't very many who believed in him. In fact, what do we know?
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We know that after Jesus came back from the dead, after the resurrection, how many saw him alive? About 500.
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So you would think that, you know, when word got around to the community of believers that Jesus had come back from the dead, that they would want to see him.
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How many saw him? 500. So I think it's fair to say that of all the people that heard about the miracles, all the people that saw what he did, all the people that were impacted by his ministry, the number of people who actually believed was very, very small.
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Now, and that's in spite of all the signs. And in his gospel, John says, if we were to go to chapter 20, we would see that he didn't record everything that Jesus did, all the signs that he did, all the words that he said.
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And in fact, in the gospel of John, he basically zeroes in on seven signs, and I'm going to go over them quickly, seven signs that he gives.
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The first one, if you recall, was turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana in John chapter 2.
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And if you recall, he didn't really, he didn't make a display out of this. In fact, at first he seemed kind of reluctant to do it, and only his disciples ultimately would have known about it.
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But to them, to his inner circle and to Mary certainly, his mastery over nature was made evidence.
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And so John recorded that one. The second one he records isn't really so much a miracle as it is a sign of who he is.
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And that's the cleansing of the temple, also in John chapter 2. And what that showed was, when
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Jesus said, you know, he was consumed by zeal for the house of the Lord, for the Father's house, what did that show?
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It showed that he came to be the Messiah. He knew he was the Messiah. He was determined to not just spiritually cleanse or cleanse the temple from all the rubbish that was going on there, but that he was going to proclaim the truth that he was, in effect, wanted to cleanse the entire nation of Israel.
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It was a sign that he knew he was the Messiah. The third sign that John focuses on was healing the nobleman's son in John chapter 4.
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And if you recall, the nobleman comes and says he wants Jesus to go with him. And Jesus doesn't, but says, go, your son is healed.
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Distance was no hindrance to his ability to heal. Fourth one, he heals the lame man, the man who had been an invalid for 38 years in John chapter 5, and he did so on the
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Sabbath. And you can make several arguments, and I think they're valid. It shows that time itself is no inhibitor to his power, that he's able, even though this man's been an invalid for 38 years, he heals him just like that.
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And you could say, well, it certainly shows that he was master of the Sabbath. Yes, it does. But he healed him after he'd been an invalid for 38 years.
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Fifth sign, he fed the multitude in John chapter 6. You know, we know it's 5 ,000, but by the reckoning of that day, that would have been 5 ,000 men.
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And then you add the women, the children, probably at least 20 ,000 people with five loaves of bread and a couple of fish.
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Certainly demonstrating his mastery over matter. Again, a sign showing really who he was,
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God in the flesh. Sixth sign, healing the man born blind in John chapter 9.
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I mean, just such, not just over his mastery over, you know, the physical world, his ability to do something that no one ever heard about before, but just think about the compassion, not only in healing him, but then in the end of chapter 9, going to him after he's been unsynagogued.
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This is the love of the Savior. And the seventh sign, the one in John chapter 11, raising
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Lazarus from the dead. Now he'd done all these things and the people knew about most of them and certainly the raising of Lazarus from the dead, where he not only just raised him from the dead, but he did so on the fourth day when he would already begun to decay, you know,
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Lord, he stinketh. Thank you, King James. All these things, and yet most of the people did not believe.
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And John tells us, or he told us why last week we looked at it. If you recall, first John put responsibility for their unbelief on the
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Jews themselves in verse 38, he said, so that the word spoken by the prophet
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Isaiah might be fulfilled, Lord, who has believed what he heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the
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Lord been revealed? Well, the arm of the Lord, the power of the Lord had been revealed to Israel. And who had believed again, a relative few.
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It's kind of a rhetorical question. It's kind of like who has believed it's, it's empty because they know that there's,
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God knows that there aren't many and back in verse 38 says, so that word, so very first word shows the purpose for which the prophecy by Isaiah was fulfilled.
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It was fulfilled so that this might be shown to be true. They refused to believe what they saw.
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They refused to believe what they heard. They heard the word of the Lord as Jesus walked and ministered among them for the very purpose that the prophecy might be fulfilled.
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John also lays the responsibility for the unbelief on, of the Jews on God himself, shocking, but he hardens them verse 39, therefore they could not believe.
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For again, Isaiah said, he has blinded their eyes. It's talking about God and harden their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand what their heart and turn.
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And I would heal them. The words of Jesus hardened the, the people of Israel against God.
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And we see this over and over again in scripture. We could go to Romans nine and we did that last week.
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Talk about Pharaoh. We could talk about a number of places in scripture where somebody refuses to believe.
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In fact, we see it in Romans one was talking about that and Sunday school this morning. Another free plug for Sunday school.
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What happens as people refuse to believe they use their will. They exercise their will.
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They harden their will against God. And God says, fine. You want your sin.
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You can have more sin. And Romans one, we see it. He hardens their heart and they go from one level of sin to the next level.
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And I'm going down because it's a downward spiral. It's not an upward. It doesn't get better. It gets worse.
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Over and over again. God gave them over and they go down and they go down into deeper and deeper depth of sins.
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And this is what happens. God, they reject Jesus. And so he hardens them all the more.
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And turn to Matthew 13 for a moment. I wanted to just kind of undergird this because it's a hard doctrine.
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I mentioned last week, you know, we teach all the time. God is sovereign. Man is responsible. You know, who caused their unbelief?
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Well, they did because they didn't believe even though they could have seen. They saw these signs. They heard the words of Jesus.
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They refused to believe. And God ultimately hardens them so they won't believe. So they're both.
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It's both. Both ends are true. It's God is sovereign. Man is responsible. Matthew 13, in the midst of all these parables,
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Jesus gives the purpose of the parables and he cites the same words of Isaiah starting in verse 10.
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Then the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them, the crowds, in parables?
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And he answered them, to you, to my inner circle, it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven.
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But to them, it has not been given. For to the one who has, more will be given.
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In other words, to those who believe, more knowledge will be given and he will have an abundance.
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But from the one who has not, those who do not believe, even what he has will be taken away. That is why
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I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.
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Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says, you will indeed hear, but never understand.
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You will indeed see, but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull and with their ears they can barely hear and their eyes and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them.
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There's a judicial hardening that goes on as people reject the word of God and they hear it and they become harder and harder to the truth.
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They shut their ears, they close their eyes, and the picture really is of, you know, I don't hear you,
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I don't hear you, I don't see you, na -na -na -na -na -na, I refuse. It's kind of almost a childish picture, but it gets the point across.
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These people do not want the truth and how often is it that you try to present the truth to somebody and they're like, they just dismiss you right away because they've hardened their hearts against the
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Lord. So here's the question that really spins out of that.
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Is it loving of God to harden their hearts? We know that God is love, right?
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First John tells us that and we see pictures of God's love all the time. Is it loving of God to harden their hearts?
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Well, it's difficult to kind of grasp, to wrap our heads around this, but we must never forget that while God is love, that's not all that God is.
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Was it loving when God sent the waters to flood the earth in the time of Noah?
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Was that love? It was judgment. God was just in flooding.
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If you recall one of the words of Moses in Genesis 6, he says,
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Steve's paraphrase, all their thoughts and intents of the heart were wicked constantly.
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They were in constant states of sin, rebelling against God. And so he tells
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Noah he's going to flood the earth. What does Noah do? Noah sets about building the ark and also calling people to repentance.
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And I was listening to a man this week and he said that with every nail that Noah put in the ark, every nail of the ark,
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God declared his love and willingness to save any who would believe.
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He was building that ark for 120 years and at any point anyone could have believed, but they didn't.
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God's love is shown and his election is shown in that he saved Noah and his family. It wasn't like he excluded anyone.
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They excluded themselves. They mocked Noah. They refused to believe the words of God.
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God is not like us. He's not just, well, you know what? I'm in love mode and I'm just going to love everybody.
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He exercises all his attributes simultaneously. He's not limited to only love.
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He can be love and justice, wrath, all these things simultaneously.
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And we err, I just like to say that we err if we presume that love must exclude justice, that God must waive the just penalty for sin in order to be loving.
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The father was very loving in sending his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, from heaven on a rescue mission to Israel.
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He sent Jesus to teach and to demonstrate that he was, in fact, the Messiah. He also used
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Jesus to harden them in their unbelief. Now last time we also saw that while there were some among the religious elite of Israel who believed in Jesus, they were afraid of the consequences of confessing that, right?
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They knew because they were the ones who had the fine robes and the fine positions and they knew that if they confessed
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Jesus, they would be outcasts, they would be unsynagogued, they would be, they would go from the penthouse to the outhouse, as it were.
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They would be outcasts, just done. And ultimately, based on the words of the
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Lord himself, we would have to conclude that those who deny him have no part in him. If men deny him in this life, what does he say he's going to do?
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He's going to deny them before the Father, right? I was thinking this, just picturing it, you know, and I think there are some people, maybe even some people here today, who presume that since they know the true and false statements of Christianity, they can write a testimony, they can maybe even give a testimony that on that day of judgment, they're going to stand before the throne and they're going to say, you know, they're going to answer a series of questions, yes,
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I believe that, yes, I believe that, yes, I believe that, and they're going to bluff their way through. Have you ever bluffed your way through something?
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I think there are people who just think they're just going to bluff their way into heaven. The problem is,
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God doesn't have some kind of lie detector, you know, this isn't the FBI with the dials and they're watching the lines and all that.
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He doesn't need that. He's got a heart detector. He knows who believes.
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He knows who has trusted themselves entirely to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, this morning, we're really at a unique place in the
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Gospel of John. We're transitioning, as I said last week, from the public ministry of Jesus to the private ministry where he's really, for the last few days that he's on the earth, he's just going to be spending his time just pouring his efforts into the disciples, what is called the upper room discourse.
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And in fact, the Gospel of John is the only place that has this. Now we don't know, this morning's passage, we don't know exactly when it took place.
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There's no kind of time and there's no indication that it's directly after this last one.
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But we know this, that it took place. We know that these are the words of the Lord. And we know, you know, as an editor, as I like to edit,
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I like to look at things and edit. And in fact, I like to say my spiritual gift is if you give me a page with one mistake on it, my eyes just kind of immediately gravitate towards that one mistake.
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It's really not a spiritual gift, it's just kind of what I do. But as an editor, you know, and as I was looking at this,
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I'm just like, this is kind of a funny thing to put right here. And it just struck me as if it's a pause.
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It's kind of a John saying to his readers, are you with me so far? Let's just kind of do a little checkup.
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Let's make sure that you're with me so far. Because if you had difficulty with a triumphal entry, if you had difficulty with me kind of telling you that all these people are going to reject
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Jesus or they have rejected him. And in part, it's because of the sovereign choice of God.
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If you had problems with that, what's coming up is going to be really hard for you.
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So let's just kind of check and make sure that you're tracking with me before we move on. And so this morning, what we have are three statements of truth about believers.
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Things that John wants us to understand about how believers respond to the ministry of Jesus.
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Our first statement is, believers know both the Father and the Son. They know both the
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Father and the Son. Look at verse 44. And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
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And whoever sees me, sees him who sent me. The Father sent his
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Son, his unique messenger, writer of Hebrews, called him an apostle.
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If you remember when Pastor Mike talked about that, the only time where he's called that an apostle. But Jesus is definitely a unique messenger to his people.
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And whatever the exact time of this proclamation was, or this exclamation, there's a passion to it.
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He didn't just simply say, but he, our text tells us, he cried out, he shouted. This was important and there was passion behind it.
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And one can't read this without seeing at least a hint, or I'm sorry, without seeing or with seeing a hint.
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You can't look at this and see some kind of amorphous, immeasurable God that he's talking about.
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This isn't some nebulous God. This is the God of the Bible. This is the God of Scripture.
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And we live in a time wherein it's considered the worst form of being judgmental to say to someone who names the name of Christ that he or she may or may not actually be a
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Christian. And it's the New Testament that defines Christianity, that really tells us what
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Christianity is. There are people running around. I don't know if you've heard of this, the red letter
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Christians, you heard of that? I believe in the letters written in red, meaning, you know, that there's a certain extra special something about the words of Jesus.
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Well, there's truth in that, right? It is kind of precious to us as believers.
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But what did Jesus say? Jesus said the Old Testament testifies of him. Sounded like my phone.
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The Old Testament speaks of him. All of Scripture speaks of him.
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And are the red letters any more inspired, that is to say, breathed out by God, than the
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New Testament? Are the red letters more inspired than the black letters?
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And the answer is no. They're all equally inspired. The God of the Old Testament is the
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God of the New Testament. The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. Jesus told the disciples that when the
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Holy Spirit came, he would lead them into all truth. So all of Scripture as a whole is all equally inspired and it's all equally true.
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So when we hear, when Jesus says this, he says, you're believing in me to believe in me is to believe in the
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Father. You can't, there's no kind of, there's no way to separate the two. There's no way to separate this truth.
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And anyone claiming to be spiritual, to just believe in God, but not believe in Jesus, is really saying,
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I reject the God of the Bible and I reject Jesus. I reject
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Jesus and I reject the God who is, I have a God of my own imagining. I have a
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God I've created to be my own God. I am a Romans one person. I worship the creation because it's my creation.
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To reject the son is to reject the father. To embrace the son is to embrace the father. You can't have one without the other.
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There's not a sliver of space between them. Jesus himself said, I and the father are one.
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That is, they're not just one in purpose. They're one in essence. They're one in divine nature.
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And also there are not just like an asterisk almost, but there are not gradations of Godhood within the
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Trinity. Jesus is not less God. He's not a lesser God. He is God.
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He's fully God, truly God. He is the image of the invisible
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God, the firstborn of all creation. And one must believe all that scripture teaches about him, everything that scripture teaches about Jesus.
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And I just took 12 out of the gospel of John, and then I threw one in at the end. But so 12, and then, you know, plus one, 12 truths that John teaches is about Jesus.
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First he, John presents Jesus as eternal and you think, okay, as a believer,
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I must believe these things. These things are true. John presents them as true. I must believe them.
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If I reject them, I reject Jesus. If I reject Jesus, I reject God. If I reject
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God, I am in peril of going to hell. John presents
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Jesus as eternal. That is to say that he always existed in John chapter one, he says, in the beginning was the word.
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And we think, well, what does he mean by in the beginning? He means before anything existed. In other words, before there was even time, time is a creation before time even existed was the word.
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And we find out later in verse 14, that the word is Jesus. And he goes on to say, and the word was with God and the word was
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God. He was in the beginning with God in verse two, there was never a time when
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Jesus did not exist. He is eternal. Secondly, you must believe that Jesus is the creator of all things.
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John chapter one, again, all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.
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And necessary implication of that, by the way, is that Jesus is not a created being.
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He existed from all time and there's no way to wriggle around it. He's not a created being.
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Why? Because all things were made through him. If he's a created being, then he had to make himself. That's a contradiction.
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You can't be the creator and a creation. Third truth about Jesus, he is the only sacrifice for sin, the only sacrifice for sin in John chapter one,
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John the Baptist. And he looked, speaking of John the Baptist, he's, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, behold, the lamb of God, Jesus would also speak of himself as laying down his life for the sheep as the good shepherd.
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He's the only sacrifice for sin. He alone, perfect, without sin.
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He's the only one that could pay the price for all who would ever believe. He's the one who takes away the sins of the world,
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John said, John the Baptist said. Fourth, he's the only means of escaping condemnation.
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We don't, as often probably as we should talk about hell. John chapter three, everybody loves three 16 for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him, but listen, should not perish, but have eternal life.
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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, whoever believes in him is not condemned, meaning is not going to hell, but whoever does not believe is condemned already is bound for hell is hell bound because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God.
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There is only one means of escaping condemnation and that is by faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Truth number five about Jesus, the one who possess, he is the one who possesses the fullness of the
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Holy Spirit and that he is also the true heir of all things. Verse 34 and 35 of John chapter three for he whom
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God sent utters the words of God for he, the father gives the spirit without measure.
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The father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. Jesus Christ has the fullness of the
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Holy Spirit and the father has given all things to him. I do not want to say anything more about the
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Holy Spirit because we will go way too long. Number six, the revealer of the nature of God. John chapter four, he is talking to the woman at the well.
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What does he say? But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him.
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God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
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So why is it important not to have graven images? Well, because he's a spirit. There's nothing you can make that's going to resemble
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God. Why does God consistently condemn idolatry?
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Why even in chapter one is he condemning of Romans? Is he condemning idolatry? Because this is what men do.
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They want to worship something and so they make themselves something and they worship it. God is spirit.
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He has no image that we can worship. Number seven, truth about Jesus.
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He is merciful. He's also mighty. He's merciful and mighty. John chapter five, verses six to eight.
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Again, these are things that John taught, the things that we must believe as believers.
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He's merciful and mighty. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, this is the man who'd been laying for 38 years.
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Do you want to be healed? The sick man answered him, sir, I have no one to put me on. Put me in the pool when the water is stirred up and while I am going in another steps down before me,
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Jesus said to him, get up, take your bed and walk 38 years.
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He'd been lame and Jesus heals him. Merciful has compassion on those who have no hope.
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Truth number eight. He's the subject of the old Testament. John already said this. John chapter five, 39, verse 39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.
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In other words, all the old Testament, he's not talking about the new Testament here because they didn't have the new Testament yet. All the old
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Testament testifies about him. That's why the Sunday night series is so great for me because we get to see
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Jesus in the old Testament. Truth number nine.
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The one who will see or he is the one who will see that all those he saved enter heaven.
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Jesus is going to guarantee that each and every Christian, each and every true believer actually gets to heaven.
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John chapter six, verses 37 and 39, all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me,
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I will never cast out. Well what does that mean? It means he's going to keep them. Verse 38 for I've come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me and this is the will of him who sent me the father's will that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day.
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He has given people to his son. His son is going to keep them and on the last day he's going to raise them up.
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He's going to take them to heaven. Number 10. Jesus is also the giver of eternal life.
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John chapter six, verses 47 to 50, truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
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I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the men in the wilderness and they died. This himself is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die and he's not talking about physical death.
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He's talking about spiritual death. He is the giver of eternal life. Eternal life is found only in him.
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Truth number 11 about Jesus. He is the holy one, the sinless one.
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So Jesus said to the 12, John chapter six, verses 67 to 69.
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So Jesus said to the 12, do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him,
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Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.
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You're his chosen instrument. You're the Messiah. You're the redeemer. There is no one else.
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Truth number 12. Jesus is also the shepherd of a flock containing people of all nations and tongues.
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This is just amazing. We live in a world where everybody's consumed by race, charges of racism.
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Jesus puts a stop to all that. John chapter 10, verse 16, he says this.
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I have other sheep that are not of this fold. They're not Jewish. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice.
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So there will be one flock, one shepherd, the church, universal.
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So more and more ought to look like what it's going to look like in heaven where people of every nation and kindred and tribe and tongue are going to be together rejoicing and worshiping the risen
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Jesus Christ. Those are the 12 truths and I just added one because I was like, well,
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I might as well get the whole gospel in here, all these truths about who he is. He's a sin bearer, he's sinless, spotless lamb.
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He's also raised, but we haven't gotten there yet. So John really hasn't got there, so I'm not including that.
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That's just a freebie, 12 plus one. But to believe that the son, that Jesus is all the scripture is, is to see the father.
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We need to see Jesus as he is in order to see the father. We understand the nature of Jesus, therefore we understand the nature of the father.
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The father is reflected in the son. In fact, the writer of Colossians, Paul says that what
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Jesus is the icon, the perfect image. Jesus is the perfect image of God, the father.
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Matthew says, or writes this when he, the words of Jesus, all things have been handed over to me by my father and no one knows the son except the father and no one knows the father except the son.
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And listen, how do we know the father? Anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.
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In other words, the son reveals the father to us. That's how we know the father. Believers are first truth.
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Believers know both the son and the father, the father and the son. You can't know one without knowing the other.
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It's impossible. There's no division. There's no light between them. Our second true statement.
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This is going to go a lot faster, relax. Believers leave the darkness.
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They believe they leave the darkness. Verse 46, I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes may not remain in darkness.
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Well, if you don't remain, you leave, right? Darkness is a metaphor for sin, certainly, although we'll never completely stop sinning until we die.
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But it's also a metaphor for spiritual ignorance. A true child of God has the word of God.
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They also have the spirit of God. So we're not left to stumble in the darkness.
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We're not left ignorance of the nature of God or of the nature of ourselves, mankind, sin or salvation.
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We know these things. Why? Because we have scripture and we have the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds of scripture so that we can know the truth.
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Jesus came as light. And what does light do? It exposes the darkness. He is the source of spiritual information.
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And for this reason, in fact, we have a hint of clause there, so that with the purpose of, right there in our text, so that whoever believes, present participle, ongoing action, whoever believes does not remain in darkness.
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Now, you might say, well, I still sin, so am I a believer? Well, yes. But just as our faith is not self -generated, so it's also true that, and it's not self -given, we don't give it on our own, we can't push it away.
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Our God -given faith can't be rejected. It is an integral, inherent, permanent fixture in our lives.
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Now, there's a subjunctive mood here, not to get too technical, but may not remain.
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Underscores the truth that believers will, with absolute certainty, not remain in darkness. You won't do it.
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When Paul writes in Colossians, he says that we have been transferred, what, from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his
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Son. We don't remain in darkness. And those who remain in darkness, they know that they are sinners.
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They hate the light. You know, even John says, you know, the light came into the world, and men hate the light.
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They love the darkness. Why? Because they love their sin. They want to remain in their sin. But believers know both the
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Father and the Son. That was number one. And number two, believers leave the darkness. They're not left in darkness.
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They're not left in ignorance or in sin, at least not sin without a remedy.
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And truth number three, believers need not fear judgment. They need not fear judgment.
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We know that Jesus is not only the coming King, but He's also the one who will judge.
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So this is kind of interesting. Why does it say here that He doesn't come to judge? So look at verse 47. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, they disobey.
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I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
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He didn't come to judge the world, certainly not this time, right? He's coming back to judge the world, but that's not what
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He says. He says, I do not judge him. It doesn't say I will not judge him, but be that as it may, we'll get to that in a minute.
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He did come to save the world, not to judge it, right? We'd know that from John chapter 3, verse 17. For God did not send
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His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. He's on a rescue mission.
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But if someone does not obey Christ, how is it possible that He's not going to judge that person?
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When we think of Paul on Mars Hill, and he's giving that sermon, what does he say? That God has appointed a day, a day future, and He's appointed a man to judge the world, right?
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And he's talking about Jesus Christ. So how is it possible that Jesus is not going to judge an unbeliever?
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And He gives us the answer in verse 48. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge.
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The word that I have spoken will judge him on that last day.
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And again, as I said in the beginning, I think this is a great picture because our heart's going to give us away.
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King Jesus on the throne and His words, the truths of scripture condemn us.
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Jesus doesn't have to say a thing. All these things that are true about Him will be like, we're going to hear these truths, or I don't know exactly how it's going to work, but we're going to be sitting there knowing that we, and I don't mean we, unbelievers are going to be standing there saying,
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I know that I've rejected Jesus. I know that I don't have anything going for me. Did you believe this truth about Jesus, all these 12 truths?
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Did you believe that He was eternal? No, I didn't believe that. Did you believe this? No. And it doesn't matter how nicely things are said.
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Ultimately, hell is self -chosen. Why? Because those who reject
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Jesus' own words reserve the just condemnation of God for themselves.
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They brought it on themselves. Even Romans 1 tells us that. Why? Because what was known about God, they suppress in unrighteousness.
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There's no mystery that a God exists. You don't really have atheists for friends. You have people who say they're atheists, but they know there's a
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God. Romans 1 makes that plain. But in contrast,
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Jesus has said that those who keep His word, those who love His word, will never taste death.
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In other words, they will not face condemnation. They don't need to fear it. D .A. Carson says this.
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He says the same message, the exact same gospel message that proclaims life and forgiveness to the believer, proclaims condemnation and wrath to the unbeliever.
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Same message. But because they reject it, they face condemnation and the wrath of God.
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Now, how could anyone think to have an excuse? They won't, ultimately.
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Look at verse 49. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has given me a new commandment, what to say and what to speak.
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And he says this repeatedly. I do only what the Father wants me to do. I say only what the
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Father wants me to say. When you hear me, you're hearing what the Father wants me to say. When you look at me,
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I'm doing what the Father does. He says this thing continuously. Excuse me.
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Verse 50. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore,
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I say as the Father has told me. The very words of life Jesus offers.
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The very words of life. The keys to eternal life. Forgiveness of sin.
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Eternity in the presence of Christ. How can anyone suppose that they're going to escape judgment if they reject that message?
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That the Father has sent through the Son. The Son has paid a great price to deliver.
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For believers, there's no fear but eternal life.
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For unbelievers, they should be very afraid. They should be very afraid.
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Now again, can God be just? That is to say, can he carry out his justice?
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Can he, every sin committed, can he make sure that it's paid for? And at the same time be loving?
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And the answer is yes. Do you ever in Scripture see a picture of the love of God and the justice of God at the same time?
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Of course we do. Of course we do. At the cross. The justice of God demonstrated in the sacrificial death of the
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Lord Jesus Christ for the sins of his people. Juxtaposed against the love of God in forgiving them the penalty that they should have paid.
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But for those who do not believe, the cross is only a forlorn hope.
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Something that they should have clung to but they did not. But for believers, justice and love, wrath and grace, hatred of sin and mercy for sinners, all meet at the cross.
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Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the life and ministry of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. From its very beginning, in human terms, as a mere child, as he entered our creation, his creation, how he faithfully obeyed.
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From the moment he could conceive of truth, right and wrong, he obeyed.
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He obeyed his parents perfectly. He did everything right. Obeyed your word fully. Even to the point of death on a cross.
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Why? Because we can't. We don't. No one ever will but the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We need that righteousness. We need his perfect righteousness imputed to us.
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Father, for any here who somehow have convinced themselves that lip service or a shell, a veneer of Christianity will get them into heaven.
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Lord, would you pierce through that thinking even right now and convict them of their need for the
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Lord Jesus Christ fully, wholly. Every bit of scripture truth must be believed.
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It's all true and it's the story of you and your son and how you redeem sinners.
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Father, convict those who need convicting and for those of us who are struggling in life circumstances,
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Lord, let this be an encouragement. All the things that are true about the Lord Jesus Christ ought to encourage us to know that whatever our time left here on earth is, he awaits us.
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From the moment we take our last breath, we will be instantly in his presence.
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We will enjoy him forever. Being with our great shepherd, the one who loves us, who died for us, and who keeps us even now.
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Father, we praise you and ask for your blessing on the rest of our time. In Jesus' name, amen.