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How's your praise life? Are you known as someone who praises God? Did you know, actually, you have been born to worship Christ Jesus? That's why you live. One man said it's a capital crime of the Lord's people to become barren in praises.
How about you? Are you joyful, thankful, known as a praiser, singing hallelujahs to the Lord, or are you a grumbler, complainer, unappreciative? Thomas Watson, an old Puritan preacher, said, the highest act of religion is praising God.
Simply, we've been born to praise God. That's why we've been born. It's not self-fulfillment or self-gratification. We are here to praise the Almighty God. There's an old preacher from England who had a way of saying things to try to drive the point home, and he had effect.
His name was Charles Spurgeon. He said this about praise. He says, if I did not praise and bless Christ Jesus my Lord, I should deserve to have my tongue torn out by its roots from my mouth. If I did not bless and magnify His name, I should deserve that every stone I tread on in the streets should rise up to curse my ingratitude.
For I am a drowned detour to the mercy of God. Overhead in ears to infinite love and boundless compassion, I am a debtor. And then Spurgeon said to his congregation, I say to you, are you not the same?
Then I charge you by the love of Christ, awake. Awake your hearts now to magnify His glorious name. If you turn your Bibles to John chapter 6, we'll look at a passage that should spur you on to do this very thing.
It is a stupendous passage. It's actually staggering. I've never preached this at Christmastime before, but I think I should on a regular basis because it talks about a real truth of Christmas that drives us or should drive us to praise our great triune God.
John chapter 6, found in the New Testament about three quarters of the way into your Bible. There should be a Black Pew Bible close. You'll need one today. We want to know what does God say? What does Jesus Christ say about Himself that should spur us on?
And motivate us to praise Him? And what we'll do this morning is we'll look at three truths about Christ Jesus so we can think about praise properly. And I call these wild truths. When I was a kid, I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and we were near, and my mother worked for for some time, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
They had all those crazy animals and the wild adventure stories. These truths here are wild. There is nothing about tameness here. There's not this truth that Jesus uses that is very domesticated and everybody says, oh, that's fine.
You're such a wonderful Jesus. These are truths that are designed to pierce and to move and to make you think about what is going on here. And when we look at these truths today, they're simple, yet they're wild and they're staggering, meant for you to respond.
If I could say early on in the message today that no response is a wrong response. These truths are meant to either drive you to praise God or turn your back on Him. Because if you just are in the middle, you're still not praising God.
And I find these passages and these verses just amazing. The words of Christ. Let's have a little background here. First, before we get into John chapter 6, verses 37 and following, everything has a context.
And the context is basically the reason why Jesus came to earth. That is the context. If you look for the phrase, came down from heaven, you will find it six times in John 6. John 6, six times the phrase came down from heaven.
It's found in verse 33, 38, 41, 50, 51, and 58. Jesus is claiming to have divine origin. He is claiming to come down from heaven. He is claiming to come down from God Himself, sent by God. And as Jesus would do, He would be teaching people and they would ask questions.
And we'll jump right into John 6, verse 27. My prediction is that if you haven't underlined these verses in your Bible yet, you're going to underline lots of verses in John chapter 6 because they're truths that you want to remember and highlight when it comes to the idea of the greatness of Christ and how everyone should respond with praise.
John 6, He's just fed the 5 ,000. And it says in verse 26, Jesus answered them and said, truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
You're not really here to follow me because I'm Lord and Savior and fulfilling prophecy. You're here because you're hungry on a regular basis. Never ceases to amaze me how often you get hungry. You're traveling around in Germany and you think it's time to eat again.
And it's not just me, but it's the kids. We get hungry on a regular basis. And Jesus has fed these people out in the middle of the wilderness. And now they think, you know, we better follow this guy because there's no Hannafords, there's no Damulas, there's no stop and shop, there's no market around, and we're out in the middle of nowhere.
Wow, Jesus feeds us. And Jesus said, notice the language here in verse 27, do not work for the food which perishes, it doesn't last forever. But for the food, see the figurative language, which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you for on him, the Father, God has sent his seal.
There's something more important than eating. They didn't quite get it though, therefore they said to him, what should we do so that we may work the works of God? We want to try to earn this, or merit it, we want this.
And typically the mindset is, you have to go out and get it, and earn it, or buy it. Jesus answered and said to them, verse 29, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So they said to him, oh, okay, since you're the one, what then do you do for a sign that we may see and believe you?
What work do you perform? Jesus, we're not really impressed by the feeding of the 5 ,000 men. There were children there, and there were women there, maybe 10 ,000, maybe 15 ,000, some say 20 ,000 people that they have fed, that Jesus has fed rather.
They said, you know Jesus, not impressed, because faith believes, but unbelief always questions. Now you can just hear them, look at John 6 .31, our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat.
Jesus, what you have done is minuscule, it is tiny, it is microscopic to what God has done. Why should we listen to you? Our fathers were in the wilderness for 40 years. How many people were in the wilderness?
Some say 2 million people. For 2 million people, 40 years, daily fed by God. And Jesus, you feed 5 ,000 men and some women and children one time, big deal. One day versus 14 ,600 days, God-fed, 2 million people, we're not impressed.
Unbelief is never enough, it doesn't matter how spectacular the miracle is, 2 million versus 5 ,000, one day versus 14 ,000. You know Jesus, we're just not impressed. That's like, you know, you're doing Morris Code and we want IMAX.
Jesus then said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread of heaven. It's not Moses who gave the physical food, nor is it Moses who is giving the spiritual sustenance and nurture, it's God giving me the true bread out of heaven.
It's not just talking about bread, bread, spiritual bread, Jesus. For the bread of God, verse 33, do you see it? Here's the real bread, is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.
This is the kind of bread that satisfies the spiritual stomach for eons, for ages, forever and ever. So they're finally getting it, we think, and so the response is in verse 34. Open mouth, insert foot.
Then they said to him, Lord, always give us this food. Still not thinking properly, they are deaf, dumb, and blind to these spiritual realities. Jesus is preaching on FM and they have AM receivers that are bent.
Earth to people, simple algebraic equation. Jesus equals bread. Spiritual bread, spiritual nourishment. And so now Jesus makes explicit what he was implicitly implying. Verse 35, Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me will not ever hunger. It's a double negative there in the original. He will never, ever, ever, ever hunger. And he who believes in me, there's another double negative there in the original, will never, ever, ever thirst.
And three times Jesus is basically saying, let me make this perfectly clear. Verse 35, verse 48, verse 51, I am the bread of life. And remember back in those days, bread wasn't just crushed wheat with water baked.
Bread was nourishment and sustenance and it could be food. What bread was to a land that had a famine, so too Jesus is to a soul that is famished with sin. Jesus didn't say, do you notice what the text doesn't say?
He didn't say, I know where that bread is. I know that special little Dead Sea scroll over in Qumran that if you open it up, there's a special bread from heaven. I know where all these things are. No, he said, I am.
I don't have the bread, I am the bread. But sadly, verse 36, but I say to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. Can you imagine they saw Jesus feed the 10 ,000 people. They've heard him preach and they said, we don't want anything to do with you, Jesus.
So what does Jesus do? Jesus sad, maybe the father's plan has foiled and he's been checkmated and how does he respond? All that's introduction that leads us to our three truths today. John chapter six, verses 37 to 43, simple and wild truths that should force us, that should motivate us internally to say, that is a wonderful God.
Christ Jesus, you are amazing. John six, 37 to 40 that talks directly about the surety and absolute nature of heaven and how you need to get there. You can never be good enough. You're never good enough in comparison to other people.
After all, one sin keeps us out of heaven. Anything less than perfection bars people from the entrance of heaven. Heaven's impossible to gain on our own. It's easier to make a ladder out of sand and climb to heaven with a Titanic chained around your ankle than it is to get to heaven on your own.
So for the Christian, we read this today and we're going to think, God, you're wonderful. Thanks for what you have done in my life. And if you're not a Christian here today, you should see these claims of Jesus and say, that's the Savior and the only Savior who can help me with me and my sin.
Truth number one, the first simple but wild Christmas truth. God gave the Son a love gift. God the Father gave a love gift to the Son. You think, what's that mean? God the Father gave a love gift to the Son.
I'm just trying to hold myself back because I'm ready to just launch into about a 10-week series on the greatness of this passage, but it is so packed. It's Christmas time. We all give gifts. You got your gifts done?
Your shopping done? Probably somebody today is going to give you a gift, though, and you're going to think, you know, I didn't plan on giving them a gift, but they gave me one, so I better go get one to give them back.
And there's all these issues of gift giving now. Here's the original gift. Did you know God the Father gave the Son a gift before time? And Jesus is going to tell unbelievers and people that don't believe in Him about this gift.
Jesus doesn't say, well, you know, you don't really believe in me, and so I don't want to talk about doctrine or anything heavy. Jesus basically backs the truck up, and I can hear the truck. Simple truths, but they're devastating.
They're amazing truths. Why would He ever say these things? We would never talk this way to unbelievers. Jesus would. Maybe we should talk a little bit differently. God the Father gave a love gift to the Son.
What's the gift? Who's the gift? Why did He give the gift? Let's find out, John 6, 37. Jesus said, all that the Father gives me shall come to me. The one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out.
Jesus now is going to reveal to these people by His words that the ultimate reason why they are not believing in this bread of life, certainly they're to blame and they have guilt because they don't believe, but Jesus is saying, I have confidence that everyone that the Father has given to me will come.
God is the ultimate reason that people go to heaven. God is the Savior and Sustainer and the Initiator, the Elector. God is in charge. And did you know before time, Jesus tells these unbelievers that God gave a special love gift of people to the Son.
Before time began, God decides that He will give some people to the Son as a love gift. And if you're a Christian, you know that's what you are? You're a love gift from the Father to the Son. God the Father is the one who's sovereignly working in the lives of people.
And Jesus is basically not fraught with the idea, oh, nobody's ever going to believe me. He's on a mission sent by God and that mission will come to fruition because God has initiated in time past. How is something in time going to mess up what happened before time?
Jesus tells this to the unbelievers. You look at verse 44, if you would with me for a minute. I want to show you that this gift language is a regular occurrence in the New Testament. John 6 .44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
Sent and drawn, verse 65, same kind of language. And He was saying, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted Him, gifted Him from the Father. If you turn a few chapters ahead to John 17, it's even more obvious.
There's more magnification where Jesus is praying and we hear Him talk about gifts. We hear Him talk about people. We hear Him talk about this language in ways that we might not normally talk about. John 17 .6, I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me.
It's not some object that's just a thing. The gift that God the Father gave the Son was people. Out of the world, they were yours and you gave them to me. They have kept your word. Look at verse 12 of John 17.
While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me. They're people. And I guarded them and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled.
And then verse 24, finally, just a little look at this language of gift giving, the Father to the Son. John 17 .24, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have what? Given me, be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you love me before the foundation of the world.
Think of it. Before time began, before the earth was created, the Father and the Son were existing together with the Spirit. And the Father wanted to show his Son how much he loved him, so he said, I'm going to give you a present.
Do you give presents to people you love? It's just natural. You've been made in the image and likeness of God. You like to give gifts. It pleases you when you see someone receive a gift and they think, oh, that was good, thank you.
So too, God the Father gives a love gift before time begins to the Son. People. All those who would ever become Christians were the gift. Now let's go back to John 6 for a minute. What do you think the Son says?
Well, Father, you've given me the love gift of some of these people, and you know I don't really like the gift. I think I'll keep the gift and use it for a white elephant gift, because I don't really care for it.
I don't like the ones you gave, and I wish you would have picked other ones and some were more impressive. I know they were all sinners, but I don't really like the gift. What do you think the Son does with the gift?
Puts a fake smile on. My grandmother always, God rest her soul. If you ever say something negative about an old grandparent, and you say, God rest her soul, then it makes it all fine. I love my grandma.
She was German. Her name was Erna, but her real name was Hedwig. We never could figure out why a lady was named by her mother and father Hedwig, but that's another sermon. And so Hedwig Erna Clausen Abenroth was trying to be kind and good and all that stuff, but she wrapped everything in thin white paper we could see right through it.
Tissue paper, that's what she wrapped things in. It's one thing to get a good gift that you can see through. It's another thing to get a gift that you don't really care about, and you can see through.
I mean, at least if it's not something good on the inside, but you can't see through, there's some anticipation, wow, this might be a good gift. But anyway, she gave us socks every year. And the thing is, I don't know why she would give us socks, because she darned socks.
She never threw socks away, and who would when you lived through the Depression? And who would when you moved from Germany to America and had the Americans mad at you because you were German? Anyway, I'm getting off track, but that's part of it.
I'd get these socks, and the first thing we would do as kids, because we already had socks. Thank you, Grandma, we really appreciate your gift. Grandpa, thank you. And then we began to think in the 1960s, who had the best return policy in Omaha, Nebraska?
Walmarts weren't out yet or anything like that, so we had to go down to whatever one of the supermarkets, Piggly Wiggly or Hinky Dinky or one of these ridiculous Nebraska places. What does a son do when the father gives him a gift of people?
Sinful people, what does a son do? We're going to see how Jesus takes care of these gifts, how he redeems these gifts, and how he makes these gifts, who are by nature sin and deeds, sinful, and he takes those gifts and he polishes them and gives them a new inside and a new nature, and then he's going to give those gifts back to the Father, redeemed and glorified.
If you're a Christian, you should be thinking today, you know, gift-giving's good because I reflect God's image when I give gifts. And I get to pick the gifts, and I get to pick the people I give gifts to.
Is God no less than you? Does God get to determine the number of gifts, the kind of gifts, and to whom he gives the gifts? That's what Jesus is telling these people who don't even believe him. And when you realize that before time began, the Father gave you as a love gift to the son, what should that do to your praise life?
Oh, you know, I hope the Red Sox, you know, win again next year. Hope Tom Brady, you know, actually beats the record of Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning. I could care less. I'm a love gift. God picked me, wrapped me up as it were, and handed me to Christ before time.
That is mind-boggling. That is absolutely mind-boggling. God determines the number of gifts. He didn't pick everyone. God determines that he gives them to the son. He could have given them to the Holy Spirit, or he couldn't have given them at all.
We have come so far in our world that we think everything focuses on us, when Christianity is basically a banner that says this, it's all about God. Yes, there's response, and we must believe and obey.
We'll get to that in a minute, and so too does Jesus. But Christianity is all about God. God is the gospel. It's about what God did before time, what God does in time, what God will do after time. Truth number one, that's simple, but it's wild.
Maybe it's wild because we don't talk about it much, but Jesus did. Truth number one, God the Father gives a love gift to the son. Truth number two, Jesus makes sure he guarantees heaven for those gifts.
In other words, Jesus makes sure that he takes good care of those gifts. If you hand something over to your son or daughter and say, be a good steward, take care of it, be faithful, watch out, get it serviced, and your son or your daughter destroys what you've given them, that would not be a good son or daughter.
That would not be a good steward. But we know what Jesus is going to do with those gifts, and he's going to take good care with those gifts. I could ask the question, why did Jesus come down from heaven?
There are many answers. To live a perfect life that pleased God in our place? Yes. To live a life that was set towards dying at Calvary for sins, as a sacrificial lamb, be raised from the dead in victory?
Yes. To live a life so that he would emulate what it means to be a perfect person and then teach the gospel to people? That would be a reason. To live a life to condemn false teaching? That would be a reason.
To fulfill prophecy? Of course. To show victory over death and Satan? Yes. But one of the reasons, and the reason in our passage today, that Jesus comes down from heaven is so that he guarantees that the gift from the Father to the Son will be in good care and he will never lose any of those gifts.
Let's find out. Verse 38. John 6, 38. We will see here that Jesus ensures good care of the gifts, people, that the Father has given him. He will guard them. He will make certain that they will be in good shape as he returns them back to the Father.
He's not only a good steward. You'll see in this passage that he is a good shepherd. John 6, 38. For I have come down from heaven, cloaked himself with humanity, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
Verse 39. This is the will of him who sent me. We move from general to specific. That of all that he has given me, people, sinners, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. Not only did God take a gift of people and give them to Jesus before time began, Jesus is going to make sure those people are returned in good order to the Father.
Can we doubt that Jesus would fulfill his promises? Maybe Jesus would slip up or sin somehow or fall short. He might fail or falter. No, here Jesus says, I want to let you know one thing. I have come to do the will of my Father and I will accomplish it.
There's security for those who have been given to the Son. Jesus isn't going to drop the ball. The baton's not going to be dropped. There's not going to be some kind of mix-up as you pass on these gifts.
He's come down from heaven for this purpose, not to do his own will, but to do the Father's will. And the Father's will was, here's my love gift, redeem them. Make them trophies of grace. And did Jesus accomplish that?
Of course he did. Absolutely. God's purpose for Jesus was to die for and ransom those gifts. And if you want to know what a purpose-driven life is, this is a purpose-driven life. Purposely obeying what the Father has commanded the Son to do.
The hearers, listening to Jesus right here, may reject him either forever or temporarily, but the will of God will be done. Jesus could have stayed in heaven, but he wouldn't have been fulfilling the Father's word.
Jesus could have stayed in heaven, but he wouldn't have become obedient, Philippians 2, to the point of death, even death on the cross. The word incarnation, we celebrate the incarnation of Christ during Christmas, means to put flesh on.
There's a skeleton, you put some flesh on, you've made those bones incarnate, to flesh out, clothed with flesh. That's exactly what happened, John 1, 14, and the eternal word became flesh and dwelt among us.
God knew that the myth of man is basically good is actually a myth. God knew that it was a lie that God helps those who help themselves. God knew that those people couldn't help themselves, so he said, I've got a rescue mission planned, and I'm going to pick some people out.
I could damn them all, they've all deserved damnation. Nobody has earned grace, so I will rescue some. And I'm going to take those some and wrap them up as a gift, as it were, and hand them to my Son, and my Son will see for sure that these things will be redeemed and given back to me on glory.
And look at what Jesus said in verse 39. All that he has given me, I will lose nothing. Literally, I'm not going to destroy any of them. There's good care, it will happen. People say, well, can you lose your salvation?
Friends, if you have been given by the Father, do you mean you can undo that? If you think you saved yourself, you can unsave yourself. But if you think God saved you, you can't undo this gift. What does Jesus say right there?
He will lose nothing, because he's a good shepherd. Every single one will come. I'm so glad that I get to go to heaven. Why? Because God will see fit that I will get there. He will see to it, because if I could mess it up, would I?
Of course I would. And here in the original language, it's strong denial. One man said, what words to a sinner's heart? Those who come to Christ will find him a loving Lord, who will never cast out those who trust in him.
Jesus accepts the wrath that these gifts deserve. Jesus absorbs that. These gifts and the Father were at war with each other. Jesus steps in as mediator and says, there needs to be a peace treaty. And what these sinful gifts have deserved, I will take that punishment myself.
And now what was irreconcilable, now in Christ becomes reconcilable. Jesus says, these gifts were slaves of sin. Father, you've given me these gifts, and I've got to buy them out of the slave market of sin.
And I will buy them with my own self. And I will cleanse them and sanctify them and justify them. I'll make them born again. I'll convert them. And then on the day of glory, I'm going to hand them back to you, Father.
And not one is going to be lost. If one is lost, Christianity is a lie. If one gets out somehow, falls out of the hand of the Father, jumps out of the hand of the Son, whatever language we want. And Christianity is a joke because the Father and the Son's promises to one another are null and void.
I can't believe I'm a love gift from the Father to the Son. And I can't believe that love gift, in spite of myself, in spite of itself, is going to be polished and shined and taken care of from the inside out and handed back to the Father without one exception.
Fit for the Master's hand. Three truths from this passage. Truth number one, God the Father gives love gifts to the Son. Truth number two, God the Son makes sure he guarantees that these love gifts will be presented back to God in heaven.
And now the question of the hour. Are you a love gift from God the Father to God the Son? Can you know? How can you know? How can you know what happened in eternity past? You need to know. Life is short.
Judgment is sure. I pulled up one of my funeral sermons and I preached funerals. And I tell everyone at a funeral, life is short, life is uncertain. Death and judgment are sure. We can't presume on the future.
So we all need to know, are we going to heaven or are we not? We are all immortal here. None of us will ever die spiritually. So do we go to heaven or do we go to hell? You say, well, you know, it doesn't matter.
Because God the Father has chosen some, not all, given those to the Son. The Son only takes those some, not all, and dies for them and gives them back to the Father. And what if I'm not chosen? What if I'm not one of those gifts?
Well, A, we should never presume on God and have the gall and the audacity to say, I deserve to be one of those gifts. I get to be a gift that the Father gives to a son. Doesn't that sound weird? So how can we know?
If this whole passage, Jesus is telling unbelievers about the sovereignty of God, who goes to heaven and who doesn't, what does it matter? Let's live it up. And if God saves us, great. And if He doesn't, great.
How can you tell if you're a love gift from the Father to the Son? This leads us to question our statement, truth number three. You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will know if you're a gift.
You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll know whether or not you're a gift. As we get ready to stand before God on judgment day, we stand before this omniscient, holy judge who knows all about us.
We need somebody to stand in our place, to stand in front of us, to take the sentence that judge should have given us. And God doesn't say, Jesus in this passage in John 6 doesn't just say, by the way, God's sovereign, it doesn't matter what you do.
We'll see it right here in the text that there is a call, there is a response for all to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You want to know if you're elect or not? If you're a believer, you're elect. You want to know if you're a gift or not?
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll know you are a gift. Verse 40, John 6. For this is the will of my Father. Remember he was just talking about the will of God earlier? That everyone who beholds the Son, two B words here in English and the new American standard, and believes in Him.
If you behold and believe, He may have eternal life and I myself will raise Him up on the last day. Isn't this interesting? God doesn't just say, the Son doesn't say, by the way, it's all determined in eternity past and live your life, happy go lucky.
He says it's determined in eternity past and it was also decided in eternity that the way to the Father is through the Son by beholding and by believing. It's not just as simple as election, it's how God has determined both election and the response to election, the response to what God has done.
Jesus said it's what? Behold and believe. That's Christianity. There's a set of truths about God. They demand a response. For Christians, the response is, praise God, I'm a gift. I'll never be lost. The response for someone who doesn't believe in Christ Jesus is, you must behold and believe.
And these words have nothing to do with intellectual credence, superficial attachment or assent. These have to do with real faith. Look at John 6 .40. Behold the Son and believes in Him. This behold is not, oh behold.
This is a behold that looks and contemplates and studies and figures out, prolonged contemplation and believes in Him. We've gone from some kind of nebulous gift language of a corporate sense now to specific people, you.
If you're not a Christian, you must behold and believe. It's not as easy as saying, well, maybe I'm not a gift. I can live like I want. People will do anything to make their consciences assuaged and soothed and petted so they can live like sin.
So don't ever walk out of here today and say, well, my conscience is assuaged. I can live like hell today because I'm not chosen. No. Behold and believe. And then you may have what kind of life? Eternal life.
This kind of belief is to have confidence in, to have trust in, to say I'm trusting you with everything I am, my eternal soul and life. God, you're the object of my faith. I'm convinced of that. I give credence to that.
And it's not just lip service. Jesus is saying, you know, you think your efforts are useless. No, you must behold and believe. And then look at the promise. This is the promise for any sinner. Can you imagine the sinful background of some of these people?
Can you imagine the sinful background of some of us? The skeletons in our closet? Jesus doesn't say, and by the way, if you're a Gentile, you're out. No hope for you. He doesn't say, by the way, if you're a woman, you're out.
He doesn't say that at all. He doesn't say, in those days, he could have, the way people sadly treated ladies. He doesn't say, if you're a man, you're out. He doesn't say, if you're a kid, sorry, you can't believe.
He says, everyone who beholds and believes is going to have eternal life. He doesn't say, you know what, you've committed those horrible sins in the past. God could never forgive you. That's not true.
He says, everyone who beholds the son and believes. Of course, we're to strive to get into heaven, Luke chapter 13. Jesus says, strive to enter. And this striving is by beholding, contemplating, and looking and believing in Christ Jesus.
Donald Gray Barnhouse was a great preacher down in Philadelphia. He told this story. I think it is insightful for belief and beholding. A Christian visited a hospital and paused at each bed to say a word of prayer and give out a gospel tract, something about Christ.
He came to the last bed and spoke to the patient very briefly. Dear man, when you come to the end of this life, will you go to heaven? In a tone of defiance, the man replied, oh, I think I'll get to heaven, all right.
What do you think they do in heaven, asked the visitor. Taken aback, the man hesitantly said, well, I haven't thought about it, but I guess they sing a great deal. That's right, the visitor said. And we have the words of that song that they sing in the Bible.
He opened to Revelation chapter 5, verse 9 and 10. You are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because you were slain Christ with your blood. You purchased men for God for every tongue and language and people and nation.
The visitor said, I must go now, but I leave this New Testament with you and ask you to consider this question. If you were taken to heaven tonight, could you sing heaven's song? The next day, the man returned and he went straight back to that guy's bed.
The man said something first in bed and he said, I read those verses 50 times from Revelation 5, and I shall never talk good about my works again. In heaven, they sing praises to Christ for redeeming them by his blood.
I've been trying to get to heaven without a savior, but now I know heaven's song, and I have trusted in his blood so that I can sing that song now. How about you? Can you sing heaven's song? It doesn't matter if you've been baptized.
It doesn't matter if you've been confirmed. It doesn't matter if you're here today. It doesn't matter if you're a good person. It doesn't matter if you pay your bills on time. It doesn't matter if they like you at work.
It doesn't matter if you've done anything. None of these can save from sin. Heaven's song is Jesus was slain by his blood. He did ransom men for God. And then Barnhouse said something that is piercing.
If you do not learn to sing that song on earth and believe it, you will never sing it in heaven. Jesus talks to these people, and he says, I'm the bread of life. I am the one who gives eternal sustenance.
And just because you don't believe me now, there's a plan before time, and that plan will take effect. And for us as Christians, we can rejoice. I can't believe I'm the gift. I saw it on YouTube the other day on some news deal, not YouTube, and I think it was in New Hampshire, and they had this box.
And the box was all wrapped up with Christmas decorations, and they brought the box out on this big pallet and crate with this pitchfork, and it was in the elementary school, elementary gymnasium of a school there.
And so they had two little girls go up, and in front of all their other classmates, they had to go up and open up the box. And they opened up the box, and inside the box was the father who had come home from his tour of duty in Iraq.
He was the gift. And what did the kids do? Oh, Dad, nice to see you. I mean, it was, you know, you could cry watching this little screen on your computer thinking this is what it is to love. And in a much greater sense, the father picks some who didn't deserve to be a gift.
They deserve to be the object of God's wrath. And he says, I love them. I'm going to redeem them. And I'm going to redeem them because I'm going to have my son do it, and I'm going to have him pay for their sins, give them perfect righteousness that my son earned, and have him raised from the dead.
And then as he is raised from the dead, he will also bring all those that are his gifts and raise them from the dead and hand them back to the father. How do you know if you're a gift? Behold and believe.
If you are a gift, praise and thank. Let's pray. Lord, it is good to see your word. It is good to see Jesus Christ and how he preached. Lord, how many conventional ways to preach seem thrown out of the window when Jesus talks to sinners.
And for that, we love him. Thank you that you loved the son before the foundation of the world, and, Lord, that you would love us too before the foundation of the world. It is amazing. Help us to be praisers.
Help us to be those who sing hallelujah, not just at Christmastime, not just when things are going better, but, Father, by your grace and by your Holy Spirit and his work in our lives, may we praise you.
And then, Lord, may we tell the truth to others. As a song we'll sing shortly, go tell it on the mountain. Father, I pray for those that would hear that song and hear this sermon, that you would help them contemplate, behold, and look Christ Jesus, the lamb who takes away the sin of the world.
In Jesus' name, amen.