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Who felled our human woe?
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O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory, Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory, Who dust our weakness?
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O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? O Savior, King of glory,
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Who dust our weakness? So I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.
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Again, this is a summary, a conclusion of our Lord's public ministry as recorded in this fourth gospel.
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Actually, the themes that we have just read have already been presented in earlier portions, places in the fourth gospel, but they're set forth here at the end of our
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Lord's public ministry, really giving a point of exclamation, as it were, to all that he has taught both publicly and privately.
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As one wrote, Donald Carson wrote this, the emphasis on the fact that God himself stands behind Jesus, whether as the object of faith or as the condemning judge, encourages the most serious consideration of the claims of Christ advanced to this point and injects urgency into the evangelist, that would be
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John's reflections on unbelief. As we attempt to understand and address these verses, we'll do so by first considering how some of the
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Jewish rulers believed in him. And notice I put believed in quotation marks.
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And then secondly, the one who truly believes in Jesus is addressed. Thirdly, the one who does not believe in Jesus is addressed.
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And then fourth, we have our Lord's concluding assertion that he was speaking the words of his father. So let's work through these verses.
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First, we read that many of the Jewish rulers believed in him. Throughout John's gospel, we've read of the unbelieving and unrighteous
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Jewish leaders who had opposed Jesus at every step. And it would be easy to conclude that there was united opposition to Jesus by all the
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Jews in authority in Jerusalem. But verses 42 and 43 correct this possible misapprehension.
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For here we read that even among the rulers, Jewish rulers, many believed in him.
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But there's something quite faulty regarding their faith. And that's clear from John's description of them.
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For John tells us that these believers had failed to refuse to confess
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Jesus. Again, John wrote of these Jewish rulers, nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him.
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But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.
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For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. We would assert that although these rulers believed in him, they did not have saving faith.
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They failed or refused to confess him. Calvin wrote of these believers,
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It may be thought that he speaks incorrectly when he separates faith from confession. For with the heart we believe the righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
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That's Romans 10 .10. And it's impossible that the faith which has been kindled in the heart shall not put forth its flame.
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In other words, he's saying a true heart of faith, one born of the Spirit, will come forth in a confession of the lips, of the tongue.
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I reply, he points out here how weak was the faith of those men who were so lukewarm or rather cold.
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In short, John means that they embraced the doctrine of Christ because they knew that it had come from God, but that they have not a lively faith or a faith so vigorous as it ought to have been.
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For Christ does not grant to his followers a spirit of fear, but a firmness, that they may boldly and fearlessly confess what they have learned from him.
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Yet I do not think that they were altogether silent, but as their confession was not sufficiently open, the evangelist, that would be
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John, in my opinion, simply declares that they did not make profession their faith.
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For the proper kind of profession was openly to declare that they were the disciples of Christ. Let no man, therefore, flatter himself who in any respect conceals or dissembles his faith for fear of incurring the hatred of men.
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For however hateful the name of Christ may be, that cowardice which compels us to turn aside in the smallest degree from the confession of him admits of no excuse.
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Clearly Calvin understood these so -called believers as not having truly become his disciples.
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They did not have salvation. They had a faith, but it was not saving faith.
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It was a superficial faith that did not impact the way they lived. They would not even confess
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Christ openly, because they were more concerned about what people thought of them than what
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God thought of them. If these Jewish rulers had stood forth and stated openly what
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Jesus had taught was true, and that what he had proved were true because he was the promised
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Messiah, their open confession would have resulted in them being excluded from the synagogue. We've seen that in John's Gospel.
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And we read that what generated this fear of open confession was that they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
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It would seem that they did love the praise of God, but they loved the praise of men more. So they failed to confess
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Jesus openly and forthrightly. Jesus had said of some men like this back in John 5 .44,
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How can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only
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God? And so the question that must be raised regarding these many rulers who believed, was their faith saving faith?
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And I would assert no, it was not. From the tenor of John's description of these men, the answer is no.
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These men did not possess saving faith in Jesus Christ. Their belief was defective and deficient.
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For they failed to confess Christ. John has written of others who had a shallow false faith back in John 2 .22
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and 23. Now when he, Jesus, was in Jerusalem at the Passover during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did.
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But Jesus did not commit himself to them, because he knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.
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They believed in him because they saw the miracles. But their faith was not a commitment to be his disciple.
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In fact, Jesus himself did not overtly commit himself to them, because he knew that it was not a solid, life -changing faith.
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There is a man who had confessed Christ openly, the man who had been born blind, to whom
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Jesus gave sight. But you recall, his confession of faith cost him.
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We read of him in John 9, boldly declaring before the Jewish leaders, if this man were not up from God, he could do nothing.
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But what was their response to this man? They excommunicated him from the professing people of God.
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We read in 934 -35, they answered, said to him, you are completely born in sins, are you teaching us?
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And they cast him out. And that expression, cast him out, means that he was cast out from any fellowship with fellow
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Jews, in the synagogues, or probably no longer allowed to come to the temple.
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But we read even his own parents failed to confess Christ on that occasion. When asked about their son and how he had sight given to him, they said, he is of age, ask him.
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He'll speak for himself. And then John explained why the parents responded to the
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Jewish leaders in this manner. His parents said these things because they feared the Jews. For the
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Jews had agreed already that if anyone confessed that he was Christ, he would be put out of the synagogue.
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And therefore his parents said, he is of age, ask him. We also read of our
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Lord speaking of superficial believers in John 8 -31 -32. Then Jesus said to those
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Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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Here it's quite clearly stated there were those who believed him, but their faith may not have led them to commit themselves to be his disciples.
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And only true disciples of Jesus Christ have salvation. Only they are promised everlasting life.
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They had faith, but they did not have saving faith, unless and until it moved them to become committed disciples of Jesus Christ.
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That's how true saving faith is seen and manifested. We are disciples of Jesus Christ, followers of Jesus Christ, learners of Jesus Christ.
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We confess Jesus Christ, he is our Lord and Savior. And so it's quite clear that these ones who believed in him in John 12 -42 and following, 43, did not manifest saving faith.
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Again, Donald Carson. The leaders themselves, and this is the same word as in John 3 -1, remember
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Nicodemus, one of the rulers of the Jews, seem at this point to fit the pattern of inadequate, irresolute, even spurious faith that John repeatedly describes in this gospel.
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Nicodemus was willing to stand up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin. He and Joseph of Arimathea publicly identified themselves with Jesus' cause by providing decent burial for him.
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Doubtless there were other leaders, less courageous even than this, who maintained some distant attachment to Jesus, who believed in him in some sense, of whose faith the
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Pharisees knew nothing. Sadly, their faith was still so weak that they would not take any step that would threaten their position in the synagogue.
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They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God and therefore fell under Jesus' searing indictment.
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He repeated by the evangelist, John 12, almost certainly the evangelist knew of Jews and proselytes, they would have been
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Gentile converts, in his day who were happy enough to believe in Jesus in some sense, but who displayed similar hesitations.
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He wants them to know such secret faith will not do. I would suggest to you that there is much faith in the world today that's like these rulers, who believed but refused and have failed to confess
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Christ openly because they're more concerned about what people think of them, receive the praise of men rather than the praise of God.
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They have a faith, it may be a very informed faith, they may be able to recount the details of the gospel quite clearly, and they will claim all day long they believe it, but they don't confess it in a clear and open way before others because they're concerned about the consequences for doing so.
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And I would advocate that that would be more evidence of a false faith, a shallow faith, of an unsaving nature, rather than saving faith, because saving faith, according to the scriptures, is a faith that is confessed, a faith that's confessed before others, a faith that's confessed in one's words and one's life.
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A secret disciple of Jesus is no true disciple of Jesus, according to the scriptures.
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And again, I would suggest that there are many, there are many who profess to be Christian, and yet they're ashamed of Jesus.
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They don't make it known that they're Christians in the workplace, in school, in the neighborhood.
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That's not the kind of faith that should characterize us. Our faith should be one of confession, declaring
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Christ openly and fully before others, before our family, even when, and especially when, we know that there will be consequences for doing so.
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But these rulers of the Jews, although they say they're described as believing, they failed to confess their
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Christ. And so true saving faith is more than simply being convinced of who Jesus is and what he did on behalf of sinners.
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I spoke to a man this week whose life said everything that he was not a
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Christian, and yet he boldly stated, I'm a Christian, I accepted
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Christ, and he recounted the occasion 30 years ago or whenever it was that he had done so.
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I could not convince him otherwise, as he's sipping the bourbon bottle as I'm sitting there and talking to him.
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There is a faith, but it's not saving faith. One can be fully convinced of all the facts of the gospel, of who
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Jesus is, believe who Jesus is, believe that he died for sinners, believe that he died for me as a sinner.
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But if it's not seen in one's confession of the lips and one's confession of one's life, it is a spurious faith.
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It's not saving faith. We're commanded in the scriptures to confess Christ openly, regardless of the consequences.
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So saving faith is evidenced by commitment and confession. True saving faith is seen in one's confession of Jesus Christ as one's
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Lord and Savior, shown forth in one's life commitment to follow Jesus Christ in faith and obedience before the world.
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These rulers of the Jews believed in Jesus, but they would not confess him, for they were more concerned to have the praise of men than the praise of God.
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They did not have saving faith. J .C. Ryle wrote of how common this spiritual malady has infected the hearts of many who claim to be
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Christian. We may learn from these verses the amazing power which the love of the world has over men.
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We read that among the chief rulers, many believed on Christ, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
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These unhappy men were evidently convinced that Jesus was the true Messiah. Reason and intellect and mind and conscience obliged them secretly to admit that no one could do the miracles that he did unless God was with him, and that the preacher of Nazareth really was
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Christ of God, but they had not courage to confess it. They dared not face the storm of ridicule.
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If not persecution, which confession would have entailed, and so like cowards, they held their peace, kept their convictions to themselves.
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Their case, it may be feared, is a sadly common one. Ryle lived at the end of the ninth century.
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He happened to be at Church of England, a bishop, where there was so much nominal Christianity, and here he's hitting on that,
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I'm sure. There are thousands of people who know far more in religion than they act up to.
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They know they ought to come forward as decided Christians. They know that they are not living up to their light, but the fear of man keeps them back.
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They are afraid of being laughed at, jeered at, and despised by the world. They dread losing the good opinion of society and the favorable judgment of men and women like themselves, and they go on from year to year secretly, ill at ease and dissatisfied with themselves, knowing too much of religion to be happy in the world, and clinging too much of the world to enjoy religion.
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And what he meant by that was true Christianity. Our Lord requires public confession of Him.
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Paul declared this forthrightly in Romans 10. Here he contrasted the law of Moses, what it taught, do this so that you may live with what the gospel declares.
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Believe the gospel and you will live. But then he declared that this faith in Christ must be confessed.
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For Moses writes about the righteousness of the law that is accrued through the law. The man who does those things shall live by them.
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In contrast to gospel, however, but the righteousness of faith speaks in this way. Do not say in your heart who will ascend to heaven.
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It's not attained through great effort. That is to bring Christ down from above. Or who will descend into the abyss.
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That is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? What does the gospel say? The word is near you.
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It's in your mouth. It's right there. All you have to do is believe. The word is there.
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It's in your mouth, in your heart. That is the word of faith which we preach and then the promise. And the condition that if you confess with your mouth the
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Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
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True faith requires confession. Have you confessed
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Christ before others openly? Especially in a setting in which you know that it will not be received and that you may experience difficulty because of your confession.
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If you've expressed that kind of confession, you have reason for encouragement. The faith that saves the soul from eternal hell, that receives the gift of forgiveness of sins and the gift of righteousness, that entitles the sinner to eternal life, is a faith that confesses
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Christ openly before others. And of course the primary way, and I want to re -underscore this, the primary way the word of God declares the believer should confess his faith in Christ openly and publicly is through believers' baptism by immersion.
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That's a confession of faith. You stand forward, Christ is my Lord and my Savior and I want this church,
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I want the world to know it. The one who stands forward to be baptized, if he's doing so biblically, is confessing his own sinfulness and that he deserves death.
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He's going into the baptismal waters of death as it were. He's trusting Jesus Christ to live a new life as he comes out of the water, a new life unto
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Christ. At the same time trusting in Christ's own death, burial and resurrection for his salvation.
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It's a public confession. But it's a sad reality that the fear of man will commonly keep a person from this vital action that substantiates one's faith as true and saving in nature.
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And notice how I worded that. It's not that the confession is somehow linked with faith for salvation.
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It's faith and faith alone that justifies the sinner. But the faith that justifies the sinner is a confessed faith, is what the scriptures declare.
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You can't be a secret disciple of Jesus Christ and be a true disciple of Jesus Christ. Now, we would certainly interject at this point.
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Every one of us has difficulty in this area, in this way. We're all naturally timid.
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And it takes the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to embolden us to do so.
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But there are times and occasions when you must speak up for Christ. For in failure to do so, you're denying
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Christ. And whenever I have myself felt a sense of fear of what other people might think of me if I speak out for Christ, I always put it in this frame of mind.
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I mentally go through this, spiritually go through this. Lord, am I more concerned about what you think of me or about what this man thinks of me?
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And as soon as I think in those terms, I have the boldness to speak up. We're going to speak about how you overcome this fear.
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And there's some words here that speak about that. But chiefly, the way to overcome the fear of man is to have a greater fear of God.
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You're more concerned about what God thinks of you than what those people think of you.
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And so you confess Christ. And of course there's consequences. But there's great blessing that comes with that, right?
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Isn't that what the Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount? That you're to be blessed when you're scorned and when you're persecuted.
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But sadly, again, the fear of man will commonly keep a person from this vital action that substantiates one's faith as true and saving.
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Here is the remedy. And these are the words, again, of Ryle. Faith is the only cure for the soul ailments like this.
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A believing view of an unseen God, an unseen Christ, an unseen heaven, unseen judgment day.
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This is the grand secret overcoming the fear of man. The expulsive power of a new principle is required to heal the disease.
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This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Let us pray for faith.
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If we would conquer those deadly enemies of our souls, the fear of man and the love of man's praise.
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And if we have any faith, let us pray for more. Let our daily cry be, Lord, increase our faith.
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May we easily have too much money or too much worldly prosperity, but we can never have too much faith.
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And so let's ask yourself the question, what is keeping you from confessing your faith in Jesus Christ openly before the world?
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Can you claim ignorance of the truths of the gospel? Perhaps some can, but not everybody.
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Or is it cowardness? If it is, we should acknowledge that. Or perhaps you're mindful of what a commitment would cost you or require of you, and you harbor other desires and plans in your heart that you know would have to be abandoned if you got serious about being a disciple of Jesus Christ.
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Or is it due to the spiritual malady that characterized these men, the fear of man?
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What will others think of you, your friends, your family, if you stood for Christ?
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May the Lord be merciful and gracious and implant in your soul a greater desire and delight to please
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God, to receive the praise of God rather than the praise of men. Think about these men, how close they were.
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Maybe some later did indeed become disciples after the resurrection. Who knows? Many did. Many of the Pharisees became
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Christian, according to the book of Acts. But I suspect numbers of them did not.
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And can you imagine them standing on the Day of Judgment? And there's not a bit of evidence where they stood forth and made
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Christ known as their Savior, as their Lord. And here they believed, they knew all the facts, but they didn't step forward.
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They didn't declare Jesus Christ forthrightly. And on the Day of Judgment, where's the evidence?
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Did you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord to the glory of the Father? I think it's important that we ask ourselves this.
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Don't be ashamed of Christ, but rather embrace Him, confess Him, and then receive the promises of Christ that are given to those who do.
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Jesus said, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross daily and follow me, for whoever desires to save his life will lose it.
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These men desire to save their life, but they lose it. However, whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
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For what is it profit of man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Is himself destroyed or lost?
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And then Jesus said these words, whoever, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him the son of man will be ashamed when he comes in his own glory and in his father's and the holy angels.
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You think about that. You believe in Jesus. Amen. You have an understanding.
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You claim it. You trust it. But secretly so. You're ashamed of Jesus.
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Jesus said he will one day be ashamed of you. Think about that. To have
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Jesus Christ ashamed of you at the last judgment, when all eternity lies before you.
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He'll be ashamed of you and then because you are ashamed of him here and now. The early 19th century evangelist,
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Asahel Nettleton, few people know him, but he was one of the great men of the faith. One of the leaders of the second great awakening in the first quarter of the 19th century.
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He withstood the heretic Charles Finney, debated him out here in western
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Massachusetts and won the day. He would go into a community and study the community and work there six or eight weeks and preach and have evangelistic meetings.
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And Charles Finney, when he'd gained all kinds of converts through the invitation system and get them to confess
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Christ, three months later nobody was going to churches or believing. After Asahel Nettleton, somebody did a study 30 years after he went through and something like 98 % of the people that were converted under his ministry were still walking with Christ and in the churches.
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He was an incredible man of God. And I've got a book of his sermon of a number of his sermons during the second great awakening.
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And I have to look at this one yesterday. And he said this. Shame is a very powerful passion.
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Its influence over mankind is universal. It entered the world by sin and it ought to be exercised towards nothing else.
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In other words, we ought to be ashamed of our sin. But strange to tell that the very weapon which ought to be turned against sin is now turned against religion.
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In other words, against Christianity. We're ashamed of the gospel. That some should be frightened into a denial of Christ is not so incredible.
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But that any be ashamed of him, whom angels adore, is what we could not have believed without the clearest evidence.
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But proof is not wanting to establish the fact that many are now ashamed of Christ. Our Savior, who delivered the warning in the text, was perfectly acquainted with all the secret feelings of the human heart.
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And sad experience has too often proved the propriety of the solemn warning. Bring this subject, my hearers, home to your hearts.
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How do you feel when you know that others are ashamed of you? Suppose one of your companions should be ashamed to own an acquaintance with you, should blush and hide his face at the bare mention of your name, should flee at your approach, and should bolt and bar the door lest he be disgraced by your society.
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To be treated thus by your equal would be trying. To be treated this way by your best friend would be heart -rending.
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But this is nothing. Christ, the friend of sinners, who groaned and died on the cross to save you, will be ashamed of you.
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Let all your friends, let them cast out your name as evil, let them point and hoot at you as you pass along the streets, but have
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Christ ashamed of you, who could bear it? Amen. I hope that we have that intense desire in us.
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May Christ celebrate us, for we stood for him in a dark world.
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Before we move on from this point, time slipping away, I came across this hymn again.
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This was one of our hymns of the month. I believe it was last February's. Jesus, and it shall ever be.
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Jesus, and shall it ever be, a mortal man ashamed of thee. Ashamed of thee, whom angels praise, whose glory shine through endless days.
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Ashamed of Jesus, that dear friend on whom my hopes of heaven depend. No, when
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I blush, be this my shame, that I no more revere his name. Ashamed of Jesus, yes
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I may, when I've no guilt to wash away, no tear to wipe, no good to crave, no fears to quell, no soul to save.
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Ashamed of Jesus, empty pride, I'll boast a savior crucified, and may this my portion be, my savior not ashamed of me.
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May that be the desire of our souls. Who do you need to confess
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Christ to? You're working alongside that person day after day, that's an eternal soul.
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Heaven or hell's the destiny, and you have the words of life. Many times an initial witness is met by hostility.
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I've recounted to some of you before, you know, I abuse people who witness to me.
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My friends who cared about my soul, and there are people, they're not concerned about their soul, we ought to be, and we ought to tell them of the savior.
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Well, let's move on. After John described these Jews who believe, but they love the praise of men rather than the praise of God, we read, secondly, the
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Lord Jesus, he speaks about the one who truly believes in him. And so in verses 44 through 46, then
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Jesus cried out and said, He who believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
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And he who sees me, sees him who sent me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness.
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Now, some have suggested, some commentators, that these verses, verses 44 and 45 of Jesus speaking, is rather awkwardly put in this place.
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And they would argue that back in verse 36, John declared that when
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Jesus spoke these things, he departed and then was hidden from them. And now all of a sudden, here in verse 44, he's speaking again.
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And so they would argue that this is kind of an awkward interjection by John of the words of Jesus.
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But John uses our Lord's words here to give a conclusion to his public ministry. As we said before, it's like an exclamation point, affirming and cementing and pushing everything that he had taught, everything that he had presented in his ministry.
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As Edward Klink, he's a living commentator of John, he wrote, but this reappearance by Jesus makes for an emphatic, there's emphasis here, and climatic final appeal to believe, not only for the crowd listening, but also for the reader of the gospel.
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Just as the departure and concealment of Jesus was intentionally cryptic, he hid himself from them.
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So also is Jesus' reappearance for a final exhortation of the people.
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And that's what we have here in this verse. James Montgomery Boyce also emphasized the summary nature of our
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Lord's words in these verses. After speaking about the content of the remaining chapters, which will begin next week, this is the halfway point, really.
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With John 13, he begins to interact with his disciples more closely, intimately.
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And after referring to those future chapters, Boyce said, this makes these verses at the end of chapter 12 particularly important.
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For in them, John sums up what Jesus has said and done and reflects upon it, thereby also commending the teachings of Christ to any who may not yet be
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Christians. This has been true of all these final verses, of course, beginning with verse 37, but it is particularly true of the verses to which we come now.
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These last verses, 44 through 50, contain what we can only call a resume of Christ's teaching.
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I didn't have the little grave accent on my keyboard to put it, resume, spelt right.
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It looks like resume, but it should be resume of Christ's teaching. These are not the last words
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Christ spoke publicly. The last words he spoke publicly are recorded in verses 35 and 36, but they are the final summation of his teaching.
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The verb that John used of Jesus speaking here is interesting. He cried out.
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Jesus cried out and said. And the use of this verb is to accentuate what
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Jesus is saying here, the importance of it. John used this verb before in a couple of places in John 7, 28.
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Then Jesus cried out as he was teaching in the temple. And farther down in John 7, on the last day, that great day of the feast,
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Jesus stood and cried out saying. It's a point of great emphasis. Something important is being declared.
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And as one said, this verb is used in a special way by John to set forth inspired speech.
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Put a big accent on these words. And so with this introduction, the final public statement of Jesus is rendered more emphatic.
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In a sense, this concluding statement is like an encore, a reappearance in order to make one final exhortive statement.
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The cry of Jesus here is a cry of the merciful and gracious God calling the reader, the world, to repentance.
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And such a call matches the purpose of the entire gospel. So here we have a, if you want to, a gospel invitation, as it were, by Jesus.
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And here then we see the boldness of our Lord Jesus proclaiming truth to the world. To the world in which he was sent, to which he was sent.
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Whereas there were some who had believed, who were afraid to own him and his words, he was unafraid to declare his words to the people at large.
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Here's a comparison and contrast between the Jewish leaders and Jesus. As one wrote, though they had not courage openly to profess faith in his doctrine, he had courage openly to publish it.
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If they were ashamed of it, he was not, but set his face like a flint. There was not an ounce of fear on the part of the
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Lord Jesus was there. Well, in a sense,
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Jesus summarized his entire ministry, calling people to believe on God by believing in him. And so Jesus cried out, what was it he said?
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He who believes in me, believes not in me, but in him who sent me. And here what he's saying is that although he called people upon people to believe on him, that faith would not detract from his father.
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To believe in Jesus was to believe in his father, for his father had sent him. Everything Jesus did, everything
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Jesus said, he did in the father's name. And so to be Christocentric, Christ -centered, is to be theocentric,
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God -centered. Note that Jesus did not on this occasion refer directly to his father.
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We do, of course, but he referred to the father, rather, as him who sent me. Interesting.
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Our faith in God is seen in our faith in Jesus Christ, and as we look unto Christ in faith, we look beyond him in faith to the father who sent him to do all and to say all that he did.
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Now, some terminate their faith in Jesus Christ without looking through him to his father.
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And that would be mistaken. Thirty -five years ago,
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I heard a sermon by D. Martin Lloyd -Jones, and it was a very simple sermon, but so profound. And he talked about the need to be
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Trinitarian in our teaching and preaching. And he went through and spoke about God the
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Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and what kind of problems you have when you have a church or a person emphasize one to the exclusion of the others.
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You emphasize God the Father, you're going to have a transcendent God who seems so holy and out there and unapproachable.
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And you're going to have people that are going to really struggle with their sense of relationship with him. On the other hand, you focus on Jesus Christ, the exclusion of the father, and you're going to have this notion,
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Jesus is my buddy -buddy, he's going to walk with me regardless of how I think or what I do. There's certainly a lot of that around.
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And then, of course, if you focus on God the Father and the Son without an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, where are you going to get the power to live the
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Christian life? There's a need to be Trinitarian and well -balanced in your understanding of the
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Trinity. And here we see two persons of the Godhead brought together. Some focus on Jesus Christ, thinking that God the
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Father is the God of the Old Testament, Jesus Christ is the God of the New Testament, Old Testament was against us,
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God and Jesus Christ is for us, and he won over the Father for us. So errant. Everything Jesus said, everything
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Jesus did, the Father commissioned him to do. The very word Jesus spoke, the
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Father told him to speak, word for word. That's what he's declaring here.
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He declared the same thing in other places of the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew, Mark, and Luke will not read those because of the time.
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By the way, these verses, verses 44 and 45 underscore, once again, the deity of Christ. If we see
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God the Father when we see Jesus Christ, it means Jesus Christ must also be God. As one wrote, the importance of the deity of Jesus Christ is that we know
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God only in him. And if the Lord Jesus is not God, then we do not know what
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God is like because we have no basis for saying anything about him. Jesus Christ is
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God. Then we read the declaration of our Lord in verse 46.
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I've come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. We address this,
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I think last week or the week before, it must have been last week, rather extensively. Jesus said to them, a little while longer, the light is with you.
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Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he's going.
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While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, departed, and was hidden from them.
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Now we addressed it last week. You might not know much about the word of God or the
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Lord Jesus, but if he's given you a little bit of understanding about him and about how he would have you live and think, do it.
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And as you do it, he'll give you more light to take you the next step, a little further. And you better do it because that light's moving on and you're going to be left in darkness if you refuse or fail to step forward according to that light.
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When Jesus said, I have come as a light into the world, he's speaking of his preexistence, right?
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I came. Where'd he come from? He came from heaven. He's eternal God who became incarnate, took upon himself our human nature, which is a body and soul, a human body and soul.
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He came into the world. And he came in order to reveal
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God to us, enable us to live in the light of that knowledge of God.
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He came into the world to provide light, that is, knowledge and understanding of who God is, what
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God is like, and what God's will is, how God would have us live. And so the true
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Christian, the one who believes in Jesus Christ God's Son, has been given an understanding of the truth of who
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God is, what he's like, and he lives in faith according to this truth, seen in Christ, that he's learned from him.
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The one who believes in him no longer abides in darkness, but lives in the light of God's glory.
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But what of the one who's not a true Christian? Well, Jesus next addressed him.
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We have to address this before we close. The one who does not believe in Jesus. John 12, 47, 48.
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And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
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He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.
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This is not that easy necessarily to understand. First of all, he's declaring the same light that brings life to those who believe, damns those who fail or refuse to believe.
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Same light. The Lord Jesus did not come into the world with the purpose to judge the world, but because of his coming and of the great blessing that was available to sinners through him, those who refuse or fail to believe on him do condemn themselves.
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The same light that gives life damns souls. The word proclaimed by Jesus brings great responsibility and accountability to his hearers.
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Most of us will not be able to claim ignorance on the day of judgment. So even though our
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Lord Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but rather to save it, nevertheless those who rejected him, refusing to believe on him, were judged due to his words.
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That wasn't his intention, he came to save. But if you refuse, his words condemn.
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Calvin wrote about this, I thought it was quite good. After having spoken concerning his grace and exhorted his disciples to steady faith, he now begins to strike the rebellious.
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Though even here he mitigates the severity due to the wickedness of those who deliberately, as it were, reject
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God. For he delays to pronounce judgment on them, because on the contrary, he's come for the salvation of all.
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In the first place, we ought to understand he does not speak here of all unbelievers without distinction, but of those who knowingly and willingly reject the doctrine of the gospel which has been exhibited to them.
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Why then does Christ not choose to condemn them? It is because he lays aside for a time the office of a judge, and offers salvation to all without reserve, and stretches out his arms to embrace all, that all may be the more encouraged to repent.
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We offer Christ to every sinner in the world, sincerely. And of course that's the word of a strong Calvinist, I couldn't be more reformed than I am.
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But we sincerely offer Christ to every sinner in the world. There's salvation in him.
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Turn from sin, believe on him. And that's what Calvin is saying. And yet there's a circumstance of no small moment by which he points out the aggravation of the crime, if they reject an invitation so kind and gracious, for it's as if he had said,
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Lo, I am here to invite all, and forgetting the character of a judge, I have this as my single object to persuade all, and to rescue from destruction those who are already twice ruined.
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No man, therefore, is condemned on account of having despised the gospel, except he who, disdaining the lovely message of salvation, has chosen of his own accord to draw down destruction on himself.
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If you have salvation, you owe everything to Christ. If you have damnation, you owe everything to yourself.
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This is what he's declaring. Now, we have to really tie things up here quickly, and I hate to do so, because there's some wonderful things here.
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And let me see if I can just pick through them, and then we'll close. Verse 47a reads,
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If anyone hears my words and does not believe. That's New King James Version.
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If you have an ESV, however, you'll read it differently, don't you? It says something like this.
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I don't have it in front of me. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them. You see that in your
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ESV, if you have it? The Greek word translated here in the New King James Version is believe.
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It's not the Greek word commonly used in the New Testament. Pistevo is the
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Greek word for believe. But rather, the Greek word here is phouloxe.
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And it's better translated as keep or guard. And that's what
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Jesus is saying here. For I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed. I am convinced that he is able to guard or keep until that day, that which is entrusted to me.
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Same Greek word there. God is able to guard you or keep you on to the final day of salvation.
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And here he's saying, if anyone hears my words and fails to guard them, keep them, retain them.
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He's talking about persevering in faith. And so the one here is one who does not value his words and therefore makes no efforts to retain them or treasure them.
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We are to guard the words of Jesus. And we expand that to all of Holy Scripture.
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They're all the words of Jesus. They all testify of Jesus. We are to regard the Scriptures as more valuable than if we had a pile of gold six feet high here.
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Wouldn't trade the Bible for that. We are to keep it and guard it.
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It's your life. It's your eternal life. The words that he's given us. Do you value it as such?
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Or does it sit on the shelf for weeks without end, without reading it? There's something defective there, and it's not in the
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Scriptures. These ones don't keep it.
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They don't keep his word. And then in verse 48, He who rejects me does not receive my words as I which judges him.
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The word that I've spoken will judge him in the last day. His words that you hear and you know, they will be the cause of your damnation on that day.
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If you fail to heed and keep, treasure, believe them, and order your life in faith and obedience accordingly.
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And then we close. Last page. Our Lord's concluding assertion that he was speaking the words of the father.
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For I've not spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me gave me a command, what
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I should say, what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life.
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Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the father has told me, so I speak. Jesus is fully God, man, eternal second person of the
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Trinity, took upon himself. Our human nature came into the world, fully God, fully man.
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So when he was incarnated, he set aside the use of and the claim of his divine attributes.
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And as a man, he lived in complete subordination and obedience to his father.
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And so he was a human baby like any other human baby who had to learn and grow. And everything he learned was taught him by the father through the
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Holy Spirit. Everything that he learned, everything that he taught. So the very words he spoke were words that his father taught him in his human nature.
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In his divine nature, he's omniscient is because he's God. But he set those things aside.
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And he lived as a human being on our behalf to save us from our sin.
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Because of his deity, it made his human life and sacrifice of infinite worth.
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That's why I can save us all. But it was in his human nature that he lived, believed on his father, trusted the
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Holy Spirit to enable him. The spirit came upon him without measure and enabled him to serve and to teach and to learn and to grow in a way that everything he did was that.
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Was taught by his father to him. And in this way, he glorified his father.
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And so when you see the Lord Jesus and read of him, everything you read of him, everything you hear from him has been given to him by the father through the
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Holy Spirit. There is a Trinitarian work that's being conducted through the
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Lord Jesus Christ that we should always be mindful of. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, our father, for your word and for the concluding words of Jesus here at the end of his public ministry in John's gospel.
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Help us to take them to heart. And we pray, father, for anyone here that truly believes on Jesus, but they have not confessed him as they should.
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We pray, Lord, that you would not allow that soul to be settled in peace. Until he or she comes forward and confesses
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Christ openly to mom, to dad, to me, one of the elders. And purpose to stand forth and confess
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Christ in baptism. To honor and to glorify Christ and to stand with him.
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Regardless of what anyone, of what the world may think or say. Help us, our
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God, to seek praise that comes from you rather than praise of men. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.