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Author Archives: thebeachfellowship

An animated parable about love, John 13:1-17

Feb

23

2025

thebeachfellowship

What we have presented to us in the first 17 verses of this chapter, is what I have called an animated parable. A parable is a story that is given to illustrate a spiritual truth.  And so what Jesus is doing by washing the disciples’ feet is providing a living illustration, or an animated parable, in order to teach a spiritual truth.  

Now that is important to understand.  Because the illustration is not the object of our attention, but the illustration serves to present a lesson.  There are some that take from this text the idea that we need to practice foot washing as an ordinance of the church.  But I don’t believe that is what is being taught here.  The foot washing is simply used to teach a lesson about Christ-like love.  

Agape love, or Christ-like love, or sacrificial love is really the principle being taught here. Notice how many times we see the word love in this text which is called the upper room discourse.  In the next 4 chapters which is the record of the upper room discourse, you will see the theme of Christian love presented again and again by Christ.  He defines love. 

For example; in chapter 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  And in vs  23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” Then in chapter 15:10, He says, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” And in vs .12 He says again,  “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” Finally, in vs13 He gives the grand summary of sacrificial love; ”Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”

Probably the most misunderstood and misused term in Christendom is the word love.  I see it used on almost every church sign that I pass by.  And in most cases I think that they are intending a meaning that does not correlate with the Biblical meaning.  And for the most part, I think it’s because they have allowed the world to redefine what love is, and then adopted their usage of it.  But God has defined love as He intended it to be.  And that love is illustrated by sacrifice, particularly the sacrificial love of Christ, who laid down His life for us.  He has defined love.

Now in this opening section we find Jesus and the disciples in the Upper Room, and right at the beginning John declares Christ’s eternal love for HIs disciples, and then we see this illustration, this animated parable of Christ-like love.  And again I would remind you that the public ministry of Christ is over.  He warned the Jews in the last chapter that He was soon to depart and their opportunity to believe would pass.  So as John begins this passage, we see that Jesus has left the public arena, and is in the Upper Room with just the disciples.  These are “His own” which John speaks of in vs 1.  These are the true believers.  And so in chapters 1-12 we have the public ministry of Christ, and now in chapter 13 to the end of the gospel we see the private ministry to the disciples.  So it is safe to assume that this animated parable is intended for saved people.  It’s not a parable to teach unsaved people, but an illustration to teach saved disciples, those who belong to Him.  

Vs. 1 says that this occurs during the Feast of the Passover.  The Passover was the Jewish festival which commemorated the Israelites deliverance from Egypt, when God sent the angel of death throughout the land, and killed the first born son of every family.  But for the Jews, God gave them the opportunity to slay a lamb and sprinkle the blood over the doorpost, and in response, the angel of death would pass over that house and not touch the first born son.  The judgment upon Egypt then also served as the means of salvation for the Jews.  And once a year, the Jews were commanded to celebrate this feast.  Every family would provide a lamb to be slain, and would eat the Passover meal as a memorial to God’s deliverance.

So it was the time of the Passover.  And according to the plan of God, it was also the appointed time of Christ’s sacrifice.  He would become the Lamb of God which was slain for the salvation of the world.  This was the appointed time.  Throughout the three years of Christ’s ministry, He was constantly saying His time had not yet come.  But now, John notes in vs.1, Jesus knows that His hour had come.  The appointed hour when He would lay down His life, and return to His Father in heaven.

So John says, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”  The idea there is not just to the end of His life, but that He loved them to the uttermost.  He loved them completely.   It speaks of the ultimate fulfillment of His love for His own.  It speaks of an eternal love which continues even after He has gone to the Father. And it speaks of the ultimate expression of love, the ultimate sacrifice.  As He says later in ch.15, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down HIs life for His friends.”  He would make the ultimate sacrifice for His friends.  

Now Jesus would illustrate this love, but in such a way so that the disciples might imitate Him, and so commemorate His love for us, by loving one another.  Jesus is going to illustrate agape love to the disciples.  But before He does so, John tells us that the devil had put it into the heart of Judas to betray Christ.  The question is why does John make that particular point at that particular moment?  Well, I believe it is to illustrate that though God loved the world, yet all the world does not love God.  It is a reminder that not everyone believes unto salvation, and even within the church, there are those who do not believe.  Even in the church, there are wolves in sheep’s clothing.  

And Judas is the premier example of self love, which is pride.  It’s the opposite of Christ-like love. But we will come back to Judas in a future message.  For now, let’s just focus on the parable that Jesus provides.  Basically, vs.3 indicates that Jesus knew full well that His hour was at hand, He knew who was His, He knew who would betray Him, He knew that the Father had already given Him the authority to lay down His life and take it up again, and in the fullness of that knowledge, He was going to spend this last night with His disciples reinforcing certain principles so that they would be better equipped to handle their mission once He was gone.

So in vs.4, Jesus “got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.”  Now the first principle that is being taught here is humility. 

Humility is a hallmark of sacrificial love.  The more humble you are, the less concerned you are with yourself, the greater your capacity to love someone else.  Humility and love are related to one another proportionately.  The lower you go in self esteem, the higher you are in concern for others.  The more you sacrifice your priorities, the greater you will sacrifice for others.

In its purest form, Biblical love is completely unselfish.  That’s not necessarily  true of human love. Human love is based reciprocation. We turn the Golden Rule around as if we say,  I’ll do unto you if you will do unto me.  There’s a reciprocal quality in human love that is actually selfish at it’s root. But for the Christian, love in its purest form is completely unselfish.  True Christian love is not based on reciprocality. Paul summed all that up by one statement in Romans 13; “Love seeks not its own.” 

Judas is presented here in this passage as one that is governed by pride, by self love. He is hanging around Jesus, feigning love but in reality he just wants to get rich from his relationship.  And that attitude has reached it’s zenith.  He has already sold Jesus down the pike for a few pieces of silver.  So Judas’s self love is the ultimate contrast to Jesus’ humility. 

But there is another stark contrast to Christ’s humility as well.  We have to go to Luke 22 for this one. In Luke 22 we learn that the disciples during the Passover are arguing over who is the greatest.  This is probably an argument that has been going on for some time among the disciples.  You will remember that in Matthew 20 it records that just a few days before James and John had asked Jesus if they could be seated at His right and left hand when His kingdom was established.  So this has been an ongoing dispute among all the disciples, each trying to be first, each trying to be the chief disciple, all of them vying for prominence in anticipation of when the kingdom comes to fruition.  

The problem is, that in spite of everything Jesus has said regarding His death, the disciples still don’t understand what’s going on.  Their paradigm of the Messianic Kingdom is so entrenched, that they cannot fathom what Jesus is talking about when He said the grain must fall into the earth in order for it to bear fruit.  They can’t seem to get it.  So they just disregard the parts of Jesus’ teaching that they can’t understand, and persist in their wrong theology.   That sounds like a lot of Christians today, I’m afraid. Many people don’t understand the spiritual nature of the Kingdom of God, and they are so entrenched in the prosperity doctrine or their nationalistic fervor that they simply disregard a lot of what the Bible says in order to maintain their theological perception.

So Jesus is there in the Upper Room just hours before His death, and He wants to teach them the true nature of the Kingdom. To do that, He lays His garments aside and girds a towel around His waist and starts to wash the disciples feet.  This was the job of the lowliest of the household servants.  It was customary in that culture for the servant to wash the feet of people as they entered the house.  Contrary to Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, they were not sitting on benches or chairs.  They would lie back on pillows around a low table.  Actually they would recline on their left sides so that they could eat with their right hand.  And consequently, their feet would be near the next guys head.  So particularly before a meal, but also just as proper etiquette, when you entered the house you would remove your sandals, and these water pots would be near the door.  A servant, usually the lowest ranked servant in the house would wash the person’s feet.  That was the custom, and it was especially important at dinner.

But this had not been done in the Upper Room.  There were no house servants in attendance.  So as the disciples are fighting for the prime seats around the table, which were usually determined by rank or importance, Jesus gets up, and starts to wash the disciples feet.  Now this was undoubtedly an awkward thing for the disciples.  They know that this was not something that He should be doing.  He was their Lord.  He was the Messiah.  But none of them dared to take His place, for fear of seeming less important than the other guys. 

And as I said earlier, Jesus is using this to teach them by example what Christian love is.  It starts with humility.  It starts with putting others needs above your own.  And that is what Jesus is illustrating. 

When Jesus got to Peter though, he objected.  Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” I think that there is an incredulity to Peter’s objection.  I think he realizes that this is backwards.  Peter knows he should be washing His Master’s feet.  But Jesus responds, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.”  

What Jesus is saying is that this is an object lesson that may not be understood now, but when the Holy Spirit comes, they will understand it.  That is the way it is with spiritual truth.  We are given the Holy Spirit, Jesus said in John 16:13, to guide us into the truth.  He said, “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.”  The natural man cannot understand spiritual things, so God has given us the Holy Spirit to give us spiritual discernment.  1Cor. 2:14 “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”  Once the Holy Spirit came, then suddenly Peter and the apostles understand the scriptures, and they understand the truth of Christ.

Peter though, I believe, really loves the Lord.  But Peter loved the Lord with a passionate, human love.  It was a love based in emotion.  And as a result, we see Peter make some critical mistakes.  It’s good to have passion, but agape love must be governed by spiritual discernment.  It needs to be based on truth.  It’s not enough to be passionate, or to be emotional.  But we must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.  Peter had the passion, but he was missing the truth.1 John 3:18 says “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”

But passionate Peter says, ““Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, then wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.”  First, he says Jesus will never wash his feet.  He knows that is not the proper order of things for the Messiah to wash His disciple’s feet.  But when Jesus says, “if I don’t wash you, you have no part with Me,” then suddenly Peter says, “then wash my hands and my head.  Wash me all over.”  Peter wants fellowship with Christ.  So if fellowship is contingent upon washing his feet, then he thinks how much better it must be to be washed all over?  But unfortunately, Peter is missing the point.  

So Jesus responds, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.”  Now let’s make sure we understand the significance of what Jesus is saying.  When a person in that culture took a bath, it was not located in the bathroom of their house.  Houses were not equipped with bathrooms and bathtubs or showers.  So it was necessary to go to a pool or stream or if they were in a village or town, there would often be a bathhouse.  After bathing, they would of course be clean.  But as they went back to their home, wearing their sandals, their feet would get dirty again.  So as we talked about earlier, they needed to have their feet washed upon entering the house.  

Now remember, Jesus is teaching to His disciples, who are already saved, who are believers.  And the principle He is teaching is this, that when you are saved, you are washed, you are made clean by faith in Jesus Christ.  That is a one time cleansing.  That salvation is not what is pictured here in this foot washing.  What Jesus is picturing is the need for daily cleansing, for daily confession of the sins we commit as we walk through this sordid world.  We have been made clean by the blood of the Lamb,  the coat of righteousness which belongs to Christ has been given to us in exchange for our sins.  But now every day, as I go through this world, I find myself getting dirty, I find that the things I wish to do I don’t do.  I sometimes inadvertently sin.  Sometimes I might even deliberately sin and then regret it.  So every day I need to have my feet washed.  If I am going to be in fellowship with Christ, if I am going to be in communion with Christ, and that is not going to be hindered in any way, then I need to confess and be cleansed of my daily sin.  I don’t need to be washed all over again from head to toe, but I need the sinful dirt that I pick up in my walk taken care of, so that I might have communion with Jesus.  

So Jesus says, If I don’t wash you, then you have no part with Me.  What is meant by part?  Well in Luke 10:42 when Jesus visits Bethany, Mary and Martha are there in the house, and Mary is sitting at Jesus’s feet listening to Him, and Martha is in the kitchen.  And in response to Martha’s complaint about Mary, the Lord speaks regarding the position of the two women. He says, “Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her.”  The good part then is to sit at our Lord’s feet in communion with him and to hear his word. So the term “part” there has reference to communion, not to the receiving of life, but the communion in life.

Now how is this principle of foot washing related to Christ-like love?  Well, remember how Christ defined love in chapter 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  And in vs  23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” Then in chapter 15:10, He says, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

So love is defined as keeping His commandments, and keeping His word, and that results in abiding in His love. Abiding means communion,  fellowship,  intimacy.  So then,  when we sin, we break His commandments, don’t we?  And when we sin, then we break communion with God.  We break fellowship with God. It’s equivalent to reclining at the table to eat with stinky feet.  So it is important that we are cleansed from the sin which so easily besets us, as Paul said, in daily confession of our sins before God.  

This principle is extrapolated by John in his later epistle; 1John 1:6-9 which says, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;  but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  

The same principle is expounded in 2Cor. 6:14 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?”  Partnership can be translated communion, or fellowship.  When we sin, we need to have our fellowship restored.  We are saved, we have been washed, but our feet need to be washed so that we might have communion restored with God.  

That’s what David prayed to God after his sin with Bathsheba.  David said in Psalm 51, “Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. …  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy] free spirit.  And then David said, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”  Now David was saved when he sinned against God.  David was saved when he sinned with Bathsheba, when he arranged the death of her husband Uriah.  But he did not have a right spirit within him, he did not have fellowship with God.  Because he knew that he had sinned against God.  He needed confession, he needed restoration, that he might have the right communion with God again.

Finally, there is one more application that can be made from this illustration of Jesus washing the feet.  It too speaks to the principle of Christ-like love.  And this application is made by Jesus himself in vs. 12, Jesus said, “Do you know what I have done to you?  You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”

The application is pretty simple. We are to imitate Christ. Ephesians 5:1 says “be imitators of Christ.”  So if you love God, you will love your neighbor as yourself, even as Christ loved us.  That was the commandment Christ gave in Matt. 22:37-39  And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’”

Jesus is illustrating in this example how you love your neighbor.  We just explained how you love God- you keep His commandments.  And now this is the second commandment, you love your neighbor as yourself.  You give the same regard to others as you would give to yourself.  In fact, Jesus is showing that you give preference to your neighbor.  The disciples knew that washing feet was needed, but they didn’t want to have to stoop to wash their neighbors feet.  They didn’t want to have to humble themselves to a lower position than the other disciples.  But Jesus showed that He was willing to humble Himself and become their servant, so that they might be benefited.  

Paul says in Philippians 2:5-8 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:  Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”  

Now that is often quoted as a great doctrinal statement on the humility of Christ, but notice that Paul says “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”  That is exactly what Jesus is saying here in John 13.  As He did for them, so we are to do for one another.  The servant is not greater than the Master.  And if you confess Jesus as your Lord, as you should, then you must do what He commands us to do.  That is humble ourselves, empty ourselves of pride, of self love, and love the Lord your God with all your heart, keep your heart in constant communion with Him, don’t let any sin stand in your way of fellowship with God.  And then love your neighbor the way Christ has loved you.  Give up your life, your preferences, your prejudices, for the sake of your brother or sister in the Lord.  

And even one more level of love is represented here.  Love your enemies.  Jesus gave the same treatment to Judas that He gave to the other disciples.  Imagine Jesus, knowing that Judas had already plotted to betray Him, and yet Jesus washes Judas’s stinky feet.  What humility.  What an illustration of what Jesus preached in the Sermon on the Mount when He said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’  “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt. 5:43-44)

And then Jesus said in vs.17,  “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.”  I could quote a lot of verses to illustrate this truth, but I will just pick one. In chapter 15:14 Jesus said,  “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”  That simply means that you will know the love of God.  You will know the fellowship with Christ, the joy of your salvation.  You will know the sweetness of communion as He abides in you, and you in Him. That is the blessing that comes from loving God and loving your neighbor.  That is the blessing from being a servant to the brethren.  I will leave you with one last word from Christ in Matthew 20:26, “but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

The last invitation, John 12: 36-50  

Feb

16

2025

thebeachfellowship

Just a couple of months ago I was driving behind a great big John Deere combine tractor which was going down the road, moving from one field to another, and it reminded me of a verse of scripture, which to my mind is one of the saddest verses in the Bible.  It is found in Jeremiah 8:20 which says,  “Harvest is past, summer is ended, and we are not saved.”

Every year around the end of fall it seems that this verse comes to mind.  Once Labor Day passes, it is obvious around this town that the summer season has ended.  The opportunity for  many people to hear the truth preached has passed.  They go back to their homes and lives on the other side of the bay.  Obviously, we are still here preaching the word, but for many folks, their opportunity has passed.

And I cannot help but wonder how many of those people who came to our beach services were saved?  For that matter, I wonder how many people that are here today are truly saved.  I can’t tell by looking at you whether you are saved or not.  You all  look like fine, respectable people from here.  But God doesn’t look at us as man does – on the outside – but God looks at the heart.  He knows those who are His.  And He knows those who are not.  

Today’s text records the last time that Jesus preaches publicly to the multitudes.  This is really the Jews last opportunity to respond to the gospel of Christ.  John said in vs.36, “These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.”

And John goes on to explain I think, why Jesus hid Himself from them.  Because as it says in vs.37; “…though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.”  They had plenty of opportunity to believe.  Jesus had done many tremendous signs in Judea.  The seven signs that John records in HIs gospel were but a fraction of the total number of miracles that Jesus did in His ministry, and many of them had been in Judea. John 20:30-31 says,  “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”  However, John says here in this passage that just a few days before His crucifixion they had not believed in Him. Harvest was past, summer was ended, and they were not saved.

It’s possible that for many people in His audience, it was simply a matter of procrastination.  They believed in Him to some degree, they recognized that He was doing incredible things, that He spoke like no man had spoken, some even believed that He could be the Messiah, but they had not committed themselves to Him.  They had not decided to walk with Him, to follow Him, to become His disciple.  Maybe someday, they might have thought.  “Maybe someday I will leave everything and follow Jesus.  I know that I should.  But right now I’m young.  Right now I have a good career opportunity that I want to pursue.  Right now I have a girlfriend that I really like and I don’t want to take a chance on losing her.  But one day I will.  One day I will become His disciple.” Whatever the reason, they just put off making a decision.

But I think in most cases, it was just simply a matter of unbelief.  It was just a matter of rejecting the truth because it wasn’t convenient.  It didn’t fit with what they wanted out of life.  So when you reject the truth in favor of another way, you are an unbeliever.  You are unsaved.  There are not many paths to God.  There is not such a thing as your understanding of God, versus my understanding of God.  There is no such thing as worshipping God as you understand Him. I saw a quote from Bishop Desmund Tutu the other day, which was on the sign of a Lutheran Church. He said, “Different faiths reveal the immensity of God.” I think Martin Luther was spinning in his grave at such a quote being on a Lutheran church.

No, there aren’t many faiths, many paths to God.  Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  And He also said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.”  We must believe in God as He has manifested Himself to be.  Nothing less will suffice.  Jesus said, You MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth. But sadly, the majority of the Jewish people of the first century rejected Jesus, and consequently they were still dead in their sins, they were still unsaved.  And they would suffer the consequences of their decision.

But the fact they had not believed in Him did not affect the purpose and plan of God.  God’s purpose was to manifest Himself in the person of Jesus as Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”  And His purpose was to redeem a chosen people from the earth to become His church, the bride and body of Christ.  

But John illustrating the Jew’s rejection quotes from Isaiah 53, one of the most famous Messianic passages of the Old Testament.  He quotes in vs.38, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?”  John says that this rejection by Israel was to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of Isaiah 53.   

For instance, in Isaiah 53:3 it says, “He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.”  Isaiah prophecies in this text that the Messiah would be rejected and despised.  Rather than being accepted and celebrated as the Messiah who had come to save the world, He would be rejected by the world, the very ones He came to save.  And we see this  being fulfilled in John 12.  The Jews for the most part had made up their minds.  The vast majority at that time rejected Him.  He didn’t fit into their plans, He didn’t fit their paradigm.  They rejected His message.

But what Isaiah is referring to in that phrase “the arm of the Lord has been revealed?”  The arm of the Lord means the power of the Lord.  And the power of God is the gospel.  Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Yet though the gospel was presented in power, by the very presence of God in the flesh, with all signs and wonders, they would not believe.  They chose to not believe. Because to believe means so much more than just an acceptance of certain facts. It is to follow, it is to humble yourself, to recognize your need for a Savior and confess Him as your Lord.  But they would not.  That’s why Jesus wept just a day or two earlier when He came into Jerusalem.  He wept over the city and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which kills the prophets, and stones them that are sent unto you; how often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen  gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Luke 13:34)  In spite of His miracles, they would not accept Him, they would not believe.

So then John says, because they would not, they could not.  That is the progression of unbelief.  They would not accept Him, so eventually they could not believe. Vs. 39, “For this reason they could not believe.”  Their hearts became hardened.  And again John quotes from Isaiah to illustrate his point, this time quoting  from Isaiah 6; “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.” 

Many theologians want to get hung up on the doctrine of election at this verse.  But I don’t think that is the main point here.  I think it is speaking of the progressive nature of unbelief.  When you reject the truth repeatedly, there will come a point when you can no longer believe it.  Your heart becomes hardened to the point of becoming unfeeling, insensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  This is the danger of coming to church year after year and hearing the truth, but not believing it unto salvation.  Eventually, your heart gets so hard that you cannot believe.  Your capacity to believe is diminished every time you reject the truth.  You will not believe, therefore you cannot believe. John Murray said that if the Word of God does not quicken, it will deaden.  The fire that melts wax will harden clay.  

But blindness and hardness does not happen without involving the will of the people.  God’s hand is in the consequences of their choice.  Romans 1:18-22 describes this process of rejection; “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.”  And so Paul then says three times in the following verses of that chapter, that God gave them over.  God gave them over to impurity, He gave them over to degrading passions, and He gave them over to a depraved mind.  He gave them over to the very things that they wanted, and as a result they became so deadened that they could not believe.  

There’s a similar message in Ephesians 4.  The same progression of unbelief resulting in a hard heart that is cursed to being unable to respond anymore.  Eph. 4:17-19  “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,  being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;  and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”  Their futile minds and willful ignorance results in a darkened mind, a calloused conscience, living purely for sensual pleasure, and their heart becomes so hard that it is impervious to conviction.

It is a dangerous thing to reject the truth of God. It is a dangerous thing to quench the Holy Spirit. To harden your heart against the conviction of the Holy Spirit.  God is patient.  But there will come a time when the light goes out.  When He shuts the door.  Peter said that God was patient in the days of Noah. Noah was a preacher of righteousness, he said, for 120 years as he built the ark he was preaching the judgment to come.  And during that time God was patient, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.  But one day God told Noah to go into the ark, and the Bible says that God shut the door.  And the world was destroyed by the flood. 

You don’t know how much time you have.  I was in NY the other day, looking at where the Trade Center used to be. On the morning of 9-11, no one who went to work that morning, or got on a plane that morning, knew that would be their last day.  None of us know how much time we have.  None of us know when the Lord will return. But the Bible says that the world will mourn when they see Him who they rejected.  They will mourn and wail that they crucified the Almighty God, the Lord and Savior whose gift of eternal life they rejected.  The One to whom they would not bow.

Then John speaks of some who were sympathetic to the teaching of Christ, who believed in Him, but not unto salvation.  Notice vs.42 “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue.”  I believe that “rulers” refers to the ruling party of the Sanhedrin, the religious rulers of Israel.  Some of them believed that He was the Messiah. Nicodemus is one of those that we know of.  He had come to Jesus at night, afraid of being seen by the Jews.  But yet he said, ““Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  So there was a form of belief there, they believed that God had to be with Him in order to do the miracles that He did.  But yet they are not confessing Him publicly.  Now I believe the scripture indicates that Nicodemus did become a believer.  But it wasn’t until His crucifixion or perhaps even later.  Tradition says that he did eventually become a believer and he was persecuted by the Jews.  He had been very rich and because of his faith he became a pauper.  He suffered a lot of persecution in his family as a result of his eventual confession. 

But I think at this stage in Jesus’s ministry, we can suppose that there were many like him.  Many that had a degree of belief, but an unwillingness to confess Him as their Savior and Lord and follow Him.  And we know that means that they were unsaved, because vs 43 says, “for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”  To love the approval of men is a hallmark of the unsaved.  1John 2:15-16 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

And we can know that they weren’t Christians, because he says, they were not approved by God.  That is what salvation is, being approved by God.  And how are we approved by God?  By our good works?  By our inherent goodness?  Because we go to church?  Or because we believe in God?  No, we are approved by God by being clothed in Christ’s righteousness alone.  Made faultless to stand before the throne, though faith in Him, by the transference of Christ’s righteousness to us, and by our sins being transferred to Him.  That is the only way to be approved by God.  Hebrews 11:1-2 teaches us that the only way to be approved by God is through faith in Christ.  It says,  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  For by it the men of old gained approval.”  But John says that these rulers were not approved by God because they did not have saving faith, that confessed Jesus as Lord, and renounced the world. 

And the supporting evidence of that fact is that John says they loved the world rather than the approval of God. They loved the approval of men more than the approval of God.  That is not evidence of being saved.  That is evidence of being lost. 

That is exactly what Jesus is referring to in vs. 46.  Jesus said,  “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.”  If you come into the light, you cannot remain in darkness.  That is a characteristic of being saved.  1John 1:6-7 says,  “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”  

Believing the truth of Christ means that you leave the course of this world, you come out from the darkness of this world, and you walk in the light, even as He is in the Light.  If you love the Lord, then you will reject the world.  If you want approval of God, then you will not care about the approval of men.  

Now in response to this rejection of truth, notice what Jesus does.  He cries out in one last attempt to reach these people with the truth.  One last attempt to turn them.  One last invitation to believe in the truth of the gospel.  And He does this by restating the great themes of the gospel which He has been preaching all along.  

First of all, Jesus restates clearly His unity with the Father.  He states His divinity, as being equal with God.  Vs. 44 and 45, ““He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me.  He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” Jesus is emphasizing  His unity with God the Father.  He would tell Phillip later in John 14, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Fundamental to our salvation is a the belief that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh.  No one less than God could possibly atone for a world of sinners.  So that doctrine is fundamental.  You cannot be saved without believing that Jesus is One with God, He was in the beginning with God, and He was God.  Without believing that you cannot be saved.

Secondly, He says “I have come as light into the world.”  Jesus stressed that He is the truth, and the need man has to leave the darkness and  follow Jesus as the source of light, the source of truth, resulting in life.  As we said earlier, you cannot remain in darkness.  You have to come out of darkness into the light of truth, and walk in the light, even as He is light. His word is the light which we believe and walk in the truth.

Thirdly, He speaks of judgment to come. “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. 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.”  The coming day of judgment is an important doctrine that needs to be emphasized today.  It is out of fashion to speak of judgment.  “Don’t judge!”  Or “Who are you to judge?” is the watchword of a superficial Christianity.  

But we are not the judge of who is saved and who is not.  I said that at the beginning of my message.  You all look alike to me from here. But God will judge the secrets of men’s hearts.  And Jesus said that we will be judged by His words.  The word of Christ is the law of God.  And you will be judged by God’s law.  

This is why we need a Savior. If there were no judgment to come, if there was no eternal damnation, then we would not need a Savior.  Jesus came from God not to judge us, but to save us.  He spoke the word of God which we will be judged by.  But Jesus came to be the sacrifice for our sin.  He came to take our place by offering Himself as our substitute. The judgment that was due to us has fallen upon Him.  Going back to Isaiah 53 we read, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions,He was crushed for our iniquities;The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.  All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”  Only by faith in Him, can we appropriate His substitutionary atonement for ourselves. To reject Him is to remain condemned.

And then He offers the invitation to salvation.  “For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.”  Notice that  Jesus correlates the gospel of Christ with the law of God, and the law with the commandment of God.  And He says His command results in everlasting life, eternal life.  The word of Christ, the gospel, is the power of God unto salvation.  It is the means of believing unto eternal life.  Believe His gospel and you will receive eternal life. You will be delivered from the judgment which results in death, and instead be given eternal life. 

Paul said in Romans 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”  

Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as the children of Israel did.  Do not love the world and the approval of men as the rulers did.  Do not put off this invitation to life.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation.  You do not know if you will have tomorrow.  Today, call on the Lord while He may be found.  As Isaiah 55:6-7 says, “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

Glory through suffering, John 12:(23-26)27-37

Feb

9

2025

thebeachfellowship

The Bible says that God’s ways are not our ways.  Nor are His thoughts our thoughts.  And in John’s gospel we see ample evidence of that.  In fact, John shows that what man might think is logical,  natural, and common sense, may not be the truth of God. The truth of God is often counterintuitive.  A classic example of this is found in verse 25, as Jesus says, “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.”  Jesus said that same statement slightly differently in Mark 8:35 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” That’s counterintuitive. It’s illogical, that if you want to save your life you must lose it.  But that is the truth of Christ.

And the teaching of Christ is full of that kind of doctrine that is in opposition to “normal” thinking.  Today we are looking at another such anomaly.  In vs. 23, Jesus said that the hour had come for Him to be glorified.  I’m sure that the disciples were glad to hear that.  Because everyone wants to be glorified, don’t we?  We all secretly love it when we finally get the recognition that we think we have deserved. When we finally are vindicated, or we finally get that raise or promotion.  We may act like we are humbly surprised, but inwardly we are saying “YES!  Finally!”  

So we all can relate to the idea of being glorified, at least on a superficial level.  For the disciples, this statement was probably what they have been waiting to hear for  three years.  That meant Jesus would come into HIs kingdom, and they would be seated on thrones on His right hand and left hand.  Isn’t that what James and John asked Jesus to grant them? In Mark 10:37 They said to Him, “Grant that we may sit, one on Your right and one on Your left, in Your glory.”   Isn’t that what all the disciples secretly were looking forward to?  Being exalted, glorified with the Messiah in His earthly kingdom?  

Well, it turns out that Jesus had a different idea of what glorified indicated.  He indicated that He had a different view of what it meant to be glorified because immediately after He made that statement, He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Illogically, He went from talking about glorification to talking about dying. And then He went on to talk about losing your life to gain life, which I quoted from earlier, and said if you wanted to be honored or glorified by God, then you must follow Him, presumably even to death.  So His statement that suffering was related somehow to glorification was not only true of Jesus, but it is true of His followers as well.  

Now in today’s passage, we hear Jesus say that He will be glorified, then He prays that the Father would glorify His name, then the Father thunders from heaven saying He has  glorified it and He will glorify it again, and then Jesus says that this will be accomplished when He is lifted up.  Now at that point we can imagine the disciples starting to scratch their heads. By now they are starting to question their comprehension of glorification.  What did He mean to be lifted up?  Perhaps some thought it might mean being lifted up on a throne. That would have fit with their theology.  Or, some might understand that to mean that He would be glorified when He would go to heaven.  

The latter idea was probably the most popular interpretation of what He said, because the crowd responded in vs.34, “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”  They obviously interpreted His words to mean that in some way or another, being lifted up was to be taken out of their presence into heaven, whether through death, or perhaps in the manner of Elijah, taken up in a whirlwind. 

But that is not the meaning of what Jesus said. John makes it clear in vs.33 that Jesus is talking about glorification through crucifixion.  Vs.33, “But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.”  Now that’s different perspective of glorification, isn’t it?  We don’t normally associate glorification with suffering.  But that is exactly what Jesus is talking about.

That reminds me of a sermon I preached a few Sunday’s ago, and we were talking about worship.  If you remember I told you that a principle of hermeneutics is the principle of first mention.  That is, if you want to know the meaning of a word or phrase in scripture, find the first time it is used, and that will provide a template for the way you should interpret the phrase throughout the Bible.  So worship, we found, was first mentioned in Genesis 22, when Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, and he said to his men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  So we saw that worship was related to sacrifice.  That is an important distinction that seems to have been lost in today’s concept of worship.  And that’s another example of the counter intuitiveness of a lot of Christian principles.

So then in a similar way in today’s passage, we will see in a moment that the phrase “to be lifted up” is prefigured in the Old Testament as well. But for now, let’s just notice that glorification is related to suffering.  But the question is how is it related?  How does Christ’s suffering and death produce His glorification? Well, it is brought about when He is lifted up and draws all men to Himself.  Christ’s glory is the redeemed mankind, which is the church. If the church is the bride of Christ, then we are the glory of Christ.  1 Corinthians 11:7 “A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man.” So mankind is the glory of God, as woman is the glory of man, and so Christ’s glory is the church.  

 Paul in Ephesians 5 says that Christ laid down His life for His bride, in order to redeem her.  In Ephesians 5:27, he says “that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”  Christ suffered so that He might redeem mankind, who was made in His image, that they should be remade in His image, glorious, holy, clothed in His righteousness, that they might glorify Him, and glorify the Father through Him.

Now Jesus gives us three elements of His glorification.  We already mentioned the last one.  But Jesus says starting in vs.31 three things will happen as a result of HIs glorification; Number one, “now judgment is upon the world.”  Number two, “now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”  Number three, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth will draw all men to Myself.”  

Let’s look at them in order. Number one, now judgement is upon the world. John 3:19 says “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”  Jesus said He did not come to bring peace, but a sword.  He was the truth, and His gospel divided between truth and error, between light and darkness. But they would reject Him and crucify Him, condemning themselves. 

The Jewish people thought they had judged Him.  In reality, He had not only judged them, but He had judged the entire world.  They thought that they had brought Him into their court and rendered their verdict on Him.  In reality, He had brought them into His court and rendered His verdict on them.  The cross would condemn and judge the world.  Everyman would be judged by what He did with Jesus on the cross.  Two men would die on the cross next to Jesus in just a few days.  They were symbolic of the two choices men have to make.  Either to recognize Jesus as their King and Savior, or reject Him.  That was the judgment that came upon the world in His crucifixion. 

So all that is true about judgment.  That is what a King does in His kingdom.  He renders judgment upon His kingdom.  But there is another sense of what He means, I think.  And that is that God judged the sins of the world in crucifying Jesus.  God’s judgment fell upon the sin of the world not by condemning the world, but by condemning Jesus to suffer the penalty of the sins of the world, so that the world might be saved.  That is what I think the primary meaning of Jesus’s statement is speaking of.  And that is borne out by the next effect of His glorification.

The second effect of His glorification is that the ruler of this world will be cast out.  Who is the ruler of this world?  Satan, the prince of the power of the air, is the ruler of this world. Eph. 2:1-2  says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,  in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

Satan brought about that spiritual deadness through his seduction of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Thus he brought all men into captivity to sin, and he is the architect of the world system which keeps men caught in the rushing current of sin until they are eventually carried headlong into destruction.

But praise be to God, Satan’s rule was overthrown at Calvary.  Again, this is counter to what you might think.  It looked like Satan won when Jesus was nailed to the cross.  It looked like Satan triumphed, and the devils of hell rejoiced.  Satan seemed to have conquered Christ at Calvary, but in reality, Christ had crushed his head, dealt him the deathblow.  Through His resurrection, Ephesians 4:8 tells us that Jesus led captivity captive.  Satan lost his grip on the world, because Jesus overcame death and sin through the cross.

God made a prophecy to Adam and Eve way back in the garden, that though the serpent would bruise His heel, He would crush His head.  So now Satan is a defeated enemy.  His only weapon is lies and deceit by which He convinces man to reject the truth.  Only through lies can he keep men in the clutches of death.  But Christ delivered those from the sting of death who will turn to Him.  Hebrews 2:14 says that, “Through death He rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, so that He might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”  So the second effect of Christ’s glorification is that He defeated death and the devil. 

The third effect of Christ’s glorification is what we spoke of earlier, verse 32.  “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.” If I am lifted up doesn’t refer to being lifted up on a pedestal. Or lifted up in celebration.  It refers to the Old Testament example I mentioned earlier, that Jesus gave in John 3:14-15  “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;  so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  

Moses lifted up a bronze serpent on a pole in response to God sending vipers into the camp of the Israelites.  As the consequence of their rebellion against God they were bitten by the serpents and were dying from their poisonous venom.  But God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and raise it on a pole, so that whoever looked at the serpent on the pole was healed.  They escaped death.  So to be lifted up then is a picture of being crucified. 

He is saying, “If I am crucified, I will draw all men to myself.”  All men, meant all Jews, all Gentiles, people from every tongue, tribe, nation of the planet. He said, I will draw them all to myself.  He, at the cross, provides the work by which all can be saved. This is the grain going into the ground and dying and then bearing fruit, as He said back in verse 24.  It is because He is crucified that He can draw men to Himself.  It is in death that He gives life. 

But in spite of all of the miracles that Jesus had done, in spite of all of the truth that He had preached, even in spite of the voice of God that thundered from the heavens in vindication of His Son, yet the multitudes do not believe.  Their question in vs.34 is really incredible considering all that they had been exposed to.  They ask, “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”

Their question indicates a fundamental flaw in their belief system.  They believed in God.  They believed in the scriptures.  But their belief was selective.  They heard what they wanted to hear.  They believed what they wanted to believe.  They accepted some of the word of God, but not all of it.  They accepted passages from Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah that talked about the enduring nature of the Messiah’s kingdom.  That He would rule on the throne of David forever.  But they neglected so many other texts that talked about a suffering, rejected Savior, who would be the Lamb that was slain for the salvation of the world.

We see the same thing today in the church. Church doctrine today is selective.  People have come up with a picture of God that is compatible with their world view.  We worship the God we wish Him to be, rather than the God who is. Preachers neglect certain doctrines that they feel might be confrontational or difficult.  And as a result the church has a partial understanding of truth.  Which means that we have only a partial understanding of God.  Which puts our whole faith in jeopardy. Because Jesus said the truth shall make you free.  But a partial truth is not really the truth at all, and thus as an antidote it’s power is diluted.  You can believe some things in the Bible and still be dead in your sins.

As a second step of unbelief, these Jews missed their present opportunity. Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.” As far as we can tell, this was the multitude’s last opportunity to hear the words of Jesus. It isn’t recorded that Jesus ever spoke to the multitudes again. After he had spoken these words it says that He hid himself. When he next appears he is with his disciples in  the Upper Room. This was the last hour of opportunity; the crowd had a last chance to believe. Jesus tells them, “Walk while you have the light.” When God is speaking, while His word is illuminating your mind, that is the critical moment.  Don’t let it pass. There is no guarantee that you will get another opportunity. 

That’s one of the frightening things about my ministry as a pastor.  Many times I have had the feeling that I was the messenger, the means which God had provided that day for someone to hear the truth of the gospel.  Perhaps the only one, or the last opportunity that they would ever have.  Yet, I can’t help but wonder many times people have let their opportunity pass.  

In Genesis 7 we learn that the patience of God compelled Noah to preach the gospel for 120 years, to give ample opportunity for men to repent of their wickedness.  But the day came when it says the Lord shut the door, and judgment fell upon the world.  It is a dangerous thing to presume upon the grace of God.  Today is the day of salvation.  Don’t squander this opportunity.  Don’t sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.  Don’t sacrifice the eternal for the temporal.

Thirdly, their question indicates that they did not realize the depravity of their present condition. Jesus defines their condition in vs35: “He who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.” Eph. 4:17-18 Paul said, “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.”  

The sad part is that the spiritually blind do not realize that they are in darkness.  It is a spiritual darkness that prohibits them from having insight into the life of God.  That is why Jesus relates the truth to the light so frequently.  When the light of truth shines upon man’s heart, then that is their opportunity to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  But as in the case of these Jews, they had seen the light, but they rejected it, because Jesus said, they loved darkness rather than light for their deeds were evil.  They loved evil.  So they rejected the light, and so they found themselves driven to darker and darker deeds. Romans chapter 1 chronicles that downward spiral once a person has hardened their heart and rejected the light that was given to them.  

It says in Romans 1: 21 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.”  And then it goes on to say that eventually God gave them up.  God gave them over to their own destruction.  That’s what happened to the Jews.  God gave them up eventually.  He left them to their own wisdom and their destruction came upon them like a woman in labor.  In just less than 40 years – one generation – their country was in ruins, their temple was destroyed, their people were killed or scattered, and their way of life was gone.  It is a dangerous thing to reject the light of God when He gives you the opportunity.

So  these Jews willfully rejected their last opportunity. Like so many people today, they thought that they had plenty of time to debate the pros and cons of the gospel.  But Jesus said, “While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”  It’s important that you act in faith to the light that has been given to you.  If you are waiting for full understanding of every doctrine before you believe, you will probably never believe.  God gives us enough light that we might believe the light that we have been given, and then when we do that, He promises to give us more light. Psalm 119 says “your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path.”  That is why Jesus talks about Christian faith in terms of walking, following, being a disciple.  Though salvation has a definite moment of origin, salvation is a journey of faith, not simply a destination.

But when you act in faith in response to the truth you have been given, then something amazing happens.  Jesus says you become children of light. When you respond to the light you will become enlightened so that you may believe more truth. And in the process, you begin to shine light as a reflection of Christ’s light in you. So that others are able to see the truth of the gospel. 

Well, the crowd missed their last opportunity. Vs. 36 says, ”When Jesus had said this, He departed and hid himself from them.” They no longer had the light.  They missed their opportunity to believe.  I pray no one here today has chosen to reject the light of Christ.  Today I believe the light of the gospel has shown clearly that Christ came to earth to save sinners, to redeem mankind from death and the power of Satan, so that they might be reconciled to God.  Who would reject such an offer?  I would urge anyone in that condition that they might look up at Him who was lifted up on the cross, that they might be delivered from the viper’s deadly sting of death.  I believe it is just that simple.  And yet for some people it is so hard to do.  Because if you would be saved, you must first admit that you are in need of a Savior, that you are dead in your trespasses and sins, and without Christ you will die in your sins and face the judgment of God.  Christ has died to set us free from that judgment.  Look to Him today and live.  He is the source of salvation, He is the source of light, He is the source of eternal life.

And if you have been born again as a child of God, you have believed in Him for salvation, then I hope from this passage today you will understand that glorification will come through suffering the loss of what is valued by this world.  Even as it was with Christ, so it is with His disciples.  We must take up our cross and follow Him. 

Romans 8:16-18  “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” 

We are glorified with Him when we die to our old nature, and put on the new nature, so that we might bear fruit. If we want to be fruitful, then we must learn to die to our old nature.  That is the secret to fruitfulness.  And fruitfulness is the means to glorification.  I’ve been praying for a revival in this church and in this community.  But I don’t believe that we are  going to see a revival until Christians start to die to the lusts of the world, that they may really live for Christ.  When we die to ourselves then we will see the fruit of righteousness, and then the Lord will bring a harvest.  Let us pray that we might lose our life for the gospel’s sake, that we might save souls for the kingdom of God.

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

Triumph through death, John 12:12-26 

Feb

2

2025

thebeachfellowship

In the Christian church today, I think we are sometimes guilty of saying things, repeating phrases, or even going through certain ceremonies, which are part of our tradition, but which we don’t really understand.  For instance, you may have heard the word “hallelujah” in church.  We may sing or say this word in various liturgies or songs.  Yet a lot of us may not know what it really means.  It’s a Hebrew word which means “praise the Lord”.  “Amen” is another one we hear often.  Amen is another Hebrew word, which means “truly,” or “so be it.”   Today in the passage we are looking at, there is the transliteration of another Hebrew word, which we hear oftentimes at Christmas or on Palm Sunday.  The word in our text is “hosanna.”  It means “O save us,” or “save, I pray.”   

But I would suggest that at the time in which this word was shouted in celebration of Jesus’s triumphant arrival into Jerusalem, the vast majority of those present did not really know the true significance of that word.  I’m sure that it was used much like the way we use such words like hallelujah or amen, it was merely a word they had associated with Messianic themes found in the scripture.  And in this case, it finds it’s reference in Psalm 18, which was read or recited as part of the Hallel, which was part of the ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles and the Passover Feast.  And as the passage  reminds us, the Passover Feast was at hand. So this word was already on the lips of those coming to celebrate the Passover.

Now I make that point because I want to emphasize that the things that the Jews were saying about Jesus came not as a result of spiritual insight, but out of a nationalistic fervor.  In other words, they really didn’t understand the true purpose of Jesus’s ministry, or the nature of the Kingdom of God.  Matthew 4:17 tells us that when Jesus had begun His ministry 3 years earlier, He did so by preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.  Just like when I say “kingdom of Heaven”, in your minds you most likely think I am speaking of the afterlife in “heaven.”  But actually it refers to the rule of God over man in this world and in this age.

But in spite of all that Jesus taught concerning the nature of the Kingdom of Heaven, the vast majority of the Jews heard what they wanted to hear, and as a result they misunderstood the true nature of Jesus’s ministry.  The Jews were looking for a Messiah on the order of a revolutionary political figure such as Judas Macabbeus, who had lived 150 years before and brought about a great military victory for Israel; and who had restored the temple for service. So their incomplete understanding of scripture was such that in  Jesus’ day they were looking for the Messiah who would be first and foremost a king, a Son of David, who would restore the throne of David to Israel, and would overthrow the Roman oppression.  So they were not looking for a savior, but for a deliverer from their political problems.

And because of that expectation, there had already been a couple of times that the Jews had wanted to make Jesus a king, particularly after feeding the 5000, and yet Jesus slipped away. He went away from the crowds in order to avoid them taking Him and making Him King by force. They wanted to make Him king because He fed them, and He healed them.  Free food and health care.  But Jesus avoided that because the scripture says, His time was not yet come.  It wasn’t the right time in God’s schedule.  But now at the Passover, it is the right time.  It is the week before Christ’s death on the cross.  And contrary to the prevailing theological view, God’s plan was that Jesus would suffer before He would be glorified.  God’s plan was for Jesus to save His people from their sins by offering Himself on the cross as the Passover lamb, slain in their place, and then afterwards, Jesus would be exalted and glorified.  Jesus made that  priority clear later on when He was with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, as recorded in Luke 24:26 He said, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” It’s the suffering first and then the glory. That order is very important. 

But now it seems that Jesus is willing to let the crowd coronate Him as King. This was to fulfill prophecy, to coronate Jesus as King, but not King of the nation of Israel, but of the spiritual Kingdom of Heaven. And it says that even the disciples were confused by that.  Because up to this point, Jesus had done everything possible to avoid this from happening.  But now, we see the disciples wondering what is going on.  In vs. 16 we read, “These things His disciples did not understand at the first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written of Him, and that they had done these things to Him.”

But now it was the appointed hour.  Jesus said in vs.23, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”  However, He is not talking about receiving the coronation of the Jews.  He is talking about the hour of His death.  This is the reason that He came to earth.  To offer Himself as the sacrificial Passover Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world.  And so He says in vs. 27 “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.”

So Christ came into Jerusalem riding upon a donkey, the colt of a donkey.  He did not choose to enter mounted upon a white stallion, with sword flashing, dressed in royal raiment.  But He chose a donkey.  So John quotes from a prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 which emphasizes in this triumphal entry the humility of Christ, and that He came to bring salvation. ”Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

This was the concept that escaped the Jews.  That the Messiah, the Christ, who was the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, would come first and foremost as the author of salvation from their sins.  He would be the Lamb slain for the sins of the world.  He would humble Himself and take upon Himself the form of a servant, so that He might bear the sins of the world.  Thus He entered upon a donkey, a beast of burden.  

It is ironic that the Jews, even His disciples, could have been so close to the truth, and yet they couldn’t see it.  They wanted a King who would deliver them from their enemies.  But the only enemy that they could see was the Romans.  Jesus came to deliver them from the greater enemy which was Satan, who held the world in his power and control, who kept men in bondage to sin, through the fear of death.  Jesus came to deliver men from that fear.  Thus vs. 15, quoting Zechariah says, “Fear not, daughter of Jerusalem, Behold your King comes sitting on a donkey’s colt.”  He came according to the purpose stated in Hebrews 2:14-15 which says,  “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,  and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Here is the thing, He had to be the Sovereign King of Creation, if He were to be able to free mankind from the bondage of sin and death.  No one less than  the person of God Himself could possibly do that.  A mere king of the type of David could have possibly freed the Jews from Rome, but only the King of Heaven could free men from the dominion of Satan.

But the vast majority of the Jews could not see that.  They could not see past their immediate desire for a better political and social situation. They were primarily interested in a better quality of life.  And so Luke tells us that even though they were shouting “Hosanna, O save us!” even though they were laying their coats and palm branches on the road in front of them, Jesus wasn’t impressed by their nationalistic fervor.  In fact, the effect was just the opposite. Luke says in Luke 19:41-42 that “When the procession approached Jerusalem, Jesus saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.”  

I want to mention something that perhaps you have never thought of before.  The Bible never tells us that Jesus ever laughed. In fact, it says in Isaiah 53 that He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.  We have no record of Jesus ever laughing.  But we have a number of accounts of Jesus weeping, of His soul being troubled.  And I say that not to paint Jesus as some sort of sad sack.  But I would say that to refute a lot of the demonic activity that is going on in some churches today in the name of the Holy Spirit, things like the so called holy laughter, or being drunk in the spirit, etc. Jesus never did anything that even slightly resembled such things. And I would suggest to you that neither does the Holy Spirit.  Because Jesus said that the Holy Spirit does nothing from His own initiative.  John 16:13-14  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  

The point being that Jesus said again and again that He did nothing of His own initiative, but He did what the Father was doing, He did the deeds of His Father and He spoke the words of the Father.  And that is how He said you could know that He was of God, because He did what the Father did.  And in chapter 16 which we just read, Jesus says the same thing about the Spirit.  He does nothing of His initiative, but He only does what Jesus did, He glorifies Jesus.  That is the doctrine of the unity of the trinity.  So if you see something going on which is supposed to be a work of the Spirit, but it’s not something that Jesus did, then you need to be skeptical of it.  Test the spirits, Paul said, for there are many spirits sent into the world, but not all of them are from God.

And let me extrapolate that out to another level.  What Christ was doing, we are supposed to be doing. That is the purpose of Christianity.  We are to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, that means we do what He did, and we do that through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.  I’m not talking about having the ability to walk on water or heal people, I’m talking about walking in a fallen, corrupt world even as He walked, righteously, holy, unstained. We are to be holy even as He is holy.  And we will expand further upon this in a moment.

But I think the example of the Jews response to Christ that we have before us today is very pertinent to the church in modern times.  Because as the church, we have to be careful that we worship God as He is, and not as we want Him to be. The sin of the Jews was that they proclaimed worship of Christ with their lips, but their hearts were far from God.  They wanted a Messiah King to save them, but they had the wrong view of a savior.  It’s interesting that Caesar was called the savior of the Roman Empire. That title was stamped on Roman coins.  A savior according to the popular idea was someone who delivered one from their enemies.  Caesar was a military conqueror.  But the idea of Jesus as the Savior from their sinfulness was abhorrent to the Jews.  Because they were self righteous and self satisfied with their spiritual status just as they were. They didn’t feel any need to be forgiven or be changed spiritually.  They had no need of repentance. And so they rejected Jesus as their Savior.  That is why Jesus wept over Jerusalem.  Because though they wanted a king, they rejected the Prince of Peace.

This is the sin of modern Christianity, if I might generalize it for a moment.  There is no sense of the need for repentance today in the church.  Sin is not preached against.  People’s hearts are hardened to their sin.  Church members today live in immorality and think nothing of it.  Divorce is rampant in the church and no one thinks anything of it.  Worldiness and fleshly lusts are exhibited as evidence of  a sort of divine blessing. The church looks like the world in all it’s excesses, in all it’s pride and no one thinks anything of it.  We just praise the Lord once a week or so.  Hosanna! we sing.  Glory to God!  Praise the Lord!  But in reality, we just want God to bless our mess.  We want a better political situation.  We want a better social situation, and we would like God to take care of that for us.  But we don’t need a Savior.  We don’t feel the need for forgiveness.  And consequently there is no repentance.

Well, what is the proper response to Jesus supposed to be?  Well, I think John gives it to us in the text.  After Jesus has entered into Jerusalem amid all this fanfare, some Greeks who are probably proselytes, ask the disciples if they can see Jesus. And this prompts a curious response from Jesus.  It seems curious at first glance, but actually John uses this event to show the real purpose of Christ’s coming into Jerusalem.  Vs. 23 “And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

What does he mean by that? He is talking about himself. Jesus speaks of Himself as  the grain of wheat. Unless He is willing to die, unless He goes to the cross, His whole purpose in coming to earth will have been wasted, and the Kingdom of God will not be established on earth. “But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus sees these Greeks as emblematic of the great harvest of souls in the world for which He came.  The world would not see the full outcome of his work and his life until he went to the cross and He was eager to accomplish HIs sacrifice so that all the world might know the good news of the gospel.

Because of the cross Jesus was able to break the power of sin.  Because of the cross He was able to draw all men to Himself. Because of the cross men might have peace with God. Because of the cross He was able to proclaim victory over death.  Because of the cross He would be resurrected victorious over the grave and ascend to the right hand of the Father, above all rule and authority, after everything and all power had been subjected to Him.  Because of the cross He would reign over His spiritual kingdom in the hearts of His people.  Because of the cross He would send us the Comforter who would indwell and empower the church to be able to take the gospel to the whole world.  The cross had to come first, and then His glory would be made known throughout the world.  

So the grain must die and be buried, and when it did, it sprouted and brought forth life again, life multiplied by the thousands upon thousands, then millions upon millions.  But first He had to die.

But as I said earlier, as He was in the world, so are we to be.  And so as Christ died, so also must we die. That is our response of worship. As Paul said in Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” We too must come to the cross, and offer up ourselves as our spiritual service of worship to God.  So Jesus said to us in vs. 25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”

Here is the great Christian paradox, the unmistakable mark of the authentic gospel: It begins with dying, with a cross. If the gospel that you hear proclaimed in church, or on  television, or wherever, does not begin with a cross, does not begin by telling you that something in you has to die, it is not the true gospel. The cross is the identifying mark of the gospel. No matter how appealing the message of self actualization, or  the message of self improvement that you may hear presented as Christianity may sound, the truth of the gospel is that you must lay down your life if you want to really live. 

AW Tozer said, “That evangelism which draws friendly parallels between the ways of God and the ways of man is false to the Bible and cruel to the soul of the hearers. The faith of Christ does not parallel the world. It intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our life up on to a higher plane. We leave it at a cross. The grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die. That is the beginning of the gospel.”

Much of the message of the church today is simply a Christianization of the world’s philosophy, which is “Be happy! Do whatever makes you happy.”  That’s the mantra of the worldly church.  “God loves you and just wants you to be happy. So do whatever you want that makes you happy.” But as Tozer says, that is a cruel lie.  

Jesus declared that if you follow that philosophy you will lose everything. Life will slip through your fingers no matter what you do to embellish it by the world’s standards. You can gain all the material abundance you could ever wish for, the acclaim of the crowd, recognition by the whole world, but if you live that way you will end up losing the most important thing. Jesus said in Mark 8:36  “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”

The answer, Jesus said in Matt.16:24, is to follow His example.  Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

In terms of practical experience, what does Jesus mean, “He who comes after me must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me”?  What does it mean to bear your cross daily? It means two things: First, to take up your cross is to surrender of the rule of your life to Jesus. It is a recognition that your life is not your own. I Cor. 16:20 says, ”You are not your own, you are bought with a price.”  The mirage of the world is that we are the captains of our soul, that we have a right to do whatever we want.  But that’s a lie.  The Bible says “The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it.”  We are His creation.  And He is the Sovereign King over all.  And we must bow to Him.

So this is the beginning of true life: To recognize HIs sovereignty, to surrender your claim to yourself, to give up your right to run your own affairs, and to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus, to do what he says, and to stop what he says to stop. That isn’t always appealing. It means submitting my plans to the Lord’s master plan. But that’s what it means to die to yourself.  To take up your cross. 

And it also means to daily follow up on that decision. Paul said I die daily.  Keep doing what is right. Stop doing what is wrong, and do it all in the strength of the Holy Spirit. You must die to the flesh so the you might live by the Spirit. That is how you will truly begin to live.  And as a result of dying to your will, the power of new life will come, the power to do what is right. That’s the way to joy and the inner peace that Jesus spoke of earlier, true peace from knowing you are right with God, and a child of God.

And that is the source of fruit in your life.  You won’t have spiritual fruit until you die to yourself.  I’ve been praying for years for a revival in this community, and even for a revival in this country.  I would love to see this country experience something like the Great Awakening of the 18th century when preachers like George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards and the Wesley brothers fanned the flames of a  revival that set this nation on fire for God. But if we are ever going to see another revival like that again, then we need to learn the truth of what it means to die to ourselves.  To die to the world’s agenda, to the social agenda, to the self actualization agenda of the world.  When Christians learn to take up their cross and follow Jesus, then we will start seeing the fruit multiply and a harvest of souls for the kingdom of God.  

Jesus said in vs.26 of our text; “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.”  You can ensure that honor from God today by coming to Christ in faith and repentance of your sins.  Jesus said in Matt. 10:32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.”  Today is your opportunity to confess Jesus as Lord. 

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

Mary’s sacrificial love for Christ, John 12:1-11   

Jan

26

2025

thebeachfellowship

For the last couple of weeks, we looked at the last miracle that Jesus did which is recorded in the book of John, which was the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  And now we have come to the final week of Jesus’s ministry before His crucifixion.  And in anticipation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross 6 days later, John presents us with a dinner that is being held in Bethany to honor Jesus.  It’s now been a few months since Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, and as He heads back to Jerusalem to meet His predetermined destiny with the cross, He stops in to visit His friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus.  And the other gospels tell us that a man named Simon, who was formerly a leper, hosted a dinner at his house for Jesus and invited many people there who wanted to see Jesus and also see Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead.  The fame of this miracle had by that time reached all through the surrounding countryside, and so there would be many people that wanted to see Jesus, and to see Lazarus as well, knowing that he had been dead and was now alive.

Now as I indicated, John uses this event to point to Jesus’s impending death which was foreordained by God, which would coincide with the Passover, just 6 days later.  But at the same time, John is illustrating the nature of true worship of Jesus Christ as the Son of God.  Mary, the sister of Lazarus, is an example of the heart of worship that God desires.  And Judas illustrates the opposite of worship, which is self righteousness.  So let’s get into the story and see how this contrast is manifested by the actions of these two people.

This man Simon hosts a dinner in his house for Jesus, presumably to honor Jesus and Lazarus also, as Lazarus had become somewhat of a celebrity due to being raised from the dead.  As vs.9 says, “The large crowd of the Jews then learned that He was there; and they came, not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He raised from the dead.”

So there was a good sized crowd that showed up at this man’s house to see Jesus and Lazarus.  The indication of scripture is that Simon himself had at one time been healed from leprosy by Jesus, and that is why he hosted the event.  But it also may be because he had a large enough home to accommodate everyone.  Because we know that in addition to Simon, Mary, Martha, Lazarus and Jesus, there were also the 12 apostles.  So there were at least 17 people in attendance, but as vs.9 indicates, a large crowd showed up.

You know, when I am preparing for church on Sunday morning, I always pray that we will have a good attendance for our service.  But more important than the numbers of people that come, is that Jesus Himself is here in Spirit.  Jesus said, where 2 or 3 of you are gathered together in my name, there will I be in your midst.  Without the Spirit of Christ here, there is no worship, there is no church.  It doesn’t matter if you have a building that you call a church or not, Jesus does not dwell in temples made with hands, but in the hearts of His people.  So we come together to worship Jesus, believing that He is here, and we are His body. 

But as this story illustrates, people come to worship the Lord with a variety of motivations.  We see a number of people in this story, no doubt drawn by the excitement generated by the recent miracle, yet it’s interesting to notice the various responses of the people involved. But out of all of them, only Mary receives the commendation of Jesus.  In Matthew and Mark’s parallel accounts of this event, Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” (Matt.26:13)

There are obviously many people who have come there because of the notoriety of Jesus. There is a lot of excitement in the community at that point due to this miracle. Jesus was at the height of His popularity with the people in Bethany and the surrounding areas at that time. 

So there is this outpouring of gratitude for the miracle that Jesus did.  The town hosts a dinner party to honor Jesus.  But even so, we have to wonder if those in attendance were there to worship Jesus, as much as in hope of reaping some sort of benefit.  Be it social, material, financial, or otherwise.  The point being being that there can be a lot of motivations for coming to a celebratory event, presumably to worship the Lord, but that is not always what is really going on underneath the surface.

And John doesn’t tell us about everyone’s motivation. But he does tell us about Judas.  And Matthew and Mark tell us that the disciples seemed to side with Judas.  So to some extent we can gauge from their response where their hearts were.  He tells us what some of the Jews response was who either were there or who heard about the supper.  John mentions that Martha, as usual, is working in the kitchen.  Lazarus is sitting with Jesus, perhaps somewhat overwhelmed by his celebrity status.  Simon the Leper’s response was to hold a dinner party for the community, and we might wonder if he  had ulterior motives in hosting the dinner at his house because of the celebrity status of the miracle.  I don’t know, and perhaps we shouldn’t speculate too much.  But I guess what I want to point out here is that we can come to worship God, perhaps out of some religious excitement or enthusiasm, and yet our hearts can still be far away from the Lord. I read somewhere recently a theologian who said that it was a good thing for a person who was right with God to be in church, but it was a dangerous thing for someone who was not right with God to be in church.  It’s a dangerous thing to come to worship before God in public, without having a right heart before God in private.

The Lord made it clear in Isaiah that He did not desire ceremonies and rituals and worship that did not come from a right heart. Isaiah 1:11-17  “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” says the LORD.”I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle; and I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer,Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies–I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts,They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer,I will hide My eyes from you;Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen.Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean;Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.Cease to do evil,  Learn to do good;Seek justice,Reprove the ruthless,Defend the orphan,Plead for the widow.”  What this is telling us is that God doesn’t want superficial praise or fawning adulation from men.  This idea that all that God requires is for us to praise Him in public worship, when our hearts are far from Him is not what the Bible teaches us that God requires.

Well, the example of how we should come to worship the Lord is seen in Mary’s example.  John says Mary took a pound of ointment, a costly perfume and anointed Jesus head with it, and then washed His feet with her hair.  Now let’s consider what this represents.  First of all, Judas tells us that this perfume was worth 300 denarii.  Now a denarius was considered a day’s wage.  So this perfume was extremely valuable.  It was worth 300 days wages.  If we estimate that a laborers wages are $100 a day in our currency, then we might say that this perfume was worth $30,000 in todays money.  That’s a lot of money.  

But there is more to it than that, I believe.  In those days, it was customary for a young woman to receive a dowry from her family to be used to help her acquire a husband.  Now this worked both ways.  On the one hand the bridegroom gave gifts to the parents, but the woman also had a dowry which was used as a financial gift to the groom from the brides family. In those days, marriage was many times a financial as well as a social arrangement.  And so the dowry could be perceived as a financial incentive for a man to take a woman to be his wife .  And without a husband, a woman was very limited in terms of owning property or having any sort of income that would provide for her living.  

So I believe that this alabaster vial of very expensive ointment was Mary’s dowry. These vials of expensive perfume acted as a sort of savings account for a woman which would become her dowry which was given to her husband.  And in the event that she didn’t find a husband, she could sell this perfume and it would help provide financially for her.  

Now if that is the case, then we can see Mary’s worship of Jesus in a new light.  Not only was it a very expensive offering, as Judas indicated, but it was expressive of her sacrificial love for Christ.  Her act showed her willingness to give all that she had to Christ, and give up all that she had hoped for in this world, all for the sake of knowing Christ.  And I would also add, that this was not romantic love she had for Christ.  It was sacrificial love. It was agape love.

I think sometimes we fail to understand that agape love should be our response to Christ.  And perhaps part of that is that we fail to understand what Christian love should be.  I’ve said before many times that Christian love is not just sentimentality.  And I would even go so far as to say that is not the type of love that is most important in marriage either.  We tend to believe the Hollywood stereotype about love, that it is head over heels, love at first sight, and love conquers all sort of romantic love.  And there can be that kind of romantic love in marriage.  And perhaps there should be.  But marital love is much more than just romantic love.  It is also sacrificial love.  It is a love that puts the needs of your spouse above your own needs.  I was counseling a lady some time ago who was considering leaving her husband because she said he did not love her enough, and my advice was that you are using the wrong equation.  The question should not be how much does he love you, but how much do you love him?  You are responsible for your love to be pure and unrestrained and fully committed first and foremost.

Ephesians chapter 5 says that husbands are to love their wives even as Christ loved the church and laid down His life for her.  So Christ’s sacrifice of HIs life defines marital love.  It is sacrificial love.  And our love for God is to be the same kind of love as that which He had for us.  He laid down His life for us, and our response is that we should lay down our life for Him.  There is a lot of talk in the church today about the love of God.  Many contemporary Christian songs have substituted “Love” for God’s name because of this emphasis.  But I want to tell you that love is not a one way street. The Christian’s relationship to the Lord is pictured as that of a bride and her husband.  And in order to have a healthy marriage, love needs to be fully expressed by both parties.  God’s love for us has been unquestionably established by Jesus dying for us on the cross.  It is our love for God that we must focus on.

In fact, when Jesus was asked to name the most important, foremost commandment, He said in Mark 12:30 that it is “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.”  That kind of love, all consuming love, all encompassing love is what God desires in our worship.   He is not talking about sentimentality, or emotion that ebbs and flows depending on the circumstances.  But He is talking about a sacrificial love, putting Him first.  And if we are truly the bride of Christ, then that is what we will want to do.  

God is a jealous husband. He desires first place in our lives.  He says in Matt.10:37-38 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”  There it is again, the sacrificial quality of our devotion to God.  

Let me show you a great Old Testament example of that.  There is a principle in biblical hermeneutics  which is called the principle of first mention.  Which means that if you want to understand a word in the Bible, find the first time it is mentioned and see how it is used in that example.  And that will provide the basis for your subsequent interpretations.  And so in the word “worship” for example, the first usage of it is found in Genesis 22:5, when Abraham is going to offer Isaac on the altar at Mount Moriah.  And Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  Now that is a powerful illustration of what it means to worship. Abraham was talking about an act of sacrifice.  The most important person in the world to Abraham was his son, and yet God called him to offer Isaac up as a sacrifice to God.  And Abraham called this worship.  

What do you call worship?  How do you worship God?  How much do you love God? Jesus said in ch.14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” So then how are we to express that love?  What are you willing to give to God?  What are you holding back from God?  I dare you to ask yourself these questions honestly this morning, and examine your worship in light of what Mary did.  She gave up her hope of a husband for Christ.  She gave up her hope of financial independence for Christ.  Mary didn’t just pour a few drops out of her bottle, she broke it, and poured everything she had out in love for Christ. 

And notice what effect this sacrificial love had.  First of all, it pleased God.  As I pointed out earlier, Jesus said in Matthew 26:13, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” In essence what the Lord says is, “This example of worship is going to be a permanent, everlasting memorial to the love of this woman for the Lord.”  And seeing her example,  we should ask ourselves this question, how all encompassing is your sacrificial love for Christ?  How will your love of Christ speak for you in eternity?

Notice one other effect of Mary’s worship.  It says the whole house was filled with the fragrance. Mary poured out a pound of this expensive perfume. I’m sure that not only did Mary smell like that fragrance for days afterwards, but Simon the Leper and his whole house smelled like Mary’s fragrance for probably a week or more.  I’m sure that the disciples all smelled like that fragrance for days.  And I would submit to you that when you truly love the Lord and worship Him with an all encompassing, sacrificial love like Mary had, then it’s going to start affecting others in your house.  You live with a husband who is a bum, and who doesnt’ care about things of the Lord?  The answer is not to nag him to death, but to so love the Lord with an all encompassing, sacrificial love that he cannot help but be affected by it.  Your kids don’t seem interested in the things of God?  The answer is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.  And when you are consumed with the genuine worship of God, that fragrance is going to affect everyone in your house.  Every marital problem, every family problem, every sin problem, finds it’s solution by putting Christ first and foremost in every place in your life.  When you get your worship right, then those other things are going to start to fall into place.

Well Mary is the premier example of true worship.  But let’s look quickly at what worship is not.  And for that we need look no further than this text, in the example of Judas.  I would point out first of all, that proximity to the Lord does not necessarily equate to preeminence in relationship. Judas had been part of Jesus’s inner circle for 3 years.  And yet we know that his heart was far from the Lord. He was only interested in what material benefit could be gained from the Lord.  

Couple of other points to make about Judas.  He was the only disciple from Judea.  Judeans were the educated people of Jewish society.  They were the aristocrats, especially in comparison to the uneducated Galileans who made up the bulk of Jesus’s disciples. So it’s interesting to note that Judas was probably considered above reproach by the other disciples.  That’s why they made him treasurer.  He was considered the most trustworthy of all of them.  That’s why on the night of his treachery the disciples couldn’t imagine that Jesus was speaking of him being the traitor.  

I think that this example in our text shows that Judas’s sin was that of self righteousness.  Self righteousness is anything but righteous. It is the sin of pride. And yet many times it looks to others as if such a person is extremely pious.  But Judas’s self righteousness is apparent in his indignant response to Mary’s true worship.  He said in vs 5, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to poor people?” And John after the fact, gives us insight saying, “Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.”  

What we see in Judas is a self righteous indignation, not only because he was a thief, but because he wanted to take the focus off of Jesus and put it on himself.  Worship is focused on the Lord only, but self righteousness takes that focus off of the Lord and directs it to one’s self.  And notice that is exactly what Judas does.  There is nothing wrong with taking care of the poor. In fact, we are instructed to do so.  But as Jesus said, the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.  Christ must always have the preeminence.  I see a lot of churches today that are involved in a lot of social projects, but they have failed the gospel because they have left out Christ.  They do not preach Christ crucified, they do not preach the need for repentance and faith in Him as your Savior, they do not preach the Lordship of Christ.  We cannot substitute anything, no matter how noble the cause might seem, for the immediacy and the urgency and the priority of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And I will say that this attitude of self righteousness manifests itself quite often in the church today, masquerading as worship.  But it is not true worship. It’s self serving. It’s self righteousness that is taking away the honor due to the Lord and putting it on individuals, who are perhaps in positions of leadership, positions of worship leaders, or even pastors.  They focus attention on themselves and away from true devotion to the Lord.  I will tell you what Mary’s example shows;  that true worship is humble. You can’t wipe someone’s feet with your hair unless you are practically prostrate on the ground.  Humility is the beginning of worship.  And yet Judas is the exact opposite of that posture.  He is indignant.  He is haughty.  He is looking down at Mary.  And his worship is self directed.  Any so called worship that brings undue attention to oneself is not of God.  No matter how pious it may seem on the surface, or how noble sounding the claims of the participants. Genuine worship magnifies the Lord, not people.

Let me tell you one more attitude we see represented here.  And that is the worship which is  based on reciprocality.  What I am talking about is that kind of attention we show the Lord when it serves our purposes to do so.  The kind of worship we give the Lord when we want something from the Lord.  And I believe that many of us are guilty of this kind  of worship.  Judas wanted something from his relationship to Jesus.  He was looking for money and material gain from his relationship.  And so he feigned spiritual concern.  I’m sure none of us think we could ever steal from God like Judas did.  

But I think what is a more common attitude is that we only get focused on the Lord when we want something.  When things are going great in our lives, we have very little interest in the things of the Lord.  We lose our diligence in church, we don’t read our Bibles, we fail to pray.  but when we want God to do something, especially when some sort of crisis hits our lives, now we become all fervent in our faith.

I think the lesson we need to take from this example is that we should love the Lord for who He is, rather than for what you want Him to do for you. You know, we talked about the relationship between a husband and wife earlier, and maybe that is a good illustration of how our relationship with the Lord should be.  How would you like it if your mate only showed you any attention when they wanted something, or wanted you to do something?  I don’t know about you, but I know that I want my wife to love me for who I am.  I want her to love me for me.  I want her to want to spend time just with me. 

I think we sometimes only come to the Lord with a long list of what we want him to do.  And we rarely come with just a desire to know Him and to love Him. To listen to Him.  To talk to Him.  To really get to know Him.  I think that is genuine worship.  A time to tell Him what you think of Him.  A time to tell Him how thankful you are that He is in your life.  To tell Him how thankful you are for all that He has done for you.  Not just a relationship based on how you can manipulate Him to do what you want.

Let me just mention one final point in closing.  I don’t have time to touch on everything here in this passage, but I do want to mention this final point.  And that is, even though Jesus was all knowing, and He knew that Judas was pilfering from the money box, yet Jesus never rebuked him, never had that “I caught you!” moment with Judas.  Right up to the very end, even when Judas was betraying Christ with a kiss, Jesus was giving Judas the opportunity to repent.  The Bible says that the kindness of God draws you to repentance.  Jesus was very patient with Judas.  

That reminds me of the scripture which says, that in the days of Noah, the patience of God was  kept waiting, waiting for men to repent of their wickedness.  This idea that God is hiding around the corner with a baseball bat ready to whack you over the head if you get out of line is not biblical.  God is patient, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.  Judas never did repent.  He kept hardening his heart, until it says that Satan himself entered into him and he went out from the Lord.  And as a result he never found forgiveness and hung himself in a fit of despair.  

I hope that there is no one here today like Judas.  I hope that this message has perhaps shown the light of truth upon your relationship to the Lord.  Perhaps you have seen in yourself this morning a self righteousness that you know is not pleasing to the Lord.  I hope that you have seen in Mary’s example the kind of humility and response to the Lord that is to be expected in genuine worship.  I hope you have seen the standard for the love of God as exemplified in Mary’s sacrificial gift of her vial of perfume.  That as Eph. 5:2 says, we might imitate God and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” 

The Lord wants all of you this morning.  Only you know if you are holding back something from the Lord.  From my perspective, you all look like earnest worshippers of God.  I can’t tell the ones who are sincere from the insincere.  But God looks at the heart.  I hope you will examine your heart today in light of this scripture and take this opportunity to commit to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her, and may your love and genuine worship of the Lord be a fragrant aroma which is pleasing to God, and which will affect all that is in your house.  

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach chuch, worship at the beach |

Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign, part 2, John 11:16-57

Jan

19

2025

thebeachfellowship

Today we are looking at part two of a message I have called, Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign. This miracle that Jesus did in raising Lazarus from the dead, is the seventh and final sign or attesting miracle that John records Jesus doing in His public ministry. It is a long passage, and as such we don’t have the time this morning to exegete every verse.  However, the story as a narrative is pretty self explanatory.  But there are some important doctrinal truths which are illustrated by this story which is what I want to make the focus of this message.

As I have said on numerous occasions, every miracle presented in the gospel is a parable meant to teach us spiritual principles.  So is the case here in the resurrection of Lazarus.  It is more than a cool story, it is given to teach us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing in Him you might have life in His name. So to that end I have prepared this message, and the seven principles taught by this sign are these; 1, the Love of God, 2, the timing of God, 3, the Light of God, 4, the Comfort of God, 5, the Life of God, 6, the Power of God, and 7, the death of God.

Now rather than spend half our time reteaching the first four points we covered last time, I am just going to review them briefly, and encourage you to go to our website (thebeachfellowship.com) and read last’s week message if you missed it.  In our last message, we noticed the first point, which is the Love of God.  The emphasis of the text being on Jesus’ love of Lazarus and not vice a versa.  This  principle is restated in 1John 4:10 which says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” His love for us is both familial and sacrificial.  Familial, like His love for Lazarus, Mary and Martha who were like His family.  And sacrificial because He was willing to lay down His life for His friends.  Ephesians 5 says that Christ loves the church in a similar way as a husband loves his bride. And the sub point from that was that God’s love for us does not mean that we will not suffer, but that He will be with us in our suffering, even as Jesus’ love for Lazarus did not mean that Lazarus would not suffer, but that his suffering was to further the kingdom of God.

The second principle we pointed out was the timing of God.  We saw in vs.6 that after hearing that Lazarus was sick, Jesus did not leave for two more days.  And we learned through this principle that in our petitions to God and expectations of God, we must submit to the timing of God.  His ways are not our ways.  His timetable is on a different scale sometimes than ours.  But ultimately, we need to trust that He is good, and that He is working all things together for good, to those that are called according to His purpose.

The third principle was the light of God. In vs.9, Jesus said “If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world.”  So if you have the light of God’s truth within you, then you will never be in darkness.  Darkness being in this case a simile for death.  Jesus said in John 8:12, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  The light of God produces the life of God which can never be extinguished.

And the fourth principle that we spent a lot of time on, was the comfort of God. In vs.11, Jesus said, ““Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.”  We discussed the meaning of the phrase “fallen asleep” and how that relates to the death of believers, whose body sleeps in the grave, but whose spirit is alive in Paradise.  And we showed you several scriptures which talk about the comfort that believers have in Christ when they pass from this life to the next.  We examined the story given by Jesus about another man named Lazarus, who was a lame man who laid at the gate of a rich man, and Jesus said when he died the angels took him to Paradise, which He referred to as Abraham’s bosom.  So we understand the comfort which we have in Christ is that He will take us to be with Him in Paradise, where we will live and be comforted until the day of resurrection, when we shall be raised with an incorruptible, new body and be forever with the Lord.  So the comfort is that even in death we will live if we are in Christ.

So up to this point we have seen the love of God, the timing of God, the light of God, and the comfort of God.  And that brings us this morning to #5, the life of God.  Jesus said in vs.25, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

And let me preface this principle of the Life of God by saying this; man was not designed to live independently of God.  We were designed to live with God, to be as one with God and to have spiritual life in God. God said in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that He has planted eternity in our hearts, that is, we are designed to have the eternal life of God in our hearts.  And without that life of God in us, there is a void in our hearts that nothing on this earth can fill.   

Now we can only know that kind of life through the Spirit of God, who gives life to our spirit.  If you will remember, when Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated from the presence of God, and their spirit died immediately.  That was the death promised by God that would be the consequence if they ate of the tree in disobedience.  Their spiritual connection and communion with God was the  source of life.  Without Him, their spirit died.  Their physical body followed soon afterwards.  But from the moment of separation from God they were actually considered dead, because they were dead spiritually.  They were separated from the life and light of God which sustains life.  As a result of their sin, spiritual death passed on to all men, so that all men are born spiritually dead.

Eph. 2:1-3 says, “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, 2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. 3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”

But because God loved mankind, God prepared a way to reconcile man to Him once again.  God became flesh and blood like us, in the man Christ Jesus, and as our substitute, He paid the penalty of death for us, so that we who believe in Him might be reconciled to God.  That means we were given life once again to our spirit.  That’s what Jesus meant in John 3:16 when He said, “You must be born again.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.” That means that once we are born again in the spirit we have fellowship/communion once again with God. We walk with Him spiritually and physically. That means we are one with God, because His Spirit dwells in us, and as such He is our head, our authority, our ruling authority. He is the governing entity of our life.  He guides us in every aspect of life.

Not only then is Christ the life which gives life to every man, but as He said, He is the source of life; the resurrection and the life.  He resurrects us from spiritual death that we might have spiritual life.  That is why He said He who believes in Me will live even if He dies, and everyone who lives (that is spiritually is made alive) will never die.  Those who by faith believe in all that Christ is and came to do are resurrected from spiritual death and given new life, which will never be affected by physical death.  That is the promise of Christ unto salvation.  And that is the picture that we see illustrated in baptism.

And that resurrection power is what Jesus is illustrating by this miracle.  Jesus did not come to Earth to raise every dead person just to live for a little while longer but then die again eventually.  But He did this miracle to show conclusively that He was the source of life; that is the Creator, that He had authority over life and death as God; and that we might have real life in His name. Jesus spoke of His authority over life in John 10:17-18 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”  And in an even more explicit declaration, Jesus said in John 14:6, ”I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Now there is so much more we could say, but we must hurry, our time is limited.  So let’s look at the next principle; #6. The Power of God.  The power of God is encapsulated by the words of Jesus is vs.46, “Lazarus, come forth.”  Jesus spoke to Lazarus, not to Lazarus in the tomb, but Lazarus who was in Hades, in Paradise.  What power, that speaks from the abode of the  living to the abode of the dead, and exercises power over that realm and the spirits there.  Who not only has the power to beckon spirits with a word, but the power to reclaim ruined flesh.  Lazarus’s body had already started to decompose after four days.  And yet he came out of the tomb as normal flesh and blood without deterioration.  That is the power of the Creator.  The power of life in God.

As John said in the opening paragraph of this book, Jesus was the active power in creation. John 1:3 “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

There are three sub points under this heading that I just want to bring out though briefly.  And that is that the power of God finds it’s origin in the compassion of God, it finds it’s expression in the call of God, and it finds it’s manifestation in the glory of God.  The compassion of God we see illustrated in vs.33 and 35, when Jesus sees their grief and was deeply troubled in His own Spirit.  And then in vs.35, Jesus wept.  As the old hymn says, He had no tears for His own grief, but sweat drops of blood for mine.  Jesus wept out of compassion for His creation who were held in bondage under the fear of death. So because of that compassion, God sent Jesus to suffer and die for mankind, even while they were yet sinners, Christ died for them.

The second sub point under the power of God is the call of God.  Jesus said in chapter 10, My sheep hear my voice, and I call them by name and they follow Me.  Lazarus was called by Christ and He came forth from death in answer to that call, just as certainly as those whom Jesus calls today hear His call and come out of death into life.  The Bible says that Jesus is the author and finisher of our salvation.  His call is what awakens us out of our deadness and darkness, and calls us into light and life as illustrated by His effectual call of Lazarus from the dead.

As Paul says in Romans 8:30 “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” Predestined means that He chose us for salvation  before we were even born, and glorified means that He will finish the good work in us that He has begun.  That speaks of the power of God over the future.  God is not only able to predict the future, but He is able to bring it to pass.  He is eternal.

And that segues into the third sub point of the power of God which is it manifests the glory of God.  Jesus said in vs.40, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”  The glory of God is the power of God manifested. John, speaking of the transformation with Moses and Elijah, when Jesus was on the mountain and the glory of God came upon Him so that He glowed with a tremendous light, said in John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Jesus revealed His glory when He called Lazarus to come forth from the dead.  He revealed His power, the power of God, which is able to raise the dead into life.  This power is the hope that we have, that Christ will one day come again in the clouds in all of HIs glory, to take up His church, His bride, and we will be raised in a glorified body to be with Him forever.

The final point we will look at quickly this morning is the death of God.  And we don’t need to spend a lot of time on this point because we have mentioned it in almost every principle so far.  But at the end of this chapter, we see Christ’s enemies, the Pharisees and chief priests, convene a council to discuss what to do about Jesus.  They have already tried to kill Him numerous times.  Now they say that His fame after doing this miracle will mean that even more people will believe in Him and they will lose their positions of power among the Romans. 

But Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.”  

So though the chief priests and Pharisees meant the death of Christ for evil, yet God meant it for good.  In this principle then we see the plan of God come full circle.  It was decided before the world began that God would create a world, and that He would make man to live in that world, that He would love mankind, that mankind would be His companion, be His helpmate, even would be His bride.  But God wanted mankind to respond to Him not as the animals who are slaves to their instinct, but who would to choose to love Him and to obey Him.  So though Satan would seduce man to fall through sin, yet God had a plan from eternity past to send Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins.  The love of God provided Himself to be our substitute to pay the penalty for our iniquities. Jesus would voluntarily lay down His life for His sheep, that we might be restored to the fold of God.  

So this sign of the resurrection of Lazarus is an illustration, not just a dramatic supernatural miracle,  but an illustration of the entire majestic scope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But it is more than just a lot of doctrinal theory.  It offers practical hope for the spiritually dead men and women who are living in this world without the light of God, without Christ in their life.  It is the hope of spiritual life that is available through faith in Christ as their Lord and Savior.  It is the hope of life that will never fade away, that will never die, but will continue to live even if it dies.  And this hope can be your hope.  You can know the life that is possible through Christ.  Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. And the Scripture says, “WHOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”  And Jesus said in John 5:24  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

Today is your opportunity to receive the free gift of life that is possible through Christ. Simply confess Him as your Lord and Savior, and believe in Him for salvation.  I pray you do not let this opportunity pass you by.  

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach chuch, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign, part 1, John 11:1-15  

Jan

12

2025

thebeachfellowship

I have said repeatedly from this pulpit, that every miracle presented in the gospel is a parable meant to teach us spiritual principles.  I will say it again to make sure you get that; every miracle presented in the gospel is a parable meant to teach spiritual principles.  Now this is the seventh and final sign or miracle that Jesus did that is recorded in the book of John.  So we may presume that this miracle in particular is of great significance.  We might deduce that simply due to the length of this passage which details it, as well as the fact that it is the last one recorded by John, of which  he said such signs were given that you might know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  

In fact, this passage is so long, and it’s message is so multi-faceted, that we will not attempt to look at all of it today.  I think it will take us 2 Sundays to get all that the Lord would have us learn from this text.  That being said, however, we need to work within the narrative of the story.   But my purpose is not so much retelling the story as much as it is to bring out the principles and their applications as taught in this seventh miracle of Jesus recorded in John.  To that end, I believe that there are seven principles that are illustrated by this seventh sign. That is the title of my message this morning; Seven Principles of the Seventh Sign. Seven principles are taught in this text; the first is the love of God, 2, the timing of God, 3, the Light of God, 4, the comfort of God, 5, the life of God, 6, the power of God, and 7, the death of God. I tell you all of that in advance for your benefit and to encourage you to come back for part two next week, but we will only deal with the first four of those principles today.

The first principle then that we can learn from this miracle is the love of God, vs3 says that the one whom Jesus loved was sick. It’s interesting to note that it does not say, the one who loved Christ was sick, but it says the one whom Christ loved was sick.  The emphasis is on Christ’s love for us. When we come to beseech the Lord, our grounds for a hearing are found in His love for us, not in the faithfulness of our love for Him.  Christ’s love is a faithful love, it is a keeping love.  It is a continuous love. It is a sacrificial love.  1John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

We know that God loved the world, according to John 3:16, but this love of Lazarus is obviously different.  It is indicated as being a special love that Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. It is obviously a love predicated by the fact that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were believers.  God loves the world, but God has a special love for His children that is so much more devoted. In vs.4, when the sisters sent word to Jesus, they use the word phileo as their word for love.  Phileo is the Greek word indicating love of family.  There is a love that a father or mother may have for their friends, but they have a special love for their children.  And we know that Jesus spent a lot of time with these people, so that they had a special relationship with Christ.  They lived in a village called Bethany, which was about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem.  Jesus at that point was about a 2 day journey away from Bethany, in another town that was called Bethany beyond the Jordan.  The significance of that I’m not sure of, except to show the similitude that they  had to Christ, even though they were separated from Him geographically.  

But vs 1 tells us that Lazarus was sick, and to extrapolate from the principle that I think is illustrated by this opening part of the story, it is that for those whom Christ loves, they are not immune from sickness or hardship.  There are many in the evangelical community today that teach otherwise.  Especially those television fake healers that prey on people of weak faith.  They teach that God’s will is that you can always be well.  They teach that sickness is caused by your lack of faith.  But that is simply not taught in the Bible.  Paul in particular said he was given a thorn in his flesh which he called a messenger of Satan, to buffet him, to afflict him, to keep him from being prideful. He asked three times for the Lord to take it from him, but God said My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. So he was given his infirmity to make certain that God received the glory for what he did in his ministry.  Many theologians believe that he had sores on his eyes that impaired his vision, probably as a result and reminder of his conversion from blindness on the road to Damascus.  

So what this passage teaches us is that God sometimes ordains sickness, even  the death of His loved ones, so that Christ may be glorified. Jesus said the same thing in John 9 in response to the question of HIs disciples; His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

And so in this case, when they tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick, His response shows that principle at work.  Vs.4, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.”  Jesus let’s them know the purpose of the sickness.  It is to glorify God.  That is how believers, those who are intimately loved by God, must view their sickness.  We need to remember first of all that we are loved by God. Satan loves to cast doubt on God’s love for us when God doesn’t act as quickly as we would like, or in the manner that we expect Him to act.  But the fact is that God loves us, and nothing can change that, nothing can separate us from His love. Rom. 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And then secondly, the purpose of this sickness was to glorify God. That is our purpose  as believers,  to glorify God whether by life or death, or in sickness or in health.  That is the first point of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” And God choses to accomplish that in manifold and mysterious ways, sometimes even through sickness and death.

The second principle that we see exhibited here in this story, is the timing of God, illustrated in vs.6, “So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.”  The principle is simply this; that God’s timing is not always according to our timing.   Though the petition was sent to Christ, one whom you love is sick, yet Christ delayed coming.  This has been a frequent principle taught by John in his gospel, that being the timing of God.  Twice in the last chapter, attempts were made to kill Jesus, but He escaped from their midst, because His time was not yet come.  Our prayers must be subject to the timing of God.  

We need to come to accept the timing of God.  God often delays His answers to our prayers.  But though He delays, we need to have faith that His ways are good.  His timing is good.  That is the second way the devil attacks us in difficult situations.  First, as I said while ago, he tries to get us to doubt God’s love for us when we go through fiery trials.  And secondly, he tries to get us to doubt the goodness of God.  That was  implicit in the seduction of Eve, wasn’t it?  Satan implied that God was withholding something good from her.  But we need to remind ourselves, regardless of whatever the circumstances, however dire they may seem at the moment, of Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

The third principle that we see here is the Light of God. After 2 days had passed since they got the news about Lazarus, Jesus said, “Let us go to Judea again.” Now it’s been about 4 months that have passed since He was previously in Jerusalem when they tried to kill Him twice.  So the disciples say, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.”  

There are several possible interpretations of this verse offered by various commentators.  But I would like to point out the similarity between this statement, and the one Jesus made in chapter 9 directly after saying, “neither this man sinned nor his parents, but so that the works of God might be displayed in him,” referring to the man born blind.  In 9:4 directly after that, Jesus said, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

Now in that statement, Jesus is saying that He was the Light of the world, and while He was in the world, they needed to do the works of God. They needed to fulfill the purpose of God. But He also indicates that night is coming.  And that night He spoke of was the night of His trial and His crucifixion, during which Jesus said in Luke 22:53  “While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.” So the night referred to the time of His death.

But in this very similar statement in John 11, we notice a different emphasis.  The difference is that the emphasis is on HIs followers having the light in them.  And He changes the metaphor from working to walking.  They are to walk during the day,  metaphorically during the 12 hours of daylight, that means to walk in the light of Christ, reflecting the light of Christ.  But those who are in darkness, who do not have the light of Christ in them, will stumble.  That is, they will perish. 

The principle being taught here is that for those who believe in Christ, those that follow Him, there will be no darkness.  If darkness is the power of death as Jesus indicated in Luke 22, then His disciples need not fear it, because they have the light of Christ abiding continually in their hearts.  Jesus said in chapter 8, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”  This light of life cannot be extinguished.  It is the light of life that continues even though we may physically enter into the darkness of death.  Psalm 23 speaks of that light that remains in us; “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for  Thou art with Me.”  Jesus is foretelling in this statement that as believers we need not fear the darkness that comes through death because we have the eternal light of life dwelling in us.

As Hebrews 2 tells us, Jesus has freed us from the fear of death. Heb. 2:14-15 “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

The fourth and final principle we will look at this morning is the comfort of God. It is found in vs.11-15 And after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.”  The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of literal sleep. So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.”

I want to point out the phrase that Jesus routinely uses to indicate physical death.  That phrase is fallen asleep.  Now this phrase caused some confusion for the disciples.  They said, “Lord if he is fallen asleep, then he will recover.”  They thought he was talking of literal sleep.  But Jesus tells them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.”  Now the question is, why does Jesus refer to death as having fallen asleep?

I would like to spend a little time on this, because I think that this principle is vastly misunderstood in the 21st century church, to it’s own detriment.  I think poor scholarship on the doctrine of eschatology has led to all sorts of errant teachings in the church.  And I recognize that some of you will not agree with me on my interpretation.  But I would suggest you hear me out, and keep an open mind.  On this doctrine we don’t have to agree 100%.  But I feel that it’s important that you hear what I believe the Bible teaches concerning the death of the saints.  Because this doctrine is our hope, our comfort.  And I’m afraid most people have a very fuzzy idea of even where to begin to discern the truth about eschatology, and  they have learned what they think they know from some pretty spurious sources.  What I would like to do is point out what Jesus and the scriptures have to say about it, and then you can begin to do your own research and study in the scriptures to determine what it says, and not base your eternal hope on some movie you saw or fictional book you might have read.

I would point out first of all, that when the Bible uses this phrase “fallen asleep”  to indicate death, it is speaking of the death of a believer.  The death of a Christian, or as the scriptures say, the death of saints. “Fallen asleep” is not the normal choice of words when speaking of the death of an unbeliever. When an unbeliever dies, he is consigned to eternal death.  But for the believer, who has eternal life, he is spoken of as having fallen asleep.  For example; in Matt. 27:52 it says, “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” Another example is Stephens martyrdom in Acts 7:60 Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep.” And Peter preaching in Acts 13:36 says, “For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay.” In 1Cor. 15:6, Paul says, “After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep…  and in vs.20 “But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.” And one more, 1Thess. 4:14 “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.”  So it is clearly an expression of those who are dead in Christ, that is who are believers. 

But the question remains, what is meant by this expression?  What is Jesus saying, that the person is asleep in the tomb?  I’m sure some of you are saying “I thought Christians went to heaven when they died.”  Well, I Cor.15:20 which we just quoted says that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.”  Where then did Christ go when He died?  Did He just remain in the tomb for 3 days? No, the answer is given by Jesus Himself on the cross.  He said to the believing thief; “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” So Jesus and the thief went to the same place, immediately upon death.  Their bodies were put in a grave, but their spirits went somewhere else.  Jesus tells him this is Paradise. Peter speaks of this in 1Peter 3:18-19 “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison.”  So Peter is saying though Jesus body was in the grave, yet His Spirit went to the place of departed spirits where He proclaimed victory over death.  Jesus calls this place Paradise when He is on the cross.

Now Paradise was a Jewish term for the abode of the righteous in Hades.  Hades being the general name for the abode of the dead.  In the Old Testament, Hades was called Sheol.  That’s the Hebrew word.  But the understanding was that the soul of man went to Hades upon death, which was divided into an upper and lower chamber.  Hades is indicated in scripture as being in the center of the earth. And Jesus confirmed this understanding in Luke chapter 16. Now coincidently, or not, Jesus told the story of another man named Lazarus in Luke 16 saying he was a poor man who laid by a rich man’s gate, covered in sores, and eating the crumbs from his table.  This is a different Lazarus than what we have in this story in John 11.  But I find it interesting that both men’s name was Lazarus.  I wonder if in the design of God these names are the same that we might be drawn to look at both stories conjointly to help us to fill in some of the blanks concerning the afterlife.

First though, I want to say that this story in Luke 16 is not a parable, but an actual event.  No parable that Jesus gave ever used the actual names of real people.  Abraham was a real person.  So I believe that Lazarus was a real person as well.  And I don’t believe Jesus made up some fictional place in order to illustrate something.  Jesus never told a lie to illustrate a truth.  

So notice that when Lazarus dies He is taken by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.  Abraham’s bosom is another Jewish euphemism speaking of Paradise, the abode of the saints where they await the resurrection.  Jesus tells of it this way in Luke 16:22, “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.” 

Jesus went on to describe it through the voice of Abraham as a place of comfort. “But Abraham said,[to the rich man] ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.  And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’” So that is the description of where the soul of the believer dwells upon falling asleep.  The body is metaphorically spoken of as fallen asleep, but they are alive in their spirit.  But they are not asleep in Paradise.  They are having conversations, they are being comforted, they are aware of their surroundings, they recognize friends and family.  And furthermore, they are in the presence of the Lord and HIs angels.  Paul said in 2 Cor.5:8, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

The Christian who has fallen asleep then is comforted in Paradise, awaiting the resurrection when they will be given a new and glorified body and be with the Lord, being made like Him, ruling with Him, for eternity.  1Thess. 4:14-15 says “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (Notice that phrase; the dead in Christ will rise first.  That is those who have fallen asleep in Christ) Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 

So that is the comfort which we have in God.  That we who are His will never taste death.  This body will die, but our spirit is alive in Christ, because He is the Light of life and He dwells in us.  We have the Light of Christ in us which can never be extinguished, and so we have eternal life that begins at the moment of conversion.  This fact segues into  the next principle that we will look at next week, #5, the Life of God. But let me close today’s message by just reading the statement that Jesus says regarding this principle in vs.25-26 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

I want to conclude todays message by asking you this question?  Do you believe this?  Have you come to believe in Jesus Christ as your personal Savior?  Have you trusted Him to forgive you of your sins, to make you righteous in God’s sight, to give you new life, abundant life, even eternal life?  If you have, then you have the life of Christ in you that can never perish.  You will live even if you die, and spiritually speaking, you will never die, your spirit will be resurrected and given a new glorified body to live forever with the Lord  in a new heaven and a new earth.  

Listen, that is the hope of Christianity.  In this life we receive the deposit of that abundant, eternal life through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Through belief in Christ, through faith in Him, we are made righteous, and because we are righteous and holy through Jesus’ substitionary atonement on the cross we are given the Holy Spirit to live in us, so that our spirit is reborn.  That means we need not fear death because we have eternal life given to us through Christ.  I trust that you have come to believe even as Martha did. She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.”  Today the light of God has shown forth in your hearts.  Believe on Him and be saved from death and receive the life of God.  Don’t leave this world without knowing Jesus Christ as your  personal Savior and Lord.

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

You are gods, John 10:32-42  

Jan

5

2025

thebeachfellowship

Today’s text is one that is somewhat difficult to deal with, for at least a couple of reasons.  One is we are jumping into what is really the tail end of an ongoing dialogue that Jesus was having with the religious leaders of  Jerusalem concerning His deity.  And we are picking it up near the end of that discussion. So that provides some difficulty in bringing you up to speed without repeating all of last Sunday’s message.  But the main difficulty is that Jesus makes reference to a somewhat obscure portion of scripture as validation of His argument, which potentially opens  up a lot of questions.  But I hope to answer those questions for you today, as well as affirming the deity of Christ, and in the process, offer some principles from this passage that I believe are essential to living out our faith effectively.  So I hope you will bear with me as we go through this somewhat difficult passage, with the firm conviction that all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, if we will give proper place to it.

As you might recall if you were here last week,  Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon’s portico during the Feast of Dedication, which we know as Hanukkah.  So it is winter time, about three months before Jesus will eventually be crucified.  And the Pharisees and priests have sort of cornered Him there, and they ask Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”  They claim to want to know if He is the Messiah.  But the fact is, they don’t really want to accept Him as the Messiah.  They have already decided to kill Jesus, but they need a good excuse.  And so the excuse they are trying to give themselves is to get Jesus to commit what they consider to be blasphemy; to say that He is the Son of God.

Of course, Jesus knows their trickery, and so He answers them by saying, “I have already told you, and yet you did not believe Me.  And then to paraphrase He basically says, “not only did I tell you, but I also did works of God which gave testimony to my authority, but you didn’t accept them either.”  So they did not believe His words, and they didn’t accept His works, both of which confirmed that He was the Messiah.  

But then Jesus makes the most startling, dramatic statement possible, which obviously answered their question, but to an extent that perhaps they were not expecting.  Jesus says in vs.30; “I and the Father are one.”  This is probably the most direct statement that Jesus ever publicly made in His ministry regarding His deity.  He is claiming equality with God.  Oneness with God.  It is to say that He was one essence with God.  There is one other statement that Jesus made to Philip and the disciples, which is just as clear, but it had a limited audience.  Jesus said on that occasion, “if you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  But this statement is made to the Jewish leaders, and is the most forthright declaration of His deity that He made.

To claim to be absolutely one with God is to claim to be equal with God. And so we read then, “The Jews took up stones again to stone him.” They feel justified in stoning Him, because they know that He is claiming to be no less than God.  John says the reason that they wanted to stone Him  in vs.33, was because they said, “You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Jesus could have answered the question of being the Messiah and not taken it that far.  The Biblical definition of Messiah was in fact deity, but their conception of the Messiah was limited to that of a political figure, a descendant of King David who would restore the throne to Israel and overthrow their enemies.  And so Jesus could have played along with their expectations and not given them much reason to condemn Him, but He deliberately declares the Biblical definition by stating not only His Messiahship, but stating that He is One with God.  

So they took up stones to kill Him. And Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

Jesus then answers that charge with a most interesting argument and one that I think has great theological implications.  Jesus quotes a relatively obscure scripture from Psalms 82.  Jesus said, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Now this quotation Jesus gives is found in Psalm 82 and verse 6 and there we find the words, “I have said, you are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.” This is a Psalm in which reference is made to rulers, or unjust judges by calling them gods. And the Lord goes on to say, “But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes.” So he is talking about rulers, or unjust judges, but nevertheless the Psalmist speaks of them as if they were gods, with a little “g”.  The word in the Hebrew is Elohim, which can mean gods, or God, or rulers, or judges.  So the Lord Jesus refers to this rather obscure text in the Old Testament, certainly not one of the more well known texts of the Bible, yet he refers to it as a basis for this most important doctrine of His deity.

Now there are several points that we can make from this statement.  First, we should point out that judges in Israel did have a limited relationship of  union with God because they were  divinely delegated representatives. In Israel a judge was one who was supposed to judge under God, and was supposed to judge with the judgment of God. The Psalmist says they had been given the word of God, and therefore should have judged with the judgment of God.

So there is a sense in which Jesus was arguing from the lessor to the greater.  If the Psalmist under inspiration of God called the unrighteous judges gods, then how much more appropriate can He be called God if He was the righteous judge, if He spoke the words of God, and did the works of God? 

And also in the NT, Paul refers to pagan rulers in Romans 13 as ministers of God, and servants of God, and says that they get their authority from God, are established by God, and we are to be in subjection to them as representatives of God.

But I think there is justification in expanding our text to include an even greater audience.  And though this may be shocking for you to consider, I think that this statement can be applied to us as well.  That to a limited extent, we are gods.  Or at least, we were designed to be as gods.  Now I hope you will hear me out before you charge me with blasphemy as well and stone me here this morning.

As justification for my claim, note that the Psalmist makes a correlation between “you are gods” and “all of you are sons of the Most High.”  Now we would all agree that we that are saved are sons and daughters of the Most High.  But at the same time, we recognize that there is a difference between Jesus being the Only Begotten Son of God and we being sons of God.  Jesus used the designation of God as His Father, and we pray to God our Father, yet we realize that there is a difference.  

But notice that the Psalmist equates “god’s” with “sons of the Most High.”  It’s a parallel statement.  If one is true, then the other is true.  And so I feel justified in saying that this is true for us.  That we are to a limited extent, gods, even as we are sons of the Most High.

Now why do I feel it’s important to make this claim?  I make this claim because I think that this speaks to the relationship of man to God as He was deigned to have in creation.  It refers to the kind of relationship man had with God before the fall.  And so part of the purpose of redemption, the purpose of atonement, is to restore man to that fellowship with God that we had before the fall.  

Look at Genesis 1:26 for a minute.  Hopefully a very familiar passage.  It says, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”    And notice that in Psalm 82, in vs.1, the  word translated as rulers there is the same word translated as gods in vs.6.  So here in Genesis 1, man was called to rule over every living thing in the earth.  

Now that statement alone is justification for calling men gods.  As they were in the beginning, as God designed them to be, they were to rule over every living thing that moves on the earth. Not only that, but we were made in the image of God, in the likeness of God. And in the Garden of Eden, prior to the fall, there was a special relationship that man had with God where he was in full fellowship, full communion.  That was the design of God.

So man was designed to be as gods in this world.  We were designed to be much greater than the ungodly, human judges of Israel who the Psalmist calls gods.  We were to rule over creation. Every living creature on earth we are to subdue and to rule over, according to God’s command. 

You know, I was thinking about this the other day when I was messing around with my dog.  I have a crazy dog named Jackson.  He is a very high strung Husky.  But little by little I am trying to teach him some things.  And as I was working with him the other day, mainly not to try to yank the leash out of my hands and walk beside me, I realized that to Jackson, I must seem like a god.  I do all these things that are completely beyond his comprehension.  He cannot comprehend how I can drive him somewhere in the car.  He can sniff at the car, bark at it, ride in it.  But He doesn’t know how to drive it. He doesn’t understand how it works.  He knows that I give him food and water. But he can’t understand how I do that, how to go to the supermarket and buy him food. To a great extent, he realizes that I am the source of everything that he needs. And consequently, he loves me.  He has no greater joy it would seem, than to lay at my feet and look up at me with those beautiful blue eyes.  I believe that He loves me.  I’m still trying to get him to obey me, but he is learning that as well. 

I wish I could say the same for most Christians and their relationship with God.  I wish I could say that they trusted Him to provide for them even when they cannot comprehend what God is doing.  I wish I could say that we love God, that we love to follow Him, that we have no greater joy than to obey Him, and do what He tells us to do even though we don’t always understand it all.   

So to say that we are gods illustrates perhaps in a small way our relationship to God, that we are little gods over His creation, even as He is the Supreme God over man and the earth.  But I think there is even more to that analogy.  I think it relates to our relationship to God as the bride of Christ.  Remember in Gen.2:18 when God said that it was not good that man should be alone?  It’s interesting to see what God did next.  He didn’t immediately make  woman.  Instead, God brought every living creature to parade before Adam.  And Adam gave them all names. That illustrated the dominion that God authorized Adam to have over the creation. But it also illustrated Adam’s lack of a suitable companion.  When he was finished naming them all, it says, “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”  

Now I believe that serves as both a historical fact and an analogy of God’s relationship with His creation. I think that before the creation of the earth, God searched through all of His creation and all the creatures that He had made, through all the vastness and dimensions of the Universe, and there was not found a mate suitable for Him. And so God decided to create a companion like Himself, made in His likeness, with whom He would be able to have a relationship such as Adam had with Eve.  That is why the church is called the bride of Christ.  That is why in Ephesians 5 when Paul starts talking about the way the husband should love his wife, and the wife should love and respect her husband, Paul says in Eph 5:28-32  So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;  for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,  because we are members of His body.  FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

And we see that love relationship borne out in the act of creation.  With everything else in creation, God simply spoke it into existence.  But with man, God got down on His knees in the dust of the earth and formed man with His hands, and then it says that He breathed into man’s mouth the breath of life, and he became a living soul.  God kissed man, breathing His very life into our lips.  That speaks of a relationship like no other.  It speaks of the love of God for mankind, and His purpose for making us, to be His bride.

Here is the point I want to make this morning.  In the second creation, we are born again by the Spirit of God,  we are made righteous and holy by the atonement of Jesus Christ, and as this new creation we are designed to be the bride of Christ.  We are designed to be like God, to be conformed to His image, to share the throne with Christ as His bride, to rule over not only animals and every living creature on this earth, but Paul says we are even going to judge angels, to have dominion over infinite dominions yet to be revealed.  We are made to live forever with Christ and to share His glory.

Listen to Jesus’ promise to the church in Rev 2:26-29 “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, TO HIM I WILL GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS;  AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’ And then in Rev 3:21-22 “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

I spend so much time on this principle this morning, because I want you to get a glimpse of what God has in store for those that love Him.  To understand the scope of our salvation.  There is so much more that I don’t have time to get into this morning.  But this is the love of God.  It is the love of God that pursues us, like Hosea pursued his adulterous wife.  It is the love of God that sent Jesus, His Son, to humble Himself to become a man, to lay down His life for us as the ultimate act of love that He might effect our atonement on the cross, by taking our sins upon Himself, in exchange for Christ’s righteousness.  It is so that we might complete the plan of God before the world ever began, that we might fulfill the desire of God to be His bride, as the object of His desire, and that He would be the object of our desire.  That we might come to Him in love, because of love, and not of compulsion. We were not designed to operate simply on instinctual desires like animals, but to choose to love even as God has loved us.  This is the plan of God.  We do not see it having come to fulfillment yet, but we have a deposit made in our souls that one day will be realized in full when we shall see Him as He is, and then we shall be like Him, and be with Him, forever.

Now let me just make a couple of more points of application.  I think you understand Jesus’ argument.  I hope you understand that He was God, and that He had to be God in order to accomplish our redemption.  No mere man could atone for even his own life, no matter how righteous he may have been.  But for Christ to atone for the sins of the world, then He had to be deity, in order to have an infinite quality of atonement that could cover the sins of the world.   

But there is another point that Jesus makes, and that is the statement found in brackets in most translations; “(and the Scripture cannot be broken).”  The brackets indicate it as an afterthought, or perhaps a clarification but I can assure you that Jesus doesn’t consider it an afterthought.  Jesus had a very high view of scripture.  Jesus is taking a very obtuse word in the Psalms, just one little word, and upon one word He hinges such an essential doctrine as His deity.  And as He does this, He says the scripture cannot be broken.  In other words, every word of scripture is inspired by God.  Jesus is saying that every word in the scriptures is important.  He is making a case for the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture for all of life and doctrine.  

And I want to give you a couple of more examples of Jesus’ high view of scripture.  First is found in Matthew 22:23.  The Sadducees are questioning Jesus concerning the resurrection.  And Jesus answers them by saying in vs.31-32  “But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God: I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, AND THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”   

Now in that case, He isn’t talking about a word in the Old Testament as being important.  He is referring to a verb tense.  If Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were dead then He should have said, I was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, past tense.  But Jesus shows the OT use of the present tense as an argument that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were living, and not dead.  Thus He says the proof of the resurrection of the dead was found in the present tense of the verb.  

And then one other example of Jesus’ high view of scripture.  In Matt. 5:17-18 during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,  “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”  There Jesus is speaking of one of the little dots on a Hebrew letter used to distinguish it from a similar letter.  Jesus is saying not even one little stroke of a letter shall pass until all is accomplished.  So then  in these three examples, we have a word which cannot be broken, we have a verb tense which cannot be broken, and we have a stroke of a letter which cannot be broken.  I would say that Jesus had a pretty high view of scripture.  And I would hope that we might have the same.  

The battle against the authority of scripture is undiminished, in fact it has increased 10 fold today compared to what it was a century or two ago.  Yet if our Lord had such a high view of scripture that He depended upon it to defend His deity, He depended upon it to defeat all of Satan’s temptations, and as He was the author of scripture, then how much more should we be in the word of God.  How much more should we depend upon it for every decision that we make.  Notice back in Psalm 82, the judges were called gods because the word of God came to them.  We have the word of God made more sure, because it is written and confirmed in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.  Let us treat it no less seriously than did Christ.

One more point, and that is found in the verses 37-38, Jesus said “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me;  but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”  So Jesus invokes one more attempt to show these unbelieving Jewish leaders that He is who He said He was.  They had not believed His words, HIs preaching.  So Jesus asks them to consider His works.  He says, “believe My works.”  My works show that I am from the Father, and that the Father is in Me and I in Him. 

Nicodemus, who was one of them, had spoken earlier to Christ in secret in John 3:2 saying “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  So Jesus is appealing to just that kind of reasoning.  He says, believe Me because of My works.  That was the reason Jesus did signs and wonders.  It was to confirm by signs that God was with Him.  It’s the same reason that the apostles did signs and wonders.  It was to confirm that they spoke the words of Christ.  Miracles were not given to simply heal people because they were sick.  That was a benefit of the sign, but that was not the reason for the sign.  The reason was to confirm the word that they were preaching was of God.  And that is what Jesus appeals to.  Believe My works, that they might believe My words.  

But there is an application of that for us, I believe as well.  And that is this; that when we give testimony to the grace of God, to our salvation, to our Christianity, a lot of times we are met with rejection, with disbelief. Sometimes, we are even met by animosity, as in the case with Christ here in our text.  But there is more that we can share beyond our words.  And that is our works.  We should be able to have the same argument as Jesus Christ.  We should be able to say as He did, “If you won’t believe my words, then believe my works.  I am doing the works of Christ. You should be able to show your friends and coworkers and family, that Christ is in you, and your works are the evidence of His life in you.

Not everyone is going to accept you, or believe in what you are saying.  But as we see in this passage, Jesus left Jerusalem and went to Bethany where John the Baptist had preached during his ministry, and those people saw the signs that Jesus was doing, and it says that many believed in Him there.  

I’m afraid that there is a disconnect today between what the church professes and what it practices.  I’m afraid that when the world looks at the lives of professing Christians today they don’t see the truth of the scriptures lived out.  And as a result, they have an excuse.  I’ve said it before, your life is either an example or an excuse.  Your life is an example of a Christ filled person, and as such points men to Christ, or your life is an excuse as to why they don’t need to believe, and as such your life turns men away from Christianity.  I hope that it may be an example.  

I hope that you will take away from this message today the realization that you were meant to live for so much more than what this life offers.  You were meant to be gods with a little g, to be rulers, judges over the world.  We were meant to be the bride of Christ and to rule and reign with Him.  That is why Christ came to earth and died for us.  That we might become righteous through faith in HIs sacrifice.  And then I hope that you will walk in this life with a dependency upon the inerrancy and sufficiency of scripture.  That we might be totally reliant upon the word of God as our guide for every action and every deed.  And thirdly, that we might be a testimony not just by our words, but by our works.  As we do the works of God we will show the truth of God in our hearts as a testimony to the world.  

Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to live as God designed us to be. To be all that He has desired us to be.  And all that is possible by faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.  Let us pray.

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach church, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

The Shepherd of our souls, John 10: 22-31

Dec

29

2024

thebeachfellowship

One of the great questions of our age, particularly among those who have been taught scientific evolution, is whether or not God is real.  From time to time you will hear someone ask the question, “if God is real, then why doesn’t He show us?  Why doesn’t He reveal Himself?  Why doesn’t God prove that He is real?”  And sometimes, people will ask us that are Christians to prove that God is real.  To prove that He exists.  

But it is noteworthy that Jesus Christ never addressed that question.  He did not defend the existence of God.  In fact, the Bible is not written to prove that God is real.  The Bible does not defend the existence of God or try to prove it or even explain it.  The fact is, that God doesn’t need us to defend Him, but just to declare Him.  That He is. Period.  God’s personal name that He gave Moses out of the burning bush illustrates that fact.  When Moses asked God His name, God said, “I Am that I Am.”  He is.  And you can either accept that, or reject it.  It’s your choice.  But there are consequences to your decision. Eternal consequences.  And consequences you will face in this life as well.  

So we do not need to defend God’s existence, nor define Him.  Our job is to declare Him.  Let the scientist’s expostulate on their theories.  God has declared who He is.  Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”  Science changes it’s mind from day to day, but the truth of God endures forever.  I was telling my kids just this week much of the dietary advice we were given about fats and carbs growing up has now been proven to be completely wrong.  Science can change it’s mind without any problem whatsoever and what had once been proclaimed to be the facts is just conveniently dismissed in favor of new facts.  I saw an interesting quote recently from a man named Werner Heisenberg, who was the father of quantum physics.  He said, “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass, God is waiting for you.”

Nevertheless, on the question of God’s existence skeptics abound.  But God doesn’t need to answer them.  It is foolishness, the existence of God is self evident for those who believe in Him.  Now there was a similar question posed to Jesus by the religious leaders of the Jews.  They had come to ask Him if He was the Messiah.  Christ, by the way, is the Greek word for Messiah.  The Messiah had a pretty broad definition according to popular interpretation.  The limited view which was favored by the Pharisees and scribes and priesthood in Jesus day, was that the Messiah would be a ruler, of the royal line of David, who would restore the throne of Israel, and overturn their enemies.  The Biblical view of the Messiah was quite a bit more expanded than that, however.  Isaiah, for instance, made it clear in Isaiah 9 who the Messiah would be.  It says, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.  There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”  This prophecy makes it clear that the Messiah who would sit on David’s throne was no less than the Mighty God.  Why the Jewish leaders could not see this from such scriptures is beyond me.  But as with most people, I guess, they heard what they wanted to hear.  And so they had a limited, one dimensional view of the Messiah.

So the Jews come to Jesus as He is walking in the winter time under the portico of Solomon, that is the remnant wall of the original temple of Solomon that was all that had survived the destruction of Solomon’s temple.  And John tells us that it was during the Feast of Dedication.  We call that feast Hanukkah today.  It was a celebration of the rededication of the temple which had happened during the revolt which had been led by Judas Maccabee a couple hundred years earlier.   So perhaps that was the incentive for asking Jesus this question.  Because Judas Maccabee had been the type of revolutionary that they wanted the Messiah to be like.  I think they knew full well that Jesus was the Messiah.  But He wasn’t the kind of Messiah that they wanted.  Jesus was concerned about spiritual things, and they were concerned about earthly things.  They wanted deliverance from Roman oppression, Jesus offered deliverance from their sins.  

I’m afraid that we still have that problem today.  People are always trying to define God according to what they think God should be like.  But God has already declared what He is like.  And so when a preacher like me tries to teach what the Bible says about God and our relationship to Him, we are vilified.  Because the Bible doesn’t square with what a lot of people have decided God should be like.  I had a woman some time ago tell me repeatedly that I could preach about God all that I wanted to, but her God was not the same God that I spoke of.  She said her God was a loving God, and a merciful God.  And every time I tried to speak to her, she just repeated that over and over again, getting louder and louder.  The real problem though with her view of God was that she wanted to be able to deliberately sin and not have a guilty conscience about it.  But whether or not her conscience is bothered is not going to change the fact of who God is.  He is a loving, merciful God.  But He is also holy, righteous and just.  And you cannot limit God to just the characteristics that you like and dismiss the others.  Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

So back to our text, Jesus answers their question without seeming to address it directly.  He doesn’t say outright that He is the Messiah because of their misconceptions about the Messiah’s purpose.  He has previously told individual people that He was the Messiah.  And His own disciples had professed that He was the Messiah, the Son of God.  But Jesus knows that what these Jews were attempting to do was not come to an understanding of the truth, but they were trying to find something that would justify them murdering Him.  And so they wanted to accuse Him of blasphemy. The way that they decided to do it, was by getting Him to declare who He was in the temple, in the presence of witnesses.  And so they descend on Him in a pack, and put the question to Him.  Vs. 24, they say “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

But Jesus knows their hearts and their deceit, and so He gives them this answer in vs.25, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.”  So Jesus offers two proofs of the fact that He is the Messiah.  First His words show that He is the Messiah.  Over and over again, Jesus had shown by HIs teaching that He spoke the word of God.  For instance, Jesus said in chapter 8 vs 28,  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” 

So as He said there in chapter 8, and now again in chapter 10, “I have already told you and you did not believe.”  He offers two evidences; I speak the words of God, and I do the works of God.   And they had not missed either of those proofs either.  Nicodemus, one of their own, and speaking on behalf of the Pharisees,  told Jesus back in chapter 3 that “We know that You have come from God as a teacher, for no one could do the signs that You do unless God is with him.” So by their own testimony they knew that He had come from God and God was with Him, and yet they had rejected Him. 

So Jesus said I have told you, and I have shown you, and yet you do not believe. He said You don’t believe because you are not my sheep.  Now all of chapter 10 is on this theme of Jesus as the Shepherd of His sheep.  And so even though this takes place three months later than the earlier portion of this passage, yet the theme of this passage remains the same.  The theme is that Jesus is the Great Shepherd of the sheep.  Jesus has declared Himself to be the Shepherd of His sheep.  And this idea of a Shepherd was a great Messianic theme throughout the Old Testament.  I don’t have time to take you to all the references for it this morning.  But one example in Micah is quoted in Matthew 2:6, “‘AND YOU, BETHLEHEM, LAND OF JUDAH,

ARE BY NO MEANS LEAST AMONG THE LEADERS OF JUDAH; FOR OUT OF YOU SHALL COME FORTH A RULER WHO WILL SHEPHERD MY PEOPLE ISRAEL.’”  So a shepherd was a common Old Testament picture of the Messiah.

So having already declared Himself to be the good Shepherd in vs.11,  now Jesus delineates those who are His sheep from those that are not His sheep.  Jesus gives three evidences for knowing His sheep.  First of all, He said, His sheep believe Him.   Secondly, His sheep hear His voice.  Thirdly, His sheep follow Him.  

The Pharisees did none of that.  They did not believe His words or His works.  They did not hear His voice, that is HIs call.  And they did not follow Him.  They were not interested in becoming disciples.  Here is the crux of it, I think.  They didn’t want a shepherd.  They didn’t think that they needed a shepherd.  And I think that is the state of most people today.  They don’t see themselves as needing a shepherd.  They don’t see themselves as needing a Savior.  They don’t see themselves as foolish, wayward sheep who are always going astray, who are always wandering off, who are always prone to get in trouble from predators.  People today see going to church as adding some degree of religion, or some degree of respectability to their lives.  They acknowledge certain facts of the Bible, they acknowledge the existence of God, they are even willing to accept the premise of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, but they do not see themselves as needing a Shepherd of their souls.  People want God to be like a genie, that sits on a shelf somewhere out of the way until we want our wishes granted, then we come to Him and rub the statue just so, and say some prayer like abracadabra, and poof, God gives you what you want.  We want a god like that.  But we don’t need a Shepherd.  I can decide for myself what I need to do, where I want to go, how I want to live.  A Shepherd is too restricting.  A Shepherd leads the sheep, guides the sheep, controls the sheep.  So we don’t really want a Shepherd. We’ll take a genie though, thank you very much.  

But if you have that attitude, then there is a very good chance you are not one of His sheep.  You can’t be His sheep unless you accept Him as your Shepherd.  Personally, I had to come to the place where I finally realized I couldn’t make it on my own.  I wasn’t able to manage things on my terms.  When my life finally got so messed up I couldn’t stand it anymore, then I knew I needed a Shepherd to save me, to restore me,  to make me one of HIs flock and to lead me and guide me.  And I can tell you this, there is no greater comfort or peace that can be found, than knowing that Jesus is my Shepherd and I am HIs sheep.  I have a confidence that nothing else can provide, because I know that He knows me, because I am His.

That’s why Jesus said that He came to seek and to save those that were lost.  When you come to the point of realizing that you are lost, then you will welcome a Shepherd, who will save you and lead you and guide you.  There is a popular slogan out there you see on bumper stickers which says, “not all who wander are lost.”  But the fact is, we are all lost.  Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.”  And until you realize that you are lost, you cannot be saved.

So Jesus says His sheep follow Him, and obey Him because they are His.  1Cor. 6:19-20 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?  For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”  Some people see obedience as a limitation, but I think that it is a great benefit.  I just follow Him, and know He will take care of the details.  He will take care of me.  And that is such a great relief.  None of us knows the future.  None of us know what tomorrow holds.  But Jesus sees tomorrow.  He has a plan for me, and I can trust His plan.  That’s the benefit of being His sheep and following Him.  

But the benefits don’t stop there.  Jesus said in vs.27, “I give eternal life to them and they will never perish, and no one can snatch them out of My hand.  My Father who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”  

Now there are three benefits to the life we have been given by Christ.  First of all, He says He gives them eternal life.  Some people think that eternal life is something that we get when we get to heaven.  But eternal life, or everlasting life, is given to you at the new birth.  When you are born again, by the Spirit of God, then you receive eternal life. It begins at conversion.  And it continues forever.  

Back in chapter 10 vs.10, Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”  It’s a never ending stream of life.  Back in chapter 7:37, Jesus said, “]If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in Him were to receive.  Going back to that conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  

So in conversion when we are born again, we are born by the Spirit, and as such we become spiritual beings, and as spiritual beings we have spiritual life, which is eternal life.  It’s an abundant life, springing up in our soul which will never run dry because it comes from the Spirit of God within us.  And then Jesus says they will never perish.  Listen, this body will die but our spirit will never die.  In the next chapter, Jesus said in 11:25-26 “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,  and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  And when we believe that, we can live victoriously in this life.  We don’t need to fear those who can kill the body but do nothing more to you after that.  Because we can know that we will never die.  In fact, we can even start to look forward to that day when this old body is cast off, and we receive a new body which is not weighed down by sin, which is not weak, which is not corruptible. 

And then the last aspect of our eternal life that Jesus is teaching is that it is eternally secure.  It’s what the Reformers called  the perseverance of the saints.  It is the triple guarantee of our eternal life.  First of all, Jesus said we are in HIs hand and the Father has given us to Him.  So that is our first guarantee, and then the next guarantee is that we are in the Father’s hand, and no one is able to snatch them out of HIs hand.  And in Ephesians 4:3, Paul says we are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption.  So we have a triple guarantee.  

I’ve used the illustration many times of my kids when they were little, and we would have to cross a road or a parking lot.  And I would tell my child, “hold onto my hand.”  And usually they would grab hold of my hand.  But though I told them to hold onto my hand, I did not rely on their strength to hold onto my hand. Neither did I rely on their obedience.  I’ve seen them suddenly try to let go and do something silly like pick up something, or turn around, right at the worst possible moment. So rather, I held onto their hand.  I wanted them to obey me.  But I made sure that I kept them firmly in my grip.  Their security was up to me.  

So it is with God and His children.  All of us like sheep are prone to wander.  But though God wants us to obey Him, He keeps us by His sovereign power.  We are not kept by our power.  No one, Jesus said is able to take them from the hand of God.  No one.  That includes you and I.  Just as my child could not escape from my hand, we cannot take ourselves out of God’s hand. Romans 8:30 says, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” God will keep us from the cradle to the grave and on through eternity.

And then Jesus concludes His answer to their question in vs.30, in the most dramatic way possible, saying, “I and the Father are One.”  Not only that He is the Messiah, but that He is the Messiah promised in scripture, the very God  in flesh.  Now He is saying two things in that tremendous statement. First of all, He is saying He and God have one purpose. That is the context of vs.28 and 29.  Both Jesus and God are agreed in their purpose to keep HIs sheep.  And this is consistent to what I read earlier from chapter 8 vs 28,  “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”   So they were in agreement in all that Jesus did and said.  He spoke the words of God and did the deeds of God.  So they are One in purpose.

Secondly, they are One in essence.  They are One God.  Isaiah 9 which I quoted from earlier made that clear.  The Messiah was called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.  Now they are two persons, the Father and the Son.  But they are One essence.   In the great high priestly prayer of John 17, when Jesus is in the upper room on the night before His crucifixion, He is praying with HIs disciples, and He prays to God saying, that they may all be one, “even as You, Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us so that the world may believe that you sent Me.”  So this statement that “I and the Father are One” is the greatest self declaration of His deity.  He makes Himself equal with God. 

Well, we read in the next verse that they didn’t like the answer to their question.  They had wanted Jesus to tell them plainly if He was the Messiah.  And Jesus answered that, but according to HIs interpretation of who the Messiah is.  He says clearly that He is One with God.  And the rulers know that is what He means because they say it in vs. 33.  They say we are going to stone you to death, because you being a man make yourself out to be God.  They know full well what He is saying.  But they don’t want the Messiah to be God.  They want a revolutionary.  They want freedom from Rome. They want to be the rulers of Israel, and rulers of the world, and the Messiah that they wanted they thought could provide that.  Jesus on the other hand, made them feel guilty.  He made them realize that they needed a Shepherd. That they needed to follow someone.  They rejected that idea.  And so they picked up stones to kill Him.  

No one here today I am sure would admit that you would like to kill Christ.  But I wonder how many of you have rejected the notion that you need a Shepherd?  How many of you reject the idea that you need to follow Him, and obey Him, if you are going to have abundant life?  I believe that the Jews that day knew that Jesus was the Messiah.  But they rejected Him and chose to live their lives their way, and rejected the notion of a Shepherd. And I believe some here today may have the same response.  You don’t want to be under the authority of a Shepherd, you don’t want to submit to a Shepherd.  And as such you reject Christ.  

But I hope that is not your decision.  Today you have heard the truth.  Today the invitation is being extended to you to believe in Him, to hear His voice, and to follow Him.  If you will do that then you will be HIs sheep, and He will know you, and He will give eternal life to you.  And no one can snatch you out of His hand.  You can face life with the confidence that you will never perish but have everlasting life with God, and He will be with you, today and forever.  I pray that today is the day of your salvation.  Answer His call and come to Christ, believe and follow Him, that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach chuch, church on the beach, worship on the beach |

I AM the Good Shepherd, John 10:11-21

Dec

24

2024

thebeachfellowship

From the very earliest examples of literature, we find the use of anthropomorphic allegories or similitudes used to illustrate various types of human behavior.  Even today, much of our perceptions of human behavior is influenced by tales of animals who talk, and think as we do.  And so it is not surprising that  we find the scriptures uses such analogies from time to time as a means of teaching certain principles.  

Today we come to one such allegory, that of the church, or the people of God, presented as sheep, and Christ as the shepherd of the sheep.  Also in this allegory, Christ portrays false religious leaders as wolves who prey on the sheep.  Most of us can appreciate this type of teaching mechanism.  We understand, at least to some degree, the picture of a shepherd and his sheep.

But I suppose that this allegory is not as clear to living in a modern industrialized world as it would have been to listeners in Jesus’ day.  Because even though we are familiar with the idea of shepherding, most of us probably have never spent much time around sheep.  The Israelites though were sheepherders by heritage, going back to the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  When the Israelites moved into Egypt during the time of Joseph they settled in the land of Goshen.  They lived separately from the Egyptians because they were shepherds, and that was a loathsome profession to the Egyptians.  So historically, the Israelites were shepherds, and as such the people listening in Jesus’ day would have been very familiar with this type of allegory.

However for most of us today, we may have a vague picture of Jesus carrying a lamb on His shoulders tucked away somewhere in the photo bank of our memory, but that’s about the extent of our knowledge about the subject.  Such anthropomorphic  stories might be much more understandable for us if they were about dogs.  My kids grew up watching Disney movies like 101 Dalmatians, or the Fox and the Hound.  We have had several dogs as pets at our house.  So most of us can relate to dogs.  We like to imagine that they have certain human attributes.  Some of us even treat our dogs like humans, sometimes we treat them better than humans.  

But Jesus in His wisdom did not use dogs in allegories as teaching entities.  Actually, dogs are much more intelligent than sheep.  In fact, in some cases, dogs seem to be more intelligent than people sometimes.  But to illustrate humans, Jesus used sheep.  And before we can really appreciate this passage, I think we need to first of all recognize that Jesus is symbolizing His people as sheep.

Popular perceptions about sheep are actually not all that accurate. Sheep are often considered symbols of innocence, meekness, submission, and patience.  Or at least that’s the common perception.  But I read a number of articles written by experts on sheep and shepherding, and I have to say that those attributes were not really highlighted.  What we perceive to be innocence or meekness or patience they call just being dumb.  Sheep are actually said to be very stupid creatures.  One writer listed 12 characteristics of sheep that I will just briefly run through, just so that we might get a more accurate picture of what the Bible says we are like. 

First of all, this writer said sheep are very foolish. Out of all animal IQ’s, sheep would have to be at the bottom of the list. 2. Sheep are slow to learn. You don’t see sheep performing tricks in a circus for good reason. 3. Contrary to idyllic pictures that we might have seen somewhere, sheep aren’t all that attractive.  They are dirty, smelly, actually kind of ugly up close. 4. Sheep are demanding. They always want to eat, and will turn a grassy field into a mud patch in no time, eating the even the roots of the plants. They constantly need new pastures to satisfy their insatiable appetites. 5. They are extremely stubborn.  They are almost impossible to herd.  Perhaps that’s why shepherds are described as leading the sheep. Because if sheep don’t want to go somewhere, you can’t hardly make them. 6. Sheep are stronger than they look.  They are physically strong. 7. Sheep are prone to straying. They have little sense of direction.  They get lost easily. They will wander away and get lost without supervision. 8. Sheep are unpredictable. They do foolish things without any sense of reason. 9. Sheep are followers.  If one starts running, others will run as well.  If one wanders away, others will follow them. 10. Sheep are restless.  For sheep to lie down they need freedom from fear, freedom from friction with others, freedom from hunger, and freedom from pests and parasites.  That is a rare combination. 11.  Sheep are dependent.  Without a shepherd for protection, sheep would die from starvation, from thirst or from predators. 12. Though sheep may look differently in different countries, in nature all sheep are the same.  That’s an unflattering picture of sheep, and yet that is the picture of sheep that those Jews listening to Jesus would have had.

Now to be fair, the Bible does not paint quite such a dismal picture of sheep.  But it does emphasize their nature to stray as their primary characteristic.  One of the best known verses is Isaiah 53:6, which says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”  That verse emphasizes the nature of sheep to go astray, to wander from the fold, to become ensnared in trouble.  

You will remember the parable that Jesus told about a lost sheep who went astray in Matthew 18:12-14.   “What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying? If it turns out that he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish.”  

So it’s important then that we understand what Jesus is talking about when He speaks in this passage to the religious leaders of the Jews and says that He is the Shepherd of the sheep.  We cannot understand this allegory while holding onto some idealistic picture of sheep, if we are to understand the simile correctly.  Sheep are a picture of people, of the human condition, and His sheep represents those sheep that belong to Christ.  That means they are the church.  They are followers of Christ.  As Jesus said in verse 9, “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.”  He said in vs.4, “the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”  And in vs.10, He said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  So to be the sheep of Christ is to be the church of Christ.  We are the ones who go astray, we’re the ones who are foolish, who follow our appetites to the point of ruining our life, who will perish at the hands of false teachers if not for our shepherd who defends us.  Our well being is completely dependent upon Him and His under shepherds. 

So that’s our characteristics as sheep.  Now let’s look at the characteristics of the good Shepherd for a moment.  Jesus said in vs.11, “I am the good Shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.”  Jesus describes first His nature, and then His purpose.  First let’s consider His nature.  The word Jesus uses for good is the Greek word “kalos”.  There is another Greek word commonly used for good.  That’s the word “agathos”.  That word means morally good.  But the word “kalos” is different.  It literally means beautiful.  But it’s not referring to physical beauty, but to being excellent, magnificent, admirable, noble, praiseworthy.   

Not only is He presenting the nobility of His character, but He is contrasting between Himself and the previously mentioned thieves and robbers who enter into the fold to take advantage of the sheep.  He is the Shepherd of excellent character.  One who comes with a noble calling to take care of the sheep, to give the sheep abundant life, to lead them to pasture.  So He is making a contrast between the true shepherd and the hirelings of verse 12, who haven’t got the best interests of the sheep in mind, but are in it for money.  We can trust that the Lord is good, that His desire for us is for our best interests. This is the failure of our faith many times, that we doubt the Lord’s goodness.  We don’t surrender our will to Him because we doubt that His will is for our best.   We need to trust in the Lord’s goodness towards us and follow Him.

And then He presents His purpose as evidence of His goodness.  He said He gives His life for the sheep. Four times Jesus repeats this phrase that He lays down HIs life for the sheep.  This willingness to give His life for the sheep is the ultimate attestation of the nobility of His character.  It shows His love for the sheep.  Jesus said in John 15:13 “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  That’s the standard of love that God has given to us to emulate.  But I dare say Jesus went even beyond this exalted standard.  Because Jesus did not just die for those who were His friends, but for those who were HIs enemies.  Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Even when we were in rebellion against God, Christ laid down His life for us.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, I would remind you that the book of John does not have a birth story of Jesus Christ.  We are introduced to Jesus as God in heaven, in the beginning with God. And then John says He became flesh. John the Baptist introduces Jesus to the world saying, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.”  John doesn’t describe for us the birth of Christ, but the purpose of His coming, to be the sacrificial lamb that was the substitute who died in the place of lost sheep.

This is the reason that Christ came to earth; to give His life as a ransom for sinners.  He says in another place, that He came to seek and to save those that were lost.  And the only way that God could bring about the salvation of lost sheep, to save sinners, of which we all are partakers, is by dying in our place.  Because God’s law said the penalty for sin was death.  In the Garden of Eden God declared that if you eat of the tree you will die.  Death is the divine punishment for sin that passed from Adam to all men because all have sinned.  Romans 3:23 says, the wages of sin is death.  But God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son to be our substitute.  The Shepherd offers His life in exchange for the sheep.  This is the doctrine of atonement; that Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved, by offering Himself as our substitute.  

2 Cor.5:21 says that God made Jesus who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.  That is why Jesus came. Not just to be an innocent baby in a manger, nor to be a great teacher about life, not just to be the supreme example of how we are to live.  Those things are true, but secondary to the primary reason which is to save us from the penalty of death by offering up Himself as our substitute.

Then in verses 12 and 13, Jesus further defines His ministry by contrasting that of the hirelings.  These are those false shepherds who are only doing it for the monetary or political gain or social gain that they might get from their position.  When trouble comes, when the wolf comes, they flee and leave the sheep to fend for themselves.  The point being that the distinguishing feature of a true shepherd as opposed to a false one is that he loves the sheep enough to lay down his life for them.  That’s a distinguishing feature of a true under shepherd as well.  He may not become a literal martyr for the sheep, but he will give up his life for the sake of the sheep.  A true pastor will give up his life for the sake of the church.  He will make sacrifices for the sake of the church.  That’s why when I see these television evangelists sitting in lavish studios wearing $2000 dollar suits, and flying around the country in their private jets, I am skeptical of whether or not they are true shepherds.  A hireling is someone who assumes the position of a shepherd but is only interested in the financial rewards.

The next point that Jesus makes in this allegory is the relationship between the true Shepherd and His sheep. In vs.14-15 Jesus says,   “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me,  even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” Notice that Jesus says that the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep is the same as the relationship between the Father and the Son. That is a significant statement.  The relationship between the church and Jesus, is the same as the relationship between the Father and Christ.  Now what kind of relationship is that?  Well, I would suggest that it’s a relationship of intimacy, of fellowship, of communion.  We could summarize it by saying it is a relationship based on love.

Now when you look at the text you don’t see the word love mentioned anywhere in it.  But love we have already determined was the reason that Christ gave HIs life for the church.  We know that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to save them, to become His church.  But the word that Jesus uses in the Greek is “ginōskō”, which is translated “know”.  But He isn’t talking about knowing as just knowing information.  He is using a term that indicated intimacy.  Sometimes it was used to indicate sexual intimacy.  In Jewish terminology, they spoke of sexual intimacy as to know one’s wife as in Genesis 4:1 when Adam knew Eve or Matthew 1:25 where Joseph did not know Mary when she was with child.

And notice that further proof of that is that the word “knows” of vs. 15 is explained in vs.17 as  “loves”. God knows Christ in vs.15, and that is explained in vs.17 as God loves Christ.  That same type of relationship between God and the Son is to also be between Christ and the church.  That love that we have with Christ is the love of intimacy pictured in Ephesians as the love of Christ for His church.  Listen to Ephesians 5:25, “ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”  Here it is again, this concept of love being that Christ gave Himself up, that is, He gave up His life for the church.  And that love consummated becomes the basis for a communion that can best be illustrated by the marriage of a husband and wife.  Ephesians 5:31-32 “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.  This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”

This relationship between the church and Christ is based on the same love between the Father and the Son.  Jesus said in John 3:35 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.”  And in John 5:20 “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing.”  So that intimate relationship between the Father and the Son is to be mirrored between Christ and His bride, that is the church. 

Then notice how that love is manifested between Christ and the Father.  Jesus said in vs. 18, “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”  So that love between the Father and the Son is characterized by the Son’s obedience to the Father. He was obedient to the Father’s command.  Phil. 2:8 says concerning Christ, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”  And also look at Heb. 5:8 “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  So though Jesus was the Son of God, the very God in flesh, yet He humbled Himself to be obedient to the Father because He loved the Father.  

Now as Christ was obedient to the Father as evidence of His love, so also Jesus said we are to be to Him.  We are to know Him even as He knows the Father.  So our relationship to Christ then is based on love, which is based on obedience, even as was Christ to the Father.  Let’s look again at that reference which we quoted earlier,  John 15:13, Jesus said “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”  But what’s the next verse say?  “You are My friends if you do what I command you.”  There it is.  The correlation of love to obedience.  You cannot have one without the other.  

Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”  That is the way love is manifested.  That is the way love is expressed by Christ to God, and that is the way we as the church express our love to Christ. That’s the way the sheep show that they know the good Shepherd.  They follow Him.  They go where He tells them to go.  They answer Him when He calls.  In Luke 6:46 Jesus asked, Why do you say to Me “Lord, Lord,” and don’t do the things which I say?  But the one who hears HIs word and acts on His word will show that He knows the Lord.

And then that obedience brings about the next characteristic that Jesus teaches, and that is the unity of the church is mirrored by the unity of the Father and the Son. Jesus says in John 10:16-18 “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Those other sheep that Jesus had which are not of this fold are none other than the Gentiles, that is you and I.  We were not a part of the fold of the Israelites.  But Jesus came to save the world, all nations, all tribes, of all tongues.  The fact that He is the Savior of the world means that He draws all men to Himself.  Where there was once division between the Jews and the Gentiles, He has made into one church, one kingdom, one people.  

In Jesus’ high priestly prayer, He prays for the unity of the church to be even as the unity that He had with the Father.  I’ll give you just a few verses from His prayer which illustrate that.  In John 17:11, 20-23  Jesus prayed, “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. … 20 “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;  I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”  

Why is that unity so important?  So that the world might know who Jesus is. The church is to be unified by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in them, that they may do the works of Christ. We can know Him intimately because He is in us.  And because He is in us, we do HIs work.  So that the world might know Him as they see Him operating in us.  So then the gospel is not the exclusive domain of Christians in America.  The gospel is not the exclusive domain of the nation of Israel.  But it is the domain of Christ, the Savior of the world, who desires all men to be saved and to know the truth of salvation.  That can only be realized when the church goes into all the world and preaches the gospel to every living creature.  

Now there is a final aspect of that relationship with Christ to the world.  And that is found in the last three verses we are looking at this morning.  Vs.19-21 “A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?”  Others were saying, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?’”

So the relationship with the world will be characterized not only by unity with His church, but by division.  He came He said in Matt. 10:34  “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. He said in Luke 12:51 “Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division.”  Listen, the truth of God is dividing.  It causes division on purpose.  He came to divide between the sheep and the goats.  Between the light and the darkness.  Between truth and a lie.  Between life and death.  The gospel of Jesus Christ brings division.  Unity is to be unified to the truth.  We are not to be unified to the world.  James 4:4 You adulterers and adulteresses, know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

This division that Jesus brings causes people to have to make a decision.  Will they listen to the voice of Christ?  Will they recognize the truth of God?  And then what will be their response to it?  How about you?  You have heard the voice of the good Shepherd today.  Is there a response in your soul to the truth?  Do you recognize that you are a sheep that has gone astray, and you’re in need of the shepherd of your soul?  If the Holy Spirit has so convicted you and called you today, I pray that you will heed the voice of the Shepherd and answer Him, and follow Him.  He has paid the penalty for your sin and if you will but surrender to Him as Lord, He promises to be your Shepherd and to lead you into the path of  life.   I pray that today you will answer that call.  

Posted in Sermons | Tags: beach chuch, church on the beach, worship on the beach |
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