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Sight for the blind, John 9:1-7

As I have said before many times, that every miracle in the gospels is presented to teach us a spiritual parable. It is important to understand that. Not every miracle that Jesus did is recorded in scripture. John will say later that if everything that Jesus did while He was on earth was written down, that all the books of the world could not contain them. But John said in chapter 20 verse 31 that the signs that he did record, are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in HIs name.

So the miracle we are looking at today has spiritual significance and symbolism that goes beyond the mere physical healing of blindness which I would like to examine this morning. Yes, Jesus has compassion on this blind man and 5 other blind men that we know of. But no where in scripture do we see that Jesus healed every person of every disease. Jesus also raised three people from the dead. But never in scripture do we read that Jesus raised every dead person. So while compassion may be one of the lessons we can learn from this text, it is certainly not the primary lesson.

The primary lesson deals with an important theological question regarding the origin of sin and then the response of God to that spiritual condition. It deals with spiritual blindness and all that represents. But to fully comprehend this text though I want to remind you of what has just proceeded it in the previous chapter. Because I think this event is tied to the the teaching that Jesus gave in the last chapter.

You will remember that in the running dialogue that Jesus had with the Pharisees during the Feast of Tabernacles, there were some claims made by the Pharisees concerning their father, who they said was Abraham, and an insinuation that Jesus had been born of fornication, and as such was similar to the Samaritans, who were Jews that had intermarried with pagans and produced offspring who were outcasts from Israel.

So on the one hand, the Pharisees were holding onto their pedigree as sons of Abraham, and thus they considered themselves righteous in the sight of God. But Jesus repeatedly said you don’t act like sons of Abraham. He said you don’t do the deeds of Abraham. You don’t have spiritual discernment like Abraham. And in fact, you do the deeds of your father the devil. That didn’t go over too well with those guys. So they got angry. And they picked up stones to kill Him. But Jesus disappeared into the crowd and slipped away.

Now this chapter opens with Jesus and His disciples as they were leaving the temple, and they pass by a blind beggar sitting by the gate of the temple. That was a popular spot for beggars. They knew people were coming into the temple to offer alms to God, and one of the ways that they were taught you could remove sin from your life was by giving alms to the poor. So the poor, the infirm, the blind, paralyzed and sick people who had no other recourse but to beg for their income found the temple gates a lucrative spot.

John writes that this man was blind from birth. And that phrase has given commentators fits. They go to get extremes to explain how that should be interpreted. Many of them say that meant that some Jews believed in reincarnation and so the disciples thought that this man perhaps had sinned in a past life and consequently was blind from birth. But I think that misses the obvious interpretation, which is that John is writing this almost 60 years afterwards. And from his historical viewpoint he is able to say, this man was blind from birth. The disciples did not necessarily know that. They assumed that he became blind at some point in his life due to committing some grievous sin, or that if he had been born blind, that his parents must have committed some terrible sin. But I believe that it is simply that John is writing long after this event, and he is letting us know at the outset that this man had been born blind. That indicates the totality of this man’s condition, the hopelessness of this man’s condition.

So I believe that based on the dialogue found in the last chapter regarding the nature of the father exhibited in the sons, Jesus’ disciples seeing this blind man by the gate, ask this question; ““Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” That’s kind of the logical assumption, isn’t it? When we see someone suffering, someone having physical problems, it’s tempting to think that somehow they brought it on themselves.

Job had that happen to him. His friends came and ended up accusing him of some hidden sin because all this tragedy had happened in his life. They argued that God blessed those that were good people and cursed those that were bad people. And I think that kind of thinking exists today, even within the church. The prosperity doctrine preachers teach that God just wants to bless you and give you all kinds of things to prosper you and make your life fulfilling and enriched. That is the promise of the prosperity gospel. That if you belong to God, He will bless you and won’t hold any good thing from you. And so we believe that a new car is a good thing. A new house is a good thing. A great job is a good thing. So we equate physical success with spiritual blessing.

And the opposite also is often true. We see someone who is addicted to drugs, and they are looked upon someone who brought the ravages of that kind of life upon themselves. We see someone poor and destitute, and we think that it’s probably because they aren’t good workers, they must have brought their poverty upon themselves.

But I think that is far too general a categorization. The fact is that there are plenty of healthy sinners and a lot of sick saints which contradict that view. However, the Bible does teach that sickness and death are the result of living in a fallen world. Romans 5:12 says, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” So original sin is the origin of death. But there are multiple examples of suffering in the Bible that show that not all suffering is a direct result of sin. Again, Job is the foremost example of a man that God declared was righteous. God pointed Job out to Satan as someone who lived an exemplary life. And yet Job suffered more than most of us could ever imagine. Joseph was another man who suffered for years and yet was innocent. Paul was yet another who suffered imprisonment and beatings, as well as the other apostles. There are many examples of saints who suffered without cause.

So Jesus answers His disciples’ question by saying, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” So what Jesus is affirming is that this man’s blindness was not a direct result of either his sin or his parents. Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that sickness is not the result of original sin. Sin caused all life which was perfect when God created it, to become corrupted. And that corruption has permeated every fiber of creation.

I believe that is what Romans 8:22 is talking about which says, “For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.” Paul said that the creation was subject to slavery from that corruption, and was anxiously awaiting the day when God would bring freedom from that corruption of sin that is in the world. In fact, I think the argument could be made that the further we get from the initial perfection of creation, the more subject to corruption not only creation becomes, but also our bodies. Our cells are more susceptible to cancer and other illnesses because we are further removed from the original creation. Now I cannot be dogmatic about such things because I am not a scientist. But there are some that do suggest this to be the case; that contrary to the theory of evolution, all biological life is breaking down, not getting better.

But back to our main point, Jesus dismissed the idea that this man’s blindness was a direct result of individual sin. Instead, He asserts that this particular man was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him.

The theologian Ellicott said, “There is a chain connecting the sin of humanity and its woe, but the links are not traceable by the human eye. In the Providence of God vicarious suffering is often the noble lot of the noblest members of our race. No burden of human sorrow was ever so great as that borne by Him who knew no human sin.” He is saying that Jesus Himself through His sinless life disproves the principle that sin equals suffering. And that it is not in our purview to determine the cause of human suffering.

In fact, the Bible indicates that more often than not, the opposite is true. It is not the judgment of God that brings people to repentance, but according to Romans 2:4, it says the kindness and tolerance of God is intended to lead people to repentance. Over and over again the scriptures declare that “the Lord is slow to anger, compassionate and gracious.” He will one day judge every man according to his works, but for the most part, that judgment is postponed until the day of judgment and for now God is patient, not willing that any should perish without salvation. In an agrarian age when rain was considered to be a blessing from God, Jesus said in Matthew 5:45, “for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” God is merciful, and patient, and long suffering, and does not reward us according to what we deserve, but is merciful, that perhaps we might turn to Him and be saved.

So Jesus said, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Now what are the works of God that would be displayed in this blind man? Notice that works is plural. It is not a singular work of God. It is not therefore, simply that God would heal him from blindness. It is much more multifaceted than that. But as we look at the complete chapter, what began with the compassion of Christ for physical healing, results in seeing eyes, which produces faith and obedience and culminates later that day with spiritual healing. The work of God is salvation. This is the real goal of Christ’s work. It is not God’s will that all men would be healed of every sickness, but it is true according to 2Peter 3:9, that “the Lord is… not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” This is the primary work of God through Christ. Christ came to reconcile men to God through His substitionary death on the cross.

So then to some extent, evil actually furthers the work of God in the world. It is in conquering and abolishing evil that God’s great attributes are manifested. The question for us then is not where suffering has come from, but what we are to do with it.

And the Lord answers that concern as well in vs.4, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” Note first of all, that we are included in Christ’s work. The KJV had interpreted that as “I must work the works,” but most translators later determined that the best manuscripts indicate “we”, and not “I.” And that is an important principle that we need to emphasize. We are saved to do the works of God. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So we are co workers with Christ. He is the head, and we are the body. We are supposed to be His hands and His feet, doing the works of God, even as He did the works of God on the earth.

This is our purpose now that we are saved. What a contrast that is to most modern conceptions of Christianity. We have this idea that God just wants to help us achieve our goals, and wants to help us enjoy this life, to be happy here on earth. That may or may not be a side effect of doing God’s work, but it isn’t the goal. The goal is to do the works of God.

This phrase, “while it is day, and the night comes” what does it mean? Well, He’s talking about our lives. The day symbolizes our life, and the night symbolizes death. It is very likely that it was Saturday afternoon at that time, the Sabbath evening. And the sun soon setting was the illustration for the analogy that our lives are short, and so we must make full use of the time we have left. Let me emphasize that this morning. Life is short. I had someone tell me that this week. Unfortunately, they made the wrong determination based on that. They determined that since life was short they had better live for today. That is the world’s view. The Grass Roots in 1967 sang “Sha la la la la la live for today!” That was the theme song of my generation. And that’s still the mantra of the world, to live for today. Life is short, live it up.

But that cannot be the theme of a true disciple. Because we don’t live for today, we live for eternity. We live for the day our Savior will return and take us to be with Him. That’s when we will get our reward for the work that we have done here on earth. But this person that said to me that life is short is afraid to live for tomorrow. They are afraid because this life is all they can see, all that they feel they can be sure of. In regards to eternity they are blind. And so they cannot let go of today, they can’t let go of the world, they can’t let go of what they think can give them happiness. And as such, they stand to gain the whole world and lose their own soul.

Disciples must work, Jesus said, they must work the works of God. The day is fleeting, and the night is coming when no man can work. And when that night comes, we shall then find ourselves standing at the throne of God, awaiting our reward, awaiting our judgement for what we have done with this life that God has so graciously given us. I saw a video the other day of Francis Chan, and he was illustrating the position of so many Christians who were afraid to step out and work for God, by balancing on a balance beam that he had set up in his church. And as he illustrated the fear of following Christ he crouched down on all fours on the balance beam as one might do who is afraid of falling off. As he illustrated the life of this Christian, he ended up laying down on the beam, holding onto it with both arms and wrapping his legs around the beam. And then he showed the end of the life of this person, as they jumped off the balance beam and lifted both arms in the air like a gymnast might do at the end of their repertoire, and taking a little bow. And Francis then describes God’s reaction to this life, this Christian performance as one of surprise and incredulity, like He doesn’t know how you expect Him to judge such a performance. You didn’t do anything. You just held on to the balance beam. You held onto the world, and failed to do anything for eternity.

Well, what exactly is the work that we are to do? It is to do as Jesus did. Jesus said in the next verse, that as long as He was in the world, He was the light of the world. He came to shine the light of God, the light of God’s truth to a world that was in darkness. Darkness and blindness in this case being synonymous. That was His purpose. Isaiah 60:1-3 speaks of the day of the Messiah coming to Israel, saying “Arise, shine; for your light has come,And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earthAnd deep darkness the peoples;But the LORD will rise upon youAnd His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

Notice in that Old Testament prophecy that it says their light has come, that is the Messiah. But there is also the instruction for the church to arise and shine in response to that light. We are to shine the light of the Son even as the moon reflects the light of the sun. That is our purpose. Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

How do we do we reflect then the light of Christ? Well, I believe that is illustrated in the spiritual healing that Jesus does with the blind man. This man who had been in darkness since birth. That is the situation the whole world is in. Ephesians 2:1 says we are born already dead in our trespasses and sins. Since birth we have been blind. And if not for the love and compassion of God we would die in our sins.

Ephesians 2 continues, saying “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. 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 God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

So first of all we see illustrated here the grace of God. John 9:6-7 “When He had said this, He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and applied the clay to his eyes, and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which is translated, Sent). So he went away and washed, and came back seeing.” Notice that Jesus initiates this divine act of grace. God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son. The world was hopeless, in darkness, lost, trapped in their sin. But God. But God so loved the world, that He sent Jesus to be our Savior. So the first part of our work is to share the grace of God with a world in which is in darkness.

This process that Jesus uses to heal this man is interesting. There is much that could be said about the process of how He healed him. But I would point out that out of six recorded times when Jesus healed the blind, this is the only time He spat on the ground and made clay. So there is no formula here that we might use to heal people. There is no supernatural essence in spittle. So I wouldn’t advise spitting on sick people. You might end up really suffering for Christ.

However, I think that we can learn some things from Jesus’ method. First of all, as I already mentioned, we see the sovereign grace of God. The Lord chose to heal this man, and not visa versa. We are told to believe, we are told to receive, but at the same time, it is necessary for God to take the initiative if the blind are to see. Secondly, we see a correlation between the first act of the creation of man, and this act of recreation. Salvation is a new creation. Not a reformation, but a creation. We are new creatures. 2 Cor. 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is]a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

In the first creation, God made man from the dust of the ground. In this new creation, taking dead eyes and making them new, the Lord again uses the dust of the ground. I don’t know for sure why God chose to make man from dust. All the other creatures that God made He simply spoke them into being. Even the sun and stars were spoken into existence. But for man, we see God take clay into HIs hands, and mold it, and make it in His image. To me, that indicates that the creation of man was an act of love. It reminds me of an artist, a sculptor, a potter, who shapes an inanimate object with his hands and in so doing instills in it the love of the artist. It bears the image of the one who shaped it. And so we see in the touch of Jesus, the love of God. He could have healed with just a word. But He chose to use His hands, to touch, and shape as an illustration of His love.

I also see in that mixture of spittle and dust, a symbolism of the need for God in man. Christ was fully God and fully man and thus was uniquely able to be our Savior. And so the divinity of Christ is symbolized by His saliva, the water, the living water that He said in the previous chapter would flow from your innermost being, this He mixed with common dirt, symbolizing man. And that perfect mixture, the God-man, was the formula God used to save the world from darkness.

Jesus then after rubbing this mixture in his eyes, tells him to go to the pool of Siloam and wash. Now first in that command we see the need for obedience and faith, and the fact that they are indivisible. Faith and obedience cannot be separated. Far too many people today think that faith is an emotion, or that faith is an intellectual assent. But faith is trust. And to trust requires obedience. You cannot say that one is saved by faith, but that is only an emotional response to an altar call. Or that you are saved by faith, but that is only believing that God exists. That is not saving faith. Saving faith is exemplified in the life of Abraham, as Hebrews 11:8 states, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Abraham, obeyed. That was the action of his faith. So this blind man acts in faith. He obeys and goes where Jesus said to go. Some of you today think you are saved because of an emotional response you had during a church service. Some of you think you are saved because you believe in the existence of God. But I suggest that you can know you are saved because you do the works of God. Because you obey the word of God. That is how Jesus said you can tell that God is your Father.

Also, note that the pool of Siloam is the same pool that the priests went to draw water from during the Feast of the Tabernacles. And as they poured the water into the funnels and it gushed down upon the altar, Jesus stood up and cried out in the midst of the temple ceremony, “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.’” So Jesus is reaffirming in His directive what He declared in the temple. That by believing in Him, you might receive the living water which will spring up in your soul, resulting in eternal life. This is the significance of the pool of Siloam.

And then Jesus tells him to wash. And he did so, and was able to see. John records it simply. But we can only imagine the joy that this man experienced. Imagine never having seen colors, or the sun, or light reflecting on water, or the blue of the sky. And suddenly having sight. I read on the news a story yesterday of two brothers who were able to see colors for the first time. And the story said that they cried. I can’t imagine the wonder that this man felt.

Baptism is the symbolic act of washing. But it is a symbol of not the removal of dirt from the body Peter said. But the act of God in providing a clean conscience. 1 Peter 3:21 says “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you–not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience–through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” How do we get a clean conscience? By the removal of our guilt, the forgiveness of our sins. That is the significance of washing.

Listen, that is why repentance is the twin sister of faith. You are saved not only by faith, but faith and repentance. One cannot be saved without repentance. We must be made clean to be holy, and we must be holy to be accepted by God. Paul said in 1Cor. 6:9-11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” To be washed indicates to receive forgiveness for your sins, to be sanctified is to be holy, that is separated from your sins, and to be justified is to be declared not guilty, freed from the penalty of your sin. That is the whole of salvation. And that happens through faith and repentance. To be washed is necessary. If you continue in your sins, then regardless of what you say you believe, you are still in your sins. To be a true disciple, Jesus said in chapter 8, you are to continue in God’s word. That is the distinction between those who claim to be Christians and those who show themselves to be disciples. One continues in their sin, and one continues in God’ word through obedience.

Well, this man came back seeing. He had been walking in the dark, now he was walking in the light. He came back different than when he left. And as we will see next week, he immediately was kicked out of the temple, he immediately suffered persecution for his faith. Once again showing that suffering is a part of the life of faith, and not as many would teach, that faith exempts us from suffering. God does allow suffering, but so that we might show forth the glory of God through it. Perhaps you are afraid that if you choose to obey Christ you will suffer for your faith. That is entirely possible. God may want to rub some dirt in your eyes so that you might show forth the glory of God. And that might be uncomfortable, even painful. The work of God is sometimes offensive. People tend to get mad when you tell them that all men are sinners, and therefore they are a sinner. The Jews tried to kill Jesus for that, and eventually they succeeded. But even then, God used their evil for good. God brought about salvation for the world through the suffering of our Savior.

But I hope that today’s message has illustrated for you that Jesus suffered so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. That we might turn from darkness and walk in the light. And then that our life should reflect the light of Christ to a dark and dying world. This is the work we have been called to do. I pray that you are going to be about the business of the kingdom of God this week. The day is coming when no man can work. This dark world seems to get darker by the hour. Let us work while it is still day to bring glory to God through our lives.

Perhaps you are here today and you recognize that you are missing something. You have an intellectual basis or emotional basis for your faith, but you realize that you are still very much attached to this world, and have never let go of the things of this world, I would encourage you today to simply call out to the Lord in faith and repentance, and ask Him to wash you and make you a new creation. Jesus said that he who comes to Me I will in no way cast out. Today while it is still day, come to Jesus, call upon Him to save you, and He will anoint the eyes of your heart, that you might see and that you might walk in the light, even as He is in the light.

Worship in spirit and in truth, John 8:48-59

I’m going to warn you in advance that today’s message is going to be a little bit different than usual. I’m not going to exegete every word, or every sentence in this text. I’m not going to reveal a three point outline in the passage and expound on each subject. I guess I could. That is what I normally do. But today I want to focus on just a few points that Jesus makes at the end of this dialogue we have been looking at for several weeks and use them as a springboard for our own application here this morning.

Every week, I pretty much make a point of quoting a particular verse of scripture at some place during our service. Any guesses which verse that would be? Let’s assume that is a rhetorical question. The verse of scripture I quote almost every week is from John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Now I do that deliberately. Most of our signage says “Worship on the beach!” And so I would hope that is why you are here this morning. To worship God. I hope that is your purpose. But we are not the only people who are worshipping this morning. There are churches all over this city that claim to be worshipping God. And let me add something – there are a lot of folks that are holding worship services on the beach lately too. I know of several groups that are coming out on the beach to hold some sort of service lately. I guess we make it look to easy or something. So there are a lot of options out there for people who want to worship God.

However, I want to remind you that at the very beginning of the Bible, God makes it clear in Genesis 4 that He is not obligated to accept our worship, unless we worship Him as He desires. As He designed it. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel come to present their offerings to the Lord. You know the story. Cain brought the fruit of his labor, the best of his crops, and Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. That means that he brought animal sacrifices, blood sacrifices. And it says that the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.

So that simply means that God did not accept Cain’s worship, but He accepted Abel’s worship. That was God’s prerogative, wasn’t it? But what was Cain’s response? He became angry, and in his anger he sinned and murdered his brother.

Now we find a very similar situation presented here in this passage today. The Jews were very religious, they had a system of worship by which they felt they could please God, by which they thought they could become acceptable to God, and yet Jesus said it did not please God. In fact He says that they are still in their sins, and so they become angry, and end up trying to murder Christ here at the end of this chapter, and then finally succeed in murdering Him 6 months later.

The question then is how do you worship God? How do you know that He accepts your worship? How does your worship make you acceptable to God? I’ve been speaking about this for weeks now to some degree or another. I would assume that most of us consider ourselves Christians. But if I were to take a survey of 100 Christians as to what they base their faith on, I would not be surprised to find that there would be dozens of different answers.

There are millions of professing Christians around this country that are attempting to worship God this morning. You happen to be here. But how do you know what is true? How do you know what is acceptable worship and what is not? Why should you believe what I am telling you? Does it really matter how or where you worship? Does it really matter if you go to church? Does the content of the worship service really matter? Won’t God just accept you if you are sincere? Does God really care how you worship Him?

Well, I would say that most of those questions can be answered by Jesus’s statement which I quoted from a moment ago, “God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Note that He says you MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth. It’s not optional, it’s not conditional. He is stating the requirements for acceptable worship. Yet I must say I don’t think most professing Christians really believe that. I think they have this idea that God is going to accept their worship however they may present it. And yet I would point out that illustration again of Cain and Abel. I believe that this was placed at the beginning of the scriptures for a reason, that we might recognize that God does not have to accept any worship that does not meet His requirements. And if God does not accept your worship, then I am afraid I have to tell you some bad news. It’s the same news that Jesus told the Jews in this passage three different times. Jesus said, “You will seek Me, but you will not find Me, and so as a consequence you will die in your sins.” And to add insult to injury, over and over again, particularly in vs.47 and again in vs.55, Jesus said you don’t know God. In spite of their worship, they didn’t know God, and as a result they would die in their sins.

Now why would Jesus say something so dreadful to these very religious people, who were in the temple worshipping God at that very moment? In fact, they had been there for a week, night and day worshipping God. And yet Jesus has the audacity to tell them that they are going to die in their sins. That their worship is useless. Why would He say such a harsh thing as that? These people were sincere. They were worshipping God. They were in church for a week. Doesn’t that count?

I’ll tell you why Jesus said that. First He said it because He loved them. If He didn’t love them, He wouldn’t warn them of their impending doom, would He? But because He loved them, He told them they were still in their sins. We hear all the time, love the sinner, hate the sin. But the Bible teaches that if you love the sinner, you will expose their sin. People get offended though when you tell them that they are a sinner. Just like Cain, the natural man gets angry at the idea he is a sinner. But God’s desire is to save you from the condemnation of sin, and He cannot do that unless you first recognize that you are a sinner.

But there is another reason that Jesus said that they were going to die in their sins. And that is because they did not know the truth. Jesus said in vs 32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Some people think that freedom means that they can come to God any way they want, just as they are. But that is not what Jesus is teaching. The freedom Jesus is speaking of is freedom from their sins. In other words, if they knew the truth, it would set them free from the penalty and enslavement of their sins. But these Jews didn’t accept the truth, because it did not fit into their paradigm of religion. So Jesus said in vs.40, “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” So just like Cain, they plot to murder Jesus, because they didn’t like the fact that God had rejected their worship.

So verse 32 then where Jesus said “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” correlates to the quote from chapter 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” If you neglect the truth, or reject the truth, or ignore the truth, then your worship of God is in vain. It doesn’t matter how sincere it is, it doesn’t matter how emotional you may be about it, it doesn’t matter how beautiful you may think the service may be, or how inspiring it may seem to you. If it is not truth, then it is not accepted by God, and as such you are still in your sins.

Do you understand that folks? I’m talking to you here today right now. I’m not talking about the Jews 2000 years ago. I’m talking to 21st century Christians right here in this community. I’m telling you by the authority of God’s word that if your worship of God is not according to the truth, then it is worthless and you will die in your sins.

So what is truth? That’s the logical next question, isn’t it? Well, Jesus has the answer to that question as well. First of all, right in this passage He says that His words are truth. Vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Back in vs.14 at the beginning of this dialogue, He says, “My testimony is true.” In John 17:17, Jesus says, “Your word is truth.” And note another tremendous verse, which connects truth and the spirit together as we saw earlier that both are required. In John 6:63 Jesus says “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

So we know the truth by the word of God. And the word of God is spirit and life. So if we are going to do what Jesus said, and worship God in spirit and in truth, then we must worship according to the word of God, which is the gospel of Christ. So God reveals how we must worship Him in His word.

There is an important principle that we find in hermeneutics, which means the interpretation of the Bible, and it’s called the principle of first mention. How that works is that you find the first time a word or phrase is used, and that becomes a template for how you are to understand that usage throughout the Bible. Do you know the very first time that the word worship is used in the Bible? That’s another rhetorical question. But you need to know these things. Because your eternity depends on it. Your life depends on whether or not you get it right. The first time worship is found is in Genesis 22. Abraham has been told by God to offer up his son Isaac on the altar. To sacrifice his son. And so He gets up early in the morning, and his servants and Isaac go to the mountain that God has appointed. And seeing the mountain in the distance, Abraham says 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.”

Can you imagine that? God told him to sacrifice his son, he has a knife to slit his son’s throat, he has the wood to make the fire, and his plan is to sacrifice his son in order to please God. And Abraham calls that worship. Now that’s heavy. Think about that for a moment. And compare that definition of worship to most concepts of modern worship today. There is no comparison. There is no correlation. Listening to music and clapping hands does not equate to sacrificing one’s own son whom you love with all your heart. There is no comparison.

Actually there is a comparison. And that is in Genesis 22, As Abraham bound his son on the altar and raised the knife to kill his son, God provided a ram caught in a thicket at the last moment. God pointed out the ram which was provided to be Isaac’s substitute. And that was a picture of the sinless substitute that God would provide for the sin of the world so that sinners condemned to death might be made acceptable to God. So that their sins might be taken away.

I believe that event is what Jesus is referring to in vs.56. Jesus said, ”Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” I think that Abraham was given the insight at that moment, that there would be a Lamb of God who would die in our place, so that we might be saved from the wrath of God against sin. Abraham saw Christ’s day prefigured in the ram that he slew and laid on the altar. And Abraham rejoiced, not only because Isaac was spared, but also because he understood the fulfillment of the prophecy given before Isaac was born, which was that through his seed would come One from whom the whole world would be blessed.

So before you can begin to worship in spirit and in truth, your sins have to be dealt with. And God has provided a substitute to pay the penalty of death that we all deserve because all have sinned, and none of us are righteous. So that is the first step in worshipping God. Believing who Jesus is, and what He came to do, and accepting His sacrifice for your sins.

Listen, that is the basis for our salvation. We cannot come to God without a sacrifice. Because the penalty that God requires of sin is death. Romans 3:23 says “the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There are two essential elements in obtaining that salvation which Christ paid for. Two essential elements; faith and repentance. Faith is believing who Jesus is; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and repentance is confessing and turning from your sins and asking God for forgiveness. In the book of Acts, we see that the apostles taught faith and repentance were necessary, Acts 20:21says they were “solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:25 “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.” Jesus and the disciples went about preaching repentance and the necessity to believe in Christ. So repentance and faith are the twin pillars of our faith.

Now I will tell you what most modern worshippers get wrong. They emphasize faith, but not repentance. They say believe in God, but they don’t say repent of your sins. I would suggest that the word sin is an anathema in most churches today. They don’t want to offend someone. Instead, sin is accepted, it’s even condoned in many churches. But I will say this, without repentance from sin, there can be no salvation. And without the appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice to cover your sin, there can be no worship. There can be no fellowship with God. There can be no acceptance from God.

That’s why Jesus kept emphasizing to those Jewish religious leaders that they would die in their sins, because they would not accept the One who came to pay the penalty of their sin. Now how do you know what is sin? It must be found in God’s word. God’s word defines sin. Not society, not the culture, not some religious figurehead. No one defines sin but God. Sin is anything that does not conform to the nature of God. And God has written His word that we might know sin, that sin would become even more sinful.

Yet how many churches today are trying to accommodate society’s definitions of lifestyle, of behavior? In their efforts to appeal to the world, they accept the world’s definitions of marriage, for instance, when it is in opposition to God’s definitions in His word. I have to say that if they are changing God’s definition of sin then they are not worshipping God in spirit and in truth. They are worshipping God in vain. They are still in their sins.

Notice how Jesus keeps refocusing on this aspect of God’s word is truth, and His words are God’s words. John 8:43-47, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

So the bottom line is that He says, you don’t believe my word because you are from your father the devil who is the father of lies. So instead of believing my word, you believe a lie. Since you are not of God, you don’t accept My word. I would suggest this is evident in Christianity today; that those that do not believe God’s word is the truth, have no use for God’s word. That is why many churches today rarely refer to the word of God. They rarely preach the word. They rarely teach the word. Instead they sing some songs, watch a couple of videos, maybe watch a skit, and then the pastor ends up telling a couple of funny stories at the end, and everyone goes home feeling vaguely entertained.

So I will summarize so far; if the church does not preach faith and repentance, then they are not worshipping God in truth. And if the church does not preach the word, then they are not of the truth. I don’t care how entertaining it is. They have forsaken the truth, and as such are apostate.

Here is what the religious apostates believe: that God is love, and that sin is ok. That God loves them in their sin. And so they hate anyone who preaches against sin. This is the difference between true religion and false religion. False religion does not deal with sin and claims all that is necessary is a relationship with God, and true religion recognizes that sin must be dealt with in order to have fellowship with God.

I want to point out another statement Jesus made in vs.50 “But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.” This is another way that they should have recognize that Jesus was speaking the truth. He did not seek His own glory, but He sought to glorify the Father in all that He did.

And I would suggest that this is a way that Christians can discern those who speak or teach the truth. If a church or a worship service is geared so that it brings glory to the people who are conducting it, then you need to be suspect of whether or not they are of the truth. I’m going to be very candid with you for a moment. I don’t do this to bring glory to myself. I don’t do this for fame. I don’t do this to bring some sort of honor to myself. To be frank, I’m often humiliated as a pastor. But I think that is the method God employs to able to use me.

There was a time in my life when I had a certain amount of fame. There was a time when I was recognized in my career wherever I went around the country. I used to be an antique dealer, and I was on a national television show about antiques for a few years. And I received a lot of notoriety from that at one time in my life. I made good money from that career. But God took me down more than a few pegs in my pride in order to be able to use me for His glory and not my own. So I didn’t chose this ministry because I thought it would make me popular or well liked. If anything, the more people listen to me, the more enemies I seem to make.

But I will say this. I am in good company. Jesus said inJohn 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” And I believe that is because I preach the truth of God’s word. We obviously don’t have a whole lot else to offer you folks here. I don’t tell jokes very well. We don’t have a cool band. We don’t have skits or interpretive dancing. But what we do is preach the truth of God’s word without apology and as the central theme to our worship. And I believe that the word of God is truth, and that only the truth will set you free. Some people are offended by that. And as a result they get mad when I preach on sin, and the need for repentance. But I would also hope that there are going to be some that will believe, and will respond to the truth, and will commit to this church. I hope that some of you are here today.

Quite often lately I find myself praying the prayer of Elijah as he contended with the priests of Baal in 1Kings 18:36. He prayed, ““O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” I pray that God will show that I have done these things according to HIs word. And that God will turn the hearts of His people back again.

Well, I warned you that I was going to go on a bit of a tangent today. And so I’m going to wrap this up with one last point. And that is the principle found in vs.51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” So you want to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Then you will keep His word. Jesus emphasizes this over and over again. This key principle is found in vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Listen,1 Samuel 15:22 says, “to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.” To obey is better than coming with songs and hymns. Isaiah 29:13 says, “Then the Lord said,’Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” And because of that false worship, God says He will turn away from them. God wants obedience from the heart. To obey is to love the Lord. Jesus said in John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

I don’t have a lot of time to show you every reference this morning, but over and over again Jesus says “continue in my word”, or “keep my word,” or “keep my commandments.” In fact, as an example to us, Jesus Himself keeps the word. That was the measure of His truthfulness that the Jews should have recognized. He says in vs55 “and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.”

And I would suggest that this is the way we know that someone knows the Lord as well. They keep the word of God. If they don’t keep the word of God, then they don’t know God. 1John 2:3, 5 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” … 5 “but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”

That’s the reality of true worship. It’s laying down your prerogatives, your rights, your purposes, to obey the word of God. It’s putting Christ first in your life. True worship requires that you bring to God the offering of yourself. Romans 12:1-2 says, “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. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

That’s all I have for you this morning. Worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Nothing else counts. Anything less than the truth is a lie. God desires truth in the innermost being. And we do that by being conformed to God’s word. Simply lay the template of the gospel over your life, and follow the commands of God as He laid them out in His word. It starts with a sacrifice, Jesus substitionary death on the cross, and it ends with another sacrifice, presenting your body as a living and holy sacrifice. Acceptable to God. That is your spiritual service of worship. That is how we are made free. Let us pray.

Characteristics of a child of God, John 8:37-47

It would have been great if I could have held this message back for another week, to coincide with Father’s Day, since this message has a lot to say about fathers. That’s one of my favorite holidays by the way. My wife and kids always get me some sort of gift for Father’s Day. My second favorite holiday is my birthday, but she doesn’t get me anything for my birthday. Coming the day after Christmas, it kind of is like an afterthought. So Father’s Day is my day. I am really looking forward to it, in case you didn’t notice.

But anyhow, shameless plug aside, it would have been nice to preach this next week, because this message is really about fathers. But not so much your immediate father, as it is talking about ancestral fathers. Who you descended from. I have noticed that some people really value their ancestry. Their heritage means a lot to them. They have done all sorts of research into their family tree. And perhaps it should be meaningful. But then again some people put way too much emphasis on some great thing they can claim their great great grand daddy did, and they feel that somehow validates them in some unique way.

By the way, I’m always amused by these people that believe in reincarnation. Whenever you hear someone claim to have been reincarnated, it’s interesting that they always claim to have discovered that they were somebody great in their past life. There are a lot of people that claim to be the reincarnation of Napoleon or Cleopatra, for instance. I read about one guy who believed he was the reincarnation of Marilyn Monroe. He didn’t look anything like her though. Phil Collins, the rock singer, believes that he is the reincarnation of a survivor of the Alamo. Amazing. And looking around on the internet I even came across a couple of people who claim to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. I guess these poor confused people want to find some way to add importance to their lives.

But I guess everyone would like to know if they are related to anyone famous. I found out something interesting about my own ancestry the other day, which in light of those previously mentioned people is going to sound like I too am trying to add importance to my life. But my nephew supposedly traced our lineage back to Scotland, and found that our line came from one of the daughters of Robert the Bruce, a Scottish king that was featured in the movie Braveheart. I have to admit, I found that a little bit exciting for a while as I thought about it. But the truth is, someone in my ancestry that lived over 700 years ago has very little to do with my life today.

But for the Jews, their ancestry meant a lot. Being descended from the line of Abraham they could rightly claim the benefits of God’s covenantal people. Their property, their ancestral lands, were divided according to their tribe, according to the sons of Jacob, the son of Isaac, who was the Son of Abraham. So for a Jew living in the first century, being a descendant of Abraham was a matter not only of religion, but nationality, property and even to some degree determined their livelihood.

Now this week as we look at these claims by the Jews to be children of Abraham, we need to remember that we are jumping into the middle a teaching session that Jesus was having with the Jews, which occurred during the Feast of Tabernacles, which has been going on for several days. We have looked at various elements of this for the last several weeks. All of it was occurring in the temple during this feast in which tens of thousands of people are attending. And last week, we saw that Jesus delivered this great statement at one point in the discussion, saying, that if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus wasn’t talking about freedom from slavery, or freedom from Roman oppression, but He was speaking of spiritual freedom, freedom from the enslavement of sin. And three times in the previous section Jesus said they were still enslaved to their sin, and as such they would die in their sins. The Jews, who had already hated Him enough to want to put Him to death, were enraged by that charge. So they argue that they couldn’t go to hell as sinners, because they were descendants of Abraham.

You see, the rabbis taught that no son of Abraham would enter into hell. They believed that their father Abraham was actually posted at the door to Hades to make sure that no circumcised person would enter there. Justin Martyr, in the Dialogue of Trypho in the second century, argued with a Jewish man who said this about the Jews; “They who are the seed of Abraham, according to the flesh, shall in any case, even if they be sinners and unbelieving and disobedient toward God, share in the eternal kingdom.”  So this was their belief, that due to the covenant of God with Abraham, they inherited eternal life with God, and escaped hell, simply due to their being a descendent of Abraham.

So in vs.33, the Jews in response to Christ say, “we are Abraham’s descendants.” They said that as a defense of their freedom, possibly referring to their religious freedom. And three times in this passage before us today, the Jews are going to claim their heritage as a defense against what Christ was teaching. They have three claims they make, and as we look at them you will notice that they are progressive in their claims.  First, they claim to be the physical seed or physical descendants of Abraham, which Jesus says is true in vs.37.  Secondly, they claim to be the spiritual seed of Abraham, which Jesus says is not true.  And thirdly, they claim to be the children of God, which Jesus again demonstrates is not true.  So Jesus agrees with the first claim, and then just debunks the second two, exposing the falseness of their claims.

And I would just like to make a parallel to us in our culture today. Most people in America today claim to be Christian. The Pew research study showed that 70% of Americans claim to be Christians. At the very least that means that they believe in God, they believe in Christ, and they believe in an afterlife in heaven. But I’m afraid that for the majority of those claiming Christianity, they are not unlike those Jews. When we examine the basis for their claims, we find that the number one reason is that they were raised to be Christians. They were raised in a home where Christianity was taught, or at least accepted by parents who believed in God. So most people I believe would claim their heritage as a basis for their Christianity.

Secondly, their claim to Christianity is based on their church affiliation. You could equate the nation of Israel with the church in many respects. And so spiritually, many in our culture claim their Christianity based on their church association. They not only were raised to believe in God, but to belong to a particular denomination; whether it be Catholic, or Episcopal, or Presbyterian or Baptist or whatever, and they find their identification in the rituals and ceremonies and community of their church. And as the Jews were required to be circumcised in order to belong to their church, many denominations require people to be baptized as a mark of belonging to their church.

And then thirdly, as a result of the first two, most people in that 70% would believe that they were children of God. And as such they believe they would escape any judgment that might fall on the world. Rather than Abraham standing at the gate of heaven, they might expect Saint Peter. But I’m afraid that in light of what Jesus is teaching today, we will discover that what Jesus is talking about is not being made a child of God through physical means, but by being born as a child of God by spiritual means. And so the requirements which were true for the Jews are true for us as well.

Now let’s look briefly at each of those claims of the Jews. So number one, they claim to be Abraham’s descendants in vs.33. That’s their defense against Christ’s charge that they would die in their sins. So Jesus’ response is in vs. 37 “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.” Jesus agrees that they are the physical descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and then Jacob, and then the 12 sons of Jacob, constituting the nation of Israel.

But though Jesus acknowledges their physical relationship, He says that there is something amiss. What is wrong about their claim is that they were seeking to kill Him, because they did not believe His word. This is a very important principle by the way. You cannot say you believe in Christ, but not believe His word. Christ’s word is inseparable from His entity. It’s like the old adage, “a man’s word is his bond.” Or like my Dad used to say, “you may not have much in this world, but the most valuable thing you possess is your name. Don’t dishonor your family name.” The principle that he was trying to teach was that if you gave your word, you better keep it. Your word was who you were. It was your character, your reputation, your nature.

There is an effort by liberal theologians today to try to redefine who Jesus was, irrespective of His word. They want to claim to believe in Jesus, but deny the authority or reliability of God’s word. And what Jesus is teaching here is that HIs reliability, even His deity, is authenticated by His word. So we either have to believe what Christ taught, or dismiss Him altogether. Jesus Christ was the Word, He was in the beginning with God, and He was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and His word is truth. That is why Jesus said in vs. 31, “if you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of mine.”

So Jesus says, though you might be physical descendants of Abraham, yet your deeds are witness that you are not the spiritual children of Abraham, and further evidence is that you do not accept Christ’s word. So spiritually speaking, your lineage is worthless because it hasn’t affected your spiritual condition. Literally, He is saying is, “my word makes no progress in you.” It’s the same idea as what He said was the evidence of a true disciple; you will continue in His word. A characteristic of a true Christian then is that you have an appetite for His word. I would hope that is the reason that you are here this morning. I hope it’s not to see the dolphins, or to enjoy the beach. I hope it is to drink and eat of God’s word.

And not only to accept the word, but that the word is a sanctifying agent in your life. It changes you. It is the means by which God speaks to you and the Holy Spirit guides you. It is making progress in you. The word of God is progressively doing the work of sanctification in you, changing you into the image of Jesus Christ.

But that isn’t the evidence in these Jews lives, according to Christ. So He says in vs. 38, “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” In other words, you have no interest in things which come from My Father, you are only interested in things that come from your father. So Jesus is saying that their lineage says one thing, but their actions say another. Listen, our actions speak louder than our words. I had a young man come up after the service last week who talked to me about his conversion. He related how as a teenager, a self righteous man acting in hypocrisy in the church had really turned him off on the church. But later in his college years, he came across some believers who really practiced what they preached, and that testimony was the catalyst for him coming to the Lord. When he saw the reality of what they were saying in their life lived out, then it made an impact on him.

So the Jews respond to Jesus again in vs.39, claiming once again to be the children of Abraham, and I think they are claiming not only physical descendancy, but now they are also claiming spiritually to be sons of Abraham. They say in vs.39, “Abraham is our father.” See, I think they realized that Jesus was saying they had another father, and so they are refuting that, asserting once again that Abraham was their father spiritually as well as physically.

Jesus answers, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.” What are the deeds of Abraham? Well, 3 times in the New Testament, in Romans 4, Galatians 3, and James 2, it says “Abraham believed God, and He counted it to Him as righteousness.” When God spoke to Abraham, he believed God. Jesus says I am speaking to you the words of God, but you don’t believe them. Therefore you are not children of Abraham, because Abraham believed God. Jesus said, “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.”

You know what else were the deeds of Abraham? Abraham obeyed God. Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” Listen, we are saved by faith. But faith is more than just lip service. It takes little to no faith to say you believe God, but it takes faith to act on that belief. It takes faith to leave all and to follow Him, as the disciples did. God wants more than lip service. That’s what’s wrong with some of the modern praise and worship movement. We are projecting this image of this narcissistic God that just wants to hear us tell Him how great He is all the time. That’s not the image of God we see in the Bible. But Jesus said “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” To obey is better than sacrifice, it’s better than praise. To obey is the proof of your faith.

So in vs.41, Jesus said, “You are doing the deeds of your father.” See, to whom you obey, you belong. Not whom you claim to be, but to whom you act like determines who you belong to. That’s what Paul said in Romans 6:16 “Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?” That’s the same thing Jesus said in vs.34, “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”

So twice now Jesus has alluded to another father whom they are obedient to. And it is not God the Father but another father. Their response is very interesting.  They said to Him, “We were not born of fornication.”  And here’s where they make the final claim: “We have one Father: God.”  Not only are we the physical children of Abraham, the spiritual children of Abraham, but we are the spiritual children of God.  Because we’re not born of fornication.

Now some commentators say that the Jews are claiming by this statement that they have not worshipped idols. Idol worship was associated with fornication, which produced illegitimate children. So many feel that fornication was closely associated with idolatry and that was the meaning of what the Jews had to say. But I think it was because they had researched Jesus’ pedigree, and had ascertained incorrectly that He had been born out of wedlock, because He was not Joseph’s true son. So I think that this is more than likely a slam on Him and on HIs sinlessness. Because as we see in vs.46, Jesus asks, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” Well, they couldn’t prove it, of course. But they would have loved to believe that He was born in sin, and thus eliminated from any consideration that He could be God in the flesh.

And that highlights the significance of Jesus being born of the Holy Spirit who came upon Mary. That the sin nature of Adam did not pass on to Him. But He was born of the Spirit. So Jesus was born sinless, and He remained sinless. And therefore He was able to be the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

So Jesus says if you were the spiritual children of God, you would love Me. Vs.42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.”

To love God then is to love Christ, because He is the physical manifestation of God in the flesh. Hebrews 1:3 says that He is the exact representation of God. So it’s impossible to love God and not love Christ. And how is that love for God expressed? Well, we just said it earlier, we believe His word, and we are obedient to His word. And I would add to that you do not love the world. The world being synonymous with the realm of Satan.Jesus continually refers to Satan as the ruler of this world. So in 1John 2:15 it says, “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.”

That love for the world, the love of the things of Satan is the characteristic of those that are not of the Father, but are children of the devil. That’s the next point that Jesus makes, the clarification of who their real father is. Vs.43 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Listen, physically we exhibit the characteristics of our father, don’t we? That’s natural. You pass on your physical characteristics to your children. I would even say that we pass on more than just physical characteristics, we pass on some of our personality, some of our intelligence, and then as our children grow up, we pass on many of our habits, our personal tastes for certain things, the way we talk. All those things are greatly influenced by our parents. Most of us are horrified to find out as we get older how much like our parents we are. We thought we would be so different. And yet it turns out that we end up very much like our parents.

Well, Jesus is saying, if you love God and are a child of God, then you will take on the characteristics of your Father. But if you love the world, and the things of the world, then you will take on the characteristics of the ruler of this world, that is the devil. And it’s interesting to note the characteristics of Satan which Jesus points out. He was a liar, He says, and the father of lies. There is no truth in Him. What a contrast to Christ who is the truth, and who speaks the truth of God. Satan is a liar and entraps mankind by his lies. But Christ is the truth, and His truth sets men free.

You remember the first time we see Satan in Genesis, he comes to Eve with a lie. And she believed it, and then obeyed it, and was entrapped by it. And as a result of her and Adam’s sin, the entire human race is trapped in the bondage of sin. So Jesus adds that he is a murderer. What that means is that in that first deception, Satan brought about the murder of the entire human race. Because sin brings forth death. From Adam’s sin, came about the murder of all men, of which Satan bears much responsibility. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So Jesus expresses that contrast again by saying in vs. 45 “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” You could simplify that statement by saying, here’s the way to diagnose a child of the devil: he doesn’t believe the truth, doesn’t love Christ.  Here’s a way to diagnose a child of God: he loves the truth, he loves Christ.

The summary of this principle Christ is teaching is found starting in vs.46, Jesus says, ”Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”

Jesus could ask that question, “which of you convicts Me of sin”, because it was apparent to all that He was guilty of no sin. And that fact alone was validation that He was the Son of God. There is no prophet of any religion that can honestly say that he is not guilty of any sin. No one on earth can honestly claim to be sinless. And even if we did have the audacity to claim sinlessness, you better believe someone could convict you of sin, because your life reveals evidence of your sin. Romans 3:23 says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And Romans 3:10 says that there is none righteous, not even one. No one can claim sinlessness. So for Christ to be able to say that, and for them to be silent in response to that claim, is evidence that He was the Son of God.

And yet irregardless of that fact, they choose not to believe Him. They reject His words as the word of God, and Jesus said that is because they are not of God. They are not the children of God. They may have been descendants of Abraham, they may have been members of the nation of Israel, but their sinful deeds were evidence that they were of their father the devil.

Listen, do I even need to make the application here to this present body of people or is Jesus’ teaching self evident? To what evidence is your claim to Christianity? Is it to your heritage? Is it to your church membership? Is it to your nationality? Is it to some religious ceremony? I would submit to you today, that as Jesus said in Matthew 7, by their fruits you shall know them. If you are of your Father in heaven, then you will do the works of the Father. You will love Christ, and love His body, the church, and you will obey His word. And your life will be evidence of your faith.

But if you love the world, and the things of the world, and you do not love the word of God, nor the things of God, then it is evident that you are of a another father. The good news is that there is a way to be adopted into the family of God. Gal. 3:26, 29 says, “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” And then in vs. 29 ‘And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

Today adoption as a child of God is offered to you. Jesus Christ has paid the penalty for our sins by HIs blood on the cross. That those who believe in Him might receive His righteousness, and our sins would be transferred to Him, the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And having been made righteous by faith in Christ, we are made the children of God by redemption. The offer is open today to all who will call upon Him in faith and repentance, for the forgiveness of sins. I pray that today is the day of your salvation. Don’t trust in anything else, but in Christ’s righteousness alone.

The Source of Freedom is the Truth, John 8:31-36

The idea of freedom, or the principle of being free, is one that is particularly indigenous to Americans. It’s not limited to Americans, of course, but much of our history is based on the premise that man is designed to be free. Our country was founded on that principle. As the Constitution declares, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Liberty means the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.

So the American Revolution was fought over those truths, that we had a right to be free from tyranny. And to some extent the Civil War continued that fight, eventually taking on the context of freedom from slavery. Then in the 1960’s, we experienced a cultural revolution called the Hippie Movement, which espoused the idea of freedom from social mores. However, not all the freedoms that generation sought were necessarily based on truth, as history has made evident. But nonetheless, the entire history of the United States has this search for freedom interwoven in it’s story, from generation to generation.

Yet after 300 years, I would suggest that we are still trying to come to grips as a nation with the notion of freedom. We are still trying to obtain it. For that matter, we are still trying to define it. And so it is to that question that we come to today. What is freedom, and how does one really achieve it?

Well, I believe that this passage teaches us the answer to that question. The blueprint for freedom was written long before the Constitution of the United States. And it’s author was no less than Jesus Christ. I believe that this passage before us today is one of the most important in the gospel. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the heart of the gospel.

The reality of freedom is the purpose of Jesus Christ’s visitation to Earth. In His first message that He preached, He quoted from Isaiah concerning Himself, saying that this prophecy was fulfilled that day in their presence. This is what He read from the scriptures prophesying about Himself. He read from Isaiah 61:1 which says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

Now how was that freedom realized? What does it look like? Is He talking about social freedom, or political freedom, or freedom from slavery, or spiritual freedom? Because there are people that have interpreted these statements in all those various ways. But remember, Jesus said that they that worship God must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. So we cannot just apply any template we want to these statements. We must apply them according to the truth.

Well, I suggest that Jesus is speaking primarily about spiritual freedom. But I will add to that the caveat that the spiritual is the fountain from which all other freedoms flow. You can attempt to find freedom outside of the spiritual, but I would suggest that if you do that, then you are being deceived. You are still held captive, still enslaved. Jesus says that in our text in vs. 34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” So until you take care of the spiritual issue of sin and become free in that regard, you cannot know any other freedom. You are still in your sins, and as such, you are still held captive by the devil, and are a slave of sin.

That is why three times in the previous passage we looked at last week, three times Jesus says to the Jews, that they would die in their sins. Because they had believed a lie, and as a result, they were still in their sins, still enslaved.

So what is the solution then? Jesus said if you are going to know freedom, then you must first know the truth. Jesus said in vs.32, that when you know the truth, then the truth will make you free. So knowing the truth is paramount to becoming free. You cannot be free and live a lie. As became evident in the Hippy Movement, things that they thought provided freedom, like drugs and sex, only served to further enslave them, because they were not founded on the truth. And I would suggest that many of the new social mores which are being expounded today are simply more of the same kind of deceit; they promise freedom, but they only will produce greater bondage.

Now that was the scheme of Satan from the beginning was it not? To lie against the truth and as such enslave men to sin. Satan appeared in the Garden of Eden to seduce mankind to sin by telling a lie, by selling Eve an untruth. As Jesus says in our text in vs. 44, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

So Satan, in his rage against God – his rage that God would choose to shower His affection on man, and make man in God’s image, according to God’s likeness, when he himself had desired to be like the Most High and was rejected – so Satan came to man disguised as a creature of God, and he deceived the woman by making her think something evil was good, and he invoked her to pride because she desired to know what God knew, and as such mankind fell from their sinless state in God’s presence just as Satan had also fallen. And mankind has been suffering bondage to that lie all throughout the history of the world.

That is why Jesus calls him the father of lies. And he did not stop with that lie, but he has sold the world a lie ever since. Satan, who controls the world system, has so engineered the world so that according to 2Peter 2:19, he is “promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” What he means is that they are being promised freedom but instead they end up becoming slaves of corruption.

So what is truth? Well, to start with, God is truth. Truth is defined in God and by God and there is no truth apart from God. In Isaiah 45:19 God says, “I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right.” Psalm 119:160 says, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.” And vs. 142 of the same Psalm says “your law is truth.” And one more, Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Now I cannot overstate this doctrine. God is the source of all truth. His word establishes the standard of truth. All philosophy, all science, all the wisdom of man must be examined in the light of God’s truth, and only when it conforms to God’s truth, is it true. So as Paul said in Romans 3:4, “Let God be found true, though everyman found a liar.”

So as God is true, Jesus also is true. As we have seen in our studies in recent weeks, Jesus speaks the things of God, He does the works of God, He does nothing that the Father isn’t doing. So if God is true, then HIs Son is true. In fact, Jesus says that He is the personification of truth in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Notice in that verse, that Jesus doesn’t say He sometimes speaks the truth, but that He is the truth. That means nothing less than perfect truth comes from God. And as Jesus personifies the Word of God, then He is the truth of God, and no one can come to God except through Him. One must come to accept Christ’s word, in order to come to God. God has chosen to reveal Himself in His Son. And what God has revealed is truth. So coming to know the truth, will make you truly free.

Now we saw that in vs.30, many people listening to Him had come to believe in Him. That simply means that they believed that He was speaking the truth. They believed that He had come from the Father. Vs.26 Jesus had said, “He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” So some people listening to that believed in Him. Some did not, as we see in the later verses. But some did believe Him. And I think that means that they became Christians at that point. Some commentators think that these people were superficial believers. They didn’t really want to follow Christ, but they just acknowledged that what He said was true. I don’t buy that. I think that what Jesus was saying was so radical, so outrageous, that they had to either acknowledge Him as a lunatic, or acknowledge Him as God come in the flesh. So when John says twice that some believed in Him, I think they truly had their eyes opened to the truth, and they believed in Him and they were saved. That is the way that we are saved, we are justified by faith in Christ. Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So then now that some have been justified by faith, then in vs.31, Jesus speaks of the next step in salvation, and that is sanctification. There are three phases in salvation; there is justification, then sanctification, and finally glorification. All must exist for salvation to exist. If you are justified, and then you are sanctified, but there is no glorification, no eternal life, no heaven, then your salvation is worthless, is it not? Paul said in 1Cor. 15:19 “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” And the same thing is true of the other two phases in our salvation. If we are not justified, then our attempts at sanctification through works can never save us, can they? Because Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” So if you skip over justification by grace, and try to become sanctified by works, then you cannot be saved. And by the same measure, justification without sanctification is worthless. As James said, “faith without works is dead.” So then Hebrews 12:14 warns us that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord. All three then are necessary for salvation.

That’s why Jesus turns to those people, the people that had believed in Him, who believed that He was the Son of God, who were justified by faith, and to them Jesus said, ““If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Now I believe that these people were saved by faith in Him, as I said. And so Jesus now is instructing them how to be His true disciples. That is the consequence of truly being saved. We not only believe, but we follow. We join Him, fellowship with Him, allow Him to teach us as we go through each day and every circumstance. It’s not just “I have faith, so I’m saved, and now I can go on with my life and do what I want to do, live like I want to live.” It’s not like Jesus is now my genie and so He’s going to make sure that everything I do works out. He’s going to keep me safe as I go about my business.

No, that’s not what discipleship. A true disciple recognizes that Jesus is the source of life, the source of truth, the way to God, and so he follows Jesus wherever He leads us. Most Christians today have it backwards. They think salvation entitles them to God following them around and working out any difficulties they might encounter, but stay far enough behind me so as to not hinder my freedom to do what I want to do. That’s not biblical discipleship. Christ doesn’t follow me, but I need to follow Christ.

How do we do that practically speaking? Well, Jesus says how, He says you do it by continuing in His word. He’s talking about relying on the word of God for your day to day situations. This is the way of sanctification. Read the word, and apply the word. That’s called wisdom by the way. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So we don’t just become hearers of the word, but doers of it.

Jesus said in His high priestly prayer to God in John 17:17, speaking of His disciples, He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” That’s tremendous. The word then is a sanctifying agent. It’s like the old adage, “sin will keep you from the Bible, or the Bible will keep you from sin.” David in Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Here is the thing that Jesus is teaching at this point. Justification is taking away the penalty of sin. Sanctification is taking away the power of sin. And one day, glorification will take away then presence of sin. But let’s just focus on sanctification for a moment. Sanctification is deliverance from the power of sin. This is the true freedom that Christ brings. It’s not just taking away the penalty of sin but leaving us to live in sin. That would not be true freedom. Christ gives us the power over sin, the power to be delivered from sin. That is the hope of Christianity in this life. That we have victory over sin.

Now the reality is that as long as we are in the body and living in a fallen world we are going to feel some of the effects of occasional sin. No one is going to achieve sinless perfection this side of glorification. But as a Christian we can be delivered from continual sin. That is the meaning of the word used there for sin. It is continual, habitual sin. That’s the good news that Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 61 which we quoted earlier; “the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

That’s the same thing that the old hymn Rock of Ages is talking about when it says, that the blood of Christ will “be of sin the double cure, save from wrath, and make me pure.” That double cure is speaking of being saved from the wrath of God, and then the sanctification that produces purity towards God. Justification and sanctification.

So that is the path of sanctification. That path is progressive, by the way. There is a sense in which we are sanctified, consecrated, and set apart at salivation by the blood of Christ. That is positional sanctification whereby we have been set apart from the world for good works. But there is also practical sanctification, and that comes from continuing in the word. As God reveals truth to you through His word, then you apply that truth and it becomes a sanctifying agent that works to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. That is why the text doesn’t just say the truth sets you free. That’s true, but it’s not once and done. It’s a continual making free. Each day continuing, and that continuance working in us that which is pleasing to God. That’s discipleship. Sanctification is discipleship.

And that’s God’s goal for His church. When Christ commissioned the church, He said go into all the world and make disciples. Not just believers. But followers of Christ in conduct and in truth which is doctrine.

Well the Jews answered Jesus back by saying, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Now first of all, I don’t believe that this “they” who John refers to is the same people that became saved. I think these people are the Jewish religious leaders who have been having this running debate with Christ all throughout this whole passage. Because these people obviously do not believe in Him. They accuse Him of being a liar, and in vs.41 they even accuse Him of being born of fornication, of being illegitimate. So obviously these cannot be those who believed that He was the Son of God.

But the really confusing part was what they said. They said they had never been enslaved to anyone, when in fact, they had been enslaved numerous times, starting with Egypt and then in Babylon and they were under a form of bondage even then to the Romans. So it is difficult to know what they were talking about. Except for to note the irony that when you are enslaved to a lie, the lie is that you are not enslaved. Many times I meet people who are obviously weighted down under the bondage of sin, and yet they extol the virtues of their freedom. I suppose there is no lie like the lie you tell yourself.

That is the curse of sin which brings condemnation. To refuse to acknowledge it and thus refuse to repent of it. To be an alcoholic and deny it is obvious folly to everyone but the alcoholic. But that is very often the case. They say, “I can take it or leave it.” But in actual fact, they only take it. Or to be a drug abuser and say “it doesn’t hurt me.” And yet the lie is apparent in your body and in your life. Perhaps that unwillingness to face their sin caused them to deny their enslavement and to blind themselves to their reality.

So Jesus gave an answer designed to prove HIs point. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Again, this is speaking of habitual sin. In other words, if you are living in sin, then you are obviously a slave of sin, and you have not been set free. You may tell yourself you are free, you may tell others that you are free, but your actions say otherwise. You are still in your sins, and you will die in your sins, unless you believe in Him, which Jesus said meant to continue in His word and follow Him.

And then Jesus says, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.” What Jesus is saying was in response to their claim as Abraham’s children. He is saying that their actions demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children, because Abraham’s children are the children of faith. They believe God and He counts it to them as righteousness. But these men demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children because they are not children of faith. So Jesus says that they are slaves. And like Ishmael in the house of Abraham, they will not inherit the blessing of the son Isaac. They will not stay in the house forever, because they are not true sons. These men had a temporary stay in the household of God in the sense that they belonged to the tribe of Israel. But when they were judged according to their works, they were found to be doers of wickedness, and thus slaves of wickedness, and not sons of righteousness.

That was the judgment. But thank God Jesus doesn’t stop with the judgment. He offers once again salvation. He says in vs.36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” This is the reality of salvation, that we are truly free if Christ has made us free. If the spirit of man has been freed, then he is free inwardly, in a way that no earthly chains can contain. Because if Christ has made us free, then we have fellowship with God in a realm that cannot be ascertained by those who are not free in Christ.

In a simplified way of looking at slavery and freedom, we might say that those who are slaves have someone else take advantage of their labors. If they make money, it’s not really theirs to enjoy, it’s their masters. If they have possessions, they are not really theirs to keep, for they are their masters. The master owns everything that the slave has. Such is the reality of the lie that Satan has foisted upon the world. He has promised that you can enjoy the fruits of a sinful life. but the fact is, that he owns all that you do. All that you do in that world ends up being left behind when you die in your sins and face an eternity in hell.

But if the Son shall make you free, then not only are you made free, but you receive the adoption as sons, and consequently you receive an inheritance that will never fade away, reserved in heaven for you. As a result of that hope, we know that our labor is not in vain. That what we do in this world will be used for the glory of God. So we find our freedom in service to God, knowing that He keeps track of our works, and will reward us in the day of our glorification.

Listen, today is the favorable year of the Lord. Today the Lord offers freedom from whatever prison of sin that has kept you hostage. The Lord is ready to save all that call upon Him. Believe in the truth and be saved. That is the offer extended to you today. Receive all that God has prepared for those that love Him. Or continue to believe the lie of this world and you will die in your sins. There is a very clear choice, and the choice is yours. There are two paths, two possibilities before you today; the truth and the lie. God is the author of truth, and Satan is the author of lies. One path leads to freedom, and the other path leads to further enslavement. I pray you chose to believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. May today be the day that you are free indeed.

The litmus test of heaven, John 8:21-30

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. It is the day when Americans remember and honor those who died in service to their country. And it is fitting that we should remember those that paid the ultimate sacrifice so that we might enjoy the freedoms that are ours as Americans. Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.”

Today however is another memorial day which is celebrated the world over. It is called the Lord’s Day. It is the day set aside each week to honor Jesus Christ, who laid down His life so that we might be truly free. The remarkable thing about Christ’s sacrifice is that He did not just lay down His life for His friends, but He laid down His life for His enemies. Jesus said He did not come to save the righteous, but sinners. Sinners are by definition the enemy of God who is holy and righteous.

The essential fact of the gospel that is so often missed however, is that all men are sinners. Romans 3:10 says, ”THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD; ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”

The good news however, is found just a couple of chapters later in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

But a lot of people are so offended at hearing Romans 3:10 that they never get to know the benefits of Romans 5:8. In other words, they are so offended that the Bible says that all men are condemned because of their sinfulness, that they never come to know the salvation that is through Christ’s death as our substitute. The fact is, that if you do not acknowledge your need for salvation from your sins, and trust in Christ’s atonement on the cross as the propitiation for your sins, then you cannot know the freedom from condemnation that comes through salvation.

Now that is really the crux of the passage we have before us today. This exchange between the Jewish leaders and Jesus which is recorded here for us is due to the fact that they trusted in their own righteousness and rejected salvation through Christ. As a matter of review, Jesus had been preaching in the temple for a week at this point, during the weeklong celebration known as the Feast of Tabernacles. And He has presented in many different ways the truth of the gospel. That truth simply stated was that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the eternal God come to Earth in human form, so that men might have the spiritual life that God offers to them that believe in Him.

And Jesus has used a couple of metaphors to illustrate that doctrine, which we have looked at in detail in previous weeks. In the first metaphor He says He is the source of living water which if anyone drinks of, out of their innermost being will spring up living water. Then His other incredible claim is that He was the light of the world, and that the world was in darkness, but if they follow Him, they will have the light of life. In both of those metaphors, Jesus is teaching that He is the source of life, abundant life through the Spirit of God, and He gives it to those who believe in Him.

But at every point that Jesus makes in His messages during the Feast, the Jewish religious leaders want to find fault with Him and argue over some technicality. And at the heart of their response is their fervent belief that they did not need a spiritual Savior. They believed that they were inherently good people. They were obviously very religious people. They thought that they knew what the scriptures taught. They thought that they had been given entry into the kingdom of God through their heritage and that they insured it by their adherence to certain laws such as circumcision and keeping the Sabbath.

In many respects, they were not unlike many Americans today. According to a recent Pew Research survey, 70% of Americans claim to be Christians. They believe in God. They go to church on somewhat of a regular basis. They believe in the golden rule. They have a few Bibles in their possession. They are what we would call “good people.” And the real danger for these people is that they have never come face to face with their sinfulness and as such have rejected the idea that they need a Savior.

This was the predicament of the Jews who listened to Jesus that day. He had told them repeatedly that He had come from the Father in heaven and as such had been doing the works of the Father and speaking the words of the Father, shining the light of the truth unto the world so that men might have life. But they had repeatedly rejected His claims. Therefore Jesus says in vs. 21, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”

Their response is that of disdain, again missing the significance of what He is preaching, and focusing instead on trying to discredit Him. So they respond with dripping sarcasm, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” I think there is even a hint in their response of their intention to kill Him, but they phrase it as if He will commit suicide. Suicide by the way in Jewish culture of that period, was the most egregious sin, and they believed that the bottom level of Hades was reserved for those who committed suicide. So in effect, they are suggesting that Jesus deserved the pit of hell.

The question must be asked – why such vitriolic hatred towards Christ? I’ll tell you the answer. It’s the same answer that Jesus gave for their hatred in John 7:7, He says, “[the world] hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” It’s the same hatred we see spewed towards those who proclaim the truth today; it’s because of the conviction of sin. If you dare call anyone a sinner today, or suggest that the Bible condemns certain activities as sinful, then you are going to be the object of intense hatred. And by the way, this doesn’t just come from atheists, this comes from those claiming Christianity. I just read on the news last week that Bishop Desmond Tutu said that he would rather spend eternity in hell than a minute in a homophobic heaven. Well, he just might get his wish. Because that statement reveals his hatred towards God. Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That means that God gets to make the rules, not us. We must worship who He is, and not who we want Him to be. The world does not get to define God. God has defined Himself in His word. And we must love God more than we love the world. 1John 2:15-16 says, “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.”

The essential principle that Bishop Tutu fails to understand is that God’s law is a reflection of God’s nature. It is how He reveals His holiness. I read another quote by Bishop Tutu in which he said, “We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.” I have news for him, God’s standards are anything but low. God’s standard is absolute perfection. And there is only one person that has been able to meet God’s standard, and that is Jesus Christ. All the rest of mankind is dead in their trespasses and sin. That is why Jesus says three times in this passage, “you will die in your sins.” Unless you repent and call in faith upon Jesus Christ – that is the only way for your sin to be forgiven.

And listen, your sin is not forgiven because God just decided one day to get with it – just go along with the culture and forget about all that sin stuff, just live and let live. No, God still counts sin. God did not do away with the requirements of the law. Jesus kept every law perfectly so that He might be the blameless, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. No, God didn’t stop counting sin, He just counted it against Christ. He transferred our sin upon Jesus and beat Him for it with a whip within an inch of death. He transferred our sin upon His Holy Righteous Only Begotten Son, and pounded nails into His hands and feet and let Him hang on a rough cross for hours bleeding to death. He transferred our sin upon Jesus and let Him die and descend into Hades to pay the penalty for sin. He transferred our sin upon Jesus so He could pay the price of our sin, and then and only then could He transfer Christ’s righteousness upon us. God’s standards are anything but low. No one comes to heaven, to the Father, except through Jesus Christ and dressed in His righteousness alone.

So in spite of the unbelief and sarcasm, once again Jesus shows compassion by restating His warning to the religious leaders. In vs.23 He says, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Now what Christ has done is give a litmus test of sorts for belonging to the kingdom of heaven. That was the primary message of Christ. He was preaching about the kingdom of heaven. And the Jewish leaders recognized that the requirement of citizenship was righteousness. So Jesus is in effect giving a litmus test for righteousness. He says they are of the world, and as such they are still in their sins, and they will suffer the consequences of that sin, which is death. How do you know whether one is of the world or of heaven? How do you recognize those belonging to the kingdom of darkness, and those belonging to the kingdom of heaven? I mean, anyone can claim to be of the kingdom of heaven, can’t they? People all over the world claim to be of the kingdom of heaven. We already said that 70% of Americans claim to be Christians, that is, belonging to the kingdom of heaven. So how do you know? What is the evidence?

Well, to find out the truth, I’m not going to quote Desmond Tutu, but instead quote the Apostle John once again. As we read earlier, 1John 2:15-16 says, “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 Paul says virtually the same thing, that those who are of the world set their mind on worldly things. In Phil. 3:18-19 he says, “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”

That’s the litmus test. If you love the world, if your focus is on the world, if your passions are in the world, if your love is towards the things of the world,if your pride is in the things of the world, then you are of the world. You cannot serve God and mammon. That’s why James says, show me your faith by your works. Show me. Don’t tell me. You say you have faith, but show me your faith. Faith is not an intellectual exercise, by which we gain heaven. Faith is an exercise by which the will of heaven is worked out on earth. Where God’s will supersedes our will. Faith is praying, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

That’s the litmus test. That is why Jesus was able to point to His works as the litmus test that proved He was sent from God. Three times in this little passage He says that He does the works of God, as evidence that He is not of this world, but of God. Look at vs.26, “the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” Then again in vs.28, “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” And third, vs.29, “I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

It’s noteworthy that Jesus categorizes things in threes. Three times He says “You will die in your sins.” And three times Jesus says He does the works of God. The principle is clear; if you are of the world, then you will die in your sins. If you do the works of God, then it’s evident that you are of the kingdom of heaven.

Now I hope no one here today tries to weasel out of this principle of your works being evidence of where your heart is by saying that Jesus did the works of God, but grace makes us free to do whatever we want. Grace is the means by which our guilt and punishment are expunged. And grace is the means by which we are given the Holy Spirit to lead us in paths of righteousness. But all through the New Testament we are told to imitate Christ. Peter said in 1Peter 1:15-16 “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” And again in 1Peter 2:21 he says, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” We are to follow the pattern that Jesus laid down for us. That is what it means to be a disciple by the way. We follow the pattern of Christ. As He did, so do we. That’s what Jesus is saying in vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” To continue in His word is to continue in obedience to His word.

And Paul also makes it clear in Ephesians that we are saved to do the works of Christ. Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So the principle that Jesus is teaching is clear, how you live illustrates where your citizenship is. Is your citizenship in heaven? Then you will be about your Father’s business. A ceremonial tip of the hat once every couple of weeks is not indicative of where your citizenship is. Jesus said in Luke 12:34 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

You know what disturbs me very much though is when Christians, who have been set free from the enslavement to the world by the death of Christ, try to keep one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God. They claim to be all about heaven, but their priorities are all about the world. Everything seems to take priority over the things of God. I worry about such people.

That reminds me of the prophet Elijah, who seeing the double mindedness of the Israelites, who worshipped the idols of the world while claiming to be the people of God. And so he cries out to them in 1 Kings 18, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” If you say you are the Lord’s people, then serve the Lord with your whole heart. But if you are people of the world, then continue to serve the world. But don’t think you can live in two places at once.

Well, back in our text, the Jews respond to Jesus’ words with more sarcasm, more condescension, saying “Who are You?” In a more modern way of speaking they may have said, “Who do you think You are? We have to believe in You or we die in our sins? Just who do You think You are?” That question was obviously intended to be sarcasm as well, but nevertheless, Jesus patiently, compassionately responds to them by saying, “I am that which I have been saying to you from the beginning.”

What had He been saying from the beginning? Well, let’s remember what Jesus has said so far; that He was the Messiah, He was the Son of God, He was the resurrection and the life, He was the Temple of God, that God has given Him the power to execute all judgment, that He is the source of eternal life, that He was the one of whom Moses wrote, that He was the bread of life which came down out of heaven, that He has seen the Father, that He had the words of eternal life, that He was the supply of the water of life, and that He was the light of the world. I think it’s pretty clear who He was.

But since they asked, Jesus gives them another clue. In vs 28 He says, “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.” Now what is Jesus referring to in this statement? I believe that He is speaking of going to the cross, being lifted up as the serpent was lifted up on the pole in the wilderness. Jesus is saying, when you see Me lifted up on the cross, then you will know that I am He.

What a tremendous statement. Not only was His life indicative of His deity, and not only was His words indicative of His deity, but His sacrifice for sinners was the ultimate indication of His deity. The crucifixion was the expression of God’s love for the world. And the magnanimity of that act revealed a love that could only be that of God. I’m reminded of the centurion who seeing Jesus give up His Spirit on the cross said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

But sadly, many of those who were debating with Him would still not recognize Him even when He was lifted up. They should have seen the parallel with the serpent in the wilderness which Moses lifted up for the healing of sting of vipers upon the Israelites. And they should have understood that the serpent on a pole symbolized that there would come One who would be lifted up on a pole for the healing of the sins of the world. And perhaps some did make that connection during the crucifixion such as the centurion. But as I have pointed out before, I believe that by the time of the crucifixion, the scribes and Pharisees and the priesthood not only knew that He was the Son of God, but they deliberately, purposefully put Him to death because they hated Him so much by that point that their hatred had blinded them.

And that is born out by the fact that He says, when I am lifted up, then you will know that I am He. Now in the Greek there is not the pronoun He. It is simply “that I am.” And I suggest that is a direct reference to the same “I AM that I AM” which spoke to Moses out of the burning bush. This is the name that God gave Moses to tell the Israelites and Pharaoh who it was that gave him his authority. It was the name of God that refused conventional definitions. So in answer to the Jews question of “Who are You?” Jesus has just answered, “When you see Me lifted up, then you will know that I am the I AM.” He is telling them who He is in terms that they were very familiar with. See, for the Jews, Moses was their guy. He was the greatest prophet. In fact, the Sadducees only recognized the writings of Moses, nothing else. So it’s interesting that in every evidence that Jesus gives to His deity He uses something that happened during the life of Moses. He was the source of water from the rock. He was the manna from heaven. He was the pillar of fire over the tabernacle. He was the serpent lifted up on the tree. And He was the I AM from the burning bush. Yet these champions of the law of Moses would not accept what He was saying, because they believed that they were justified by the law of Moses.

But Paul tells us that the law was not given to be a stepladder to heaven. But the law was given to be a tutor to lead us to Christ. The law was given so that our sin became even more sinful. Even more apparent. But when Jesus showed them that, in the Sermon on the Mount for instance, then they became indignant, and rejected the idea that they were sinners. And that spurning of the need for forgiveness would condemn them to die in their sins.

From our perspective though it should be clear, that Jesus was not only sent from God to be all the things that we stated earlier like the light of the world, and the source of eternal life, etc, but the characteristic that really completes the picture is that He is the Savior of the world. This is the basis for John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. So Jesus declares that He is Savior, it completes the picture. It completes the picture of God. God is holy, righteous and just. God is the judge of the earth. God is the source of life. And God is also the Savior of the world because God loved the world. He loved His creation. But for God’s love to be enacted, His justice had to be satisfied. God’s law had to be upheld. And so God sent Jesus to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Christ.

Well, for a few people in Jesus’ hearing that day, the light suddenly came on. They saw the light of the truth. So it says in vs.30 that as He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. I can only pray that someone here today has suddenly had the light of truth dawn in their hearts. You recognize that you are a sinner in need of a Savior. And perhaps you have come to believe that Jesus Christ is the sinless Son of God who gave Himself in your place on the cross so that you might be saved. If that is you, then simply call on Jesus to save you, believing in all that He says He is, and God promises that He will transfer you from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of heaven. You will become a citizen of heaven, but even more than that, you will be made a son of God by adoption. And as the result of that adoption, you are guaranteed an inheritance in glory and eternal life. I pray that today will be the day of your salvation.

Two witnesses to the truth, John 8:13-20

There are many voices calling out for attention in the church today. And there are perhaps as many messages as there are voices. How are we to know which are true, and which are trustworthy? Many of them sound convincing. Many of them claim to be based on scripture. And yet many messages are at odds with one another. So they cannot all be true. If some are true, then others have to be false. The great difficulty comes in discerning which are true and which are false.

I believe that the Bible teaches us that the way to know the truth is by the leading of the Holy Spirit. When I got right with God 30 years ago in California, that was the primary thing I asked of the Lord, that I would know the truth. And later on that evening, as I read the book of John, God gave me three passages which I believe instructed me that the Holy Spirit was the source of truth, and the means by which we can know the truth. The apostle John records Jesus as introducing the Holy Spirit specifically as the Spirit of Truth. Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:16-17 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

And Jesus reiterates that in the next two chapters. John 15:26, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” The third is in John 16:13 “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.”

So three times Jesus gives us this phrase, the Spirit of Truth, as both a title and a description of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now that is significant, because the law required that every fact is to be confirmed by two or three witnesses. So when Jesus declares three times this truth, we can be certain that it is an essential doctrine, and it’s validity is without question.

Understanding that principle helps us to understand then the nature and purpose of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest misunderstandings in Christianity today is that of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just taking these three verses at face value, then we must recognize that the primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us the truth. So many people seem to miss that altogether. They think that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us feel something, ie, the presence of God, or to give us some spiritual response from God which registers on our emotions or feelings. But that simply is not taught in the Bible.

Paul makes it clear in 1Cor. 2:11-14 that we have been given the Spirit so that we might know the things of God, through the word of God. He says, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 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.” So we have to have the Spirit of God to understand the things of God, particularly the word of God, which of course was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It’s also interesting that the Holy Spirit is spoken of as the Spirit of Christ. Or as Paul said in vs.16 of 1Cor.2, the mind of Christ. Also look at Romans 8:9 “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” In other words, all three are one in agreement, in unity, and are the same in nature, but different only in administration. So Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in flesh, speaking the words of the Father and doing the deeds of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the exact representation of the Son in the Spirit, enabling us to do the deeds of Christ and to know the words of Christ, which is to know God.

Now this may seem like a lengthy introduction and unrelated to the passage before us, but I believe that it is actually very pertinent to understanding today’s text as I hope to show you in due time. Because what is at stake here is the authority of Jesus Christ. How could the Jews know for sure that what He was teaching was true? Was His message trustworthy? Was He claiming to be God, and was that a true teaching?

The Gospel of John is different from the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Even more specifically than the others, John strives to show that Jesus is the Son of God, the very God come in the flesh. In the first place, rather than starting his gospel with the birth of Christ as the other writers do, John opens with Jesus in heaven. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” John does not present miracles in his gospel, he has signs. That is, his miracles are intended to teach spiritual truth. He is very strategic in deciding which signs to include, and those which he does are used to point to Jesus’ divinity. Furthermore, John is characterized by the upper room discourse, in chapters 13 through 16, and then the great high priestly prayer, in chapter 17.

But one of the primary things that characterizes the Gospel of John as different is the claim of divinity that Jesus Christ makes for Himself. They are unique in the sense that they are self-proclaimed. And that was a problem for the Jews. It was a problem because the law specified that truth cannot be established on the basis of a single testimony, but that only by the testimony of two or three men may a matter be established.

The claims of Christ are extraordinary to say the least. The well known prophets of other religions such as Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius did not claim to be God. But Christ claimed to be God. For example, Jesus has proclaimed in the temple, with thousands of people in attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles, three great claims equated with the pre-existent God of the Israelites. The first statement was, “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.”

Now in that claim, Jesus is speaking at the exact moment when the priests poured water into basins which spilled down upon the altar, signifying the water which came from the rock in the wilderness when Moses struck it. John tells us in the next verse that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit who had not yet been given to those who believed. Paul said in 1Cor. 10:4 that “all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.” So the rock was Christ, and the water is a picture of the Holy Spirit which springs from Christ, welling up inside of the believer. This picture of living water flowing from our innermost being is representative of the life of Christ, the power of Christ, living in us, enabling us to do the works of Christ and to understand the truth of God.

That was the reason that in the first instance of water coming from the rock, Moses was told to strike the rock, signifying that God would smite Jesus on the cross, and by His sacrifice making us holy we are able to receive the Holy Spirit. But 40 years later in the second occurrence of Moses smiting the rock for water he was disobedient. Because God does not strike Jesus again and again. He was the sacrifice for sin once on the cross, and now He ever lives to make intercession for us. Hence, the second time Moses needed only to speak, to ask for God to give water, signifying that we have a mediator, great high priest in heaven, Jesus who is able to make intercession for us.

So in the first statement in effect Jesus is saying that He was the Rock in the wilderness, from which the Israelites were able to drink. And in the second statement, Jesus cries out during another ritual when the priests lit the great candelabras which lit up the courtyard and the temple during the evening, saying, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

In this second statement, Jesus indicates that He is the great “I Am”, the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. And then thirdly, He compares Himself to the pillar of fire that led and protected the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness. That was the significance of the ceremony during the Feast which was the context for Jesus’ proclamation. It celebrated the light that shone above the tabernacle over the camp of the Israelites and protected them as they traveled. And at just the moment when the priests lit the candelabras, Jesus cried out in the temple, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

So Jesus proclaims with great boldness who He is, and what His purpose is, and I’m sure the full import of what He said was not lost on His hearers, especially the Pharisees. And yet their response is not to fasten on the truth of what He was saying, but to focus on a technicality. They say, “You’re bearing record of yourself. Your record therefore is not true. “ What they are really saying is, “You’re not following the teaching of the law.”

In fact, Jesus Himself had stated that principle of the law, back in chapter 5 verse 31 Jesus said, “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” So you would think that perhaps the Pharisees have a point in their accusation. But Jesus answers them in a way that shows that while in His flesh He has submitted Himself to the Law, but in His divinity He is outside of the Law, because He is the author of the Law.

So to establish that He is outside the law, first of all He says, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.” In other words, men are creatures of this place and time, and as such they are creatures of the present. Time renders all living men captives of the present. We cannot revisit the past, nor can we know the future. That is the province of God alone. Therefore the testimony of men is unreliable, but what Christ knew in Himself embraced the two eternities, the eternity of the past and the eternity of the future. And therefore, He knows that the things that He says is true.

Secondly He says He does not judge by appearances or human standards. Vs.15, “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone.” That is exactly what Jesus said in John 3:17, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

But the world would in fact one day be judged by Him, because they rejected Him. So vs 18 says, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” The judgment of sin is already in place in the world. It is only removed by Christ. So to reject Christ is to reject forgiveness of that judgment, and thus the judgment remains upon him. But Christ came the first time to save the world, not to judge it. Judgment came upon the world way back in the Garden of Eden with the first Adam. Salvation from judgment comes with the second Adam.

Not only can we say that Christ was the second Adam, but there is a sense in which Christ was the second Noah as well. Heb.11:7 says “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.” Again, the condemnation of the world had already been established. The ark represented salvation for the world, but they rejected it. The Bible says that Noah preached 120 years, and yet we have no record of his message. His message was the living testimony of his life, and the coming destruction was foretold by the building of the ark. So also Christ is patient, not willing for any to perish, and the gospel is being preached for 2000 years so that they who reject it are without excuse, condemning themselves to destruction.

The third argument Jesus presents to them is to say that divine testimony can only be attested to by a divine being. Note vs.16 “But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.” So Jesus says that God the Father also testifies concerning Him. Only divinity can attest to the truth of divinity. No man was there in the beginning with God, only God was in the beginning with God. So if we are going to know the truth about God, then God must divulge it Himself. Finite man cannot know it, therefore he cannot attest to God’s truthfulness.

So Jesus is saying then that God can testify about Himself, otherwise we could not come to know God. God has to reveal knowledge of Him if we are to know Him. Otherwise we worship Him in ignorance. Otherwise we are left to guess how to please God. We have to imagine what God is like or compose a picture of Him based on earthly evidence such as creation. We can in fact learn that God must exist from observing nature, and we can ascertain certain eternal characteristics about God through nature, but we cannot know God fully as He wants to be known simply through nature. He must disclose Himself, He must testify of Himself if we are to know Him. And God has testified about Christ, and Christ has testified about God. He was the exact representation of God, according to Hebrews 1:3.

One of the amazing things this passage illustrates is that although these men claimed to know God, they really did not know Him, because they did not recognize the truth about Jesus. I find this is the problem with many people today. They say they know God, but the god they are talking about is a god of their own imagination. They are merely projecting an idea about God that is a fantasy of their own imagination. Consequently they do not know God at all. Neither do they worship God; they are worshiping a figment of their imagination. As James said, “you say you believe in God, so what? The devil’s also believe and tremble.” You are not saved by believing that there is a god. You are saved by worshipping God as He requires.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had this to say about such people: “Their god is something which they created themselves, a being who is always prepared to oblige and excuse them. They do not worship Him with awe and respect, indeed they do not worship Him at all. They reveal that their so-called god is no god at all in their talk. For they are forever saying that “they simply cannot believe that God will punish the unrepentant sinner to all eternity, and this and that.” They cannot believe that God will do so, therefore, they draw the conclusion that God does not and will not. In other words, God does what they believe he ought to do or not do. What a false and blasphemous conception of God! How utterly untrue and unworthy! Such is the new paganism of today.” That was written about 50 years ago. How much more true it is today.

So once again, the Pharisees don’t want to acknowledge the truth of what Jesus is saying. Instead they try a personal attack to disparage His credibility. Jesus is obviously speaking of His heavenly Father, but they try to disparage His legitimacy by bringing up the rumor of His illegitimate birth. They are insinuating that His father in the flesh, Joseph, who was actually His step father, was not his legitimate birth father, and so then Jesus was born out of wedlock.

Vs. 19 So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” Now you might look at that at first and think, well now, that’s an incomplete answer, He hasn’t said where is the Father. He hasn’t answered their question. But He’s answered the more fundamental question. He said you don’t know Me. because you don’t know my Father. If I produced my Father you wouldn’t even know him. If you had known Me, you would have known the Father. One knows the Father only as he knows the Son. There is no other way to the Father, except through the Son. The God of the Scriptures is only known through the Son. Over and over again the Bible teaches that. The Lord Jesus later on will say, after Phillip asks him, “Lord, show us the Father.” He will turn to Phillip and say, “Phillip, have I been so long time with you, and yet you have not known Me? He that has seen Me has seen the Father. How then do you say, show us the Father.” And then later on he will say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.” It’s impossible to know God except through the Son.

Now John concludes this section by saying in vs.20, “These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.” And I can’t help but think that this is the conclusion of a single thread of teaching that began back in chapter 7 vs. 8 where Jesus said to His brothers, ”Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.” Now in chapter 8vs.20 we see that even though Jesus said all these things in the temple, in the very headquarters of those who sought to kill Him, no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not come. His hour speaking of course, of the hour in which He would lay down His life for the sins of the world.

And I think if you look at this section in total you will see that the theme of Jesus being sent from God, being in unity with God, presenting the truth to the world and then going back to God is consistent throughout the whole section. Implicit in this passage is the principle that God exists out of time, and Jesus being One with God, existed in eternity past, but came into time present, in order to bring the truth of salvation to the world. Those that believe in Him, He promises to give them life, to give them the deposit of their inheritance, the Holy Spirit, and to give them all the blessings of God. But those that reject Him remain in darkness, and as such will ensure their own destruction as they remained condemned by that rejection.

This principle of faith in Christ revealing the truth of God was stated in chapter 7 vs. 17 “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” This is the principle that belief in Christ is self validating, when you submit your will to God, then God will reveal His will to you. You will know the truth, when you submit to the truth that has been revealed to you. Repentance and faith leads to confirmation of the truth.

Those who claim a superficial form of Christianity would rather skip over texts like the one we have in front of us today. Instead they would rather find a text that focuses on some benefit to us, like the power to heal, or the power to perform miracles. Let’s find something that assures us of our specialness. Something dramatic, exciting. The attention of many in the church today is firmly fixed on what they suppose to be the dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit. We don’t want to know God, we want to experience Him.

But if we are going to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, then we need to make sure that our worship is based in sound doctrine, and that our doctrine comes from the facts of the gospel which were written for our instruction. Jesus has much to say here about who He is, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So it behooves us to study this passage thoroughly, that we might fully know the truth of God, so that we might worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and not be led astray by a gospel which is not according to Christ, but manipulated by self serving individuals who wish to twist the gospel to serve themselves rather than serving the Lord.

As I said earlier, to judge according to appearances means to judge according to human experience. Human experience is the fail point of much modern Christianity today. Unfortunately doctrine has taken a secondary place to experience. So then, what we feel, what we think, the way we determine truth, is dependent upon our human experience, our human judgment. And from our experience, or human reasoning, we then interpret scripture or even reject scripture and determine for ourselves what is worship or determine according to our dictates what God is like. But that is not the pattern of the gospel and that is not what Jesus taught. God must disclose Himself to us if we are going to know Him. And we have to submit ourselves to His truth if we are going to be found acceptable to Him. So all human experience must be subject to sound doctrine. And when we believe in Him as He has declared Himself to be, then we must submit ourselves to do His will, and then we will know the truth of God, because the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us as we study His word. That is the pattern of the gospel. Only then can you know the truth that can truly make you free.

I AM the Light of the world, John 8:12

My daughter asked me to solve a riddle the other day. She said the riddle is this; “As I get older, it gets weaker.” What is it that gets weaker? Well, I told her that from my experience there are a whole lot of things that get weaker as I get older. Some of which I can talk about in public and some perhaps are better kept private. But I told her the answer which I think she wanted, and that was my eyesight. The older I get, the weaker my eyesight becomes.

But as I thought about it later, I remembered learning that it is not that your eyesight necessarily gets weaker, which makes it difficult to read, or see clearly. But as you age, your eyes do not receive light as well. And that I know by experience. I can hardly read with my glasses on when I am inside and don’t have a good light to read by. But on a bright sunny day, I can read outside without my glasses on.

Light then, is a great metaphor for the Christian life. Because as Jesus says in vs.12, He is the Light. And as we receive that Light, we have the clarity to see the truth, and then to follow, or obey the truth. And so we see that this idea of light is a common metaphor in the scriptures, particularly in regards to the Messiah.

John has already introduced this idea in chapter one, in his great opening theological statement. He says in vs.4, speaking of Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” And in vs.9 he says, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

So as we read, Jesus confirms this idea that He is the Light by saying, “I am the Light of the world.” And so I want to just focus on this one statement today in an effort to glean all that we can from this important principle.

First of all, let’s consider the setting in which Jesus has made this claim. As you will recall, the Feast of Tabernacles is going on during this time. This was a week long celebration in Jerusalem during which everyone would live outdoors in huts that they had constructed out of leafy branches. This was to commemorate the time when the Jews were wandering in the wilderness after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt. It was a time of festivities and song and ceremonies that lasted 8 days.

In particular, there were numerous ceremonies during this feast that occurred in the temple in Jerusalem. One such ceremony we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when the priests poured water from the pool of Siloam into a basin which ran down upon the altar, symbolizing the water which came from the rock during their sojourn. And you will remember that at that time, Jesus stood up in the midst of that ceremony, after the trumpets had sounded and the water was gushing out upon the altar and He cried out with a loud voice, “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.’”

Then the next day, Jesus is teaching again in the temple, early in the morning, and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. We looked at that text last Sunday. In today’s text, it is probably now the evening of that same day. And as it neared dark, the priests would light these great candelabras, raising them up on pedestals and illuminate the temple court. The white marble and gold plated walls of the temple would reflect this light and as the darkness settled down over the city, the temple became a shining beacon seen throughout the city in which people would gather and celebrate the feast. From historical accounts, it was a magnificent sight, and thousands of people would be gathered there in the court celebrating together their deliverance as a nation by God.

Now the significance of lighting the candelabras around the temple was to remind them that during their time of sojourning in the wilderness, God had provided a pillar of smoke to guide them by day, and a pillar of fire to watch over them by night, for all the years that they were in the wilderness.

The account is found in Exodus 13:21-22 “The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” And in the next chapter it says, in Exodus 14:19-20 “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.”

And then in Numbers 9, I won’t read it due to time limitations, but it says that the cloud covered the tabernacle, and during the evening a pillar of fire over it, so that when it moved, then the camp of the Israelites moved, but when it stayed in place, then the Israelites stayed where they were. The Lord directed their movements by the cloud and by the pillar of fire.

Now that is the historical context of the ceremony for the lighting of the candelabras during the evening. And it was at this point, perhaps at the very moment that the priests lit all the lights and the temple and courtyard were set ablaze by their glory, that Jesus stands up and declares; “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Now there are a number of things that can be understood from that incredible proclamation. The first thing we should point out is that this is the second “I AM” statement that the Lord makes. He has already said, “I am the bread of life.” He will say in chapter 10 that “I AM the Good Shepherd” and that he gives life to the sheep. He will later on say “I AM the door, and that if men enter through him they will have everlasting life. And then He will say “I AM the resurrection and the life.” He will also say “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And finally he will say “I AM the true vine.”

All seven of those “I AM” statements would have been recognized by the Jews as a statement of deity. It would remind them of the meeting Moses had with God at the burning bush, and when Moses asked God for His name, He said, “I AM THAT I AM.” What that meant was that God would not allow Moses to put Him in a box. A name in Old Testament times defined you. But God would not allow Himself to be limited to a name. He has many names because it takes many names to speak of the multifaceted nature of God.

There is I think a disturbing trend among Christians today, especially in the music industry, to call God by the name of Love. God is love. But that is not all that God is. And so we do Him a disservice if we limit Him by naming Him according to one characteristic and denying His other attributes. We must recognize and worship God for who He is, and not who we want Him to be.

But among the Jews, they would have recognized that “I AM” was a reference to God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. So it is a reference to deity. It is interesting that the first words recorded in the Bible that God spoke was “let their be light” in Genesis 1:3. It says in Genesis that in the beginning there was darkness, and chaos ruled over the earth. What a picture of the world without God. But then it says the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said, “let there be light.” That is a picture of the gospel, is it not? The Light became the light of the world. It’s interesting that before the sun was created, Light was given to the world.

1John 1:5 says that God is light. So in effect, Jesus is declaring Himself as God. He is the Light that existed with God and who was God. He is the source of life which is characterized as light. And He came down to a world in darkness and chaos and brought the light of truth. I don’t think I should have to tell you folks here today that the world is in darkness. The world is an evil place. You only need to pick up a newspaper, or spend a few minutes looking at the news on television or the internet and it becomes apparent that the world is in darkness. Jesus said in John 3:19 that even though Light came into the world, men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.

And that illustrates what John was saying in chapter 1 vs.5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Actually the word translated “comprehend” could have two meanings: 1)comprehend as in understanding the Light, or 2) comprehend might be translated as overcome. The darkness could not overcome the Light. In fact, we know that Light has triumphed over darkness. We haven’t yet seen the culmination of that triumph, but the battle has already been won. Darkness may look like it’s winning if you watch the news, but we have seen the headlines of the newspaper of the future. God wins. Darkness loses. In fact, the forces of darkness are already vanquished foes. But we still are called to stand firm and fight the good fight of faith until the Lord comes back.

Also, Jesus is referring to the fact that He was the Light which led the Israelites out of bondage. He was the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and they that followed Him were led out of enslavement in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land.

Now the Messianic metaphor of light is readily apparent in the prophecies, found particularly in Isaiah. In Isaiah 60:1-2 for example, speaking of the coming of the Messiah; “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.” Notice how that prophecy echoes the Genesis account.

And though there are many others, let’s look at Isaiah 9:1-2, which also is quoted from in Matthew 4, “ But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”

All of these and many more speak of the coming of the Messiah as the appearance of light shining in a dark world. I can’t help but think in this context of the Apostle Paul, who before his conversion was known as Saul, the persecutor of Christians. And the reason that Saul was arresting Christians and even putting them to death was because they taught that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. To him this was blasphemy and worthy of death.

So it’s ironic that when God chose to reveal Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus, He did so as a flash of blinding light. It was a light so bright that Saul became blind for three days. God showed Saul that though he thought that he knew the truth, the fact was that he was spiritually blind. The Lord said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And Saul said, “Who are you Lord?” And the voice out of the light said, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.”

That conversion really illustrates the principle of the Lord as light. The world is in darkness, the world is blind to the reality of who Jesus is, and what He came to do. But when the light of God shines in our hearts, it illuminates the truth about Christ, that He came to save us from our sins, and it illuminates the depravity of our sins so that we recognize our need of forgiveness and our need of a Savior.

I just want to emphasize that this illumination is a sovereign act of God by which we see the truth and we see our condition. Without God especially shining the light in our heart, we will not be able to recognize the truth, or to know that we need to repent. So there is a need as it was in the beginning, for the Spirit of God to move upon the darkness and void of our souls, and bring light to illuminate the eyes of our heart, so that we might recognize the truth.

So Jesus is the Messianic Light of the world, the very Light of God, sent by God, so that the world might be saved. And then notice the second phrase; “He who follows Me will not walk in darkness.” Now that symbolically was represented by the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that the Israelites followed as they wandered in the wilderness.

But fortunately, we have a paraphrase of that statement made by Jesus Himself in chapter 12 vs 46: Jesus says, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” So we can understand that Jesus is saying that to believe in Him is to follow Him. You believe that He is the Light of the world, that He was in the beginning with God, and that He was God and all things were made by Him. And if you believe that He came to the world to save the world by His atonement on the cross for our sins, then you simply follow Him, you obey Him, you adhere to Him, you worship Him. You don’t add a little Jesus to an already full agenda. If you really believe He is the source of all life, the source of abundant life, then you forsake all to follow Him. He is the pearl of great price which you will pay anything to have. He is the treasure in a field which finding you sell everything to buy.

It’s like the story of the fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon risked everything to find. If you really found the fountain of youth, then nothing else is important. You move there and live there and drink of it constantly. As Jesus said in chapter 7, “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.’”

I think that the problem with most people today is that they don’t really believe that Jesus is the source of life. They may think that Jesus is an important part of life, but not the only source of life. They see Christianity as somewhere on the lower part of the priority list. It’s important, but not as important as my marriage, or my fiancé, or my career, or money, or sports, or whatever. Not really. We say He is, but our lives say otherwise. Unfortunately, we are not fooling God, but only ourselves.

So not only is He the source of life, He is the guide of life. I think to follow Christ means to become a disciple of Christ. The disciples left everything and followed Him. When Jesus asked them if they too would leave Him, when the great crowd had left Him after one of His messages, Peter said, “where are we to go Lord? For you have the words of life.”

Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” If we truly believe that He is the source of life, then we follow Him so that we may eat of that spiritual food and live. To not follow Him would be to wither away from spiritual hunger. We follow Him because we live by His word. His word feeds us, so that we may grow in maturity to be like Him.

But back to the metaphor of light, we follow Him because as Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” We will walk in the light because we walk according to the word. We follow the light of God’s word, step by step, day by day. This is how the Holy Spirit leads us in the paths of righteousness. This is how we do not walk in darkness. First of all we have the light of the Spirit of God to shine in our hearts. And then we have the light of the word to guide us in the truth.

This is the path of sanctification. Like I have said so many times, as you are obedient to the light God has shown you, He will reveal to you more light. You cannot understand truth and be conformed to the truth, by standing still or sitting in a monastery some where. You comprehend the truth by following, obeying the truth, step by step, each flagstone of your journey another truth of God proven and made manifest by your life, by your discipleship.

I wonder sometimes at so called Christians who I have known for 15 years or so, and they don’t seem to have grown at all. They still hold onto weird prophesies or spiritual fantasies that they held to years before. I wonder why they haven’t grown in their faith. And the answer must be because they have not been obedient to the light God has shown them. They have not allowed the word of God to guide them in the truth. You cannot not grow without discipleship.

The last phrase of Jesus’ statement we have already alluded to, but we will look at it briefly in closing; “But will have the Light of life.” First, as I’ve already pointed out, when you believe in Christ and follow Christ, you receive Christ. Christ is the Light. So when we believe in Him then we have the Light of Christ within us. Then we become lights in the world. As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we reflect the light of Christ. That’s what Isaiah 60 said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come.” We shine because His Light is in us.

But having that Light in us, and then following the Light, also means that we can see clearly. We can have discernment. We have understanding of the word of God. John 16:13 says, ”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.” And in 1John 4:6 we read, “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” So we do not walk in darkness if in truth the Spirit of Christ lives in us. As we walk in obedience to the truth, He illumines our hearts so that we know the truth and have discernment.

And notice He correlates that the Light is life. “The Light of life.” The word “life” is “zoe” in the Greek. It means animated life, abundant life, the absolute fullness of life. It means eternal life, everlasting life. It doesn’t say you will one day get life, but you will have the Light of life, present tense. Zoe life is a present reality, not just a future one.

Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” I know that a lot of people want to take that statement and run to Macy’s with it. But we should all know that is not the right interpretation of that. What He is promising is abundant life, fruitful life, meaningful life, a blessed life, Those that have been in our Wednesday evening Bible studies know what I am talking about when I speak of the beatific vision. It refers to the ultimate source of blessing, to be in the light of God’s countenance. In that place is fullness of life, for He is the pure source of life, abundant life, even eternal life. And you can have that life now, if you will just receive Him and follow Him.

We sometimes hear someone use the expression, “it was like a light bulb went on” to describe an “a ha” moment. A more sophisticated word is an epiphany, which means a sudden revelation of truth. I wonder if someone here today has perhaps heard the gospel for years, and suddenly today a light has shone upon their hearts. Suddenly they had an epiphany, perhaps like Paul had on the road to Damascus, a realization of who Christ is, and what He came to do, and what our response must be if we are to have the Light of Christ in us.

If that person is you, then I pray that you will accept Him today. As His light has shown in your heart, I trust that the depravity of your heart has been revealed, and you know your need of a Savior, of forgiveness. You can have that forgiveness and know the abundant life that God has provided through Jesus Christ through repentance of your sins and faith in who Christ is. Then simply commit to follow Him, leaving all the darkness of this world behind and simply follow Him, and He will lead you and guide you in the truth.

Let me close with the words of John found in 1John 1:5-7. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 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.”

Convicted, but not condemned, John 8:1-11

The subject of sexual impurity of various sorts is at the forefront of evangelical debate these days. For many, the questions surrounding sexuality and immorality are the defining issues of our times. And without a doubt, there are some very serious debates going on in the public arena which may have a great impact on our society, which I would say have already influenced our culture for the worse and will have tremendous negative consequences. So I want to be clear at the outset that what we are going to say today about this particular response of Christ to immorality does not diminish the tragic effect of these issues on our society. God will forgive sin, but that doesn’t mean we disregard or redefine sin. God, not us, has defined sin, and sin has tragic consequences.

As we consider the story before us, I think that it illustrates very clearly that in the eyes of God, all sin is damning. There are not some sins which are more acceptable than others. We cannot climb upon a pedestal and look down at other people who are caught up in some obvious, grievous sin, and then claim some sort of spiritual superiority because our sins are not so obvious, and in our minds, not so terrible as someone else’s.

Paul said in 1Timothy 5:24 “The sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment; for others, their sins follow after.” The point he is making is that all sin requires judgment, and the wages of sin, he said in Romans 6:23, is death. Though some people’s sins are evident, such as the sin of alcoholism or drug abuse or prostitution, going before them to judgment, yet the sins of others are secret, such as hate or lust, yet whether obvious or secret they will face judgment. Either way, both lead to judgment.

James makes it clear that even if you commit only one sin, it condemns you of all sin. James 2:10 “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” So all are guilty of sin, all of us are under the penalty of sin, and only through faith in Christ can we be saved from our sin.

Now let’s look at this story and see how this is illustrated for us here. There are a few points that I would like to make before we get into the main part of the story though. First, there is a debate in theological circles as to the authenticity of this text, or as to to location of this text in the book of John. I don’t wish to spend a lot of time on that, but only to address the notes that you may have noticed in your translation, indicating that some of the ancient manuscripts do not contain this story. But I would point out that the fact that it is included in practically all translations, indicates that though their may be some uncertainty about the text, yet almost all conservative translators and theologians concur that it should be included in our Bibles as the word of God. I would add that John wrote this gospel around 90AD, and by 100 AD or shortly thereafter, it was referenced by a couple of early church leaders in ancient writings. It has been accepted as part of the gospel since the very beginning. But some manuscripts do not include it, some put it in another place, some leave a blank area where it should be, and one manuscript includes it in Luke’s gospel. But most theologians believe that it is consistent with John’s style of writing, it is consistent with scripture as a whole, and it is consistent in it’s portrayal of Christ with the other gospels. So I believe that it is the inspired word of God and as such we will study it as the Word of God.

Another point not to be overlooked is that in vs.53 of vs.7, it says everyone went to their home, and then in vs.1 of chapter 8, it says that Jesus went to the Mt. of Olives. While He is in Jerusalem, He is living outdoors, perhaps spending most of the time on the Mount of Olives. Jesus said in Matt. 8:20 “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” That’s such a poignant statement, and so much can be inferred through this little note that says Jesus went to the Mount of Olives and spent the night out under the stars. This was a daily part of Christ’s life. The very God Incarnate – while everyone else is at home with family and sleeping in a warm house – the Son of God is alone, sleeping under the stars. I find it ironic that there are some who are teaching that Christians are somehow entitled to the luxurious standard of living that we have here in America. What about Jesus’ statement that said, a servant is not above his master? Yet some teach that if you just have faith and ask for a 4 bedroom house with all the modern amenities, then God will give it to you. But yet God let the King of Kings live in the cold and damp outdoors. You know, I have to admit, if God let me live without a roof over my head I would have to wonder about His providence. But maybe that speaks more to our priorities rather than God’s priorities.

And one final note is it says early in the morning, Jesus went to the temple to teach. A lot of good stuff happens in the Bible early in the morning. This seems to be a favorite time of God to work. I know our early service seems to be a hardship on some people, and I wish I could do something to make it easier on everyone. But I believe if you look at scripture, you will find that God is at work early in the morning in more than a few cases, and if we want to get in on some of those blessings, it may behoove us to seek God early in the morning. But I am not going to get dogmatic and mandate that, of course. I just throw that out there for your consideration.

Alright, so to the story; Jesus is in the temple teaching very early in the morning, and the scribes and Pharisees come barging in, dragging a woman who was caught in adultery and they present her to Jesus. Under Jewish law, adultery was considered a capital offense. Lev. 20:10 says “If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.”

Now the interesting thing is that they have only brought the woman. They said they caught her in the act, but yet there is no man brought forth, only the woman. That makes the whole situation suspect. I think it indicates that she was set up, and obviously they are trying to set up Jesus as well. They say to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”

The truth of the matter is that though adultery had a serious penalty attached to it, it was a rare thing in Jewish society to actually condemn someone for it because it was so hard to prove. There had to be at least 2 witnesses to the actual act, not just seeing them go in to a house together or seeing them come out together, but they had to actually catch them in the act. And there is good indication that in most cases it was a law that was not enforced.

So I think it is possible to read between the lines here and suspect that someone had a reason to dispatch of this particular woman. It could be that a man wanted to divorce his wife, and didn’t want to go through all the requirements involved in that, including dividing his money with her and so forth. We don’t know for sure, we can only speculate. But we can say unequivocally that there was something fishy about the proceedings, because there was only the woman caught and not a man. A woman cannot be caught in the very act of adultery alone. That is an impossibility. So the whole thing is a set up.Now that shows the corruptness of the scribes and the Pharisees.

The interesting thing about these scribes and Pharisees is they never seem to catch on that Jesus can read their thoughts. It would be humorous if their hatred was not so vile. I think they would have changed their tactics if they realized that He knew their thoughts. But it’s also indicative of the sinfulness of these men. They have already decided to put Jesus to death. That was established by John in chapter 7:25. He says it was widely known that the Jewish leaders were trying to kill Him. And to do that, they are willing to set up a woman to commit adultery, probably with one of their own leaders, probably having ulterior motives for having her put to death as well, and at the same time they are going to present themselves as being the arbiters of all righteousness. Their hypocrisy and hard heartedness is appalling.

It’s no wonder that when they come bursting in with all of this that Jesus doesn’t answer them at first. He seemingly ignores them, kneels down and starts writing in the dirt. And then they continue to hound Him for an answer, and finally He stands up, says “Let him who is without sin be the first to cast a stone” and then squats down and continues writing on the ground.

Now much speculation has been made concerning what Jesus was writing. There have been numerous suggestions, from the men’s names to various verses of scripture, you name it, it’s been suggested. But the fact is that we don’t know, because John through the Holy Spirit does not think it’s necessary to tell us.

But I have my own theory which I would like to propose to you this morning. Everyone is quick to point out that Jesus is never recorded as having written anything during HIs life on earth. He did not write His own gospel, for instance. And yet John calls Him the Word. But He never wrote a word that we have record of. But what we also know from John is that He was in the beginning with God, and was with God, and was God. So I cannot help but think of two instances, the only two that I can find in the Bible when God wrote something.

The first instance of course was with Moses on Mt. Sinai, when God wrote upon tablets of stone the 10 commandments as recorded for us in Exodus 31:18, which says, “When [God] had finished speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, He gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.”

Now what I suggest is that Jesus wrote the 10 commandments on the ground with His finger as the scribes and Pharisees watched and waited. I don’t know, but I imagine that it took a while, and all the while perhaps the Jewish leaders are getting more and more uncomfortable as they read the words of the Law written there upon the temple floor. And as they read the Law, their guiltiness would have been inflaming their conscience, especially as they watch this poor woman who was undoubtedly sobbing and kneeling on the floor there in front of them. I can imagine that even these hard hearted men began to feel guilty.

You know, I find that people who are living in sin, even when they exhibit a particularly rebellious, indignant spirit, end up feeling guilty just by being around me as the pastor of the church sometimes. I make them feel guilty and I haven’t even said a word. And when I start preaching, even it is unrelated to their particular sin, they will find something to get offended at in my message and go off in a huff and not come back. But I can’t help but notice how their guilt becomes almost unbearable just hearing the word of God.

Anyhow, I think the indication is that Jesus left them on tenterhooks for a while, as He writes the Law upon the ground. Knowing of course, that these are people who prided themselves on knowing the law, and so they would know that Duet. 27 said that to be guilty in one aspect of the law was to be guilty of all of it. So I suggest that it’s a good possibility that Jesus was writing the law upon the ground, as the religious rulers were shuffling from one foot to another, and it was convicting them of their sin.

And if my suggestion is correct, as each of the commandments convicted their consciences, they became ever more incensed. After all, the law of adultery is pretty far down on the list, being number 7. And the law against murder was number 6 by the way. So they are fidgeting, Jesus’ silence is deafening, the Law is condemning them, and so they began urging Jesus to give them an answer. So Christ’s answer to them fits the situation perfectly; “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” At that point, their conviction must have been at a breaking point. You know, I get accused sometimes of preaching too much about sin. But in reality I really don’t think that I do. I just preach the Word of God. God has a lot to say about sin, and the Word of God convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit brings conviction through the Word of God. And as Jesus wrote the Law of God upon the ground, I think it pricked their consciences.

Then it says that Jesus knelt down again and began to write on the ground. Now He could have just continued to write the Law. We don’t know. But as I said earlier, there are two times in the Old Testament that God wrote with His finger. The first was the Law, and the second is found in the book of Daniel. If you remember the story in Daniel 5, Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar was having a feast. He brought in the utensils from the Jewish Temple and was using them to serve his guests. He was not like his father Nebuchadnezzar who had repented. Belshazzar was a wicked man. And suddenly, in the middle of the feast, a man’s hand appeared and started writing on the wall of the banquet hall.

Daniel 5:24-28 says, “Then the hand was sent from Him and this inscription was written out. Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE’–God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. ‘TEKEL’–you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. ‘PERES’–your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

Now this is just speculation on my part, of course. But I can imagine that Jesus wrote on the ground the second time, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.” These scribes and Pharisees would have instantly recognized this famous line from the story in Daniel. And they would know that Jesus was directing it towards them. God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. This is what Jesus would prophecy later on when He came out of the temple, and said that God would destroy it, leaving not one stone upon another. And then “you have been weighed in the scales and found wanting.” These men who wanted to judge this woman according to the law, in spite of breaking the law in order to do it, these men that wanted to murder Jesus, and as such broke the law concerning murder, these men were guilty, they had been weighed in the scales and found wanting. They were condemned by their own standard.

Romans 2:1 says, “Therefore you have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” Jesus in preaching the Sermon on the Mount said in Matt. 7:1-5, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Well, John tells us that one by one, the Jewish leaders began to go out, beginning with the older ones. We could speculate on the distinction as to the age difference, but I would just say that it was the elders who left first, followed by the younger members. Undoubtedly, they were on the one hand convicted of their own sin, and secondly, I think they were undone by the wisdom of Christ. You see, they had set a trap for Jesus. Either way He answered, they thought that they had Him. If He said she did not deserve to die, then He was guilty of going against the Law of God. If He said she should die, then He was guilty of going against Roman law which forbid the Jews to execute anyone. That is why when they eventually sought to crucify Jesus they took Him to the Roman governor to pronounce death and provide the Roman soldiers to carry it out.

But Jesus brilliantly evaded their trap, and at the same time provided a means of grace for the woman. Note that Jesus does not say that the woman did not deserve death, but says, “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.” None there could say after that soul searching time when Jesus wrote on the ground, that they were without sin. Their sin was staring them right in the face.

I think it’s also evident that the woman was in fact guilty of adultery. She might have been set up, she might have been left to take the fall all by herself, she may have been duped to think that the man had loved her, but she was still guilty of adultery. The woman doesn’t deny it, and more importantly, Jesus doesn’t deny it, and He knew the heart of the woman. And Jesus said He did not come to annul the Law but to fulfill it. So the woman was guilty and deserved death, and Jesus knew that.

But Jesus also said in John 3:17 “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” See, the Law condemns man. That was the purpose of the Law, to bring men to conviction so that they would recognize that they needed a Savior. Galatians 3:24 tells us, “Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.”

Now the Jewish leaders are convicted of their sin, but they are just embarrassed by it, so they leave. There was no repentance. There was no faith in Jesus Christ. If anything, they exhibit by their later actions that they hated Him even more. So they filed out, and they rejected the only one who could save them from their sins.

The woman, on the other hand, has very little to say. Or at least, John records only three words of this woman. Perhaps she was sobbing so hard, there was little else she could say. You know, I can’t help but feel sorry for this woman, and I know Jesus had compassion on her as well. My reason is that this poor woman was doubly hurt. She was upset that she had been caught in adultery and marched into the temple in front of everyone and basically sentenced to death by the Pharisees. But she also must have been crushed to be so deceived and duped by some guy who said that he loved her, but who was only using her. I don’t want to make excuses for the woman’s sin, but I do think that sin does not negate compassion.

People are deceived. That is why they go into sin. They believe the devil’s lie, that it will be good, it’s not so bad, it will be fun, it won’t hurt you, it’s not addicting. It’s all a lie. Sin is a cruel master that hopes to enslave you, and ultimately destroy you. Sin is a lie, and it is from the devil, the father of lies. But Jesus is the truth, and the life, and when you come to know the truth, the truth will set you free. That’s why we need to have compassion on the lost. They are deceived. I know that sometimes it’s hard to be compassionate, sometimes they attack you personally, they hate you because you are destroying their lie, upon which they have built their life, which they have sold their soul to. But our job is to have compassion on them, and snatch them like a brand from the burning, and compel them, convince them of the truth, because they are being destroyed by the lie of Satan. This is the battle we have been called to fight. Not against the sinner, but FOR the sinner. Against the lie, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places. But not against the sinner. We are called to have mercy and compassion and go to them, suffering whatever is necessary in order to bring them the truth.

Now I believe you have to read a little between the lines in this story, and certainly that is the case with this woman. She was left alone with Jesus there in the court of the temple. And Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

First of all, I believe this woman knew that she was a sinner. She had been caught in the act. She had been duped perhaps, but she knew that she was a sinner. That is so important. People must come to understand that they are sinners. And that is possible because the Law reveals what sin is. Don’t misunderstand that. The Law is necessary, or we would not know what sin is. That’s the danger with this whole culture war out there about homosexuality or transgenderism. Go back to Leviticus 20 and read it for yourself. It lists all kinds of sexual sins. They are all there, and it’s the Law of God, the Word of God. And it’s still relevant today. The law teaches us that we need a Savior.

So she was repentant, because she recognized her sin, and she knew it carried the penalty of death. But note that she called Jesus Lord. Some translators have it as “Sir” but in the KJV kyrios is translated as Lord 667 times, lord 54 times, and sir 12 times. I think she was calling Him Lord. It was a title in Jewish culture which was given to God and the Messiah. It means ruler, master, sovereign. I like the first definition listed under kyrios, which is “he to whom a person or thing belongs, about which he has power of deciding.” This woman was not only recognizing Jesus as Messiah, but recognizing that He had the power of deciding her fate, because she belonged to Him.

So Jesus forgave her of her sins. He said, “neither do I condemn you.” Now there are a couple of things to notice in that statement. First, is He was the only One there who was innocent of all sin. So He had the right to condemn her of sin, and He had the right to punish her. And yet He says, “neither do I condemn you.” Now how can He say that? Can He just do away with the Law? Can He do away with justice just because He feels like it? Well, no He cannot and be true to HIs nature as God. God is just and holy and the righteous Judge over the earth. And God is also a God of love and compassion and mercy. But how are the two contrasting natures married? The answer is a principle taught in the Law; the principle of the substitution of the innocent for the guilty. This was the principle taught by the system of sacrifice in Levitical law. But in the New Covenant, God does not stop counting sin, God counts sin upon Jesus Christ. He is the innocent One who was slain for the guilty.

Jesus could forgive this woman her sins because He would take her sins upon Himself and die on the cross so that she might be forgiven and have eternal life. 2Co 5:21 says, “[God] made [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Ladies and gentlemen, that is the gospel. God hasn’t stopped counting sin, but for those who believe in Him, trust in Him, surrender to Him, God counts our sin against Jesus, and so He crushed Him, bruised Him, whipped Him, nailed Him to a cross and let Him hang there until He was dead, so that He might transfer our sins to Jesus, and transfer Jesus’ righteousness unto us, so that we might be called sons of God, and be given an inheritance with Christ, sharing in His glory in heaven. What a tremendous thing is this gospel!

Don’t forget the last phrase that Jesus said to her, “Go and sin no more.” We that have been saved are declared righteous in the sight of God, but sin is still sin. Sin still has consequences. Jesus has paid the penalty of our eternal punishment; death. But sin is still sin, and there are consequences to sin. Paul said sin shall not have dominion over you now in your new nature. And we now have the Holy Spirit in us to convict us of sin, to teach us and lead us into righteousness. He has written the Law of God upon our hearts as Paul says in 2 Cor. 3:3, “you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” That is the third time God has written, He has written in our hearts. We have the law of God written upon our hearts so that we might walk according to His will.

If you have trusted in Jesus this morning for the forgiveness of your sins, then go, and sin no more. You are a letter of God written to the world, His law is written in your heart, that you might walk in His statues and keep His commandments, so that the world might know from your life the compassion and love of God and be saved. John said in 1John 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

All who are thirsty, Come. John 7:25-53

 

In this section of scripture, John records for us, at first glance, the highlights of what transpired on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and in that context, a few seemingly disconnected declarations of Christ and various remarks from those in attendance. And though it might be possible to give a running commentary on those disparate statements and try to tie them together into a sermon of sorts, I wanted instead to focus on primarily one statement of Jesus found in vs.37-39, which I believe is the main point of this section of scripture.

In this declaration, Jesus stood up in the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles, also known as the Feast of Booths and shouted out this statement in a loud voice. Now this was a shocking thing that Jesus did at a very strategic moment. But in order that you might get the full import of what happened, let me tell you a little about the Feast of Tabernacles which will help us to understand the context.

There were three great feasts which were mandatory for every male in the vicinity of Jerusalem to participate in; the Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles is described in Leviticus 23. That feast occurred in the 7th month, and began on the 15th day, and lasted 8 days, from Sabbath to Sabbath. In this feast, the Jews were required to make huts or booths or tabernacles from green leaved branches, and to dwell in them during the week, so that they might commemorate the deliverance of Israel from bondage in Egypt, when they wandered in the wilderness. It was to be a joyous feast, a time of rejoicing.

One of the special ceremonies involved in the feast was on the last day, the priest would go to the Pool of Siloam, and dip a golden pitcher in the water and bring it back through the water gate to the altar. As all the people gathered together, the trumpets would sound, and He then would pour the water into a basin which would run down through pipes to the altar. This was to signify the water which flowed from the rock when the Israelites suffered from thirst in the wilderness.

It was at just this point, when all the people are gathered together, and the trumpets had sounded, and the priest lifted the pitcher of water and the water gushed down upon the altar, that Jesus stood up and shouted in a very loud voice, “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.’”

Now that certainly was guaranteed to get everyone’s attention, wasn’t it? I can imagine that everyone stopped and turned and stared incredulously at this person shouting out in the middle of this ceremony. So I want to examine this incredible declaration this morning and see what we can learn from it and how we can apply it to our lives. Because, though the context of Christ’s statement was in reference to the Feast of Tabernacles, the truth of His words are just as relevant for us today.

The first phrase that I would make note of this morning is “if anyone is thirsty…” The correlation between the murmuring of the Israelites in the desert when they became thirsty for water and Christ’s invitation at the Feast should be apparent. God led the Israelites into the wilderness, and fed them with manna from heaven in the morning, and quail in the evening. He provided a cloud to guide them by day and a pillar of fire by night. He gave them victory over their enemies, and delivered them from slavery. And yet He allowed them to become thirsty so that they began to cry out.

Why did God allow the Israelites to become thirsty? I would suggest that it was to make them to desire God and to recognize their total dependency upon God. I would remind you that Israel is a picture of the church. And sometimes God allows us to suffer thirst as well. I would go so far as to suggest that if there were not difficult times in our life, then there would be little if any times of spiritual growth. Though the grace of God provides all things for us to enjoy, and gives us life, and breath and health and many such things which we all too often take for granted, yet God allows us to remain thirsty for that which satisfies the soul.

Men and women are continually seeking that which can never satisfy, which can never quench the burning thirst that all men feel in their soul. We may try to satisfy our soul’s thirst with physical things, material things, but nothing on earth can satisfy the longing of our heart. Pascal, the philosopher said there is a God sized hole in our hearts that only He can fill. And Solomon in Ecclesiastes 3:11 identifies that vacuum by saying that God has set eternity in their hearts.

It’s interesting that when Jesus said “out of his innermost being,” or literally, “out of his belly” He used a word in the Greek which is “koilia”, from the root word “koîlos” which means hollow, or cavity. St. Augustine spoke of this very thing, when he said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

And yet still man does not seek for that which satisfies, but seeks to slake his thirst on things which can never satisfy. In Isaiah 55, God says, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?” The world today is eagerly seeking for something that will fill the void in their life, something that will satisfy the thirsting of their soul, and yet as the old country song says, they are “looking for love in all the wrong places.”

I would suggest that is because mankind does not naturally seek the Lord. Romans 3:10-11 says, “as it is written,’THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE; THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD.’” Unless God stirs the heart, unless God brings conviction, unless God brings a person to a place of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, then man will continually seek to fill that void with things that can never satisfy his soul, and if he should die without the water of life in him, then he will be forever spiritually dead.

In Israel’s case, they had known the goodness of the Lord, and as a type of the church, we might say that they were a picture of the saved, believers if you will. But yet they turned back to the worthless and elemental things, they lusted after those things which they had been delivered from in Egypt, and as such God was not pleased with them.

I cannot leave this first question, without asking you this morning – what are you thirsting for? Does your soul thirst for God? Can you say like the author of Psalm 42, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?” The question, “are you a believer” or “are you a Christian,” is much overstated I am afraid. I think the answer is better evidenced than spoken. And if you are not thirsting for God, for the living God, the living water, if you are not coming to appear before God at every opportunity, whether corporately or privately, then I would suggest that the evidence shows your desire is set on things of earth and not things of heaven.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” If you find yourself in that state of the prodigal son, having grown tired of the husks and pods of the world which cannot fill the need of your soul, then Jesus said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” That is the next phrase I would like to think about for a moment. Let him come to Jesus.

Listen, all the thirsting of your soul cannot be slaked in anything, nor in anyone but Christ. He is the Living Water, which as He said to the woman of the well in chapter 4; “whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Coming to Jesus is the same as believing in Jesus. If the sovereign call and conviction of God causes the spirit of man to thirst for righteousness, then coming to Jesus is the response of man. No man can come to God unless the Lord draws him, but yet man must believe. This is the doctrine of both the election of God and the responsibility of man. Both are necessary.

So if you are thirsty, you must come to Christ. The reason that nothing else can satisfy the longing of the soul but Jesus is because He is the source of life; John 1:3, All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. He is the sustainer of life; Hebrews 1:3, “And He is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And thirdly, He is the Spirit of Life; Romans 8:2, 9-11 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. … 9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”

This is what Jesus had been trying to make clear to the people gathered in the temple that day. He began by saying that He was teaching the word of God in vs.16, that He was sent from God in vs.28, that He knows God because He is from God, in vs.29, and in a little while He is going back to the Father in vs.33. So to come to Christ is to believe in Him, that as John says in chapter 1, He was in the beginning with God, and He was God, and all things were made by Him, and He came into the world, and the world did not receive Him, and after He rose from the dead He ascended back into heaven to sit down at the right hand of God. So in effect, Jesus is restating the same message He gave in Galilee in chapter 6, vs. 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.” And that believing in Him is equated to coming to Him. Vs. 37 “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

This idea of coming to the Messiah as the source of life is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 55:1 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; And you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” This is the invitation of Christ to all men everywhere and at every time as stated in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Let me ask you a question this morning – are you tired yet? Are you tired of the rat race, are you tired of searching for peace, are you tired of searching for what might satisfy your soul? Come unto Jesus. Unload your burdens at His feet. Let Him have your sins and your sorrows. Let Him bear your burdens. And He will give you rest. He will give you rest when you finally reach the place where you are ready to surrender fully to Him. Don’t hold anything back. But lay it all down, all your sins, all your striving, all your works, all your life, lay it down at the cross and find that Jesus has paid it all, and provided all that you will ever need. And in Him you will find rest for your soul.

There is one more important element though in Jesus’ invitation. And that is drink. Come to Him and drink. And I suggest that to drink of Christ is to trust Christ. That means to follow Him, to live for Him, to leave all that you have in order to be His disciple. You could realize this morning that you are very thirsty. And I could offer you a glass of water. You could believe that I have a glass of water in my hand. But until you drink of it, you will not be satisfied. Drinking of Christ is the same idea as we saw in the last chapter with eating His flesh. It is appropriating what is true about Christ for yourself and acting upon it. Listen, saving faith is active faith. Abraham believed God so he left Ur of the Chaldees, not knowing where he was going, and he went out to the place God told him to go. Abraham believed in the promise of God that He would produce an offspring from Isaac through whom the world would be blessed, and so he offered his son upon the altar. There is no separation between active trust and faith.

As I have said before, there are three aspects of saving faith; notitia, knowledge; assensus, assent or agreement; and fiducia, trust. And we see all three in this invitation; knowledge that you are thirsty and cannot find satisfaction, assent is coming to Jesus, believing that He is the source of life, and trust, drinking from the fountain of life which is Christ, being willing to submit to His will and renounce your own. That is saving faith. Not just intellectual. Not just knowledge of a few Bible facts. Not just believing that He lived 2000 years ago. But believing that in Him is life. And then entrusting your life to Him, even if that means forsaking all that you hold dear, all that you hold onto for security. Trusting Him and obeying Him.
Then what is the promise for those that know that they are thirsty, come to Jesus and drink of His fountain? The answer is found in vs.38, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this is an interesting statement. Jesus has just likened Himself to a stream of living water which gives eternal life to all who drink of Him. And now He is saying, that to those who believe in Him, they also shall have living water springing up out of their soul. Now how shall we interpret that?

Well, to start with look at the next verse. John gives us some commentary in vs.39 so that we might know what He is speaking of. “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” So we know that the rivers of living water that flow from the believer will be of the Holy Spirit, which at that time was not known because Jesus had not ascended into heaven and sent to the saints His Spirit.

In John 15:26 Jesus tells the disciples prior to His crucifixion, that “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” And Jesus elaborates on that statement further in the next chapter, 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.”

So what Jesus is promising is that for those that believe in Him unto salvation, He will give them the Spirit to live in their soul, so that we might know the words of Christ, that we might do the works of Christ, and so that we might be like Christ. That is the goal of our salvation, is it not? That we might be united with Christ, so that we might do the works of Christ, and that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.

O ladies and gentlemen, do not be deceived by those that misrepresent the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He came to give us life, and without His indwelling presence, we have not life. Romans 8:9, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” We cannot be saved unless we are born again by the Spirit. We cannot have life unless the Spirit of Life gives us life. And we cannot do the works of God unless we have the power of Christ that flows from our innermost being.

Listen to the prophecy of Ezekiel 36:24-27 “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

The Spirit of God not only is the agent of regeneration, but He is the agent of activation, whereby we desire to do the works of God. So that we are able to walk in His statues, and keep His ordinances. He is the power filling us and flowing from within us which empowers us to do the will of God. So that we become the channel by which the living water is spread to the world.

The maturity of a believer is marked by becoming a channel by which the gifts of the Spirit are used for the edification of the body of Christ. For the building up of the body. For the water of life that flows from you to those who are thirsty, even to those who are lost.

Listen, the goal of Christianity isn’t so that you are set up for success, and have all your material needs met, and fulfill all your physical goals, so that you are fulfilled and satisfied. No, the goal of maturity in Christ is coming to a place where the gifts of the Spirit are utilized to bring life to the world around you. That you become like Christ, doing the work of Christ. Reaching the lost with the water of life, refreshing the body with the water of Christ which flows through you and out of you. Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that you might dam up the water and keep it all to yourself, but so that it might flow from Him to you, through you, to another and so spread to all the world. You are to be a conduit for the flow of the Holy Spirit, not a culdesac.

I’m not going to prolong the sermon this morning expounding the remainder of the text. I believe that it is fairly straightforward and as such is easily understood. But I do want to leave you today with an admonition, to consider what you are thirsty for. What is your soul thirsting for? Is it thirsting for material gain, or for physical fulfillment, are you searching this world over for things that will never truly satisfy? I hope not. I hope that someone here today recognizes perhaps for the first time that they are thirsty for righteousness. They long to be forgiven, to know freedom from the burden that they are carrying. And for that person I say, Come to Jesus. Drink from the living water. He will give you rest. He will satisfy your longing and give life to your soul.

And also a word to the saints, to those who already have claimed to come to know Jesus, and have believed on Him. I would remind you of the Israelites who murmured and complained in the wilderness because they were thirsty. God supplied all their needs, and delivered them from so much, and yet they found themselves thirsty because they turned back in their hearts to the flesh pots of Egypt, and so God brought them to a place of thirst.

My question for you this morning believer; are you thirsting once again for things of the world? Have you lost your first love, and turned back to those elemental things from which you were once delivered? They could never satisfy you then, you think they will satisfy you now? Are you not supposed to be growing in the grace of God so that the living water flows out of you and brings life to others who are thirsting? Has your appetite for the world overshadowed your usefulness as a channel for God? I hope that you will reconsider your appetites. David prayed for the Lord to renew a right spirit within Him. A broken and contrite heart He will not despise. Present your bodies to God as a living and holy sacrifice, and He will once again cause your innermost being to flow forth with rivers of living water, that you might be the source of blessing to others, even as Christ is the source of all blessing for you.

The truth will set you free, John 7:17-24

I am going to put to the test your spiritual acumen this morning. I know it’s early, and maybe you can’t think all that well first thing in the morning. Todays message is not a story, maybe not so easy to understand, but nevertheless it is essential doctrine that must be understood and followed if we are going to be true disciples of Christ. So consequently, I am not going to approach this text today in my typical fashion of exegeting each verse in order, but I’m going to expound on a few verses from the text, not focusing so much on the historical content but hoping to bring us to a deeper understanding of the underlying doctrinal principles found here.

I hope that most of you here today would already know the fundamental doctrine that salvation is by faith. We read a passage that illustrates that last Wednesday in Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” So salvation is by faith. But what is faith? That is the question. Well, we have the Biblical definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” So you can combine those truths by saying that salvation is by faith in what is not seen, but believed to be true and evidenced by my life.

Now that is the essence of what Jesus said in John 7:17, isn’t it? “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” So what Jesus is saying is believe in Me, and believe that My words are the Word of God, and then be willing to do what I say, and when you do that the truth will be evidenced. Now that is counter intuitive, isn’t it? Be willing to obey what God tells you, and when you do His will, the truth will be evident. That’s contrary to the way we normally do things. We want to see the evidence, the proof before committing. But Jesus says My words are truth, and when you are willing to believe that and do it, then you will know the truth.

Now that segues into another important statement of Jesus, which is found in the next chapter, 8:31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” See, freedom doesn’t just come from accepting that Jesus lived on earth, or that God exists, or even from knowing that the Bible contains truth. True freedom comes from knowing experientially the truth. That means that you submit to it, and obey it, and act on it, even though all the evidence may not be apparent when you start to do it. That means that our faith which saves us is not just an intellectual assent, but trusting in what God has said, even when we can’t see the proof of it.

Jesus says you must continue in My word, if you are truly disciples of mine. Continue means to keep on being obedient, to keep following His commands, to keep walking by faith in the path of God’s truth. That continuance proves that His word is truth. As we continue in it, we prove it, and as such we know it. It’s so important to recognize the difference between realizing something is truth in a detached kind of way, and appropriating that truth to the point of trusting in it for yourself and committing yourself to it. When you trust in God’s truth, so that you prove it, you know it is true, THEN the truth will set you free. A lot of people believe in a kind of theoretical way that God’s word is true, or contains the truth, but they have never acted upon it, and as such they have never been set free.

So being set free, what does He mean? What does it mean for the truth to set you free? Free from what? Well, Jesus makes it clear that you are set free from the bondage of sin and death. Jesus said in 8:34, that “everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” But that the Son will make you free indeed. And so freedom comes from doing the will of God, even when that means not relying upon the natural senses for evidence, or upon your common sense, or even academic evidence, but believing what God says is truth, and acting upon it.

Now let’s look at the next statement of Jesus which will help us to see how this is acted out and applied in our walk. Jesus accused the Jews of breaking the law of Moses which they claimed to be upholding, because they were trying to kill Him. And of course, they deny it. So in vs. 22 Jesus said, ”For this reason Moses has given you circumcision (not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?”

Now first we need to understand circumcision in order to understand the text. I’m sure everyone here has a general idea of what circumcision is without me having to go into detail. But do you know what circumcision symbolizes? It represents the cutting away of sinful flesh, so that you might live in the Spirit. It was a picture of the man’s sinful nature which is passed on from generation to generation, and which needs to be cut away in order for the promise of blessing to come from God.

Jesus is referencing circumcision because it was routinely performed on the Sabbath when a child’s eight day after birth fell on Saturday, and even though it was considered work it was acceptable because it was mandated through the law. Jesus, on the other hand, was being condemned for HIs work of healing the lame man on the Sabbath. So what Jesus points out is the hypocrisy of saying that it was ok to cut away the flesh through circumcision on the Sabbath and yet condemn Him for freeing a man from the enslavement of the flesh on a Sabbath.

See, when Jesus healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda back in chapter 5, He not only removed the impediment of the flesh, but He gave him life in the Spirit. The lame man, you will remember, encountered Jesus in the temple, and Jesus revealed Himself to Him, resulting in salvation; new life in the Spirit. So that this man was able not just to walk physically, but to walk in the Spirit, to walk as a new creation in a new life. This is a picture of salvation for us. The Sabbath then, argues Jesus, should be a day for freeing men from enslavement to the flesh so that they can walk in the Spirit.

Now let’s make sure we understand all that is implied by this new life in the Spirit. First of all, when you are given new life through salvation, you are given a new nature. That’s the good news. But the bad news is that you still have the old nature. So now there are two natures in you warring against one another. Rom. 7:22-23 “For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members.”

So there is within us a war between the old man and the new man, or the physical versus the spiritual.  Which one wins is up to you.  Which one becomes dominant depends upon which one you listen to, the one you are obedient to. The way of faith is to cut away the old nature. Or to look at it another way, to starve the old nature. To ignore it’s cries for the lusts and passions that it craves. In effect we put to death the flesh, or as Paul said, we “crucify the flesh” and walk in accordance to the Spirit. That is the way of sanctification, and the way of a true disciple.  That’s the way to have fellowship with God, to love God, and to know the truth of God experientially in your life. This is the path to freedom, to put away the old nature, and put on the new nature.

I was trying to explain this to a Christian the other day who had backslidden and fallen back into sin. And so I likened it to waking a sleeping dragon. There should be a sign posted in your soul somewhere which says, “don’t feed the dragon.” Because when you wake him up, and then feed him, he is going to want more, to take over your life again. The only way to deal with him at that point is to starve him to death until he becomes too weak to roar any more and eventually becomes dormant. So Paul says we wait eagerly for the final redemption of our body when this natural man is exchanged for a glorified, sinless body.

Unfortunately, so many Christians miss out on true freedom because they are looking for some sort of experience or feeling or emotion that shortcuts obedience. But there are no shortcuts. God works through our sufferings to bring us to sanctification. Even Jesus, the Bible says in Hebrews 5:8 “leaned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

Sometimes you may not feel close to the Lord.  But the way that intimacy happens is the result of listening to the truth, then obeying the truth, and then the feelings come as you are being obedient.  Don’t rely on feelings. But as you draw near to God, He will draw near to you and as you trust the Lord, and rely on the Lord, and have intimacy with the Lord, then you will experience the joy of the Lord.

So this new life in Christ requires that we put to death the old nature, and live according to the new nature. Or to say it another way, to turn away from the old paths, renounce the old lies of the world, and walk after the Spirit, according to the truth of God’s word. Ephesians 4:21 tells us to do that very thing.  “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.  Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God–truly righteous and holy.”

Listen to what Paul says about this new nature in Romans 8:4, I’m going to read from the New Living Translation; now that we are in Christ we  “…no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.  Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.  So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.  For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.  That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.  But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.)  And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.  The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.  Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.  For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.  And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.  Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.”

Now that is the practical application of what it means to cut away the flesh through circumcision. What Paul calls having been circumcised in our hearts. This is the practical application of what it means to walk by faith and not by sight, to walk in the Spirit and not according to the flesh. It is living according to the new nature, and putting to death the old nature. Letting go of the things of the flesh which are our security, in which we put our hope, and trusting in that which is unseen, yet true, things of the Spirit.

Then notice the next statement of Christ which I want to capitalize on, verse 24; “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” Now I don’t want to go sailing off on a different tack with this verse, but I can’t help but point out this verse to those people who like to quote “judge not, lest you be judged.” Here it says we are to judge, but to judge with righteous judgment. Now I will let you figure out what that means in that context.

But to stay within the context of my message this morning, I would just say that this statement is really the culmination of all I have been trying to say to you. And that is, that we cannot depend on our natural sight, but we must use spiritual discernment if we are going to know the truth so that the truth will set us free. But unfortunately as Christians, I think far too often we hold onto a token amount of what we think is the truth of God, presumably to secure our salvation, but we still hold onto, and rely upon the great variety of lies from the world and the devil.

In other words, we claim Christianity, but we live as if it’s all about the here and now. We say we trust God, but in reality we trust what we can taste, touch, or feel. And that is not exactly the life of faith, is it? Not according to the definition of Hebrews 11:1 – “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Now Jesus rebukes these Jewish leaders because they were judging, or looking at things as they appeared outwardly. They did not have spiritual discernment because they were not spiritual. They had not been born again by the Spirit of God. They did not have the Spirit of God in them, so their spirit was dead. As 1Cor. 2:14 says the “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.”

Listen, these Jewish leaders prove that it is possible to be very religious, to be knowledgeable about the Bible, to claim Jehovah God as your God, and still be spiritually dead, and as a result, spiritually blind. I worry about some people that attend our church from time to time. If you asked them, I’m sure they would claim to be a Christian, and yet they do not understand the kind of things that I am talking about today. And even more to the point, they live very obviously in the here and now, as a citizen of the world, entranced by the things of the world, and perhaps unbeknownst to them, enslaved by the world.

This statement of Christ could be said differently and still, I think, retain the principle that Jesus is teaching. We could say, “don’t look at things as they are externally, and be attracted to them or believe in them. But look at things spiritually, and be attracted to the things unseen. That is spiritual discernment so that you might know the truth.

That is what Jesus means when He said, “judge with righteous judgment.” He’s not necessarily talking about judging people, He is talking about spiritual discernment. Having eyes that have been opened spiritually, so that you might know spiritual truth. Spiritual discernment is being able to know truth from error, to recognize the lie of this world, and believe the truth of God’s word.

Now these Jewish leaders missed the truth that would have set them free because they were looking at external things, and depending upon external appearances. They loved the externals. They loved banging a gong or blowing a horn to announce their good deeds. They loved the chief seats in the synagogues, the seats of prestige and power. They loved parading their good works and claiming their righteousness based on the law. They loved their long robes and funny hats and all the bells and whistles which showed their religious pedigree.

Jesus did none of that. I don’t think you could have picked Jesus out of a crowd and said anything special about Him. Isaiah 53:2 says, “He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should ]be attracted to Him. 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.”

So the Jews scorned Him because He came from Galilee where they believed the second class citizens lived. They scorned Him because they didn’t think that He had the right credentials to be a teacher. They derided Him because He hadn’t graduated from the right rabbinical schools. They scorned Him because they were jealous of the authority with which He taught, and the power that He had. They looked at Him in derision because they didn’t think that He had the right kind of evidence of being the Messiah that they considered important. Ultimately, the thought that if they needed a Savior, it would have to be someone more important looking than He was in order to be of use to them. So they rejected Him on the grounds that He didn’t meet their expectations, and I also I think because they were afraid that the kind of kingdom He was espousing would result in them being dethroned from power.

And as a consequence they did not believe His teaching. And because they didn’t believe His words then of course they would not do His will, and because they would not do His will, they would not know the truth, and because they did not know the truth, they were not set free from their sins.

I’m afraid a lot of people are like the Jewish leaders. They are happy with a form of religion, which is a religion made up of half truths. Which amounts to nothing more than a lie. But they are happy there, perched upon their thrones, in which they judge truth based on their criteria. From the throne of their self rule they live as they want to live, and do as they want to do. And as such they reject the will of God, living in the natural world, while claiming to have some part of the spiritual.

But that is not the way of the new life. We must cut away the old nature if we are going to be set free from sin and live in the new life. And that happens through true repentance. That is really what Jesus is saying in vs.17. If you are willing to submit to do God’s will – that is repentance, you give up your will in exchange for God’s will. If you repent, then God will give you His Spirit, and having spiritual discernment, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

I hope that you will examine yourself today in light of God’s word and see if you are really of the faith, or if you have never actually renounced the world, put away the old nature and lived by faith in the new nature. True discipleship is simply recognizing truth from God, then submitting your will to obey the truth, and asking God to help you be obedient to the truth. I pray that you will believe the truth, and that the truth will set you free.