When I was a boy, I remember my Dad, who was the pastor of our church, saying that his favorite song was “Mansion over the Hilltop.” He wasn’t a very good singer, but when the church would sing that song, he really seemed to enjoy it. The lyrics were not the most doctrinally correct perhaps, but the sentiment was sound. It went something like this:
“I’m satisfied with just a cottage below, 
A little silver and a little gold
. But in that city where the ransomed will shine,
 I want a gold one that’s silver lined.”
(Chorus
)“I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop, 
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
. And some day yonder we will never more wander, 
But walk on streets that are purest gold”

Today we are looking at a passage in which that promise of a mansion in heaven found it’s origin. And there is a great controversy among theologians and commentators as to how the word translated mansions in the KJV should actually be rendered. Most of them say it should be rooms or dwelling places. And that may be more accurate. But I would suggest that a room in heaven is more than equal to a mansion on earth.

However, rather than quibbling over semantics, today I want expound this text in light of the greater context of this passage, which is difficult because we don’t have time to teach the entire Upper Room Discourse in one sitting. But one of the problems with studying passages like the one in front of us today is that we tend to look at it in isolation and as a result we can end up with a distorted doctrine.

So as an attempt to bring the proper context to these verses, I want to remind you that Jesus says these words in response to his earlier declaration in ch.13 that He was going away, and the dismay on the part of the disciples upon hearing that. Peter in particular said he wanted to go with the Lord, and Jesus said ““Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”

Now the question is, where was Jesus going? Many people seeing the earlier statement He made that the time had come for Him to be glorified assume that it meant that He was going to heaven. And indeed Jesus does go to heaven eventually in His ascension. But the path He would take to heaven would be circuitous. First He would go to the cross. He would suffer and die there and be buried. And then while His body was in the tomb, Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18,19 that “having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,” speaking of Hades. Then on the third day He rose from the dead, appeared to the apostles for 40 days, and then in the presence of 500 witnesses, ascended into heaven. So as Jesus says in vs.12, “I go to the Father.” But it was not immediately.

Nevertheless, the disciples hear Him say that He is going away and they cannot come with Him. They heard Him speak about His betrayal and death. And so they are troubled by those statements. If they understood Him properly, Jesus, who they believed was the Son of God, the Messiah, who had walked on water, who had fed multitudes, who had healed the sick and raised the dead, was Himself going to die. And so they were confused. They were troubled. They didn’t understand. They began to realize that they were going to be bereft of their Master and Lord and they did not know how to handle that.

So Jesus statement in 14:1 is meant to assuage their fears, to offer them comfort. Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” I have heard sanctimonious Christians say that it is sinful to worry or to fret about the future. And there may be a sense in which it can indeed lead to sin. But I would suggest that to worry about the future is human nature. It is a weakness of the finite human condition, but it is not necessarily sinful.

Furthermore, I would point out to you that three times in the preceding three chapters, John says that Jesus Himself was troubled. In John 11:33, when Jesus saw the grief of the mourners for Lazarus, it says He “was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.” In chapter 12, vs.27, Jesus Himself said that “Now My soul has become troubled,” when He considered His impending death. And in chapter 13 vs 21, knowing that the time had come when Judas would betray Him, it says, “He became troubled in spirit.” So because we know that Jesus was sinless, then I can say confidently that to become troubled, or upset, or even to worry about an impending event, is not sinful. And that Jesus has compassion, not condemnation, for those who are troubled.

So He says, “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me.” So first off, our hearts may not be troubled because Jesus has gone before us. We can face the uncertainty of our future because according to 1John 2:1 we have an advocate with the Father which is Jesus Christ the righteous. We may not be troubled about the future because we have an Advocate with the Father, eternal in the heavens, who has gone before us and taken the sting of death upon Himself, taken our punishment upon Himself, who was the first fruits of the resurrection and who lives evermore to make intercession for us. Because He overcame sin, we can overcome sin. Because He overcame the grave, we will overcome the grave. Because He lives, we will not die, but live forever with Him. So to believe in Him is to be comforted, because though He says in this world we will have trouble, He has overcome the world.

Secondly, we can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus is God. “You believe in God, believe also in Me.” This statement teaches us the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. We can be untroubled about our trials because as John 1:1 says He was with God, and He is God. We can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus and God are united in person and in power, as Jesus said in John 10:28, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” We are doubly secure in the love of God.

Thirdly, we can be untroubled by our trials or future because Jesus is preparing a place for us. Vs.2, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” 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.” But God had prepared a place for him and for his descendants. It was about 500 years before Abraham’s seed inherited the promised land. But when they entered into it, each family was given property, an inheritance as the Lord had promised. Vineyards they had not planted, cities they had not built. A land flowing with milk and honey.

In like manner, Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us, a dwelling place for His church, and inheritance, said Peter in 1Peter 1:4, “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.” So we are not troubled by the trials of this world because as Hebrews says of Abraham in chapter 11, we are “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”
Hebrews 11 goes on to say that those Old Testament saints persevered in this life, recognizing that they were strangers and aliens in this world. That is I think the secret to not being troubled by the trials and pressures of this world. It is not to simply think that God will somehow work all of it out so that we can get on with our prosperity and success and enjoy life. But it is not having your hope set on earthly things but your focus on heavenly things.

Paul said he was torn between staying here on earth or going to be with the Lord. He said to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, and that was very much better. But if he was to stay on in this world, then it would mean fruitful labor for him. And that is a good illustration of what it means to be heavenly minded. It means kingdom minded. Keeping your focus on what you can do to build the kingdom of God, and to manifest the kingdom of God to the world until Christ takes you home.

Last week was the anniversary of William Tyndale’s martyrdom. Tyndall was an Anglican priest in the Church of England in the 1500’s. And he became convinced that the Bible should be translated into English from Greek and Hebrew. He wanted to do that himself, but he knew that it wasn’t possible in England due to the feelings of the church about keeping the Bible in Latin. So he traveled to Germany where he translated the Bible, and eventually the first five books of the Old Testament. But to do that, he had to move constantly for fear of retaliation and arrest by the church. Eventually however, they arrested him, having been betrayed by a friend for the reward offered. and he spent about a year in prison awaiting trial. Finally, in 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer was that the King of England’s eyes would be opened and this prayer seemed to be answered just two years later with King Henry’s authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England, which was largely from Tyndale’s own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, played a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire. In 1611, the KJV Bible was produced and printed, which borrowed significantly from Tyndale’s work. Tyndale was a man who lived his life in expectation of the reward, he was looking for a city and a country which has foundations, whose architect and builder was God. And I think we can be confident the such a man received a great inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.

Fourthly, our hearts are not troubled by this world because we know that Jesus is coming back to take us to be with Him. Notice that Jesus doesn’t really talk about heaven. He simply says that He will take us to be with Him. Heaven is where God is. And though I believe that heaven is a real place, I don’t think it aligns with our common understanding of it. I believe a lot of people misapply the visions of John regarding streets of gold and gates of pearls to a literal place that matches that description. But if you read that account in Revelation 21, you will discover that it is describing the bride of Christ, called the New Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven to replace the earth after it is burned up.

Peter had this to say about this end of the age, in 2Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

I don’t want to use this time today to give you a discourse on heaven. The Bible actually has very little specifics on the subject. But suffice it to say that where Christ is, that is where heaven is. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” And Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” It doesn’t matter where it is, as long as Christ is there it is heaven.

But I do believe that the Bible teaches that there will be a second coming of Christ and a resurrection. 1Thess. 4:13 says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

That is our comfort. That belief that Christ is coming back for us is how we can keep our hearts from being troubled in a world of chaos and confusion. Paul said in 1 Thess. 1: 9, that we that are saved are to turn from idols and serve God and “wait for God’s Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.”

Then in vs.4, Jesus says, “And you know the way where I am going.” As I was studying this verse I could not help but think that the sentence construction was odd. It just didn’t seem to sound like the best way of expressing what I thought Jesus meant. At first glance, you would suppose He is saying the disciples know where He is going, and they know how to get there. That is obviously how Thomas interpreted it. He said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?”

But Jesus isn’t talking about a destination. Jesus was referring to the way of salvation. He is saying, you know the way of salvation. You know the way into the kingdom of God. And an illustration of that is that in Acts we have six times I believe when Christianity was called The Way. Paul said he persecuted unto death those of The Way. That meant Christians. It wasn’t until Acts 11 in Antioch that they were first called Christians. Prior to that, it was called the Way. And perhaps that name finds it’s origin in Jesus’s statement right here. “You know the Way where I am going.” The Way then is not just a destination but a means to get there. A path. Jesus had been preaching for three and a half years concerning how to enter the Kingdom of God. And so the disciples knew the way into the kingdom. It was by Jesus and through Jesus only.

And Jesus confirms that in vs.6, saying, ““I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus is the Way, with a capital W. He is not necessarily making three parallel statements in this declaration. But I think He is making a declarative statement in I am The Way. He is saying, I am the means of salvation, the way to God, the entrance into the Kingdom of God. The Way to God is only through Me.

But then Jesus adds two explanatory clauses to clarify The Way; 1)the truth, and 2)the life. The Way is the truth, and the Way is the life. I think that is how He means it. He is saying this; that the Way is the truth in a world full of deception. Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s end is the way of death.” This is the lie of Satan since the beginning of time. He told Eve that if she disobeyed God, then it would mean she would be wise like God. He told her that she would not die. But Satan lied, as he is the father of lies and the truth is not in him. And what promised life for Eve resulted in death.

Satan has propagated his lies throughout the earth. He promises life, happiness, wisdom, but it produces only death, despair and foolishness. Jesus, on the other hand, it says in John 1:14, was full of grace and truth. He spoke the truth of God. Jesus is The Way and the Way is the truth of God.

And so logically, The Way produces life. Because God is life. John says in chapter 1 that Jesus is the source of life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” And there cannot be life without truth. That is why we put such an emphasis here on preaching the full truth of God’s word. Without the truth, there can be no life. A partial truth is just a concealed lie, and that cannot bring about life.

So the Way results in life, not just earthly life, but eternal life, abundant life. When you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you receive life. Eternal life. Abundant life. Real life. What this world offers is only temporal life. It’s like life in black and white, like a dumb animal kind of life, without reason, without wisdom, being subject to the passions and lusts of the flesh and being held captive under the bondage of sin. There may be a sense in which one doesn’t realize that his life is futile and finite. I don’t think my dog realizes that he is a dog. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is an animal. He is not of higher intelligence. And I think the unsaved are like animals in a sense. They are ignorant of the life of God. They live in darkness. But there will be a day when the light of Christ will make their ignorance apparent. And at that point, the Bible says that the world will mourn Him who they pierced.

That certainty of Christ’s coming is a comfort for those of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior. But the certainty of Christ’s coming should be a cause for concern as well, because it means judgment for those who have rejected Jesus as Lord and Savior. I think while many Christians agree in doctrine with the exclusivity of the statement that Jesus made, yet in practice they seem to imagine that there will be an escape clause somehow for their loved ones who are not saved.

But Jesus makes it clear, no one comes to the Father except through Him. Those who are not found dressed in His righteousness alone by faith, will be cast out into outer darkness. They will have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God. They have no part in the family of God. They will not dwell there, but will dwell in eternal darkness, separated from God for eternity.

So while we are to be comforted by Christ’s words, we should also be warned. Jesus told us to expect Him to come at an hour we did not suspect. He is coming soon. Let us be about the Kingdom of God. Let us keep our focus on the city without foundations, whose architect and builder is God, and let us bring as many as we can to faith in Jesus Christ while it is still day, for the night comes when no man can work.

Love is a word that is so overused in the church today that it has practically lost all it’s relevance to Christian life. Ever since the Beatles sang “All you need is love,” the church has tried to tie Christian love to the world’s definition of love. Perhaps it was an attempt to woo the world to the church, by taking away any offense of the gospel and dumbing it down to a one word description which the world would find appealing. The result though has been very destructive to the life of the church. Because the Bible makes it clear that love is to be the defining characteristic of the church, but if we don’t really know what love is, then it’s unlikely that we can manifest it.

In today’s passage, we are continuing in our study of Jesus’s Upper Room discourse. There are five chapters in John which are dedicated to this one final evening of Christ’s ministry. Five chapters of last minute instructions before Jesus is crucified the next morning. So far, we have looked at the Lord washing the disciples feet, which I called an animated parable about Christian love. Then we looked at the personification of those that reject God’s love, which was the defection of Judas. Today, we are going to look at the commandment of love which Jesus gives to the church. This new commandment is found in vs.34, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

And as I see it, this passage is broken down by John into three segments. First, is love manifested, second, love commanded, and thirdly, love rejected. Or you could say, what love looks like, what love does, and what love is not. Let’s look at them in that order. First love manifested. Or what love looks like.

When Judas leaves the supper and goes out into the darkness, Jesus says in vs.31, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.” Notice first of all that 5 times Jesus says the word glorified or a variant of it, glorify. A logical question then is what does Jesus mean by using the word glorified?

Well, we talked about this a few weeks ago, because back in chapter 12:23, Jesus had said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And if you will remember I pointed ahead to today’s passage as a means of answering that question – what is meant by the word glorified? And as I pointed out then, Jesus was not talking about receiving glory from the Jews, but He was speaking of the hour of His death. He was looking forward to His death in a few days, realizing that His ministry coming to an apex, and that his crucifixion was the means of His glorification.

How bizarre it is to our human ears to hear of death and glory being correlated. We tend to think of being glorified as being lifted up, exalted, praised, adored – that sounds like our version of glory. But Christ saw His death as the means of glory. He was lifted up, but He was lifted up on a cross, to bear our sin in shame and reproach, that He might redeem us from the curse of death. That He might buy us back. Glorification then was Christ magnifying God’s attributes in a visible way, which was accomplished on the cross.

So that act of self sacrifice is the manifestation of divine love. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son to die on the cross for our sins. Christ’s death manifested the magnificence of God’s love. God displayed His love for the world by hanging on a cross atop a hill in Jerusalem.

So as the church seeks to define Christian love, we should look for our example at the cross. It was there God defined love. Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” God displayed His great love by sending Jesus to die on the cross. And Jesus displayed His great love, by willingly laying down His life for the church.

That act of sacrifice manifested Christ’s love. And Christ’s love manifested God’s love. That is what Jesus means when He says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” That is how Jesus can tell Philip in the next chapter that if you have seen Him you have seen the Father. Jesus glorifies the Father because He does the works of God. And then Jesus goes on to say that God will glorify Him in Himself, that is by God Himself, and will do so straight away. God’s love for the son will be revealed in Jesus’s resurrection, and exaltation. So God was glorified in Christ by his death upon the cross in obedience to his Father’s will.

Christ’s love teaches us that obedience is always tied to Christian love. Jesus says in the next chapter, 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And John says in his epistle in 1John 2:4, “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.” So you see that love is manifested or glorified by obedience.

Empty praise, or words of affection for God is simply not enough. It is meaningless unless accompanied by deeds which manifest such love. And even God’s love for the Son is predicated upon the Son’s obedience. Hebrews 5:8 says that Jesus learned obedience from the things which He suffered. The late theologian John Murray said, “God has forged an inseparable link between sufferings and glory.” He went on to say “My life has the chisel of God upon it.” As we share in the fellowship of His sufferings, we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, and that glorifies God in Christ Jesus.

So then, the glory of God is revealed in the love of God which is manifested in the suffering of Jesus Christ. He laid down His life for the church. He was obedient even to the point of death. He laid aside His privileges in order to offer Himself as our substitute, for our benefit, so that we might be reconciled to God. He is our example of love. There is no better example, or more complete example of love than that of Christ Jesus. And from His example we learn that Christian love is sacrificial. It is humble. It is putting other’s needs first. It is obedient to God’s will. And that kind of selfless love was displayed most majestically in the glory of the cross.

Secondly, let’s look at love commanded. Or what we must do. First let’s notice the reason for the commandment. And that is because Jesus said He is going away. He is returning to the Father. And He says that they cannot come. They are going to have to stay here on earth and continue Christ’s ministry. They are going to build His church and be the shepherds of His church. So He gives them a new commandment, a mission statement for how they will carry on His ministry without Him. He has just finished giving them a new ordinance in the Lord’s Supper. And as was customary in the Passover meal celebration, the father would explain the meaning of each item of the meal, and at certain times would instigate questions for the children, so they might learn the meaning of the celebration. So it is in this meal with Christ, acting as the father administering the ordinance, He calls them His “little children.” He is instructing them in the significance of the New Covenant in His blood, which is symbolized in the Lord’s Supper.

So even as the Old Covenant was accompanied by commandments, so the New Covenant has a corresponding new commandment. And the new commandment is that they are to love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

Remember when Jesus was questioned about the law, and asked which was the greatest commandment? Jesus gave them two laws which encompassed all the Old Testament commandments. In Luke 10:27 Jesus answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” All of the commandments of the law were fulfilled in those two.

So in a similar fashion, Jesus gives us just one commandment in the new covenant, and all the commandments are fulfilled in this one. Love one another. Notice, He says it twice. Love one another. That is the commandment. But then in an echo of what we just explained from the previous verses, He says love one another even as I have loved you. We love one another as Christ loved us. As Christ laid down His life for the church.

Ephesians 5:25 tells us we are to love our wives “as Christ loved the church and laid down his life for her.” That’s the standard for Christian love. Laying down your life is not simply being willing to die, but willing to lay aside your prerogatives in life, laying aside your career, laying aside your rights, laying aside your dreams of fulfillment for the sake of someone else. We love others because He first loved us. Like Christ; We love those who cannot reciprocate, we love those who are unlovely, we love even those that hate us, who treat us badly, even our enemies. Those are all manifestations of Christ’s love for us.

There are two attributes then of this love towards others that Christ commands us to do. First, you will love one another as Christ loved us, and second, you will be known by your love for one another. Since Jesus is going away, He will be manifested by our love for one another. He will be served by our love for one another. We must be to the church what Jesus was to the church. We carry on His work, His ministry. And so we do that by loving one another even as Christ loved us. That means we put other’s needs ahead of our own. That means we serve one another as Christ served us. That means we sacrifice our prerogatives for the sake of a brother or sister. Christian love is not sappy sentimentalism, but sacrificial. I like Vernon McGee’s quote, who said, “I’m tired of sloppy agape.” The world’s view of love, and unfortunately too often imitated by the church, is that of sloppy sentimentalism that masquerades as love.

But Paul gives the right perspective of love in 1Cor. 13:4, “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Compare that for a moment to John Lennon’s version from his song titled “Love”, which I would suggest is the world’s view of love. He sings, “Love is real, real is love, Love is feeling, feeling love, Love is wanting to be loved, Love is touch, touch is love, Love is reaching, reaching love, Love is asking to be loved.” Now that is sappy sentimentalism. If I were to draw a distinction between the world’s view of love described by Lennon, and that of Christian love described by Paul, I would say that Lennon’s love is characterized by getting, but Christian love is characterized by giving. The common or worldly view of love is all self directed. Love is how I feel, how it makes me feel, it’s all generated towards myself. Thus when it ceases to satisfy me I can so easily turn away from it and look elsewhere for satisfaction.

But even the mystics and the Greek philosopher’s agreed that the greatest end of man is to help others, and not just help oneself. It is what is known in Latin as the “summum bonum”, the highest good. To live for oneself is to descend to the depths of narcissism. And a narcissistic society is the ruin of any civilization. Unfortunately, you need look no further than the Facebook craze and the accompanying selfie fixation of modern society to recognize that we are on the downward slide of civilization as we know it.

But Christian love, agape love, is the characteristic of the saints, who are being made in the image of Jesus Christ. We are a new society, a new civilization, looking for a better and abiding country.And Jesus said as we exhibit that kind of love to one another, we will be known as His disciples. This kind of love exhibited towards one another, becomes a testimony to the world that we are transformed, we are different by design, that we are God’s children, and we are the image of Christ. Our sacrificial love becomes our testimony.

Then finally, let’s look at love rejected. Or what love is not. In vs.36 Simon Peter *said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” Peter *said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” Jesus *answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.”

I’ve said before that I believe Peter loved the Lord. But I think his love for the Lord was a worldly type of love. I think it was a passionate, impulsive, emotionally based love. And so consequently we see Peter always acting rashly, without thinking. That kind of passion without the tempering of truth resulted in errors in judgement.

You can see evidences of that in this dialogue. Peter is impatient, he is impulsive. His love for Christ is passionate, but lacks temperament. He wants immediate gratification. He doesn’t want to wait for the Lord’s will. He wants to conform Christ to his own will. We saw that in Matthew 16, when Jesus declared that He was going to die, and Peter said, “O no, Lord. That will never happen.” And Jesus said, Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

At the crux of Peter’s problems is his superficial love for Christ. When it comes time to count the cost of what it means to love Christ he fails the test. So it was that when the persecution came upon Christ that Peter’s passionate, but superficial love for Christ was exposed, causing Peter to desert Christ, and then coming back only to stay at a distance, and then to deny Him three times. The trial revealed the shallowness of Peter’s love for Christ. When it came time to count the cost, to lay down his life for his Lord, his faith turned to fear. His love went cold.

So it is with many Christians today. We say we love the Lord, we say we love His church, we say we love one another when the sun is shining and everything is going our way, when there is no price to pay. But when things turn nasty, when the hour belongs to the power of darkness, when we stand to lose something dear to us, then our love of self takes over. Christ takes a backseat, and we take over the steering wheel of our lives again. Our love for Christ is revealed in the difficulties and trials of life. Love is tempered in the fire of trials. And “God” said Spurgeon, “gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction.” That is where love is tempered through selfless obedience in suffering.

That’s why when Christ sought Peter out after His resurrection, and He wanted to bring Peter back into usefulness after his denial of Christ, Jesus asked Him three times an achingly poignant question. “Peter, do you love Me?” “Peter, do you love Me?” “Peter, do you love Me?” And Peter is almost beside himself in agony that Jesus keeps asking him if he loves Him. But each time, Jesus answer is virtually the same. “If you love, then feed My sheep.” What was Jesus saying? “If you love Me, love My sheep.” That is what Peter needed to understand. And that’s what we need to understand. Love is obedience. Love is sacrificial. Love is humble. Love is suffering for the sake of others.

Love one another, even as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. “Love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” That is our mission statement. That is our testimony. Let us lay aside our lives for one another even as Christ laid aside His throne for a cross.
I want to end by reading part of the letter from Paul to the church in Rome found in Romans 12, where he speaks of laying our lives down as our worship to God. Laying down our prerogatives, laying down our rights for the sake of Christian love. Listen to this admonition from Paul; this is the kind of love we need to have that the world might know we are Christ’s disciples.
“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. 2 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 [e]acceptable and perfect.
3 For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4 For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6 Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; 7 if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; 8 or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.
9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; 11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, 13 contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16 Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Last week we looked at the washing of the disciples feet as what I called an animated parable of Christ-like love, or sacrificial love. And according to Christ, that kind of love is supposed to be the defining characteristic of the church. Jesus said in vs.35 that “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

So I would suggest to you that this Upper Room Discourse is really a discourse on the foundational doctrines of the church. The disciples constitute the church. Jesus is no longer publicly ministering from this moment on. He has retreated from the crowds and taken the disciples apart to the Upper Room, and for the next few chapters, we have the record of detailed instructions for the church. Those who are saved, who have been set apart.

These next four chapters then, through chapter 17, are essential doctrines of the church, to enable it to survive after Jesus leaves Earth. And so it is fitting, that as the church’s main characteristic is that they should love one another, that there would be this animated parable of Christ washing their feet, to be an illustration of how to love one another.

But in today’s passage, we see another illustration of a characteristic of the church. And that is illustrated by none other than Judas. Today we are going to take a different approach from the usual verse by verse exegesis. I am not interested in merely regurgitating the historical facts of Judas’s treason. I think everyone here is probably very familiar with the facts of Judas’s betrayal.

Perhaps what we aren’t so familiar with however, are the spiritual applications taught by this event. So I am not going to focus on expounding historical details, but instead I would like to show you the spiritual lessons that Judas’s betrayal teaches concerning the church. Because I think that is one of the major reasons that John includes this information for us. He is not writing a day by day biography. None of the gospel writers really do that. They were not writing a biography of Jesus, but they were writing a gospel. The gospel is an account or testimony given to reveal the good news about Christ that leads to salvation. So what is included in them is selected for that purpose. And that is especially true in John’s gospel.

So to that end, I would point out first of all, that Judas is a type. A type is a person, or thing or event that symbolizes a truth or doctrine or person. Though Judas was an historical figure and the facts given here are true and happened as presented, I believe he also serves as a archetype for a certain kind of individual that is present in the church.

And I find evidence for this theory right here in Jesus’s statement in vs.18, “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.’” Jesus is quoting from Psalm 41:9, which says, “Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” Jesus is correlating Judas’s act of treason with another act of treason committed 1000 years earlier in the life of David by a counselor known as Ahithophel. Ahithophel was a highly regarded counselor to King David, whose words were thought of as the voice of God. That’s how highly thought of he was. But when Absalom rebelled against his father, Ahithophel also rebelled against King David and went over to Absalom. And though I don’t have the time to go into all of that this morning, I will say it’s interesting to note that when the rebellion went wrong, Ahithophel committed suicide by hanging himself. He suffered the same fate as Judas.

So Jesus is quoting from the Psalm to show that Ahithophel was a type of Judas. And so I think it is fair to say that in turn, Judas represents a type of a certain kind of person in the church. The church is presented often in the Bible as a place for demonic activity, and false prophets to arise, and for all kinds of error to occur. One great example is Jesus parable of the mustard tree in Luke 13:19 in which He spoke of the kingdom of heaven, which is the church, “It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and THE BIRDS OF THE AIR NESTED IN ITS BRANCHES.”

At first blush, that sounds like a good thing. The tiny little mustard seed grew so huge that the birds made nests in the branches. But when you consider it, you realize that it is not a good thing. Because mustard seeds do not naturally produce giant trees, but bushes. So the tree is abnormal. It has become a monstrosity. And the birds sound innocuous enough, until you remember the parable of the sower, where Christ identified the birds of the air as the devil and his angels. So you have a picture given by Christ of the church which would grow and spread beyond it’s intended size, to encompass even the devil and his angels who would find refuge there.

Now that’s quite an alarming picture of the church. On the one hand, we just had this beautiful picture of sacrificial service and love that should exist in the church as we imitate Christ’s love for the church, and now on the other hand this grotesque picture of abnormality and demonic activity, which results in rebellion, and treachery, and which undermines Christian fellowship.

So I shouldn’t even have to point out that even in this passage this demonic activity is going on right under Jesus’s nose. Right in the midst of His most trusted insiders, the 12 disciples, one of them was a devil. One of them was under demonic influence to destroy the church even as Christ is administering the rites of the Passover, which was the precursor to the Lord’s Supper. In fact, as Jesus gives him the morsel, it says that Satan entered into him.

Let that be a lesson to all of us. Simply because something happens in a church, or during a church service, does not mean that everything that happens there is of the Lord. That’s why we are told to test the spirits. There are birds in the branches, and sometimes, there are demons in the rafters.

And I would point out another noteworthy thing. None of the disciples knew that Judas was the one who would betray Him. Jesus knew it, of course. In vs.21, Jesus “became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.’” But notice the response of the disciples. Vs.22, “The disciples began looking at one another, at a loss to know of which one He was speaking.”

The disciples were clueless as to who Jesus was referring to. In fact, the other gospels tell us that they began to search themselves, asking, “Lord, is it I?” They would have never guessed it was Judas. Judas after all was the treasurer. He carried the money bag. You know, Matthew had been a tax collector. He had been basically an accountant by trade for the Roman Empire. If there was a natural choice to be treasurer you would think it would have gone to Matthew. But instead it was given to Judas.

And I believe it was because Judas was above reproach in the eyes of the others. Literature and media often portray Judas as an evil looking character, scheming, conniving with features you would expect from such a person. But I would suggest the exact opposite. I would suggest that Judas was quite literally what we might call a handsome devil. He was sophisticated. He was educated. He was of a more noble Judean heritage than the rest of the disciples who were thought of as low brow Galileans. Judas was considered philanthropic, caring for the poor, trustworthy, above reproach. And yet he was used by the devil to conduct the most nefarious treachery known to man.

The Lord Jesus, of course, knows all of this in advance. He knows the heart and plans of Judas. He knows He is an imposter. A poseur. And yet Christ is more than accommodating to Judas. Christ never calls him out, or reveals him as a thief. Christ never publicly condemns him for his hypocrisy. And that is what Judas was, a hypocrite. The Greek word for hypocrite means to be an actor on a stage. Doing what he does to be seen of men, to gain their applause and acclaim. And if we are to believe the accusations of the world, then the church is full of them. Judas must have been a very good actor.

In some respects, Judas is presented here as a foil to Christ. He is darkness, and Jesus is Light. He is of the devil, Jesus is of God. Judas’s motives are selfish, Jesus’s motives are unselfish. Judas’s sin is pride, Jesus’s virtue is humility. Judas is the black backdrop against which the brilliance of Christ shines.

The life of righteousness of Jesus caused contrition in the disciples, but it caused frustration in Judas. But Jesus’s kindness towards Judas only served to embolden Judas to be even more conniving. He thought he was getting away with it. He may even have thought he was justified in his actions because of some perceived failure of Christ. He continued to harden his heart until he conceived of the most vile treachery the world has ever known.

The application to the church should be obvious. There are going to be people in the church who appear to be the icons of virtue. And yet they are unredeemed. They are unsaved. Or they are living in rebellion. Judas is a picture of how possible it is to be apparently so close to God, and yet be so far away from Him spiritually. In fact, it’s possible to be in the church and be used as an agent of Satan to spread dissension. The prophet Samuel said in 1Samuel 15:23, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

Matthew Henry said it this way; “We are not to confine our attention to Judas. The prophecy of his treachery may apply to all who partake of God’s mercies, and meet them with ingratitude. See the infidel, who only looks at the Scriptures with a desire to do away their authority and destroy their influence; the hypocrite, who professes to believe the Scriptures, but will not govern himself by them; and the apostate, who turns aside from Christ for a thing of naught. Thus mankind, supported by God’s providence, after eating bread with Him, lift up the heel against Him! Judas went out as one weary of Jesus and his apostles. Those whose deeds are evil, love darkness rather than light.”

Jesus gave the reason why Judas rebelled and rejected the love of Christ in vs.20, which was because he did not receive Christ. In the first chapter of his gospel, John says, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,” (John 1:12). So it is possible to be a member of a church, a visible disciple, called a Christian, and regarded as a Christian by other Christians, and still not have your heart respond to Jesus and surrender to his will. Such rebellion spurs dissension in the church, and the result is often the same as happened to the disciples; in just a few hours they are scattered. That is the strategy of Satan to overthrow the church from within, and that is why rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

I want to you to see something else in that statement from Christ in vs.20, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.” The primary meaning of “receives” is to accept Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. That is what John 1:12 says constitutes salvation. That is the means of becoming the sons and daughters of God. But there is another aspect here of receiving that Jesus mentions. And that is, that he who Christ has sent acts as the representative of Christ. So that when you receive them, or their teaching, you receive Him. I believe that Jesus is referring not only to the apostles, but to those He will send to the church after His resurrection.

And Paul speaks to that in Ephesians 4:8; “Therefore it says, ‘WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN.’”
Then Paul tells us what those gifts are which He gave to the church in vs.11, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”
So in the foundational years of the church Christ gave the apostles, and in these last days, Christ has given us pastors. Now that should serve to emphasize how important it is to go to a church where you know the pastor has been called by God. He is the representative of Christ to the church. He is to accurately give God’s word to the church, so that the church might grow in relation to Christ. To raise up mature Christians.

Going back to the parable of the mustard tree, there are many churches to pick from today. There are many who are claiming to be pastors and teachers. But I would suggest that on a grand scale, there are not many that are sent by God. There are not many that are called by God. And though James warns us that not many should become teachers, for they shall incur a stricter judgment for their words, yet the evidence suggests that there are more teachers than ever. But the Christ and the apostles warned the church that this was to be. 2Peter 2:1 says,
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies.”

But the hearer also has a responsibility to receive the truth and walk in the truth. We reject the truth at our peril. I doubt that Judas conceived of his treason when Jesus first chose him to follow Him and become a disciple. I’m sure that Judas had every nothing but good intentions at the beginning of Christ’s ministry. He was probably excited. He was attracted to Jesus and the whole idea of the kingdom of heaven. But little by little, he started rejecting certain truths, rejecting teaching that he found incongruent with his own ideas. We know from scripture that he began to criticize Jesus and the way He did ministry. He undoubtedly found fault with the way Jesus called people out in public. I”m sure his gentrified upbringing found such outbursts embarrassing. And so for three years though he walked with Christ externally, internally he was rebelling against Him. It was a slow decent into apostasy. Remember what Samuel said, “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.” It opened the door to demonic influence.

MacLaren says in his commentary: “Again, any evil is possible to us, seeing that all sin is but yielding to tendencies common to us all. The greatest transgressions have resulted from yielding to such tendencies. Cain killed his brother from jealousy; David besmirched his name and his reign by animal passion; Judas betrayed Christ because he was fond of money. Many a man has murdered another one simply because he had a hot temper. And you have got a temper, and you have got the love of money, and you have got animal passions, and you have got that which may stir you up into jealousy. Your neighbor’s house has caught fire and been blown up. Your house, too, is built of wood, and thatched with straw, and you have as much dynamite in your cellars as he had in his. Do not be too sure that you are safe from the danger of explosion.”

Well, what safeguard then does the church have? How can we defend against these demonic influences and baser tendencies among us? Well, I would suggest the best safeguard is to not think too highly of yourself. Humility is the opposite of pride. And Jesus showed in washing the disciples feet the importance of humility. Of putting other’s needs before your own. Sacrificial, Christ-like love is the antidote for the poison of the serpent’s attack on the church.

But there is another necessary hedge against pride, and that is illustrated in the disciples’ question, “Lord is it I?” The disciples exhibit a wholesome recognition of the evil which is possible in us all. They do some soul searching to see if there was any wicked way within them. None of them looked at another and thought, “I bet he is the betrayer.” But all of them save Judas looked in their own heart and recognized their weaknesses, recognized their sinful tendencies, and came to the Lord with a contrite heart.

Our defense against rebellion is recognizing that all sin has a common origin, and that is living for myself instead of living for God. Putting my agenda before God’s agenda is idolatry. Putting my needs ahead of others is iniquity. And from such seemingly inconsequential beginnings, a monstrous tree might grow that harbors the very demons themselves.

I think there is an apparent dismay in the disciples response, in Peter’s question to John, and John’s question to Jesus, that indicates how distressed they are by Jesus’s words. They are heartbroken over the possibility that one of them would betray Christ. And I think that kind of brokenness is indicative of the right kind of heart in the church that keeps one from rebellion.

That attitude is found in Eph. 5:8 which says, “for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light, (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” That last phrase I think is key. If you love the Lord, you will try to please the Lord. I believe the disciples strove to please the Lord. They didn’t always do things right, but they had the right attitude. They loved the Lord and tried to please Him. Judas was about pleasing himself. He wanted to serve himself. But a child of God walks as Christ walked, imitating Him, and tries to please HIs heavenly Father.

And that is something that has to be learned. That goes back to the job of the pastor/teacher of Ephesians 4, he is teaching and edifying the saints so that they grow in maturity, they grow in Christ likeness, to ultimately please the Lord, to ultimately glorify God. And the church needs to receive such pastors that preach the truth as having been sent by God. To reject the truth is to reject Christ’s counsel. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Well, I’m out of time and I feel like we have only scratched the surface here. But let me just try to summarize a couple of things in closing. A frequent debate in theological circles is whether or not Judas was a Christian. And I would just answer that this way. Only God knows the heart. Jesus knew the heart of Judas. But one thing is evident to us and that is that the disciples certainly believed that Judas was a Christian. They thought he was above reproach. He was the best of them, or so they thought. It reminds me of 1 Cor. 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man.” Don’t let yourself think that you are above the sin of rebellion. Don’t let yourself be blind to the possibility that you may have put yourself back on the throne of your life.

As Jesus dipped the bread into the paste to hand it to Judas, we should see in that action a choice that we all have to make, sometimes even on a daily basis. On Jesus right side was Judas. He had given Judas the place of honor at His table. And on His left side is John. After taking the sup, Judas was entered into by Satan. He went into the darkness after eating the morsel. That is a picture of eternal damnation. John on his other side represents the beloved of God. He calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. He doesn’t leave Jesus’s side. He is spoken of as practically sitting in Christ’s lap. HIs relationship is marked by love for Christ, closeness to Christ, fellowship with Christ, dependency, leaning on Christ. That is the type of person that Christ loves. Those who lean on Him. Who look to Him for communion, and for Lordship.

Two men, two choices, two types of relationships, two outcomes. One goes into eternal darkness and damnation, and one goes into eternal Light and Life. One hangs himself in remorse, one lives in a spirit of repentance. It reminds me of the two thieves on either side of Jesus just 12 hours later as He hangs on a cross, dying for rebellious sinners. One man cursed Christ and died, going into everlasting darkness, and one man received Christ as Lord and lived with Him in Paradise that very evening and still lives today.

F. F. Bruce said, “Satan could not have entered into Judas had he not granted him admission. Had he been willing to say “No” to the adversary, all of his Master’s intercessory power was available to him there and then to strengthen him. But when a disciple’s will turns traitor, when the spiritual aid of Christ is refused, that person’s condition is desperate indeed.”

Today everyone here is pictured as one of the two men on either side of Christ. You are either like John or you are like Judas. There is a choice before each of you as to which you will consent to. If you renounce your sin, and receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you will receive the blessings that Jesus spoke of earlier. “If you know these things, then you are blessed if you do them.”

Jesus has come to earth to give us an invitation. You can either enter into His kingdom, or you can reject it in favor of your own. But you have to choose. You can’t have both. I pray that you don’t reject the truth. “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name,”

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

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

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

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

I was listening to a PBS broadcast the other day, and someone was attempting to define love according to their understanding of it, and they said, “for me, love is caring.” That was the way they defined love for themselves. And the world has done quite a job of redefining what love is. But God has defined love as He intended it to be. And that love is illustrated by sacrifice, particularly the sacrificial love of Christ, who laid down His life for us. He has defined love in Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But I think in most cases, it was just simply a matter of unbelief. It was just a matter of rejecting the truth because it wasn’t convenient. It didn’t fit with what they wanted to believe. So when you reject the truth in favor of another way, you are an unbeliever. You are unsaved. There are not many paths to God. There is not such a thing as your understanding of God, versus my understanding of God. There is no such thing as worshipping God as you understand Him. Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And He also said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.” We must believe in God as He has manifested Himself to be. Nothing less will suffice. Jesus said, You MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth.

So they rejected Jesus, and consequently they were still dead in their sins, they were still unsaved. And they would suffer the consequences of their decision.

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

So John illustrating that fact quotes from Isaiah 53, one of the most famous Messianic passages of the Old Testament. He quotes in vs.38, “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?” John says that this rejection of Israel was to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy of Isaiah 53. Now how was that prophecy fulfilled? Well, because Isaiah 53 says that the Messiah would be rejected.

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

That’s what Isaiah is saying in that phrase “the arm of the Lord.” The arm of the Lord is the power of the Lord. And the power of God is the gospel. Romans 1:16 says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You don’t know how much time you have. As today our nation remembers 9-11, we should also consider that no one who went to work that morning, or got on a plane that morning, knew that would be their last day. None of us know how much time we have. None of us know when the Lord will return. But the Bible says that the world will mourn when they see Him who they rejected. They will mourn and wail that they crucified the Almighty God, the Lord and Savior whose gift of eternal life they rejected. The One to whom they would not bow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thirdly, He speaks of judgment to come. “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him; the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.” The coming day of judgment is an important doctrine that needs to be emphasized today. It is out of fashion to speak of judgment. “Don’t judge!” Or “Who are you to judge?” is the watchword of a superficial Christianity.

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

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

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

Today you have heard the words of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is both the word of truth and an invitation. Paul said in Romans 10:9-10 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if you have been born again as a child of God, you have believed in Him for salvation, then I hope from this passage today you will understand that glorification will come through suffering. Even as it was with Christ, so it is with His disciples. We must take up our cross and follow Him.
Romans 8:16-18 “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

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

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

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

Now I make that point because I want to emphasize that the things that the Jews were saying about Jesus came not as a result of spiritual insight, but out of a nationalistic fervor. In other words, they really didn’t understand the nature of Jesus’s ministry, or the nature of the Kingdom of God. Matthew 4:17 tells us that when Jesus had begun His ministry 3 years earlier, He did so by preaching that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We’re going to celebrate with a young man right after our closing song who is going to be baptized in the ocean. He has decided to follow the Lord with all His heart and soul and serve the Lord for the rest of his life. And baptism symbolizes that beautifully. In baptism, our old way of life is buried with Christ in the likeness of His death, and raised with Him in the likeness of His resurrection to a new life, a fruitful life in Christ. I hope you will consider joining us immediately following this song to celebrate his decision. And I invite anyone here who has not yet made that commitment themselves to consider being baptized today. This is God’s way of making a public confession of your faith and commitment to die to the world and live for Christ. Today is your opportunity, this is your invitation. Acts 2:38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But there is more to it than that, I believe. In those days, it was customary for a young woman to receive a dowry from her family to be used to help her acquire a husband. Now this worked both ways. On the one hand the bridegroom gave gifts to the parents, but the woman also had a dowry which was used as a financial gift to the groom from the brides family. Women were not considered in those times as we think of them today. Marriage was many times a financial as well as a social arrangement. And so the dowry would sometimes be a financial incentive for a woman to get a husband. And without a husband, a woman was very limited in terms of owning property or having any sort of income that would provide for her living.

So I believe that this alabaster vial of very expensive ointment was Mary’s dowry. In those days, they didn’t have banks such as we have today where you could put your money. So these vials of expensive perfume acted as a sort of savings account for the woman which would become her dowry which was given to her husband. And in the case that she didn’t find a husband, she could sell this perfume and it would help provide financially for her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you call worship? How do you worship God? How much do you love God? How do you express that love? What are you willing to give to God? What are you holding back from God? I dare you to ask yourself these questions honestly this morning, and examine your worship in light of what Mary did. She gave up her hope of a husband for Christ. She gave up her hope of financial independence for Christ. Mary didn’t just pour a few drops out of her bottle, she broke it, and poured everything she had out in love for Christ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As Paul says in Romans 8:30 “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” Predestined means that He chose us for salvation before we were even born, and glorified means that He will finish the good work in us that He has begun. That speaks of the power of God over the future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first principle then that we can learn from this miracle is the love of God, vs1 says that the one whom Jesus loved was sick. It’s interesting to note that it does not say, the one who loved Christ was sick, but it says the one whom Christ loved was sick. The emphasis is on Christ’s love for us. When we come to beseech the Lord, our grounds for a hearing are found in His love for us, not in the faithfulness of our love for Him. Christ’s love is a faithful love, it is a keeping love. It is a continuous love. It is a sacrificial love. 1John 4:10 says, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

We know that God loved the world, according to John 3:16, but this love of Lazarus is obviously different. It is indicated as being a special love that Jesus had for Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. It is obviously a love predicated by the fact that Mary and Martha and Lazarus were believers. God loves the world, but God has a special love for His children that is so much more devoted. In vs.4, when the sisters sent word to Jesus, they use the word phileo as their word for love. Phileo is the Greek word indicating love of family. There is a love that a father or mother may have for their friends, but they have a special love for their children. And we know that Jesus spent a lot of time with these people, so that they had a special relationship with Christ. They lived in a village called Bethany, which was about 2 miles outside of Jerusalem. Jesus at that point was about a 2 day journey away from Bethany, in another town that was called Bethany beyond the Jordan. That is, I think, beyond coincidental, but I am unsure exactly what it signifies, except to show the similitude that they had to Christ, even though they were separated from Him geographically.

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

No, the principle is that God sometimes ordains sickness, even the death of His loved ones, so that Christ may be glorified. Jesus said the same thing in John 9 in response to the question of HIs disciples; His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

As the hymn, “How Firm a Foundation” says; “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

And so in this case, when they tell Jesus that Lazarus was sick, His response shows that principle at work. Vs.5, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Jesus let’s them know the purpose of the sickness. It is to glorify God. That is how believers, those who are intimately loved by God, must view their sickness. We need to remember first of all that we are loved by God. Satan loves to cast doubt on God’s love for us when God doesn’t act as quickly as we would like, or in the manner that we expected Him to act. But the fact is that God loves us, and nothing can change that, nothing can separate us from His love. Rom. 8:38-39 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So notice that when Lazarus dies He is taken by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. Again, this is another Jewish euphemism indicating Paradise, the abode of the saints where they await the resurrection. Jesus tells of it this way in Luke 16:22, “Now the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.”
Jesus went on to describe it through the voice of Abraham as a place of comfort. “But Abraham said,[to the rich man] ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.’” So that is the description of where the soul of the believer dwells upon falling asleep. The body is metaphorically spoken of as fallen asleep, but they are alive in their spirit. They are not asleep in Paradise. They are having conversations, they are being comforted, they are aware of their surroundings, they recognize friends and family. And furthermore, they are in the presence of the Lord and HIs angels. Paul said in 2 Cor.5:8, “we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”

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

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

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

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