Jesus and the Trial of Public Opinion (Part 2)

Back in the Gospel of John, John 5, 17-24.

! And I have a lot of sermons on that section. So if you have your Bible, please turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 5.

And let's read verses 17-24 together. And if you would like to stand as we honor the reading of God's Word together, let's do that. But Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working.

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing on his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. In greater works than these he will show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

May God add a blessing to the reading of his Word. Please be seated. If you remember, as we talked about last week, as was mentioned, no person's life has had a greater impact in all of the world, in the history of the world, than Jesus Christ.

His name is the most well-known name worldwide. And there are a lot of different opinions about him as well, as a result of that.

And so with all of these different opinions, all these different people and religions saying different things about who Jesus is, the question becomes, how can we know who is right?

How can we know what is true about Jesus Christ? Well, as we saw last week, Scripture records Jesus' testimony. His testimony of himself.

This is his self-testimony, and it was that he is equal with God. He made five claims, five statements of fact, regarding his equality with God, regarding his true identity.

And in these verses, he serves as his own defense attorney, as he has been placed by the Pharisees, by the Jewish leaders, on the trial of public opinion.

The Pharisees, again, in their blind disbelief, have placed the judge of the universe on the witness stand, demanding that he give testimony, give proof that he truly is the Son of God, that he truly is equal with God.

And so they've charged him of blasphemy, and you know, as we talked about last week, that blasphemy is a charge that is punishable by death. They did not like what Jesus had to say about himself.

In fact, they hated it. And so you remember how we got to this point, that Jesus had seen a man who was an invalid for 38 years, and that man was looking to the pool for deliverance, for salvation.

He was under the thought, he had the superstition, that when the water was stirred up, that whoever got into it first was healed. And Jesus came to him, and Jesus healed that man.

He did so on the Sabbath day, and he told him to take up his bed and walk, which he did. And when the Pharisees saw him doing that, they were irate, because they had added 39 additional laws to the law that you are to honor God on the Sabbath day.

And so one of those laws was you're not allowed to pick up one thing and take it from one place to another. And they saw this man doing that, and so they asked him, what is he doing?

They interrogated him. They wanted to find out who told him that doing this was okay. And later Jesus found him. If you remember, later that man unfortunately went and reported to the Pharisees that it was Jesus who told him to take up his bed and walk.

And so all of that has led to now this exchange where the Pharisees have placed the God of the universe, the judge of the universe, on trial, and we have seen and will continue to unfold Jesus' testimony about himself to them that he is the Son of God, that he is equal with God the Father.

To this point, he has testified about two things about himself. First, that he is equal to God in person.

And so he said that he was able to do a good work on the Sabbath, healing that man who had been an invalid for 38 years, just as God doesn't need to rest on the Sabbath, God upholds all things at all times.

Without God, the universe ceased to exist. Those Jewish leaders knew that, and so Jesus is making the same point. Likewise, I do good things on the Sabbath day.

Second, he claimed that he was equal to God in his works, as was demonstrated by the miracle that he had just performed. He, again, had healed a man who was paralyzed for 38 years.

And then he tells them that they would see even greater things than that, culminating ultimately in his greatest miracle, which was rising from the grave after he had been dead and in the tomb for three days.

But maybe you've been with us to this point and you're still not totally convinced. There are so many different religions in the world.

There are thousands upon thousands of different religions in the world. And many of them, all of them, in fact, say different things about God.

They claim different things to be true about God. And likewise, they all say different things about Jesus.

Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam. They don't say that Jesus didn't exist. They say that he was a real, live person, but they say different things about him than what we say, than what scripture testifies to.

And not just them, many other different opinions are out there as to who Jesus was and what his true identity is.

In fact, there are people who have formed their religion around Jesus, around a false idea of who Jesus is. And we think of Mormons.

We think of Jehovah's Witnesses. They claim to know Christ, to know something about Christ, but what they claim about him is vastly different than what we as a Protestant, evangelical Christians say.

Different from what scripture testifies to. And all of these things conflict. They all conflict with one another. They can't all be true.

And so as we begin this morning, that is what I first want us to consider. The many claims that different religions make about Jesus Christ and about God.

Each claims to have answers. Each claims to know the truth. And again, all of these claims contradict one another.

Which means, logically speaking, they cannot all be right. Think of a classroom.

And in the classroom are 100 different math students. And they've all been sat down and the teacher gives them a complex problem problem to solve.

And it's very likely that many of them, or at least some of them, will get the right answer. And many of them, some of them, will get the wrong answer.

Especially if I was in that classroom. But because they all arrive at different answers, would that mean that a correct answer doesn't exist?

No. We know that only one answer can be correct. Only one answer solves the problem. And so, the teacher could go back and all those wrong answers, some of them might have arrived at the same wrong answer, but probably they're all a little bit different from one another.

But the teacher would be able to go back over the work that those students with the wrong answers did and show them at some point where they erred.

Where they made an error in their mathematical reasoning that caused them to arrive at the wrong answer and show them where they need to make the change so that their answer could have been correct.

I believe that we are created in God's image. That's what the Bible says. Which means, in part, that we are given the ability to reason.

We are given the ability to reason. we are different than all of the other creatures of this world in that regard and in many other regards. But we use systematic methods of reasoning in many ways and we do so in order to separate what is true from what is false, from what is an error.

Can you imagine the end results that a scientist would arrive at if they haphazardly just started mixing a bunch of different chemicals together in their laboratories?

Or if a physician who was treating you just started giving you random medications thinking, well, you know, maybe one of these might work.

Neither the scientist nor the physician takes such an approach and you wouldn't want to be subject to their tests as they try to take such an approach.

Instead, they use systematic methods that are methodical, that are logical, that are evidential and will prove to yield a result.

And so in theology, theology being the study of God, it shouldn't be any different. However, when it comes to God, the thought that many people have in our culture, especially, and around the world is that all roads lead to heaven.

You've probably heard somebody say that before. Or maybe you've heard the illustration they use of a mountain. Well, we're all climbing up different sides of the mountain, but eventually we all get to the top and there we find God.

Well, the Bible says something much different than that. The Bible says that God came down from the mountain to us to reveal to us who He is.

And we see that in Philippians 2, 2 through 11. How God has come down, how God has humbled Himself, how God has taken on human flesh, how the Son has come and revealed truth to us.

So, it says there, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. And so now, here he explains. Let each of you not only look to his own interests but also to the interests of others.

Have this mind amongst yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form.

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And so Jesus has come and Jesus said repeatedly that He came to save us and in doing so He says that I've come to give you the truth.

And when you know that truth, when you believe that truth, He says that it has amazing results. One example of that is John 8, 31 through 32. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in Him, If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples and you will know the truth and that truth, the truth, will set you free.

So today we continue hearing Jesus' testimony testimony. And we'll see the additional three statements that He made regarding His true identity.

And so our main idea for this morning's message is the same as last week's and it's this. The testimony of Jesus Christ as recorded in Scripture is that He is the eternal Son of God and is equal with God the Father.

Now if you're a believer, it's important that you know this. You should understand that you have been called to go and make disciples.

Disciples of Jesus Christ go and make disciples. And so as you do that, you will see that you will encounter people who think that they know something about Jesus.

but there's either confusion or what they believe about Jesus doesn't match with His testimony of what He says about Himself in God's Word.

In fact, you might have Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons come to your doorstep and there's an opportunity for you to bring clarity to their confusion. And so it's important that we understand Jesus' testimony as believers for ourselves but also so that we can go and bring clarity where there is confusion about who He truly is.

For unbelievers, this message is absolutely critical. It's critical to your salvation. It's critical for your eternal destination.

If ever there was a message that you needed to hear, this is one of those messages. Jesus wants you to know the truth. He wants you to have the truth.

He wants to set you free from sin's consequences in this life and the eternal punishment of it in the next. And so let's look at the next statement that Jesus makes about Himself and His equality with God.

He says in verse 21 that He is equal to God in His power and in His sovereignty. I'll read verse 21 again. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life so also the Son gives life to whom He will.

And so by asserting His equality with God, Jesus claimed that He was on parallel with God to be able to bring the dead back to life.

Who but God has the power to do that? In fact, God says only He has the power to do that. Deuteronomy 32, 39. See now, God's saying that I, even I am He and there is no God beside me.

I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. And we saw Jesus do this. As we go through the Gospel of John, we'll see Him raising Lazarus from the dead.

We also see Jesus bringing the dead girl, Jairus' daughter, back to life in Luke chapter 8, bringing the widow of Nain's son back to life in Luke chapter 7 and then again, primarily, ultimately, in His bringing Himself back to life and we'll get there in John chapter 20.

Moreover, Jesus has the power to give spiritual life to spiritually dead people. John 4, 14.

We've been here. When He was talking to the woman at the well, He said to her, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give in Him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I give Him will become in Him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

And again, speaking of salvation, I know that I personally am very thankful that God has taken me, a spiritually dead person, and brought me to spiritual life.

And I'm sure if you're a believer, you would say the exact same thing. And I'll also say I'm so very thankful for the privilege that I've had to witness God do that for so many people.

So many people taking them from a position of spiritual death and bringing them to a position of spiritual life as His adopted children. And so, the greatest thing that I've ever done in ministry and may ever do in ministry was that I was able to bring the gospel to my good friend Melvin Lynn.

And I've told this story before and I'm probably going to tell it a lot because to me, in my mind, this is the greatest thing that God has ever given me the privilege to be able to do. Melvin was a retired Navy serviceman.

He boxed in the Navy and then after he got out of the Navy, he spent the rest of his career busting his knuckles working on automobiles. But for decades, for at least 50 years, he wouldn't step foot in a church.

But for that same period of time, his wife and his daughter, his family, and his church family, they had been praying for him. They'd been praying for his salvation. And so when he was in the hospital, he had to have a section of his colon removed and his wife was older and was not comfortable with driving long distances.

I offered to take her to the hospital, which was over in Kansas City, a little ways away, not too far. And so I took her to him and I was able to meet with him and pray with him briefly.

But I realized that he was this really tough guy, was afraid of dying. And so after he got better, thankfully he got out of the hospital, he called me and asked me to come to his house.

And I'll never forget sitting across from him at his dinner table with his wife listening off in the distance and him asking me questions about Jesus and me walking him through the Romans road, walking him through Scripture, talking about how we are born spiritually dead, we are born sinful.

Talking to him about Jesus and how great of a Savior it is, what Jesus has come to do, living and dying and rising again for us. And before my eyes, this incredibly strong and tough man's man shed a tear and I couldn't see it physically, but I could feel it spiritually, that his heart of stone that God had just reached in and made it a heart of flesh, beating in rhythm with his Savior.

And he hardly ever missed church after that. He was completely completely and totally transformed and I enjoyed a sweet friendship with him for about four or five years before he died of cancer.

But I'll never forget the last time I saw him. As cancer had taken its toll, he was a shell of himself. I walked in the room, big smile on his face, greeting me and reminding me that he was not afraid of death because he knew Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

So nobody could ever tell me that the gospel is not true. I mean, you could tell me that, but I'll never believe it because of what I've experienced personally and what I've experienced in so many other people and the testimonies of what God has done for them and God can do the same for you.

Jesus is able to take that which is spiritually dead, to take that which is old and make it new and give it life now and forever more.

And so I believe that the Bible teaches that people do have a responsibility to respond to the gospel, but I also see in many, many other places God's assertion to us that he is sovereign in salvation.

And listen, when it came to my friend Melvin, it wasn't that I had persuasive words that he hadn't heard before. I said it in such a way that it all of a sudden, you know, made sense. It wasn't about me.

It wasn't about him repeating some kinds of magic words. It was God. It was a miracle. It was God's choosing to save this man at that point in time.

How else do we understand God's sovereignty and salvation when we look at verses like John 6, 37? We'll be there soon and we'll look at that more in depth when we get there. But Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

And so we have the responsibility to share the gospel, but we understand that as we do that, ultimately the results are up to God.

Ultimately, the results are God's. Ultimately, that person's salvation is in God's hands. And so we go and we share and we plead and we declare but we understand that it's God who does the work.

It's the Holy Spirit who does the work. He's the one who causes the seed to be planted. He's the one who causes the seed to grow. Next, we see Jesus say that He is equal to God in His judgment.

That comes from verse 22. For the Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son. Jesus' authority to grant spiritual life to whomever He chooses is consistent with His authority to judge every person on the last day.

Just as Jesus' actions are God's actions, just as Jesus' words are God's words, so too, Jesus says here that His judgments are God's judgments.

Although Jesus said that His first coming was not for judgment, He came to live, to die, to rise again, that we might have eternal life, but He told us repeatedly and Scripture warns us and tells us to be prepared for that day that He will return and there will come a day of judgment.

And so my question is are you prepared for that? In the future, Scripture declares in 2 Thessalonians 1, 7, and 8 where this is one of many again of this coming day and to grant relief to those who are afflicted as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels and flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

On that final day of judgment, those who have rejected Jesus will hear Him say, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

And I believe that those words will ring in their ears for all eternity. And so I hope that you know Him. I sincerely mean that.

I hope that you know that you can talk to me if you have questions. I know there's a lot of confusion as has already been mentioned. I'd love the opportunity to bring clarity as I can to you because Jesus wants you to know Him.

Jesus wants you to know the truth about Him. That's why it's so important that He calls us as disciples to go and to declare that truth that hopefully people will believe.

They'll be spared from the consequences of sin in this life but ultimately the consequences of sin in the next which is eternal separation from God and punishment in hell.

We will all stand before the Lord one day and that day could come at any moment's time. And so the question that Scripture constantly asks us, are you ready for that day?

Are you ready for that day? Third statement here, the fifth total that Jesus makes about His equality with God is that He is equal to God in His honor and that comes from verses 23 through 24 where again He said that all may honor me, the Son just as they honor the Father.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly I say to you whoever hears my words and believes in Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but passes from death to life.

So the Father's purpose in entrusting all His works and judgment to Jesus is that Jesus be honored. Now here's the thing, it's only fitting that those who honor Jesus are honoring the Father as well.

There is no diminishment of the Father's honor here. It's not as if there's a scale where well if we give Jesus too much honor God might be upset. It doesn't work that way. When Jesus is honored God is honored.

The Trinity is honored. God is pleased. The Jews whom Jesus was speaking to thought that they were worshiping God but were rejecting Him in this moment.

They thought that what they were doing in rejecting Jesus was worshiping God. That's how blind a person can be to truth. To say that Jesus is one of many ways likewise today is to deny His testimony as recorded in Scripture.

And I know that when I meet Him, when I stand before Him face to face, I feel much more comfortable having said, this is what your word said. all I wanted to do was say and believe and teach what your word said instead of doing the other thing with dangerous thing of putting words and thoughts into Jesus' mouth and mind that He never uttered nor contemplated.

To do so is to deny Him. To do so is to deny His testimony contained within His word. To come to His word and think, well, you know, I don't like what it says.

My feelings tell me differently. My opinions tell me differently. My emotions tell me something different. Listen, and I mean this in a loving way, you've thought wrong. I've thought wrong.

You've felt wrong. I've felt wrong. You've thought something was true and it wasn't. God's word is true. And when it comes to God's word versus our opinions, thoughts, and emotions, God's word is always right.

And God's word sets our thoughts and opinions and our emotions right when we read it and we understand that it is the word of God, that it is the truth.

when they said to him, what must we do in John 6 to be doing the works of God? Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him in whom he has sent.

And then later in John 15 3, he says, whoever hates me hates my father also. And so here we see again that those who deny and refuse to honor the son while claiming to honor God are self deceived.

You cannot do that. You cannot honor God without honoring his son Jesus. Maybe you have heard a story or experienced yourself.

Let's just create a scenario. A family is in a car and the backseat is a son and he's getting rowdy and the mom in the passenger seat is trying to quiet him down but he says something very rude to her, very dishonoring to her and the father uses his fatherly voice speaking with authority and he says something like this, nobody speaks to my wife like that and maybe he does something else to correct that bad behavior.

Why? Well, because in a relationship, in marriage, right, which reflects Christ and his church, but for a husband to have his wife dishonored is in a way for him to be dishonored and so it's the same thing.

When we dishonor Jesus by denying him or refuting the words that he claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life, the only way, that there are many ways to God, really, when we bring any dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ, we are bringing dishonor to the name of God the Father as well, something that he is not pleased with at all.

You cannot claim to honor God without acknowledging Jesus as his son. And the day is coming, Jesus has said, when all will stand before him, when the judge of the universe will return, bow, and on that day, he said, every knee will bow.

Your knee will bow. And it will either bow in a begrudging way, realizing that Jesus and the testimony he's given himself of scripture was completely and totally true and you didn't believe it, or you will bow the knee in humble adoration and worship that finally the Lord has returned.

Either way, you'll be there. Either way, your knee will bow and I hope that it will bow in praise. And so, Jesus closed this section of this discourse by reaffirming his authority to give eternal life to whomever he chooses, to whomever he desires to do so.

And he underscored that statement's monumental significance by introducing it with the solemn formula, truly, truly. Whenever Jesus uses that phrase, know that whatever comes after it, he's saying, in the strongest terms I can say it, this is the truth.

So he says, truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself, and he has given him authority to execute judgment because he is, he is the Son of Man, he is the Son of God.

Here, Jesus identifies those who receive eternal life as those who hear his word and who believe the Father who sent him. As we've seen, God is sovereign in salvation.

Here again, we are reminded of man's responsibility to receive it. The claims of Jesus confront every single one of us, and they confront us to make a decision about who he truly is.

There is no neutral ground here. Those who accept him as he is, God incarnate, God in human flesh, will be saved from their sins through him.

But those who don't will bear the full punishment of their sins that they've committed against him forever. So whose testimony do you believe?

Someone else who claims to know more about Scripture, claims to know more about salvation than what Jesus has shared here plainly in his word?

Will you trust more in your own opinions, in your own thoughts, in your own feelings? No doubt you, again like me, you've been wrong, you felt wrong, or will you simply trust in the words and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

If you trust in them, if you trust in him, you'll be saved, now and forevermore. Having understood that the sins that you've committed, you've committed against him, you've committed against God, all sin, the Bible says, is ultimately committed against God.

And as we've talked about, we are all born spiritually dead as a result of sin entering into this world. Through Adam and Eve and their disobedience of God, they rebelled against him as one, his one prohibition, don't eat the fruit from that tree.

They ate and they fell and as a result of that, all of creation has come under sin's curse, including you and me. We are born dead spiritually.

But God so loved the world that he sent his son Jesus. God came, he invaded this sin-cursed world. He added flesh to his deity. He lived the perfect life that you and I are incapable of living that would be required for God to be able to grant you entrance into his kingdom because God is too pure and holy to look upon sin.

And so Jesus came to be sin for us. On the cross, he died in your place for your sins. On the cross, God the Father crushed him. He poured out his punishment, his wrath, on his son for the sins that you and I have committed and Jesus willingly died in our place for our sins.

Enduring God's wrath, raising again on the third day as proof that his atoning sacrifice was acceptable.

That those of us who trust in him receive receive eternal life. We receive his righteousness. You believe in Jesus, you trust in his testimony, here's what happens.

Your sin is taken off of you and it's placed on Jesus at the cross. And his righteousness, his perfect, sinless life of obedience is placed upon you.

You're covered with it. And so when God, and I, this still gives me chills to think about. It seems so good, too good at times to be true, but it is that now God sees you and he sees his son whom he loves.

You're adopted as his child now and forevermore. You receive his grace and you'll hear his voice one day tell you, well done, good and faithful servant.

Enter into the rest of your master. So whose testimony do you believe? My hope and prayer is that you'll believe the testimony of Jesus Christ as recorded in his word and as has been preached to you this morning.

And so for application, we're continuing to pursue the best Highland Park in 2020 and I don't want to just breeze through these.

Let's dig in a little bit here as we end. First of all, we are seeking to build community. How do we do that? Well, we do that like Jesus.

What did Jesus do? Jesus humbly came to us. Jesus humbly died for sinners, for sins that he did not commit. Having that same kind of attitude builds community and it's required for true Christian community in order for it to be built.

That means like Jesus, we're thinking primarily of others. When we come into this place, our thoughts aren't primarily occupied with ourselves but with others.

Who is here that I can be a blessing to? Who isn't here that I need to reach out to and see what's going on with their lives potentially?

And then also in this, like Jesus, we love them, not based upon what they've done for us, not based upon what they could do for us, but just because they are one of God's creations because they are one of those who has gone from spiritual death to spiritual life and we love them for no other reason than that.

We love unconditionally as Jesus has loved us, as God has loved us and when we do that we'll build community. Next we equip the saints and so we need to study the word knowing what it says about Jesus and we do that when people gather here.

our times of meeting are centered on Jesus upon the testimony that we have heard and received of Jesus Christ that he is the way, the truth, and the life and so everything is centered around the word of God that equips his saints to then thirdly share Jesus and again we bring clarity to where there is confusion.

we share the gospel with people who have yet to hear it and we bring clarity wherever there is thought about Jesus that does not match his word and so we should always be seeking to share Jesus because listen that's what he's called us to do.

That's part of the great commission. Go and make disciples. In order to go and to make disciples we have to share Jesus and then lastly we teach the word and as has been mentioned the word of God is foundational to everything that we do as a church.

Every single thing. It was God's word that created the universe. It was God's word that created and established his church.

The word of God is foundational not just to everything that we do as a church but as a believer it should be foundational to everything that you think everything that you do as a follower of Jesus Christ.

Our thought should always be what has the word of God said? What does God's word have to say about this? And we'll only be as effective for Christ in this world as we are daily abiding in his word.

As we are daily coming to God's word to receive the bread that we need, our daily sustenance so that we can go and continue to build community, equip believers, and share Jesus as we teach the word.

And if we excel in this, if we continue to increase in our ability to build community, to equip saints, to share Jesus, to teach the word, this will happen.

We will bring great honor and praise to the Lord our God. We will not waste our lives. We will not waste our time. Our church will have an impact in this community, in our state, in our nation, in our world that we never thought possible.

But God can do it. So, let's do that. Let's build community, equip saints, share Jesus. Let's teach the word. Now's the time. Thank you.