SPEAKER_00: My name's Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome with us if you're new or visiting.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, turn again to John chapter 5, uh, to that passage that Young read uh for us, are gonna be there uh for uh the next uh little while or so.
SPEAKER_00: If you need a hard copy uh Bible, we can get you one.
SPEAKER_00: And uh let me pray as we uh as we come to God's word together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you for uh your word.
SPEAKER_00: I thank you that it is God breathed that as we read it and as we examine it, we hear your voice.
SPEAKER_00: Give us those soft hearts and open ears uh to receive uh your truth.
SPEAKER_00: As we have just sung, may you plant it deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see Jesus clearly for who he is and worship him this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We ask in his name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this morning the text, though it was a long text, actually deals with quite a short question.
SPEAKER_00: The short question that it deals with essentially is who is Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Who is he?
SPEAKER_00: Is he God or is he not?
SPEAKER_00: Uh the question of who is Jesus is actually a question that uh you may or may not have uh implicitly wrestled with, uh really thought about, but it's a question that actually all of us uh answers in some way or another.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you might have kind of implicit thoughts about who Jesus is or who Jesus isn't, and that shapes how you how you live now.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if Jesus is just some dead wise man, then he's easily dismissed, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Uh but if he is more than that, then he's harder to dispense with.
SPEAKER_00: The question, who is Jesus, uh also arises uh from a desire that exists deep within us, I think.
SPEAKER_00: The question who is Jesus arises from the desire for something more.
SPEAKER_00: There's something in each of us that wants something transcendent, something beyond ourselves, something that is truly true, something that you can take to the bank, that there's uh there's something concrete that you can't just explain away.
SPEAKER_00: Again, if Jesus is just some moral teacher, then he might have some good things to say that you might want to kind of retrofit or tack onto your life, but uh but he himself wouldn't be foundational.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you wouldn't think of the moral philosophers of our age as being foundational in their own being to your life.
SPEAKER_00: But if Jesus is something more than just a good teacher, then maybe he has the potential to meet that longing for something transcendent, something infinite, something much bigger than ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Most founders of world religions were very uh shy uh about equating themselves with the divine.
SPEAKER_00: Buddha never did, he never claimed to be God.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Muhammad certainly didn't.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he repudiated that idea that he would be equal with Allah.
SPEAKER_00: Allah has no rival.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is different.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity stands in distinction here because Jesus does claim to be God.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know?
SPEAKER_00: It's something people say, well, Jesus never said uh that he was God.
SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, this text would disagree with that because of what he says here in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just remind you of what's happened.
SPEAKER_00: So last week we looked at this healing that happens at this pool, this man who is uh paralyzed for 38 years is given the power to walk again.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, You take up uh your mat, take up your bed and walk.
SPEAKER_00: And we're told that the day that he did that was a Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things you're not allowed to do is carry your bed and walk.
SPEAKER_00: And so this arises the attention, uh, or arouses the attention of the religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And so they begin to question Jesus about how it is that he can command this guy to walk on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And he responds in verse 17 of chapter 5 by saying, My father is working until now, and I am working.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying that he doesn't rest on the Sabbath because God doesn't rest on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees understand what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: So, verse 18, the very first verse that we read this morning, this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: Because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.
SPEAKER_00: They understood that Jesus was claiming equality with God.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: What's striking about this is it's not his allies, it's not his disciples who hear, my father is working on the Sabbath, and I am working on God.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, well, there you are then.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus must be, Jesus must be God.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually those who are opposed to him who understand exactly what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's his opponents who understand that his words are a claim to divinity, equality with God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's pause for a second.
SPEAKER_00: Let's give the Pharisees a break.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Pharisees are the pantomime villain of uh of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: Normally you mention their word and you expect to hear boo hiss, uh, you know, they're behind you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's a Pharisee behind me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but let's uh let's just give them, let's just cut them a bit of slack for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Why would they be so annoyed?
SPEAKER_00: Why would they be so kind of panicked and freaked out about this?
SPEAKER_00: Well, well, the up to this point, they'd just spent the last 2,000 years uh declaring every day that God was one.
SPEAKER_00: In the prayer that they would say every day, what's called the Shemah from Deuteronomy 6, 4.
SPEAKER_00: Shema Yisrael Adonai Elahainu Adonai Ehad.
SPEAKER_00: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
SPEAKER_00: And here's this guy saying, No, no, I'm just like that.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, hold on a second.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty foundational to our whole belief system is that you're not.
SPEAKER_00: More so, if we're cutting them a little bit of slack, if we know our Jewish history, and I'm sure you all do, uh, but one of the things that happened in the history of Israel is that they faced the judgment of God.
SPEAKER_00: They were carried off into exile in Babylon about 500 years before this.
SPEAKER_00: Their whole country was laid waste by the Babylonians.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar came in and took them all away.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they broke the Sabbath and they worshipped other gods.
SPEAKER_00: And here's this guy from Nazareth coming along, and it looks like he's breaking the Sabbath and claiming to be another God.
SPEAKER_00: And they have PTSD from 500 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, no, no, we're not going back there, we're not doing that again.
SPEAKER_00: How can you come in here and break the Sabbath rules and then claim equality with God?
SPEAKER_00: So before we kind of dismiss the Pharisees, let's just understand the kind of mindset that they're coming to this with.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus doesn't back down.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't back down, he doesn't explain it away.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he defends his claim and gives them and us reasons why we can be confident in Jesus' divinity and witnesses to that divinity.
SPEAKER_00: So we are, in a sense, kind of in the divine courtroom this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The question on the docket is is Jesus God?
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to defend the claim and he's going to offer us witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: So three three defenses, three rationales, and then much shorter, you'll be glad to know, three witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: The first rationale that Jesus gives in this passage for why he is God is because he does what the Father does.
SPEAKER_00: He does what the Father does.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees his Father doing.
SPEAKER_00: For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus immediately addresses this issue of, is Jesus a rival to God?
SPEAKER_00: Is he an idol, a competitor to God the Father?
SPEAKER_00: And he addresses it with the answer, no, I'm not.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not an idol, I'm not a competitor, I'm not a false God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I do not operate independently from my Father.
SPEAKER_00: Rather, he works in harmony with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He does what the Father does.
SPEAKER_00: An idol is a rival, a competitor.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, no, no, I'm not a competitor.
SPEAKER_00: I work in concert, in harmony with my father.
SPEAKER_00: I do what he has shown me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, not only does he do what the father does, but the father shows him all these things because he loves the son.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: For the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing.
SPEAKER_00: And greater works than these will he show him so that you may marvel.
SPEAKER_00: The father does not look at Jesus and say, There's an idol that needs to be stamped out.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, he looks at Jesus and says, There's my son whom I love.
SPEAKER_00: I will show him all the things that I do that he may do them also.
SPEAKER_00: It's not very common these days for uh for sons to apprentice with their fathers, certainly not in cities, maybe in more rural areas, but uh certainly a couple of generations ago, if you were, if you're if your dad was uh was a carpenter, then you became a carpenter.
SPEAKER_00: If your dad was a farmer, then you became a farmer, and he invited you from a young age to kind of observe and to work alongside.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus learned to be a carpenter from his earthly father.
SPEAKER_00: A father who loves his son will open up the skills and complexities of that trade to his son and empower him to carry it out.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, God the Father hides nothing from his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He shows him all that he is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20 shows him all that he himself is doing.
SPEAKER_00: There is no deficiency, no second-glass status for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a crucial implication for what that means for us.
SPEAKER_00: If you are a Christian or if you are exploring what it means to be a Christian, when Jesus says the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing, what that means for us is this Jesus perfectly, flawlessly displays what God is like to us.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father shows him everything, and Jesus does exactly what the Father shows him.
SPEAKER_00: You want to see the invisible God?
SPEAKER_00: You look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the image, as Paul says, of the invisible God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus on dying in verse 37 would say, His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen.
SPEAKER_00: The irony of that is that the one who perfectly mediates the Father is standing in front of them.
SPEAKER_00: You want to get to know God, you get to know Jesus, you see his character, see his works, listen to his words.
SPEAKER_00: And so he could say to Philip in John chapter 10, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, if God the Father is showing him all of these works and Jesus is carrying them out, then Jesus must be God.
SPEAKER_00: He must be God in order to be able to do the things that God does.
SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of verse 20, he gives this slight little teaser, and greater works of these will he show him so that you may marvel?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying to the Pharisees and to the crowd, he's saying, You ain't seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: You ain't seen nothing yet.
SPEAKER_00: You think healing a guy after 30 years was a display of divine power?
SPEAKER_00: There's more to come, people.
SPEAKER_00: There's more to come.
SPEAKER_00: But what are these works that God has given Jesus to do?
SPEAKER_00: Because he summarizes those works in verses 21 and 22.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
SPEAKER_00: The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: What are the two things that God does here?
SPEAKER_00: He gives life and he executes judgment.
SPEAKER_00: And the healing of uh of the paralytic at the pool, it stands in that vein of life-giving.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you find it somewhat life-giving if after 38 years you were given the ability to walk again?
SPEAKER_00: It's a life-giving miracle.
SPEAKER_00: It's a kind of a resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: He's given this hopeless man life again.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is saying, that's just a that's just a taster that I do what God does.
SPEAKER_00: And God does these things all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the issue.
SPEAKER_00: The issue that was brought to him was that he's doing these things on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: There was this question rumbling around in Judaism at the time, does God work on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: Does God work on that day of rest?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer that Jesus is pointing us to is yes.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he does.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know that God works on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: I know we're getting uh a little bit complicated, but let's just let's just try and track with me if you can.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know that God works on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: Well, we've just noted what the two works are, that they're giving life and executing judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is drawing our attention to.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know that God gives life on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: Well, babies are born on the Sabbath, aren't they?
SPEAKER_00: Life is given on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know that God executes judgment on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_00: People die on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: God the Father gives life and executes judgment on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: My Father is working until now, giving life and executing judgment, and I am working.
SPEAKER_00: I have just given life to this man, and I will do more than that yet.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first rationale.
SPEAKER_00: The first defense of Jesus is to why he is equal with God, why he is divine, that he does what God does.
SPEAKER_00: Second, Jesus deserves the same honor as God and invites faith in him as God.
SPEAKER_00: He deserves the same honor and invites faith.
SPEAKER_00: You know, at other points of the Bible, angels show up to human beings, and uh there's one particular incident in the in the book of Revelation, at the start of Revelation chapter 5, where an angel shows up to John, and I mean that'd be a strange day.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he finds that quite overwhelming, and so he bows down and worships.
SPEAKER_00: And the angel says to John, no, worship God alone.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worship me.
SPEAKER_00: Worship God alone.
SPEAKER_00: Don't honor me, don't give me praise and glory, give it to God alone.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus here invites honor, he invites worship, he welcomes it.
SPEAKER_00: He says that he is deserving of it, of the same honor.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22, let's pick it up again.
SPEAKER_00: The father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the son.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That all may honor the son, just as, so in the same way that they honor the father.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does the works that he does so that he might be honored as God, that the same honor that is directed to God the Father might be directed to him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus here.
SPEAKER_00: He's not exactly allaying the fears of the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of turning up the temperature on all of this.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Yeah, I'm working on the Sabbath because my father works on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: I give life on the Sabbath, I give judgment on the Sabbath because I deserve the same honor as the God that you have worshipped for the last 2,000 years.
SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: He is not allaying their fears, he's not lowering the stakes.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, in order to honor God, you must also honor me.
SPEAKER_00: There's two major implications here for us.
SPEAKER_00: The first is that, you know, people like to say things like, you know, if God showed up today, I would believe.
SPEAKER_00: If God showed up, you know, where is he?
SPEAKER_00: Why hasn't he spoken?
SPEAKER_00: Why hasn't he turned up?
SPEAKER_00: If God was standing here in front of me, then of course I would believe.
SPEAKER_00: But actually that's not true, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Because the most religiously astute and clued-in people on the entire planet at this point have God standing in front of them and they're seeking to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a fait accompli that if Jesus were standing here in front of you, that you would give him divine honor.
SPEAKER_00: The second implication is really for what we might call our interfaith dialogue, our interfaith relationships.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me be clear.
SPEAKER_00: As Christians, we're told to love our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: That includes our neighbor who's a Buddhist, our neighbor who's a Muslim, our neighbor who's a secular atheist, our neighbor who's an occultist.
SPEAKER_00: We're told to love our neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: But surely one of the implications of these verses whoever does not honor the son does not honour the father who sent him.
SPEAKER_00: One of the implications surely is to avoid, and these are Jesus' words, to avoid the kind of fashionable notion uh that certainly all the main religions are the same.
SPEAKER_00: They were all all all the sons of Abraham worship the same God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says no to that.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot claim to know God, you cannot claim to honor God without first knowing and honoring the Son.
SPEAKER_00: It's not so much what do you think about God or who do you think God is, it's what do you think about the claims of Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Do you honor him?
SPEAKER_00: Do you follow and love him?
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, in verse 24, Jesus invites faith in himself.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly, I say to you whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing and believing.
SPEAKER_00: Here and in John's Gospel are synonymous.
SPEAKER_00: So to hear is to believe.
SPEAKER_00: The same way in the next chapter, we're going to get to this.
SPEAKER_00: The thing that is paralleled is belief and eating.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever believes in me and whoever eats my flesh, tune in over the next couple of weeks for more on that and see if we're actually cannibals.
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, we're not, you're fine.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's synonymous with belief.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to see you're still awake.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing is synonymous with belief.
SPEAKER_00: How do we know?
SPEAKER_00: So one of the ways that we know that is because remember last week, if you were here, Jesus healed the royal official son.
SPEAKER_00: And what do we what do we learn there?
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus said to the man, Go, your son will live.
SPEAKER_00: And the man believed the word.
SPEAKER_00: He heard the word, took Jesus at his word, and trusted him, believed him.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing is synonymous with belief.
SPEAKER_00: So truly I say to you who ever hears my word and believes in him who sent me, has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: To take Jesus at his word is to believe in him, to believe that he is God, that he was sent by God.
SPEAKER_00: And what is the promise there at the end of verse 24?
SPEAKER_00: The promise is that anyone who does that has passed, sorry, uh, has eternal life, does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see how those see those two works that Jesus was just talking about almost circling round one another, orbiting round one another?
SPEAKER_00: You no longer you now live, you no longer face judgment, you have passed from death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives you life by placing your trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: That's our second rationale.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus deserves the same honor as the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Third, Jesus possesses divine life.
SPEAKER_00: These words are stunning.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and is nigh here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a stunning claim, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: About the power of the Son of God, that he will speak and the dead will live.
SPEAKER_00: Death's grip cannot cling on to those who hear the voice of the Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot stay dead.
SPEAKER_00: Such is his power.
SPEAKER_00: They cannot remain dead if he calls them forth.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus will prove this in just a few chapters' time.
SPEAKER_00: We'll not actually get to it till next year.
SPEAKER_00: But he'll prove it with the raising of Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of the that's the final sign in John, the final miracle in John.
SPEAKER_00: Where the whole thing coscendos with this great resurrection miracle.
SPEAKER_00: That Lazarus, though he was dead four days, as the old uh King James Version says, he stinketh because rigor mortis had said in decomposition had begun, but that is not enough to keep him dead when the voice of the Son of God stands at that tomb and says, Lazarus, come forth.
SPEAKER_00: He cannot stay dead.
SPEAKER_00: But now we get to the very crux of it all.
SPEAKER_00: How is it?
SPEAKER_00: How is it that Jesus can grant life in this way?
SPEAKER_00: How is it that he can raise the dead?
SPEAKER_00: How is it that he can speak and those will live?
SPEAKER_00: How is it that through faith in him he can cause us to pass from life, sorry, from death to life?
SPEAKER_00: How is it?
SPEAKER_00: We get the answer in verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: Four, for as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
SPEAKER_00: None of us here has life in ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: To have life in ourselves, to have life in himself is to have self-generating, uncreated life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: I have life that has no source.
SPEAKER_00: I am the source of my own life in the same way that the Father does.
SPEAKER_00: We're not like that.
SPEAKER_00: Our life is derived.
SPEAKER_00: Our life is derived ultimately from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a gift and it's finite.
SPEAKER_00: One day it will run out.
SPEAKER_00: Not so with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As the Father has uncreated, perfect, eternal life in himself, so too the Son has life in himself.
SPEAKER_00: He shares the same divine life as his father.
SPEAKER_00: What this means is that the Father and the Son and also the Spirit are equal at the level of essence, at the level of their being.
SPEAKER_00: You and your goldfish do not share the same essence.
SPEAKER_00: No, you share the same essence with other human beings.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is saying, what essentially makes God God, I have that.
SPEAKER_00: I share that.
SPEAKER_00: I have that life in itself.
SPEAKER_00: And so, those of you who are familiar with the history of the church, one of the things that was written in the history of the church was the creed, particularly the creed of Nicaea, it is the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed of 481.
SPEAKER_00: And when you say it in church, if you've ever been particularly to a more traditional Anglican church or a Catholic church, you might say the Creed.
SPEAKER_00: And in it, what you say, what you affirm about Jesus is we believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten, not made, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father.
SPEAKER_00: The same essence as the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He is not a second-class deity, as the Jehovah's Witnesses believe.
SPEAKER_00: He is not a prophet, as Muslims believe.
SPEAKER_00: He shares in that divine life.
SPEAKER_00: He is able to speak life and give life because he is life.
SPEAKER_00: It is because he possesses this divine life that he is able to execute judgment and has the authority to do so.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in a sense, as we move on from these rationales, in a sense, we started this examination half an hour ago, thinking about the question of who Jesus is, almost kind of putting him in the dock and asking him to defend himself.
SPEAKER_00: We were adjudicating Jesus' claims, but but right here, right here, Jesus turns the tables.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 27, and he has given him authority to execute judgment, for he is the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_00: Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming, when those who are in tombs will hear his voice and come out.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
SPEAKER_00: There we were adjudicating Jesus' claims whether or not he's God.
SPEAKER_00: We were judging him.
SPEAKER_00: But at this point we come to realize that actually what is not what is important is not who we judge Jesus to be, but who he judges us to be.
SPEAKER_00: It's not so much what do I think of Jesus, but what does he think of me?
SPEAKER_00: The phrase in verse 29 where it says, done good, can be a bit tricky, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: We all say, oh, it's it's my belief, it's by faith, but here Jesus is saying, done good.
SPEAKER_00: Done good should not be understood in terms of moral superiority.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, the Pharisees were very morally superior and they're rejecting him and trying to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: No, to do good in the context of John's gospel is to recognize who Jesus is and to believe in him and to trust him.
SPEAKER_00: To do good, that good which causes us to enter into eternal life, is to believe that he is who he says he is and to trust him who has sent him.
SPEAKER_00: So is Jesus' divinity consistent with belief that God is wadden?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, because he's not a rival to his father, he does not work independently.
SPEAKER_00: He is worthy of the same honor as his father, and he shares the same essence.
SPEAKER_00: Now, much quicker.
SPEAKER_00: Three witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: We went very carefully through uh verses 19 to 29.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to draw out three witnesses that Jesus offers in support of his testimony from verses 30 to 47.
SPEAKER_00: The first witness that Jesus offers to the Pharisees and to us is John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Who backs up my claim?
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you if you want to if you want to kind of make a claim in a court, criminal court or a civil court, it's good to have witnesses backing it up.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, You want to know who my witnesses are?
SPEAKER_00: First, John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: He was a bright shining light.
SPEAKER_00: You knew that something was up with him, that there was something different about him.
SPEAKER_00: And so you sent people to him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: So you sent people to John because you knew that there was something.
SPEAKER_00: You knew that he was a prophet from God, and you enjoyed his light for a while.
SPEAKER_00: But you've missed the point.
SPEAKER_00: He was the first witness to me.
SPEAKER_00: You should have listened to him.
SPEAKER_00: Second witness.
SPEAKER_00: His miracles.
SPEAKER_00: Look down at verse uh 36.
SPEAKER_00: But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John, for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
SPEAKER_00: See, look at the signs.
SPEAKER_00: That's why John calls them signs.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
SPEAKER_00: It's like a signpost.
SPEAKER_00: You don't look at the miracle in the same way that you don't look at a sign, you look at what it's pointing to.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, All of my miracles, all of my signs point to who I am.
SPEAKER_00: Who is the one who can make the lame leap like a deer?
SPEAKER_00: In the words of Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the one who can give sight to the blind?
SPEAKER_00: Who is the one who can turn water into wine?
SPEAKER_00: Who's the one who will raise the dead?
SPEAKER_00: All of my miracles point to who I am.
SPEAKER_00: That is the second witness.
SPEAKER_00: Third witness, the scriptures themselves.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at the Pharisees and he says, verse 39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
SPEAKER_00: You read the Old Testament, you don't see Jesus, you've missed the point.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ plays in 10,000 places in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He is the priest par excellence who brings us into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the once-for-all sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: He is the temple, the place where heaven and earth overlap.
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, he is that Messianic king.
SPEAKER_00: He is the son of Psalm too.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.
SPEAKER_00: He is He is David's greater Lord of Psalm 110.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one that Moses spoke about.
SPEAKER_00: The greater prophet who would come after him and lead his people into a new Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: All of the scriptures speak his name.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus concludes, and so will I, with a final warning.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian and you've you speak often to your non-Christian family or non-Christian friends, offering them these sorts of kind of evidences?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed that you might say, here's all, here's the X, Y, and Z reason why you should believe that God, that Jesus is God and follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And do you ever have that feeling where it just feels like it's boom, it's just kind of bullets off a Kevlar vest?
SPEAKER_00: Like, why isn't John 5 a knockdown argument?
SPEAKER_00: Why don't the Pharisees go, ah, what must I do to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: They still kill him.
SPEAKER_00: Because of what Jesus says afterwards.
SPEAKER_00: You see, becoming a Christian is not an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_00: Becoming a Christian is not about having all of your questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I hope that you, if you've been to city church ever before, I hope that you'd like to see that there's an intellectual rigor and we like to ask questions and we like to engage in somewhat uh deep and complex things.
SPEAKER_00: But at the very core of being a Christian, it's not about just having your questions answered.
SPEAKER_00: Becoming a Christian is not an intellectual decision.
SPEAKER_00: If it was an intellectual decision, Jesus just demolished the Pharisees, but none of them believe.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's not an intellectual decision, it's a moral one.
SPEAKER_00: It's about who will I worship?
SPEAKER_00: What will I follow?
SPEAKER_00: Who will dictate the course of my life?
SPEAKER_00: It's not an intellectual decision, it's a moral one.
SPEAKER_00: And so he says, the reason why you don't believe me is because you prefer the love and the glory that comes from others.
SPEAKER_00: You're too dissuaded and too wrapped up in other people's opinions of you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 42, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you.
SPEAKER_00: I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me.
SPEAKER_00: If another comes in his own name, you receive him.
SPEAKER_00: How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
SPEAKER_00: You guys are too wrapped up in your love of other things, in your love of the opinion of others.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot see me.
SPEAKER_00: You see, it's not about just getting your intellect convinced.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might be sitting here this morning and intellectually you are convinced that Jesus is who he says he is, but you can't bear the opinion of others.
SPEAKER_00: You can't bear what they would think of you if you made that change.
SPEAKER_00: You can't bear what you would lose if you made that change, if you actually trusted him.
SPEAKER_00: You might be intellectually convinced, but you're not convinced in your heart because you're still looking for the glory of other things, the glory of other people.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Pharisees wanted.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees were obsessed about getting the glory from others.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be the person who hears Jesus in John 5 and knows that they are God, that he is God, and knows that there will be implications for your life, but stays away because of what other people will think.
SPEAKER_00: No, come, come and marvel at who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Stand in wonder at the harmony between Father, Son, and Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Rejoice that the invisible God has disclosed Himself to you.
SPEAKER_00: Bow down at the one who gives life and who at the last will give you eternal life by raising you from the dead.