SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to open your Bibles to John chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to look at four verses together from seven to ten.
SPEAKER_00: John ten verse seven.
SPEAKER_00: It says this.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus again said to them.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus again said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: All who come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
SPEAKER_00: I am the door.
SPEAKER_00: If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll go in and out and find pasture.
SPEAKER_00: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm preaching through John in my little church in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And about a uh late December, I was preaching this passage, and later that week a very s historic event happened in Rome that happens only once every 25 years.
SPEAKER_00: And the Jubilee was instituted this year in 2025.
SPEAKER_00: On December 24th, 2024, Pope Francis opened up a door at St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter's.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of four doors in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: This door is uh walled shut for 24 years at a time, and it's open on the 25th year.
SPEAKER_00: And Roman Catholics from all over the world are encouraged to fly to Rome to walk through this door to get all their sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And they receive a plenary plenary indulgence for all their sins, including mortal ones.
SPEAKER_00: And if they walk through this door, they can have all their sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next few days, Pope Francis opened the other three doors.
SPEAKER_00: And any door in Rome that you walk through, one of these four doors, you can have all your sins forgiven immediately, like that.
SPEAKER_00: 2013, I believe, Pope Francis became Pope.
SPEAKER_00: I was a seminary student still.
SPEAKER_00: And I was watching his inauguration as the new Pope, and he declared that year a Jubilee year, a special Jubilee year, in which he had all the doors opened in that special year, not one of the 25, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's 2013, 14.
SPEAKER_00: He had this door open, these doors open, and again he inaugurated a special year of Jubilee so that anybody who came to Rome to walk through these doors, they could have all their sins forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And I was I was working in a secular job and I was in a factory and I was screaming at my iPad.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't believe that the Pope had the power to open this door.
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was only once every 25 years, but he could do it in the middle of these 25 years if he wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And I was, if I had a door that you could walk through to get all your sins forgiven, I'd keep it open all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I'd figure out a way to carry it across the world.
SPEAKER_00: They figured out a way to bring all this stuff from Jerusalem to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: They could probably figure out a way to carry this door around the world and convince people to walk through it.
SPEAKER_00: Beg people to walk through it.
SPEAKER_00: Put pizza on the other side to get people to walk through it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I would do.
SPEAKER_00: If I had a door that could save somebody, not only would I never lock it and build a wall behind it to symbolize the fact that you can't walk through it, I would leave it open.
SPEAKER_00: I'd figure out a way to get people to walk through it.
SPEAKER_00: And then I was preaching this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was preaching this passage, I couldn't help but think of this door that was about to open any day.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like us to consider this morning this passage from the perspective of who Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to look at three implications of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And the first point that I would like to discover is the depravity of false Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The depravity of false Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
SPEAKER_00: He later says in verse 10, the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 1, he talks about people who enter the sheepfold by the door, not that do not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs by another way.
SPEAKER_00: He calls them, even here, that man is a thief and a robber.
SPEAKER_00: Three times in ten verses, he he is talking about these thieves and robbers.
SPEAKER_00: An Italian saying is, con chi ce l'ha Jesù?
SPEAKER_00: Who does he have it with?
SPEAKER_00: Who does this, who is he, who is he frustrated with?
SPEAKER_00: Who's he talking about here?
SPEAKER_00: Who's Jesus bothered with?
SPEAKER_00: He says it three times.
SPEAKER_00: He's comparing himself to these thieves and robbers.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to show how incredible he is in comparison to these people.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, who is he talking about in this context?
SPEAKER_00: And I think he says, all who came before me, I don't think he's talking about Moses and Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: Those were faithful prophets of the Lord, faithful people who pointed to Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's talking about faithful prophets who who who preach the truth of God's word to the people in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: I think he's talking about the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: I think he's talking about those who have been teaching a false way of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the immediate context of John chapter 9 helps inform us in John chapter 10 why Jesus is so frustrated with these men and why he calls them thieves and robbers.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, John chapter 9 is the story of a blind man, and an incredible thing happens to him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is walking by the temple, and the blind man is right there, and the disciples see a question.
SPEAKER_00: They use it as an opportunity to learn something from Jesus, and they see a question.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus sees a soul that he's going to save.
SPEAKER_00: And an incredible thing happens.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't heal him immediately so that he sees him.
SPEAKER_00: The blind man doesn't see Jesus and he runs off and goes off to the pool of Siloam, kneels down, washes the mud off his face, and all of a sudden he can see.
SPEAKER_00: It's an incredible miracle.
SPEAKER_00: And he runs back right away and he goes straight to the temple.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even stop to like notice the new things that he sees for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: He's just interested in going back to the temple to convince people that it was him who could see and to tell the Pharisees that he can see now.
SPEAKER_00: And immediately upon getting there, what should be the most beautiful moment in his life, what does it become?
SPEAKER_00: An incredible drag.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: He's having to prove to people that he's the man.
SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
SPEAKER_00: They say it's not him.
SPEAKER_00: It just looks like him.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is him.
SPEAKER_00: And there's this just big confusion.
SPEAKER_00: And so they take him to the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta just picture a room where a man is standing in front of lots of people, and they're mad at him.
SPEAKER_00: And they're questioning him.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking at him with disgust.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy, all he did was do exactly what Jesus said, which was wash mud off his eyes, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's sitting there being condemned, mistreated, and the story ends with him getting kicked out.
SPEAKER_00: All for doing nothing but saying that Jesus healed him.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: How do you get to the point where getting healed is a bad thing?
SPEAKER_00: What drives the heart of a person to look at a person who was mistreated all his life, he had been through pain and suffering, he receives the most incredible blessing in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And your attitude is anger towards that person.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of people Jesus is talking about.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you something in Luke chapter 20.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that we know about the Pharisees, people talk about them often.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to show you in verse 47 of Luke 20, a very clear way that these scribes and Pharisees mistreated the people around them.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says in verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has it, Italian saying, has it with the scribes.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says in verse 47.
SPEAKER_00: Who devour widows' houses, who devour widows' houses, and for a pretense, make long prayers.
SPEAKER_00: They devour widows' houses.
SPEAKER_00: They take advantage of poor little widows who have no money, they don't have a husband.
SPEAKER_00: In this context, this day they needed a husband to provide for them.
SPEAKER_00: And they they take advantage of the moment the husband dies and devour their house.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the next verse.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus looks up.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: He said these words, the scribes devour widows' houses, looks up, and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box.
SPEAKER_00: And he saw a poor widow, put in two small copper coins.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them.
SPEAKER_00: For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she had to live on.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I've been told that this is a giving verse, and I'm all about giving.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be in Italy if it wasn't for giving.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think the context is.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Jesus is very happy about this poor lady going back home after having given all that she had to live on.
SPEAKER_00: After telling the people the scribes devour widows' houses, and then all of a sudden there's a widow and she's giving all she has to live on.
SPEAKER_00: She goes home and she practically has to go home and die, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not a very beautiful thing here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give to me if you give me all that you have, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a terrible thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give all your money to the church.
SPEAKER_00: You have to live, you have to eat bread, right?
SPEAKER_00: A church that makes you do this is a false church.
SPEAKER_00: Why do they do this?
SPEAKER_00: Why do they want you to give to them in this way?
SPEAKER_00: So that they can control you, so that they can use you, so that you can depend on them.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you in John chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go back to John 10 and verse and chapter 9 in particular.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you how it works even in a more significant way.
SPEAKER_00: Finances are finances.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the emotions that they destroy as well.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a word here, the word until, that is so incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verse 18 of John chapter 9, the Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received the sight until.
SPEAKER_00: That's an incredible word.
SPEAKER_00: What does it imply?
SPEAKER_00: Look at it again, look at it again.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received the sight until they called the parents in.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That after they called the parents in, they believed that Jesus did a miracle to cause this man to be to see.
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees at the end of this chapter believed that Jesus healed the blind man.
SPEAKER_00: And they still kill him at the end of the book.
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why would they kill him if he did a miracle to heal a blind man?
SPEAKER_00: It's mind-boggling.
SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
SPEAKER_00: Something more impossible happens.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Until they called the parents of the man who had received this sight.
SPEAKER_00: And picture the man being questioned by these Pharisees, the Pharisees all looking down on him, pointing at him, tension in the room.
SPEAKER_00: They're mad at him.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden they call in the mom.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe one of the most special moments in a mom's life is to hold her little baby for the first time and realize that we're looking into each other's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Mother and son looking into each other's eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Incredible moment.
SPEAKER_00: The most beautiful, maybe, in a mother's life, right?
SPEAKER_00: Mom walks in.
SPEAKER_00: She won't even look at her son who sees her for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Is this your son who you say was born blind?
SPEAKER_00: How does he now see?
SPEAKER_00: His parents answered, We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but how he now sees, we do not know.
SPEAKER_00: Nor do we know who opened his eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him.
SPEAKER_00: He is of age, he will speak for himself.
SPEAKER_00: They should be running in and embracing each other, starting a party, celebration.
SPEAKER_00: I see my son, he sees me for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible, it's the most beautiful moment in my life, and she won't even look at him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why is she not looking at him?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: His parents said these things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess Jesus to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, his parents said, He is of age.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him.
SPEAKER_00: Insane.
SPEAKER_00: Shocking.
SPEAKER_00: A mom walks in and she's afraid to embrace her son because, or else she'll get kicked out of the church.
SPEAKER_00: She'll get kicked out of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: She will not be able to be a regular Jew anymore.
SPEAKER_00: This is what false teaching does.
SPEAKER_00: It steals.
SPEAKER_00: What does it steal?
SPEAKER_00: It steals money, it steals attention, but at the end of the, at the heart of this is what do they steal?
SPEAKER_00: They steal from God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: What do they want?
SPEAKER_00: What does a false teacher want?
SPEAKER_00: What he wants is to get your attention off of Jesus and onto anything but Jesus, other things other than Jesus, and ultimately on themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They steal God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: One way to describe false religions and false teachers is glory thieves.
SPEAKER_00: They're glory thieves.
SPEAKER_00: They steal glory.
SPEAKER_00: What they want is they want your attention on them, they want you to depend on them.
SPEAKER_00: They want you to spend money to fly across the world to go walk through a door, promising you salvation in return for your money and for your time and your attention.
SPEAKER_00: To the point where you're willing to not embrace your son who sees you for the first time because you're afraid of losing this works-based system that's so dependent on you following every single rule perfectly to hope that one day you stand before God and He supposedly lets you into heaven based on how wonderful your resume is.
SPEAKER_00: And you hand him this resume on judgment day, and he's supposed to let you into heaven based on these actions that I that I maintained throughout my life.
SPEAKER_00: And the God of the universe who created you, created the world in six literal days, created it, knit you together in your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: And he put you together in your mother's womb.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna stand before this God one day and have the audacity to take out a dirty piece of paper with some of your accomplishments on it and hand it to him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's supposed to judge whether you come into heaven based on how good your accomplishments were?
SPEAKER_00: Who gets the glory if the God of the universe says, Good job, Jordan, you did it.
SPEAKER_00: You you you did you followed the rules I told you to follow?
SPEAKER_00: Or this religion told you to follow.
SPEAKER_00: Who gets the glory?
SPEAKER_00: It's not Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's not finished on the cross, like we just sang.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_00: We need to do more.
SPEAKER_00: We need to try to earn it.
SPEAKER_00: We need to try to tell the God of the universe that we earned our way to your home.
SPEAKER_00: And so false religions and false teachers not only teach you to not only steal glory from God and get your attention onto them, but ultimately they teach you to do the same one day at judgment day, where you're gonna stand before God and somehow you're gonna believe that you're gonna you're gonna merit heaven because of how good you were, or how little bad you did in comparison to how good you did.
SPEAKER_00: And so the goal is to create dependence on the glory thieves.
SPEAKER_00: He could have just said, I'm the shepherd, he could have just said, walk through me, he could have just, he could have ignored all the other people, but he literally sets himself up in comparison to these people, in comparison to John chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: He believes that this is an illustration of what humanity does, which is to prop themselves up as those you need to depend on.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he teaches the disciples something completely different.
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna take the last few chapters of this book and really dig into the disciples and teach them to be different than these Pharisees and these scribes.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna say in John 13, verses 12 through 15, he's gonna teach his disciples to wash each other's feet.
SPEAKER_00: It's foreign to the Pharisees and the scribes.
SPEAKER_00: They did the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: John 14, 12 through 14, he tells the disciples that they will do the things that he does.
SPEAKER_00: They will literally be imitators of him.
SPEAKER_00: In John 15, he taught teaches his disciples to abide in him as the vine and the branches.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 15, verses 12 and 13, he says something revolutionary.
SPEAKER_00: Love one another.
SPEAKER_00: And he teaches them to love one another.
SPEAKER_00: In John 17, in his prayer before the Lord, you can see how much he loves his disciples, how much he loves you and me if we are disciples of him.
SPEAKER_00: And he cares about, he cares about our glorification and being with him in heaven, but he cares about our sanctification as well.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to become godlier as time goes on.
SPEAKER_00: He is teaching a completely different way of shepherding.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I appreciated about Jerry Keller's testimony from last week.
SPEAKER_00: Last Sunday, I watched it on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00: It was very encouraging.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have, if you haven't seen it, go go and look at it.
SPEAKER_00: But I was encouraged by one particular line he said.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I want to thank you all for loving me enough to tell me the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And he listed all the pastors at Emmanuel and just wanted to thank them.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between the pastors at Emmanuel and these false teachers Jesus is talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, in verse 3 of chapter 10, it says to him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
SPEAKER_00: So a sheep who's really a sheep of the shepherd of Christ hears his voice.
SPEAKER_00: There's a ton of sheep in this place, right?
SPEAKER_00: But only some hear the voice of Jesus and follow.
SPEAKER_00: So what's an undershepherd's, a faithful undershepherd's job?
SPEAKER_00: Is it to preach in a way that the dependence goes on him?
SPEAKER_00: Some pastors, even faithful pastors, can tend to get that way.
SPEAKER_00: Or does he preach in such a way that the people who listen to the preaching are trained to recognize whose voice?
SPEAKER_00: Christ's voice.
SPEAKER_00: And it teaches each person to, when they hear Christ's voice and they hear faithful preaching, to follow that and not follow false teaching.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference between an immature and a mature believer, probably.
SPEAKER_00: One of the main differences, other than godliness, hopefully, over time sanctification works.
SPEAKER_00: It's even the ability to discern between false and true.
SPEAKER_00: And it's incredible to note to be in a church, and you guys have this blessing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't anymore, but I can listen from far away, right?
SPEAKER_00: To be in a church where they train you not to depend on them, not to listen to them, not to think about what they're saying as if it's only they can say it.
SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They point towards Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They want you to recognize Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But this is why I appreciated John MacArthur.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he did for all his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: He just taught people to open up the Bible and hear Christ's voice.
SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing worse than a false teacher because he does the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to depend on him.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to steal, he wants to rob, he wants the glory.
SPEAKER_00: And of all the depravity on earth, of all the horrible things humans do, stealing from God's glory is the worst thing.
SPEAKER_00: And I hope you walk away from this message, understanding that.
SPEAKER_00: There are horrible things you can do to somebody's body, stuff that makes our skin crawl, that when we hear of it, it makes us cry, makes us scream, makes us want to do something about it, and it should, it's good.
SPEAKER_00: False religion is worse than that.
SPEAKER_00: Because what the former are doing is to the body, but what the latter are doing is to the soul.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we don't only help somebody physically, but we give them the gospel as well.
SPEAKER_00: If we do just the physical part, then we didn't help them really eternally.
SPEAKER_00: We helped them a little bit now.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we put the gospel with it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the gospel cares about something far more important, something eternal, their soul.
SPEAKER_00: Look how they try to steal God's glory.
SPEAKER_00: But I think that the desire to steal God's glory reigns in every heart even after conversion.
SPEAKER_00: And every person that comes into church could come with an attitude of wanting to get attention on themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And if I can leave you with a little encouragement, maybe you could consider with what heart you come to church.
SPEAKER_00: Why did you come this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you talk to people the way you do?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you befriend certain people and not befriend others?
SPEAKER_00: What are you after?
SPEAKER_00: We can walk into church with wrong motivations.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's a job that you have that depends on people buying your product or selling it or doing something, whether you're a missionary like me or pastor or even if you don't have a job and you just come and seek attention from people, right?
SPEAKER_00: You could steal, you could decide, you could be tempted to steal from the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: The goal of life is simple.
SPEAKER_00: To live for God's glory, to for me to live as Christ and to die as gain, the Bible says, and therefore our life should be all directed towards making much of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe the second point helps us to know the reason why.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not only is it the depravity of false Christ, but secondly, we see the exclusivity of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The exclusivity of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I am the door, if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: How many times do you have to enter this door?
SPEAKER_00: If you take that word, those words, he will be saved, how many times do you have to enter the door of Christ in order to be saved?
SPEAKER_00: Is it twice in a lifetime, three times in a lifetime?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it one time, immediately, upon entering the door of Christ, we are instantly saved?
SPEAKER_00: And only we humans can take a verse about the exclusivity of Christ and make it into some kind of works-based thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's how depraved our hearts are, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I get that Bible interpretation is debated.
SPEAKER_00: People go to seminary.
SPEAKER_00: I went to seminary to learn how to interpret the Bible better.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say typically, Emmanuel Bible Church is probably accused by the outside world of being too literal with the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: In this case, we're saying that Jesus is not being literal here.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't actually have hinges on his body, right?
SPEAKER_00: But that he's being figurative.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we make that decision?
SPEAKER_00: One rule of thumb, and you might find this in your in your studies of other religions, false teachers are literal, are being literal when they want to steal glory from God in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And usually they're metaphorical on everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you in the Gospel of John quickly why I say that here Jesus is being metaphorical.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking, uh He's being spiritually speaking here.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 19 of chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered them, you guys know this passage, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
SPEAKER_00: Was Jesus speaking literally or spiritually here?
SPEAKER_00: The Jews then said, It has taken 46 years to build this temple, and you'll raise it up in three days.
SPEAKER_00: They take literally what Jesus is saying, but he is not speaking literally, he's speaking about his body, it says.
SPEAKER_00: He was speaking about the temple of his body.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings want to take Jesus' words and make them spirit, make him literal when he's being spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 3, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus answered him, talking Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does Nicodemus do?
SPEAKER_00: He takes it literally.
SPEAKER_00: How can a man be born when he is old?
SPEAKER_00: Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, unless one is born of spirit, of water and of spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: What is Jesus talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about spiritual things, right?
SPEAKER_00: Even says that he's talking about spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: Nicodemus and his works-based mentality, he takes it immediately and says, What's this works-based thing?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta get back into my mother's womb somehow.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is with the woman at the well.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: He says, If you knew the gifts of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.
SPEAKER_00: The woman says to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw the water with, and the well is deep.
SPEAKER_00: Where do you get that living water?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have a bucket, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna give me water?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is talking about spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: Later on, the the disciples in verse 31, they approach the scene where Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is she a woman, not only is she a Samaritan woman, but she's a sinful Samaritan woman.
SPEAKER_00: She's had husbands, and the one that she's with is not her husband, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the disciples are like, Jesus must have lost his mind.
SPEAKER_00: He must be hungry.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31.
SPEAKER_00: He who comes, uh he's oh, sorry, 431.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Meanwhile, the disciples were urging him to eat, saying, Rabbi eat.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, but he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.
SPEAKER_00: And so the disciples said to one another, has anyone brought him something to eat?
SPEAKER_00: Where did the sandwich come from?
SPEAKER_00: Even the disciples are confused.
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking it's literal when he's being spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: And a verse that haunts us to this day in Rome, verse 51 of chapter 6, he says this.
SPEAKER_00: It's my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: To this day, people in my country, they meet and they believe that they have to eat daily of Christ's flesh in order to continually and continually be re-forgiven of their sins.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the heart of man to find the verse and immediately think of it as works based, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's our temptation, that's the way that we are wired.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because in our hearts we want to steal glory from God.
SPEAKER_00: We want to convince ourselves that our sin isn't that bad and that we can convince the God of the universe to let us into heaven based on how good we are.
SPEAKER_00: It's not true just of false religions and people out there.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard, it's true of my heart, it's true of me and you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Jesus here in John 10, he's trying to convince you and he's saying, if you walk through me one time, immediately all your sins will be forgiven, wiped away clean, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll spend eternity in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't too long ago that Greg Lory wrote on Twitter, and he was lamenting the fact that Pope Francis said, All religions are pathways to reach God.
SPEAKER_00: And he was rightfully bothered by that statement.
SPEAKER_00: Pope Francis wrote a book called Brothers Everyone, Fratelli tutti in Italian, which means everybody's a brother.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody goes to heaven at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_00: John MacArthur's death caused me to think through some of the memories I have of him.
SPEAKER_00: I wrote a blog post one time because he and another man named Bishop Robert Barron went on Ben Shapiro's show separate times, weeks apart, and Ben Shapiro asked each of those two men this question: Do I have to become a Christian to go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: And Bishop Robert Barron said that, answered that Catholicism is the privileged pathway to God, but that Ben Shapiro didn't have to convert to Christianity in order to reach God.
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you guess what MacArthur said.
SPEAKER_00: Mother Teresa said this: we never try to convert those who receive aid from the missionaries of charity to Christianity, but in our work we bear witness to the love of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: And if Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, or agnostics become for this better men, simply better, we will be satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: It matters to the individual what church he belongs to.
SPEAKER_00: If that individual thinks and believes this is the only way to God for her or him, this is the way God comes into their life.
SPEAKER_00: If he does not know of any other way, and if he has no doubt, so that he does not need to search, then this is his way to salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Peter said, There is no salvation in no one else.
SPEAKER_00: For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was saying four chapters, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
SPEAKER_00: No one comes to the Father but through me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says in John 3 to Nicodemus, he said, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: There is one way to heaven, that is through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we send missionaries, that's why we share the gospel with our neighbors, our friends, our family.
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who will listen, why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the only way to be saved is through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's exclusive.
SPEAKER_00: There are no other ways.
SPEAKER_00: We can't even say we hope that maybe somebody will go to heaven in a different way.
SPEAKER_00: That would be blasphemous.
SPEAKER_00: We don't believe that.
SPEAKER_00: There's only one way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's fascinating how we get this wrong all the time.
SPEAKER_00: If you go back to John chapter 6, Jesus says, Eat my flesh.
SPEAKER_00: We take that as being literal.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if we would just read the context of John 6, we'll see what Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: Look at John 6, 26, for example.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Truly, truly say to you, you're seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did the miracle, the feeding of the 5,000, maybe 20,000 people with women and children.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to get him to make him king.
SPEAKER_00: He walks, he goes away, he comes back, he has this speech right here.
SPEAKER_00: This is the flesh speech.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You must not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And so they ask, what are these works that we need to do?
SPEAKER_00: What must we do to be doing the works of God?
SPEAKER_00: Great question.
SPEAKER_00: How do I get to heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Look at what Jesus says in verse 29.
SPEAKER_00: This is the work of God.
SPEAKER_00: That you believe in him, whom he has sent.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: What else do I have to do?
SPEAKER_00: I gotta pray something, do something, give something.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is the work.
SPEAKER_00: This is the work of God that you believe in whom he has sent.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 35.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 36, the next verse.
SPEAKER_00: But I say to you that you have seen me, and yet you do not believe.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 40.
SPEAKER_00: For this is the will of God, my father.
SPEAKER_00: What is his will?
SPEAKER_00: Whoa, okay, we gotta listen.
SPEAKER_00: That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: Look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Just reading the context tells us what Jesus means by eating his flesh.
SPEAKER_00: It's literally just believing.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 47.
SPEAKER_00: Truly, truly I say to you, who believes has eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 64, his disciples, the disciples, there's a lot of disciples, and they're all following him.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus laments this.
SPEAKER_00: There are some of you who do not believe.
SPEAKER_00: And they walk away.
SPEAKER_00: They leave the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: They leave him.
SPEAKER_00: Because?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's telling them salvation comes through, not through works, but through believing.
SPEAKER_00: And they don't want to just believe.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to open up their heart to Jesus and say, I'm a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: I deserve hell.
SPEAKER_00: I can't save myself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus saved me.
SPEAKER_00: And only you and you only get the glory.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want that.
SPEAKER_00: They want the glory.
SPEAKER_00: And later on it's going to say they would not believe in Christ publicly because they were afraid of the glory of man, it says to us.
SPEAKER_00: And yet Peter says something incredible.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Are you going to go away too?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, To whom shall we go?
SPEAKER_00: You have the words of eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: And we have believed.
SPEAKER_00: We have believed.
SPEAKER_00: Salvation is simple.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to wait 25 years to walk through a door.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to eat continually of Christ's flesh.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to give a certain amount of money to the church.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to go on short-term mission trips, do all these things in order to earn some way of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: What do you need?
SPEAKER_00: You need to believe in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You need to be willing to admit that you're a sinner, that you deserve hell.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot save yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And you need to put your faith and trust in Jesus alone for your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I have one minute to do the last point.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry about that.
SPEAKER_00: I got carried away there.
SPEAKER_00: It's a crazy time in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just getting carried away.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see it quickly.
SPEAKER_00: The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: Not only do we see the depravity of false Christs, we see the exclusivity of Christ, but then we see the generosity of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is so much better.
SPEAKER_00: The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
SPEAKER_00: I come that they may have life and have it abundantly.
SPEAKER_00: If you go back to the blind man at the bottom of the temple, he's lost his religion, he's lost his family, he's lost everything.
SPEAKER_00: What does he need?
SPEAKER_00: Has he lost anything really?
SPEAKER_00: From a human standpoint, from a life standpoint, sure.
SPEAKER_00: But if he doesn't believe in Christ, he's gonna end up in hell anyways, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus comes and offers him something that is far better than even having your mom hold you for the first time and seeing each other for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: It's even better than keeping some kind of works-based religion that at the end of the day you still don't know if you're saved or not.
SPEAKER_00: It's better than receiving any amount of money, any houses, any treasure this world can offer you.
SPEAKER_00: What does he receive?
SPEAKER_00: He receives new eyes.
SPEAKER_00: Not physically speaking, but spiritually speaking.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets on his knees.
SPEAKER_00: Very similarly to the beginning of the chapter, when he gets on his knees to wash off the mud off his eyes to see physically for the first time.
SPEAKER_00: This time he gets on his knees and he worships Jesus, and for the first time he can see spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: And that miracle will last for eternity.
SPEAKER_00: The first miracle will last for a few years.
SPEAKER_00: He probably had 40-20 vision.
SPEAKER_00: He had the best vision in the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: But after a few years it would dissipate, it would go away, especially when he died.
SPEAKER_00: But the new eyes to see the glory of Christ would last an eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Thomas Brooks, describing Christ and what we have in Christ, said this.
SPEAKER_00: There is in Jesus not only a sufficiency of grace, but an all-sufficiency.
SPEAKER_00: He has enough to supply all our needs.
SPEAKER_00: And not only enough for us, but for all the saints who have ever lived or shall live.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is a fountain of mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_00: From his fullness, as from an overflowing fountain streams every spiritual blessing.
SPEAKER_00: The more grace we draw from Jesus, the more is still in him.
SPEAKER_00: The sun is nevertheless bright.
SPEAKER_00: After all the light we receive from it, in the same way, Jesus is nevertheless full after all the grace we receive from him.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the great storehouses of all heavenly treasures.
SPEAKER_00: In him are laid up all the riches of divine grace.
SPEAKER_00: From him, all believers receive grace, not only at their first conversion, but all along their pilgrim way.
SPEAKER_00: His blessings do not come occasionally, but one after another, ceaseless, boundless, sufficient for every step of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know him?
SPEAKER_00: Because not only does he give you salvation, but he gives you blessing upon blessing, not just in this life, but for all eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever believed in him for your salvation?
SPEAKER_00: The beauty about what we believe, about our religion, if we want to call it that, which it's not, it's it's a faith, is that you can be saved now.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to get a ticket and go fly somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do some kind of work.
SPEAKER_00: The thief was on the cross, seconds away from death.
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do was I don't know if he's laying there, standing there, I don't know how to say it.
SPEAKER_00: All he had to do was what?
SPEAKER_00: Believe in his heart that Christ could save him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's all he did.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're sitting here right now, you can be saved.
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is ask God for humility to admit that you're a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: And one day, when people see you in heaven, they will give all the glory to God because guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Jordan being in heaven is a miracle.
SPEAKER_00: Jordan is a sinner, wicked sinner, depraved, thinks he's the greatest, is tempted to think that he's the most important person in every womb he walks in.
SPEAKER_00: He's a prideful man, he's sinful.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You need to be saved in such a way that God, all the glory goes to God.
SPEAKER_00: On his deathbed, I heard that John MacArthur's son asked him.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Who are you gonna be surprised to see in heaven?
SPEAKER_00: You know what John MacArthur said?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Myself.
SPEAKER_00: Myself.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful way to think of yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Say you're a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: And that's all it takes to get to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Enough humility to say, I'm a sinner, I deserve hell.
SPEAKER_00: I can't save myself.
SPEAKER_00: I just need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Do you need Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Dealer, thank you for your grace.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for Christ, who satisfies all our needs.
SPEAKER_00: The woman at the well had a Christ-shaped hole in her heart that she kept trying to fill with all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: In her case, it was attention of men.
SPEAKER_00: In our case, it could be a whole list of other things.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to come to the fountain, the only fountain that can that we can drink of that can satisfy our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And that's your son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, iBC.church.
SPEAKER_01: If you want more information about the Master Seminary or our location here in Washington, D.C., please go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_01: area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_01: I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.
SPEAKER_01: But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.
SPEAKER_01: Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.