John 5:19-29: Jesus' Authority

John 5:19–29 — The Authority of the Son

Pastor Caleb preaches from John 5 on the authority of Jesus. First, Jesus has authority given to Him by His Father (vv. 19–20). Second, He has the authority to give life (vv. 21–26). Third, He has the authority to judge (vv. 27–29). This passage calls us to see who Jesus really is and to respond to Him in faith.

Preached at CrossView Community Church.

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

You can have a seat. Father, we we bless your name this morning. God, we have really genuinely no business approaching your throne boldly. But God, you are a God that seeks to redeem people. A God that was not content to leave his people wandering in darkness and stuck in brokenness. And so, God, we praise you this morning. God, we thank you that we have the opportunity to praise you. Lord, we pray in these next moments as we open your word. God, that you would be glorified, that you would be honored. And Lord, that we would make much of you as we've made much of you through worship. God, that we would make much of you in your word this morning. We ask it all in the precious name of Jesus. And all God's people said, Amen. Let's go, guys. Good morning. Are you excited to be with the body of Christ this morning?

unknown 1:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Let's go. Man, pumped. Hey, I there's this terrible thing that happens in life. And it's the fact that you spend most of your childhood, if you're anything like me, you spend most of your childhood making fun of your dad. He's a funny guy. He's a funny guy. This is my my dad is right here on the front row this morning. And the shame the sad thing is that typically he does like this really awesome thing with his glasses, but I can't do that anymore because he's got cataract surgery. So it's like it's not even a, it's not even a good or LASIK. LASIK? Cataract. Okay, okay, okay. So it's not even it's not even a good impression anymore. Okay, he's got readers. Alright, cool, cool, cool, cool. So, you know, it's not even a good impression. But the the irony of me making fun of my father is that I get older, I realize I'm the same person. Just with more hair. But like I'm the same guy. I have this, I do the same thing. We both stand in front of the TV at times, we do this. We both do this like weird thing where we wiggle our toes, apparently. So my mom tells me every time I'm sitting on the couch, it's like your father does that. Inevitably, we become the same person as our father. Now, maybe you're here and you hear that, and that's that's a like that's an admirable thing. Like I've constantly said that if I if I do nothing in this life and I become my father at the end of the day, that's pretty okay with me. I'm okay with that. For some of you, that might not be your story. Maybe that's not your relationship with your dad, maybe that's not how things went. Maybe you're doing everything that you can do to not be like your dad. And I want you to know that whether you had a good example on earth of what a what a father should look like or you didn't, there is a perfect example of a father in scripture. Amen? And today we are going to see, we're gonna see that relationship between Jesus and his father. This is an example of one of those passages in Scripture when uh when people say that God never, Jesus never claimed really to be God. These are passages that you can look at and take them to, and you can just say, Don't be so goofy. Okay, because it's just not true. This is what the word of the Lord says in John chapter 5. Uh stand with me if you are able in honor of reading God's word, and this is what it says. This is these are the words of Jesus. This is Jesus replying to the Pharisees, and he says this. 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 who? His father doing. For whatever the father does, the son does likewise. And the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing, and greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. Underline that, highlight that, circle that, put an arrow around it if you're in the business of doing that in your scripture. Uh, we also have these fancy little booklets in the back, just a little plug back there. That's a it's a it's a it's the gospel of John. If you're like, hey, I just don't want to write in my Bible, um, those are small little copies of the Gospel of John that you can write in, mark up, do all the crazy stuff with. Um that way you don't have to feel bad. Okay. Continue on. Verse 21. 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 and 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. Amen. Truly I say to you, an hour is coming, and now is 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 the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour it is coming when those who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. Let's pray. Father, um, Lord, I pray that you would give anyone who has ears to hear, God, you would give them ears to hear and a mind to understand. God, would you give us hearts that are desiring to move to action? God, that we would not just be a hearer who listens and says that these are nice words and then goes about and lives our life in a way contrary to the gospel. But God, that we would hear your word and that we would be doers of it. And we ask it all in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. You can have a seat. Our first point today is that Jesus has authority that has been given to him by his father. This is kind of a longer point. All the points today are a little bit longer. So I apologize. But they're on here, so you got plenty of ability to write them down. Uh, Jesus has authority that has been given to him by his father. And anytime authority is given, it mat the source of the authority is of utmost importance. For example, as a as a pastor, as a minister in the state of Virginia, uh, I am authorized by the state of Virginia to sign marriage contracts. I can marry people. I can I can hit you together in the eyes of the state of Virginia. Now, if I just walked out of my backyard one day and decided, hey, uh I feel really qualified to marry people. I feel like I feel like I have the legal standing to marry people. And you ask me to perform your wedding, I perform your wedding, and you sign this doc, I sign all the documents, and you take it to the courthouse, they would say, We have no record of who this guy is. Like this is uh, this is not a marriage at all. And so every every minister at every wedding you've ever been to, at the end of the wedding, they typically say something to this effect, by the authority vested in me by the state of Virginia, or whatever. And if they're a good pastor, they'll say, and by God. Mostly and by God is the most important part of that. But in these United States, uh, it's good to be uh have power vested in you by the state that you dwell in. So the authority, it's only as powerful as the person that gives some authority. When you were younger and you had siblings, and they said, I had two sisters growing up, which was actually the worst. It was great, but it was terrible at the same time because I grew up with three moms. Being the youngest was tough. And they would always give me some sort of instruction as to like what I was supposed to do like clean your room, unload the dishwasher. And I did not care. Like I was like, that's like I thanks. I don't care. Until they said, mom and dad said, clean your room, unload the dishwasher. I cared in that moment because now it's not just the words of my sisters that I was hearing, but it was the authority of my parents that I was hearing and experiencing. Likewise, if Jesus comes onto the scene and he is trying to rewrite all of what people had, their basic conceptions of Scripture, and what it meant to follow God and what it meant to honor God, that's really genuinely irrelevant unless the source of his authority is of some value, is of credibility. So who the Father is, who God Almighty is, who Yahweh is, matters. It is not some irrelevant happenstance. This is, I will tell you, I think this is one of the greatest pitfalls of Christianity in America. And it is this is that we claim to follow a heavenly father. We claim to have salvation provided we have salvation from a heavenly father through Jesus. That's what we would claim. That's like a core tenet of our faith, yet we have so little understanding of who this Father even is. One of the best places that we we see the picture of God the Father is in the Old Testament. We see the preparation work that God has been doing through his people in the Old Testament for thousands of years before Jesus even shows up on the scene. If we read out, if we if we ignore the Old Testament entirely as Christians, then we miss out on understanding that this Father that has provided us salvation is a beautiful, majestic God that is all-powerful, that has all wisdom, that created all that we see by just the words in his mouth, and that after he created everything, he sat down and he rested. We miss out on understanding that he is a God that was able to flood the entire earth, to bring judgment upon the entire world and bring about a new people from that. We miss out that he is the God that told Abraham, I want you to leave this place and I'm gonna show you a land, and I will bless the nations through you. Through you, I will bring my promise to fulfillment, which is Jesus. We miss out on seeing God's provision for his people time and time again as we read through the book of Judges when the nation of Israel was being absolutely worthless. They were doing everything that was right in their own eyes. No care for God in their heart whatsoever. And yet, God continually, in his great mercy, because he had already promised to Abraham that he would bring about salvation through the nation of Israel, he stuck with them. He continued to redeem them time and time again. He never left them out of his sight. We, if we don't read the Old Testament, we miss out on amazing things like them taking the promised land, like the story of Jericho and how they marched around the city of Jericho and with the trumpet blast the walls came tumbling down. We miss out on seeing how God worked through guys like David who were broken and messed up, but he used them by his own choosing to slay giants and to protect his people. We miss out on seeing how God, in the midst of exile, he provides for his people, he spares his people through Esther. When a nation would seek to wipe out all of the Jews. God says, I have a plan for salvation and I am going to continue to work this out. And so he brings salvation to his people. We see that in the middle of their exile, God shows that he is a God worthy to be followed, that he will not leave his people high and dry. We see this in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo. And that as King Nebuchadnezzar constructs this wonderful statue, it's actually a really wicked statue, but he constructs this wicked statue. And he says, When the music plays, you're gonna bow down to this. And these three guys, these three homies, say, I'm not doing it. They're the only guys standing in the midst of a crowd of people that are bowing down before this statue. And King Nebi says, Hey, come on in, guys. Um, I gotta take issue with your little stance. And he heats up this fiery furnace and he tosses Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the flames, and they're not consumed. But when Nebuchadnezzar looks in, he says, I thought we tossed three dudes in there, and there's four guys in there. What's going on? And he bows down, trusting in the God of Israel. We see God working through the prophets to bring his people back into Israel after exile. He brings them back to the land that he promised them. And even in the midst of their continued failure, he brings them back, hoping that they had learned their lesson. And just a few years afterwards, they're supposed to be there building the temple. They're supposed to be rebuilding the place that they had worshipped for hundreds of years. But everyone is more concerned about building their own houses back up rather than building the house of God. But God doesn't lose sight on these people. He still plans to send his son Jesus to bring about salvation. This is the Father that we serve. Jesus is saying, I've learned nothing, and I can do nothing except for that that I see my father do. And he has seen for thousands of years his God, his his father work and provide and be gracious and forgiving, but also have great justice for his name. Jesus quite simply when he says, I can do nothing except that which I see my fathers do. This is great hope for us as Christians. That he will not lose heart, he will not become unfaithful because God is faithful. But men, it is a this is a call for you. This is a call for you to understand that your children are only going to do that which they see you do. The same struggles that you have, the same victories that you have, they you will pass that on to your children. And so I just want to implore you, just men in the room, that those people around you that follow you, the words that you speak to them are never going to be enough. They have to see your actions. Point number two, Jesus has the authority to give life. See, the father is the one who's raising and giving life. And Jesus says that in verse 20, for the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. Jesus is saying this ability to give life. God has been giving life to his people through through the working of his hand for thousands of years, and now Jesus is coming to give life. Because if the Father is the one who gives life and he has given the son the authority to give life, we cannot deny him, we cannot deny one or the other and hope to receive life. There are many people that will acknowledge Jesus. In a lot of ways, if you if you if you boil like the Jesus' sports center top 10 of his teachings, they are quite attractive. They're easy to get on with as far as people are like you read through the Sermon on the Mount, and a lot of people can get on with that. Of like, yeah, okay, love your neighbor as yourself. I'm cool with that. Totally think you shouldn't commit adultery, totally think you should be a good person that adds to the kingdom of God. Like that's I agree with that. But there is more to this than just the teaching that makes us feel good, that makes us feel like we can accomplish this all on our own. Or if we want salvation from God the Father, but we really want to detach him from Jesus. Maybe you've dug into the teachings of Jesus a little bit more and you kind of begin to find yourself uncomfortable by the standard that he has, by the true standard of God. If you read through the Sermon on the Mount, you read through the Beatitudes, it may sound quite easy, it might sound quite nice, but then you dig into it deeper and you say, This is an impossible standard. And Jesus concludes that entire teaching by revealing to us that we don't just need to do the right things, but we need to be made into something new. That we need to receive a new heart. The Father has life in himself, and Jesus is the intermediary, he is the go-between for us to receive that. And he says, truly, truly, anytime you see truly, truly in scripture, maybe yours says, truly I tell you, maybe it says, verily, verily, if you're reading some King James Version. Or maybe it's just I tell you the truth. Anytime it says that, you should you should definitely underline, highlight what comes next. Verse 24, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He who does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life. Hold this thought in your mind. Jesus is gonna bring it back to us in verse 28 and 29. Today, if you're here, if you hear the voice of the Lord through his scripture, my challenge for you, my hope for you is that you will receive life, that you won't continue on living out a life that is marked by sin and shame, that's not marked by doing whatever the passions of our flesh decide, but that you follow God. Not that you just call him your friend, but that you submit to him as your Lord, as a ruler, as the king of your heart. I want to see you walk from death into life. Thirdly, we see that Jesus, point number three, Jesus has the authority to judge. Verse 28 and 29, or 27, he says, and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the son of man. Son of man is a callback to Daniel chapter 7. One of these things, like we talked about. You got it, if you want to, if you want to know what's happening in the New Testament, you gotta know some Old Testament. Daniel chapter 7, Daniel's prophesying of this Messiah that would come, calls him the Son of Man. Son of man is Jesus' favorite title for himself. Alright, diving back in. He says, and he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man, because he's the Messiah, because he's the ruler, because he is the king. The Son of Man was the king that was going to come and rule over all creation. He's saying, Because I am a king, because I am a ruler, because I am God. Do not marvel at this. For an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. He says, He will judge those who do evil and those who do good. And the people that have done evil will be judged. And those who have done good will receive life. Now, if you have uh what I like to call your boop-b-do-boop heresy radar on, you will know that if we're not careful, we could read this one verse and we could say, Oh, Jesus just wants me to be a good person. He just wants me to do the right things. He just wants me to love my neighbor as myself, show up to church, give a little money to the church, like that, and then I've got it. I have done good. But this is not true at all. As we read, as we I had drawn our attention to it earlier in verse 24, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes, this is he who has life. And so Jesus is calling back to this for our understanding that faith without works is dead. If we say we have faith, there should obviously be some fruit that accompanies it. For example, I have this tree in the front in the in my front yard, and uh, it's my uncle, he he does landscaping. He is like a plant expert. And I was like, man, I don't I don't know what like when we got the house, the tree looks dead as a doornail. I was like, man, it's it's tough. Heather has to look at it all the time, and she was like, Man, that I was like, that thing is struggling. Uh and I was I was ready to rip it out. I was like, we got to get rid of this tree because it's dead, it's in my front yard. And he comes in, he's like, nope, like grabbing leaves and stuff like that, and like feeling the bark. He's like, Yep, pear tree. And I was like, okay, thanks, I guess. But I and I and I I like I believe my uncle, but I'm still sitting there, I'm looking at the stream, I'm like, this thing is dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. And comes springtime, leaves start appearing. I'm like, all right, it's not dead. But I didn't believe what he said until that fruit started showing up. And lo and behold, it's a pear tree. Because there are full-fledged pears that grow in my front yard uh right around like April and May. So that's really interesting. Uh and Canadian geese, they love they they love pears. So boy was I shocked when I had a whole flock of Canadian geese in my front yard. They do, so they'll get up there, they'll get up there. We can judge, we know that we have real belief by the fruit that results. And Jesus is calling our attention to say there is there is two kinds of fruit. There is a fruit that leads to evil, which is just the natural fruit of our heart. Or there is the fruit that is good, which is the fruit of God. And all of this is Jesus is talking about his Father. He's talking about the work of God, he's talking about the authority that he has. He's even calling back, he's like hitting them with this mic drop moment that he is the son of man. And Jesus tells them, hey, don't marvel at this. That's not what he tells them to marvel at. He's saying, Don't, hey, hey, I know I just blew your mind with the knowledge. I know I just blew your mind by telling you, Son of Man, and I'm really unpacking this for you. I know, I know you, I get it. But don't marvel at that. And so the question for us is, is what should we spend our time marveling at? And we marvel at exactly what he told us to do in verse 20. He's already told us, he said, for the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he is doing. He shows him that God has been working out salvation for thousands of years from the dawn of creation to redeem all of mankind. And greater works than these will he show him so that you may marvel. This greater work, this leads us to ask, what is this greater work that is taking place? This greater work is one, just it's kind of twofold. The first is that some crazy stuff is about to happen. Okay, it's just, and in just a little bit, like next chapter, he's gonna multiply a lunchables and he is going to feed 5,000 people, which is insane. He's gonna raise Lazarus from the dead. He's gonna continue to give sight to blind people, he's gonna heal the broken and the lame. He is gonna do some miraculous things. But most of all, the most miraculous and greatest work that he is going to do is that of completing and fulfilling salvation through his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection. He's saying there's gonna be a greater work that you're gonna have the opportunity to marvel at, that you are gonna see that the path that I've been paving for thousands of years is finally going to be complete, and you are going to be able to walk it with full confidence, having seen that God has shown up, that He has loved us in such a way that even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. This is the greatest work of all time, and that you will be able to marvel at it. And not only will you be able to marvel at it, you will be able to marvel and be so consumed by it that you will go forth and tell people of all that Jesus has done for you, that you will proclaim the good news, that there is salvation in Jesus, that you don't have to continue chasing after all of the foolish, ignorant, dumb stuff that we try to fill our life with, that you can follow after Jesus. And you will marvel at this so much that you can't help but tell your neighbor down the street, that you can't help but tell the people at work, that you can't help but tell your kids, that you can't help but go and travel halfway across the world just to tell some tribe in the middle of nowhere that there is a God that loves them, or so much that you are crazy enough to go and move two hours away from home and go to Virginia Beach, or maybe you're crazy enough that you go and you plant a church somewhere else and you leave Crossview and you go plant a church somewhere, which would be sick. I'm all in for that. And not only that he's doing this, it's amazing when he does it through a perfect man. But the beauty of the gospel is that God does take crooked stri sticks and he does draw straight lines. That even in the midst of I'll even I'll even just put it personally, even in the midst of all my flaws, God is still at work. That for thousands of years, Satan has tried to ruin salvation. He has tried to squash the church through rivalries, dissensions, false teaching, and he can't do it. This is something to marvel at. So, what will you do with the authority of Jesus? Are you just content sitting there singing, singing the song like Jesus is your almighty sky fairy? And you say you say, I have a friend of God. I am a friend of God. He calls me a friend. Great song. It's mentioned like three times in scripture about being a friend of God. But you know what is so much more present is that he is a king that demands us to bow before his authority. Jesus doesn't simply desire to be your friend, although he is. He desires to be your Lord and your Savior. And as a famous theologian said, if he is not Lord, he is certainly not Savior. Today, won't you make Jesus your Savior? Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. God, I thank you for its perfection that we have the opportunity to read it and examine it. God, and then it never, it never returns void. We never have to fear growing tired in your word. Instead, we have the opportunity to praise you, to worship you new and new each and every day, that we can sing a new song to him who sits on the throne. And so, God, I pray in this time of worship that you'd be honored and glorified as we respond to you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.