John #13

“That You Might Believe”
John 5: 16 -30
Pastor Ben Fleming
September 20, 2009

Turn in your bible to John chp 5. Can you tell who someone is or what they are like when you first meet them? Some of you think you are a pretty good read of people. I really have no idea what you are like just because you are hear this morning. You can know someone for years and I have known many of you for years ---- you think you know them, and you really do not. Today I want us to look at the question: Who is this person Jesus Christ that we talk about and read about? Who is this person Jesus Christ whom we claim and say is our savior? Did He really come to this earth to bear the full wrath and punishment of God for man’s sin or was he just a good moral teacher? Must we believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life and that no one comes to God except through Him and that those who reject him are cast into an eternal hell? Is He really God? People all over the world have different beliefs about who they say and think Jesus is. Some people only know His name…. as a cuss word.

Some say Jesus was a crusading political revolutionary of liberation theology. Some say he was a cynical Jewish sage of the Jewish Seminar or a countercultural hero of the rock musicals Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar. Listen to this:….. Jehovah’s Witness say Jesus is not God. Before he lived on earth, he was Michael the archangel and on earth he was just a man who lived a perfect life. So, remember that when they come to your door. Mormans say Jesus was a created spirit child by the Father and Mother in heaven. His body was created through sexual union between Elohim and Mary. He is the elder brother of all men and spirit beings, therefore, Jesus is the brother of Satan. I am not making this up. The Unity Church says Jesus was a perfect man, not God. He is the son of Zechariah and his mission was simply to unite the Jews behind him. Christian Science say he was simply a man who displayed the Christ idea. He did not suffer and could not suffer for sins. Muslims say Jesus was a prophet, New Age says Jesus was not a savior – but a spiritual model – a guru or ascended master and the Hindus believe he is a son of a god as are thousands of others sons of gods. His death did not forgive sins and he did not rise again from the dead. ----- okay ----- so does it really matter who Jesus is or who you might think he is? Does it even matter when you are in a so called Christian church? Can I not just believe in Jesus and not really care about who He is?

Every religious belief that I listed above believes something about Jesus – but the belief they believe will not bring them to God. They can be sincere and honest and good in what they believe and be eternally separated from God – condemened and cast into hell – experiencing the full – eternal – continual wrath of God. Look on your outline at the words of Jesus in Matthew --- very sobering words…..

Matthew 7: 21 – 23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Jesus knew that it was vitally important that he drive home again and again exactly who He is. During the three years of his ministry Jesus was increasingly confrontational to the religious leaders and the Jewish masses by claiming that He was God. John 8:58-59 “I tell you the truth Jesus answered, before Abraham was born, I am.” At this they picked up stones to stone him.” The Hebrew translation of the English ‘I am” is Yahweh. That name was so sacred to a Jewish person they refused to speak it. When ever you read the Gospels and Jesus answers a question by saying I am.” He is saying I am God – I am Yahweh. In our text today Jesus gives 4 pictures that tell us more of who He is. PLEASE STAND AS WE READ OUR TEXT FOR TODAY 5:16-30.. Phil

Who is Jesus Christ?

1. Jesus is always at work. (Vs. 17-18) “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too. am working.” For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was evening calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” Who is Jesus?

Jesus is equal to the Father in his person. Jesus said – My father is always at his work and I too am working. If you see My Father working – you see me working. In context --- Jesus was referring to verse 16 –“So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.” They were upset that Jesus healed on the Sabbath Day. To them – He broke the Sabbath rule and He was claiming to be God. Jewish religious rules said that you could not heal or do anything on the Sabbath. So – what Jesus said – implied that the Sabbath was not given for God but for man. The Sabbath commandment did not apply to God – it did not apply to Jesus. God did not rest on the 7th day because He needed some kind of rest – He did so to give man a divine example. The writer of Hebrews put it this way:

Hebrews 4:9-10 “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.”

So --- does God not work on Sunday? Is God cruising right now in His easy chair with His hands off His creation? Hebrews 1:3 “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” Who sustains all things? Who keeps the O2 in the air and who keeps the world and the planets spinning and gravity working ---- Jesus Christ – why? Because He is equal to the Father. So – who is Jesus? He is God the Father and He is always working. He does good on Sunday.

THINK ABOUT IT IN A SIDE BAR:
How many people do you know who take a break on Sunday like God intended? Believers should take a break and get spiritually recharged. God intended for us to also get physically – emotionally and mentally recharged. He did not intend for it to be a catch up day – got get the lawn mowed – gotta clean house and paint the room. I remember our friends from Holland – Casper and Helen Valevan while on vacation – they would never plan to end their vacation on Sunday by driving home that day --- they came home on Saturday or Monday……. Who is Jesus? He is always at work. He knows what is going on in your life --- in your problems --- in your frustrations and challenges and He – God the Son -- is working just like God the Father – even on Sunday. WHO IS JESUS? #2

2. Jesus submits to His Father. (Vs. 19-20) “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do whatever he sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him ever greater things than these.” As the Son – Jesus is equal to God in His works. God is always working and in what God does Jesus is equal to God in that work. But – Jesus submits to God in all that He does. “the Son can do nothing by himself --- he does not act independently – he can do whatever he sees the Father doing – because whatever the Father does the Son also does – the Father loves the Son and shows Him all he does. God hides nothing from Jesus. Jesus does nothing to undermine God. Jesus does nothing on his own. There is this perfect harmony between the two.
This the perfect picture of what a husband and wife relationship should be like. Notice that I said should be like.. This is exactly what Paul is writing about in the book of Ephesians.

Ephesians 5:22 – 26 “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which He is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” I am not sure that we really do understand this submission between the Father and the Son and how God intends for it to be modeled and reflected in our lives. I want to take some liberty and re write John 5:19-20 “I tell you the truth, the wife can do nothing by herself; she can only do whatever she sees her husband doing, because whatever her husband does the wife also does. For the husband loves the wife and shows her all he does. Yes, to your amazement the husband will show her ever greater things than these.”

Submission in our society and even in the church is not an attractive word. We rebel at it. I cannot recall in 15 years anyone asking me in the church – “do you think I reflect a submissive spirit?” But – here in these verses – we see such a sweet sweet picture of the submissive relationship between the Father and the Son. Because of that submission – the Son is equal to the Father in His works.

3. Jesus gives life to whom He chooses. (Vs. 21-26) “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it…..”I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life… for as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.”

Another way of saying that Jesus gives life to whom He chooses is to say Jesus is equal to God in His power and sovereignty. Because Jesus was asserting his equality with God he is saying that he has parallel power with God to raise the dead – to give physical life and spiritual life. Because Jesus has the same power that God has – he is able to raise people from the dead physically and more importantly he is able to give people spiritual life. Jesus said that in

John 4:4 “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water sprinting up to eternal life.”

So – Jesus chooses who becomes spiritually alive and who stays spiritually dead. That is one of the means of him being soverign and supreme. For many, it is a very hard teaching to get their minds around especially when everything around us tells us that it is our right to choose. In our society, choice has become a value in itself, even a priority. But God’s society is not American. Paul puts it this way in Romans 9:19 -22. “One of you will say to me; then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will? But who are you, o man to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, Why did you make me like this? Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction?” So – Jesus gives life to whom He chooses. People are born spiritually dead. People are born separated from God. There is no spiritual life in them --- what Paul is saying – God chooses whom He is going to give spiritual life to and whom He is not going to give spiritually life to. John is writing here the words of Jesus – “even so the Son gives life to whom He is pleased to give it.” Jesus has the same soverign power that God has.

This is not a random teaching in the bible you find it through out the bible. Turn to the book of gepc Ephesians chapter one. I will read a few verses in chapter one. --- vs. 3 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world.” God chose us in Jesus before the creation of the world.” He did not choose every one – we know that from Romans 9. Some he chose for noble purposes and some he chose for destruction. In John 6:44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” This teaching is a struggle for man because it takes the choice for salvation out of man’s hands and puts into God’s hands. In verse 21 of chapter 5. Jesus is saying – God gives life to man and I give life to man.

But never be confused and think that man has no responsibility. Time and time again man is told and commanded, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Man has the responsibility to come. Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Who are you following? Who is this Jesus that you think you are following? Do you believe He is fully God? Do you believe He has the power to give spiritual life and the power to cast someone into hell? Jesus said, “he who has believed has crossed over from death to life.” Has that happened to you? Tell me one reason why you should go home today and not make absolutely certain that it has happened…….. You cannot think of a reason and yet some of you will go home uncertain of your spiritual life and future. Jesus Christ gives life to whom He chooses.

4. Jesus judges all men. (Vs. 27-30) “And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”


In the 3rd picture Jesus said that God had given him the authority to give spiritual life to whomever He chose to give and this is consistent with the 4th picture – God has given Jesus the authority to judge whomever. The will of God and the will of Jesus is the same. They are in perfect harmony. Judging man was not the primary purpose that Christ came to this earth but judgment is the inescapable result of rejecting the salvation he offers. Judgment is coming upon man.

2 Thessalonians 1:7- 9 “…this will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.” I am not making this up. This is one of the pictures the bible gives of hell. Hell is everlasting. Hell is the absence of God. Hell is the absence of the grace of God. The only thing present in hell of God is His judgment. Jesus says, God has given me authority to judge. DR AL MOHLER COMMENTS……………..

Look on your outline at another scripture…..
Acts 17:30 – 31 “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” God commands men to repent and he has set a day when he will judge the world by the man (Jesus whom He appointed – gave authority to) and God proved that authority by raising Him from the dead.Jesus judges all men – believer and non believer.

2 Corithians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.” The non believer is going to appear before Christ and Christ will cast him or her into hell --- the believer is going to appear and be given crowns for how they lived out the Christian life on this earth.

Who is this Jesus? Jesus has the authority to judge all men. Jesus gives spiritual life to whom He chooses to give it. Jesus submits to His Father. Jesus is our perfect model of submission. Jesus is always at work. Do you know this Jesus? Do you know Him more today?

PHOTO ___ It took a special brand of cruelty to stand out amid the horrors of the Holocaust, but "Ivan the Terrible" was no ordinary sadist. As a Nazi guard, Ivan earned his fame by ushering thousands of prisoners — sometimes hacking them with a sword as they passed — into the gas chambers at Poland's Treblinka death camp. After the war, he vanished. Decades later, in the late 1970s, U.S. authorities fingered a suspect: John Demjanjuk, a retired auto worker residing in a Cleveland suburb. Loving husband and grandfather. His wife and his kids never suspected who John really was. His wife did not know him and the kids did not know their dad. ---- Do you know Jesus? Are you getting to know him better? Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Let us pray.