Latest / Bayside Davis Podcast / The Gospel of John | John 5:19-47

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The Gospel of John | John 5:19-47 · Bayside Davis Podcast

0:04
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bayside Davis podcast.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: You are now listening to our current teaching series in the Gospel of John.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Look, I love being here in Davis for a couple reasons.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Uh, one is you guys feel like family.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then two, what I love about Davis is like, I I don't know if you guys are just always aware of this, but like this is like the city full of some of the smartest people on the planet.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Right?
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, there are incredibly intelligent people in this church.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, I think and I think per capita, I think the the that these are the smartest base siders out of all of our base siders, okay?
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Right?
0:47
SPEAKER_00: It's like who do you got to compete against?
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Auburn, right?
0:50
SPEAKER_00: Anyway.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: But look, I love being in here in Davis, and it is amazing, which is why I'm gonna give you a list of some factual statements, and you have to figure out which one which ones are false.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Y'all with me?
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so let me give you a few of these.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: Uh we we only use 10% of our brain.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: We uh deoxy deoxygenated blood is blue.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Cracking knuckles causes arthritis, sugar makes children hyperactive.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: You lose 90% of your body, uh, body heat through your head.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: The Great Wall of China is visible from space.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Marie Antoinette said, let them eat cake.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Napoleon Bonaparte was exceptionally short.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Albert Einstein failed math as a student, and birds will abandon babies touched by humans.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: How many of you think one of those first ones that I said was false in the false range?
1:41
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are like, uh, I think it was one of the latter ones, right?
1:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll give you a hint.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh the reality is all of them are false.
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Every single statement that I just made was a false statement.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: And some of them sound pretty good, right?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Because like for years, right?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: For years, I definitely thought, you know, that we only use 10% of our brains.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And that was me using 10% of my brain.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that the vast majority of people will believe things that aren't true, but worse than that, there are people who will believe something that is true, but they don't live out that belief in their daily life.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: All right?
2:21
SPEAKER_00: There's a word for that.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: It's called hypocrisy.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: It's the it's saying, hey, I believe it, I just don't live by it.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's what John chapter 5 is really gonna get at.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Because the Pharisees and the religious leaders, they come against Jesus in this passage, and so we're gonna be open, we're gonna be in our Bibles in John chapter 5.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be studying verses, uh, I believe verses 16 all the way to 40 uh 47.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I may not read every single verse today, because we got a lot of content to cover in a short amount of time.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: But here's what's gonna, here's what matters.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is gonna make some startling claims.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna then make his case, and all because Jesus wants to make one thing clear, that we are responsible to him.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: There is some major theological depth in this scripture today.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a lot of depth in this passage.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is why Dale Bruner actually puts it this way: he says, Seldom has Jesus packed as much important doctrine into such short space.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: The doctrine of who he is, how he is who he is, and how we as human followers can know who he is in less than 30 verses.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: We will want to go to the school, we will want to go to school in this chapter for a lifetime.
3:37
SPEAKER_00: So, grab your scuba gear, okay, because we're gonna get ready and get ready to take notes, because we're gonna go deep to the deep end of the pool for this one.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: So, in verse 16, this is what it starts off by saying.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: In his defense, Jesus said to them, My father is always at his work.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: To this very day I too, and I too am working.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, they tried all the more to kill him.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: Not only because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so right, so to understand the context here, that this is a big deal, but we need some context to understand it.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Because you might hear that and it's like, what?
4:20
SPEAKER_00: So, like, he's breaking the Sabbath.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, why would they start trying to kill him over something like this?
4:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Pharisees were the religious elite, the leaders of the people.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: They were largely seen as paragons of virtue by the rest of the culture, okay?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So, like, we tend to think of it in the modern context of like, oh, the Pharisees, they were all the good, they were always the guys who was always wrong and they were dumb and they weren't intelligent.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: They had logic, reason.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: They were the most, they were some of the most educated people in the culture.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: They were also the people who were like trying to get the Jewish people back into the good graces with God, right?
4:55
SPEAKER_00: They were seen by the rest of the people as like these paragons of virtue, like they were the guys you would look to and ask questions for, and yet they were so concerned with making sure that they and everyone else were following the law perfectly.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: They were incredibly legalistic about following God.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, some of the most famous commandments in the Bible are, anyone know?
5:21
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Ten Commandments.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have heard of the Ten Commandments before, right?
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not gonna quiz you right now, because I saw how you did on that last list of ten.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: But the Ten Commandments, I'll I'll paraphrase them for you.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: It's simply this uh you shall have no other gods before God, you shall not make any idols, you shall not misuse the name of God.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Honor your father and mother, you shall not commit you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, and you shall not covet.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is this is some of the law, these are like the big law, the moral law that God gives to his people.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Y'all tracking with me so far?
6:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, awesome.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees took these ten commandments and transformed them into over six hundred commandments.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And you're going, how does how do you do that?
6:12
SPEAKER_00: How do you take ten things and make it into over six hundred things?
6:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, they did it by going into the semantics of being like, hey, what does it mean to, you know, honor the Sabbath?
6:23
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to not covet?
6:26
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to and they would find not only loopholes, but they also would put guardrails and guardrails on guardrails to make sure that you didn't break any of these.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: So, like keeping the Sabbath, for example, uh, it's it's a day of, it's supposed to be a day of rest.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be a gift to us.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: But they would take this and they would go, hey, for the Sabbath, you can't do any work.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: And then the question, of course, is what is what?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Work, right?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: What is work?
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, work could be walking too far, right?
6:55
SPEAKER_00: So you had a certain amount of distance at that day and age that if you walked, you know, if you walked past a mile, well, guess what?
7:02
SPEAKER_00: You broke the Sabbath.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Or if you if you carried something that was too heavy, that was breaking the Sabbath, right?
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Because you were working.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Cooking was considered working, and so you would prepare all your food the day before so that you could eat on the Sabbath.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: You all tracking with me?
7:17
SPEAKER_00: In fact, even today, there are things called Sabbath elevators.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have heard of a Sabbath elevator before?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what that is, don't worry.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: Sabbath elevators are very interesting.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: They are only operating on the Sabbath, and they are there so that you can walk into the elevator because it automatically stops at every single floor of the building.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: Because pressing a button is considered what?
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Work.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And so it would be rule upon rule upon rule upon rule.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus walks into the scene on John chapter 5, and he steps up to this pool at Beth Seda, uh, at the sheepgate, and he walks in, he sees this man who's been lame for decades, unable to get healing, and he heals him and he says to him, Hey, not only does he work the healing, but he says to him, Hey, get up, pick up your mat, and walk.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: So he Jesus breaks the Sabbath, and then this guy, he just tells, breaks the Sabbath.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And so the Pharisees are in an uproar about this.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, in the 1840s, uh, there was a Vienna, there was a place called the Vienna General Hospital, which faced a horrific crisis.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: In the Premier Maternity Clinic, healthy young mothers were dying of childbed fever at a staggering rate of nearly 18%.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: Right?
8:38
SPEAKER_00: A young physician named Dr.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Ignaz Samowais, I'm gonna butcher that pronunciation, forgive me, resolved to find out why.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: He noticed a bizarre variable.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: The premier clinic was staffed by medical students who spent their mornings performing autopsies on corpses before walking directly into the maternity ward to examine women.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: A second clinic run by midwives who never touched corpses had almost no deaths.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Right?
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Samwise deduced that invisible lethal particles were on the doctor's hands.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: At the time, it was an extraordinary claim.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: In 1847, he ordered a strict new rule.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Everyone must wash their hands in a chlorinated solution.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: The results were miraculous.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: The mortality rate immediately plummeted from 18% to less than 2%.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: You would think that Samowise was hailed as a hero.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the medical establishment mocked him, refused to wash their hands, and eventually got him fired.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: He died in an asylum while thousands of women continued to die needlessly.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: Why would brilliant educated men reject such overwhelming evidence because of its implication?
9:56
SPEAKER_00: If Samuel Wise was right, the doctors were the ones who were killing their own patients.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: It shattered their pride.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: They didn't reject the data because it was weak, they rejected it because their pride was strong.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And we like to think that strong evidence, strong corrective data, leads to the right changes.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, evidence does not guarantee a change.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: John 5 is like this courtroom drama.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is on trial by the religious elite for claiming equality with God.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And like a master attorney, Jesus doesn't ask for blind faith.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: He calls witness after witness to the stand to make his case.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: The evidence is irrefutable, yet the religious leaders still reject him.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Why?
10:40
SPEAKER_00: Because the problem underneath intellectual resistance is almost always spiritual resistance.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: The problem is rarely that we lack evidence for Jesus.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that we refuse to come to him.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' response is twofold and scandalous to everyone.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: He says, My Father, right?
10:58
SPEAKER_00: He claims equality with God.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: He claims, in other words, to be God.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a lot of people that today that will be get that like to give the impression online that Jesus never claimed to be God.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Have you heard this before?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: People would sometimes like to claim, oh, Jesus never actually said, I am God.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that's not how he would have said it in that culture.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't have walked around and said, hey, I am God.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Because people did that.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: This was not the first time somebody claimed to be a God.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus did it in a very specific way where his culture, first century Jews, his audience in Jerusalem would never have mistaken him, would never have misunderstood what Jesus was trying to say.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Right?
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Like people like to think that we made this up 300 years later by a vote that we all said, oh yeah, Jesus was God, Jesus is God.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: But just because Jesus doesn't say it how you want him to say it, doesn't mean he didn't say it.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: In the culture at that time, no one would have misunderstood what Jesus was saying.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: In fact, let me give you some of the claims that Jesus makes throughout the Gospels.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: He claims to be the bread of life, that's in John 6.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: He claims to be the good shepherd, John 10.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: He claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, John 14.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: He claims that eternal life is with him, John 4.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: He claims to be the great I am, John 8.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: He claims to be one with God in John 10.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: He accepts worship as God in Matthew 28 and in the book of Revelation.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: He claims that if you have seen him, get this.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: He claims when the disciples say, Hey, show us God, show us the Father, he says, Hey, if you've seen me, you've seen God.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Right?
12:37
SPEAKER_00: That's in John 14.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the Pharisees and the religious leaders are extremely offended by this.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: They are astounded by this, right?
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Because they are pure, what we would call pure monotheists, right?
12:52
SPEAKER_00: The idea of a human having the arrogance to claim to be the creator God.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Not like how the Romans did it, not like how the pantheon of, like, oh, I am a God, or I'm a demigod, or I'm a divine figure of some kind of power level or whatever.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus is claiming, no, no, no.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Everything that exists, I made.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Right?
13:14
SPEAKER_00: That if you've seen me, you've seen God.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: In other words, Jesus is claiming that if you're looking for God, you've found him.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: I think C.S.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: Lewis puts it great in his book, in the book Mere Christianity, when he says this.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a long quote, but I want to read the whole thing for you.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: It says this I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: That is the one thing we must not say.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: He would either be a lunatic on the level of a man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: You must make your choice.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman, or something worse.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: He has not left that open to us.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: He did not intend to.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Listen, every single person on this planet in this life is going to have to answer this question who is Jesus?
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Who is he?
14:36
SPEAKER_00: And there's really only two sides of the fence.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: He's either God or he's something much worse.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And you have to make the decision and find out what the evidence points to.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: You can either trust that he is God or he's not.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: There is no middle ground, there's no room for a third option.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: This is the claim of Jesus.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: This is why in Revelation he goes, hey, I'd rather you be hot or cold.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: But because you're lukewarm, I'm gonna spit you out of my mouth.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: There is no third option here.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: So these are the claims of Jesus.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: So then he makes his case.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:12
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 19, he goes on to say this Jesus gave them this answer.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: He can only do what he can only do only what he sees his father doing.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Because whatever the father does, the son also does.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: For the father loves the son and shows him all he does.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: 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.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when you study scripture, uh I I try to do this more often now.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes when I study scripture, I like to find like I start, I pause when I see a phrase or something that'll like remind me of something else I've read.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever done that?
15:59
SPEAKER_00: Like where you're reading through scripture and you go, oh, that sounds familiar, right?
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Like when he says, the son can do nothing by himself, I'm like, oh.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Because at first you hear that phrase and you go, oh, is Jesus talking about how powerless he is?
16:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, like Jesus is so powerless.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: No, he's not emphasizing that.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: That's we tend to view that as a negative thing.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: But when I hear, oh, he can do nothing by himself, I think of John 15, where Jesus looks at us and says, hey, apart from me, you can do what?
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Does that mean you are absolutely powerless?
16:33
SPEAKER_00: No.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that you are completely inept at being able to have gifts and talents and abilities and do that.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: No, it's far more about relationship, right?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: We tend to put the emphasis on whether or not the son has the ability to do something by himself, but that's neglectful of the rest of the verse, which tells us what he does with his father.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Because what does the father do?
16:58
SPEAKER_00: The father sustains everything.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Are you aware of this?
17:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, the universe is not a wind-up toy.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not like God wound up the universe and then sent it on its way, and then he kind of like brushed his hands back and he's just been chilling out, right?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: Because just a couple verses ago, he goes, Hey, my father is still at work to this very day.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the work of the Father?
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Sustaining the entire universe, holding everything in his hand, holding all things together.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: This is why Hebrews 1 3 says this the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: The reason the Father is working up to this very day is because God actively sustains the universe.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: And this is a foreign, so of course the Son is doing the same work as the Father.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: But that's a foreign concept to us.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Because in first century Judaism, like we don't have this as much now.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: We don't do like apprenticeship.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Like we don't, we don't do apprenticeship kind of stuff.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: Back then it was, hey, you know, you're gonna go into whatever, you're you're going to apprentice and learn whatever your father teaches you.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: So before Jesus was an itinerant rabbi, he was what?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: A carpenter.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: Because why?
18:21
SPEAKER_00: Because his dad, his earthly dad, Joseph, was a what?
18:25
SPEAKER_00: A carpenter.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: And so he learned that.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: He apprenticed with his father.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: He did the same work as his father.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: Right?
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of you know this, um, uh well, other all of you should know this, but my family uh planted Bayside 30 years ago, okay?
18:40
SPEAKER_00: 30 plus years ago.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: My dad is the founding senior pastor of Bayside still, and I was never pressured by my parents to get into ministry, to become a pastor.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Um that that is a call that came from from God and not from them.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say, hey, you need to go and be a pastor.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: It was, hey, you in fact, they were like, you can do anything else.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, I know, but God's pushing me this way.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And so, like, God has brought me here into this space, in this place, with my gifts, talents, and abilities.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but because of that, uh a couple weeks ago, we had our kind of our farewell service on May 31st, we had our farewell service at Bayside Blue Oaks.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And so, and and it was such a beautiful thing.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: We're so grateful to Blue Oaks for doing that.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: It was such a like they didn't need to do that at all, but they did, and it was just so we're so grateful for it.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: And they prayed over us and all this stuff.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: But my dad and I, we we team taught together that weekend.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: We both team taught and preached the same sermon.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: I think we have a photo of it up there.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so we team taught that sermon together, and it was a blast.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Like we had a ton of fun, but it wasn't just like, oh, we both showed up on stage, we both preached our own separate things, and then we went away, right?
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Because even just days before that, we were sitting at this restaurant, Muya, and we were working on the sermon actively together.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:02
SPEAKER_00: The reason I tell you all this is because I'm doing the same work as my dad, and he's working right alongside me.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: This is the picture of what Jesus is explaining to them.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: But it goes further than that.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Because by saying this, he's saying, Hey, I am at the same, like Jesus, what he's doing is he's saying, Hey, I am at the same authority level as my father.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Because if you apprentice with your father, you will step into the same authority as your father.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: This is why he says, For the father loves the son and shows him all he does.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: What is the work?
20:40
SPEAKER_00: It's the miraculous, it's the healings, the giving of life, the forgiving of sins, things that only God can do, the son does.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to say this.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to make this clear.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: He goes in verse 22, he says, Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who has sent, who sent me has eternal life, and will not be judged, but is crossed over from death to life.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: The father has entrusted judgment to the Son.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: They think Jesus is on trial, but he's act he's saying, Hey, I can't be the one on trial, because I'm what?
21:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm the judge.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 25, he says, Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to also to have life in himself, and he has given him authority to judge, because why?
21:49
SPEAKER_00: He is the what?
21:50
SPEAKER_00: The Son of Man.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: So, in just within a couple verses, I've never noticed this until I started studying this passage.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: In the Same block of text, he calls himself the son of God and the son of man.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: The reason Jesus is able to judge us is because he is fully man and fully God.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: This is so crucial for you and I to grasp.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Like we so like by the way, you all still got your scuba gear on because we're about to go deep, okay?
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Like some of you are like, I'm drowning already?
22:29
SPEAKER_00: No.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: You're good, you're good.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Here's here, this is so important.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: By the will of God, he has been established as credible to judge.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2 tells us this because it says uh in Philippians 2 that he did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped, right?
22:46
SPEAKER_00: But instead, taking on the very nature of a servant, as in he took human God took humanity unto himself, that he became obedient, obedient to his father by the will of God, but obedient to the will of his father, and became obedient even to death on a cross, right?
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And because of this, he has been given honor and glory and authority to judge everything.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: This is the reason we we have a doctrine in the church called the Trinity.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: How many of you have ever heard of the Trinity before?
23:17
SPEAKER_00: People have tried to explain the Trinity in a lot of different ways over the course of history.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: We say that our God is triune, that there is one God, but that he is three in one.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, Nikki Cruz, uh, a Christian author, put it this way.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: He said, Something has emerged in my walk with God that has become the most important element of my discipleship.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: I have come to see God, to know him, to relate to him as three in one.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: God is Trinity, God is Father, Savior, and Holy Spirit.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: And this is a mystery that we don't quite grasp with our human minds.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we can look into nature and see an example of.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: And people have tried multiple times to give examples of this, like St.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Patrick with his three-leaf clover, right?
24:02
SPEAKER_00: He's like, oh, God's like a three-leaf clover.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Look, you've got this leaf, this leaf, and this leaf.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: It's like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: But that's a heresy called modalism.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Everyone say modalism.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: Modalism, right?
24:13
SPEAKER_00: That's saying, hey, like, because what happens if you pluck off a leaf?
24:16
SPEAKER_00: You still got a clover, but then you just have a leaf.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And you can't, that doesn't work, right?
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Because then it's not gone.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Then, oh, so then it's just like one part, like, oh, God just shows up in a different mode to you, right?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Or then somebody is like, oh, well, you know, what if God is like the sun who produces light and heat, right?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: The problem with that is that then Jesus is a created being, right?
24:43
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is a created being, but that's not the case, right?
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus has said, hey, all things exist because I created them.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Right?
24:55
SPEAKER_00: This is so important for us to understand.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: So the best way we can describe the Trinity is in the words of the Athanasian Creed.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: But uh are you all still with me?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: I know, this is a lot, it's a lot of content that I'm throwing at you.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: But uh here's the Athanasian Creed, I'll put it on the screen.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: It says this this is the this is the creed, that we worship one God in Trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: For the person of the Father is a distinct person.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: The person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty co-eternal.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: This is why you'll see parts of Scripture where you see the Father and the Son.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: Or you'll see parts of Scripture where you'll see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit all together, like think of Jesus' baptism, where the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove, not as an actual dove, but like a descends upon Jesus like a dove, and then a voice, the voice of the Father speaks from heaven and says, Hey, this is my son with whom I am well pleased.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: You've got Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all in the same couple of verses.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: So we know that this is something that is true, but it is not something that we can believe by factual evidence or examples.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: We have to take it on faith.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: We have to take it on faith because we see it time and time again.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, are you all still with me?
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I keep I have to keep asking that because this is this is because some of you are like, okay, yeah, but is theology practical?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Is this actually like really practical for our lives?
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And it is.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Because there are groups of religious beliefs today, there are new religious movements today that will try to convince you that that doctrine isn't essential, that you can be a Christian and think that Jesus is a created being.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: For example, Mormonism believes that Jesus is a created being.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And you might think, well, why is that an issue?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: The reason that's an issue, so when I was studying for my master's in theology, I I wrote my capstone seminar on this on this concept called atonement.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you've heard that word before, maybe you haven't, but atonement is basically this it's the it's the wiping away of a debt to reckon for the purpose of reconciling two parties.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: That there is a debt between two parties, and the atonement is the price to be paid that would wipe away that debt and clear it away so that those two parties could be in a relationship.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: You following me so far?
27:40
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, let's say you owed your neighbor a trillion dollars, right?
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Look at your neighbor right now and say, I owe you a trillion dollars.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, look at your other neighbor and say, I don't owe you, Jack.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: Now let's say this, okay?
27:59
SPEAKER_00: Let's say you pay next week, let's say next week you're like, hey, I'm here to settle the debt, you pay them ten dollars.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Is the debt settled?
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Was that sufficient atonement to reconcile the two of you?
28:15
SPEAKER_00: No, but you paid dollars, right?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: It's still dollars, but is the but what's the problem?
28:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough, right?
28:24
SPEAKER_00: It's insufficient to clear the debt.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: Friends, we have sinned against a God.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: Think about this.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: We have sinned against a God who is infinite in worth and infinite in dignity.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: He has an infinite amount of dignity and worth and value.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: God is completely innocent.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: He is the only completely innocent being.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: He's pure, he is holy.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: There is no one like him.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: He is pre-existent, he is completely infinite.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: Justice demands that the price to wipe away our sins must also be of infinite worth and infinite in dignity.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: This is why you can't clear the debt.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Because you and I, I am finite.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: I opened, I was born, I would die.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: I have a limited amount of time here on earth.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I do not have infinite dignity.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: I do not have infinite value and infinite worth.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I am not.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: There are people like me.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Right?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: No one is like God.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: I do not have an infinite capacity to satisfy the debt that I owe to God.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Angels are created beings.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: They do not have an infinite amount of worth, an infinite amount of dignity to satisfy the debt between us and God.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: For those who believe that Jesus isn't God, that he hasn't existed for all of eternity, that he was a creative being.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: For those who believe that Christ is a finite being, then the atonement is finite, which means the dead remains.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: But for Jesus, for those of us who accept and believe the truth that Jesus is God, that he is co-equal with God, that he is one with the Father, that what he does on the cross for us is of infinite value and infinite insufficiency.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: In other words, it has full sufficiency.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: This is why Hebrews 10, 14 affirms this by saying, For by one sacrifice he is made forever those who are being made holy.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Scriptures tell us, hey, we can draw near to God with a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Without this, we do not have a personal relationship with God.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: We have a kind of relationship where one might, uh student might have with a loan officer, where one day you know that the that the debt to be paid has been deferred, not covered.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus claims to have the authority, credibility, and power to judge the whole earth.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: He is fully divine, fully human.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean?
31:48
SPEAKER_00: It means that Christ intercedes for us at the throne.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: It means that he is the perfect, absolute representative of both humanity and God, able to completely sympathize and empathize with everything that you have gone through because he has been tempted like we have, yet he did not sin.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: Which means the good news of the gospel is this is that when you approach the judgment scene, see, you don't find a foe, you find a friend who has already rigged the trial in your favor, who looks at you and goes, Hey, that trillion dollars you owed me, I paid it.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And you go, Well, look, I've God, I feel like I owe so much.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: But he looks at you and goes, You don't.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to owe me anything.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: As long as you believe that I have done this for you, I will cancel your debt completely.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And some of you are in this room and you're going, I don't know if Jesus is sacrificed.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, could Jesus' sacrifice really cover everything that I have done?
32:49
SPEAKER_00: He is infinite in value and infinite in dignity.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Nothing that you can do in life could possibly, could possibly cancel out what Jesus has done for you.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: It is far, this is why it's it's grace all the more.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: It's grace upon grace upon grace.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And you know what's amazing about God?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not that he is like hesitant to give you this grace or hesitant to give you this mercy, but instead, he looks at you and he is so eager to give it.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is why the Bible says God is rich in mercy.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: He is rich in mercy.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he desires, like, yes, he will do justice, but he prefers mercy.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: He prefers a broken and contrite heart, which God does not despise, says the Psalms.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: That God loves you.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: And not only was his death on the cross sufficient, but then his power was sufficient to beat death, that the grave could not hold him.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And then he brings up witness after witness in the next several verses.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: He says, You've seen John.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: John says, I'm the Lamb of God.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: He talks about the miracles.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Hey, the work that I'm doing, like, you know, if you don't believe my words, at least believe the signs that I'm doing.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, see that the works I'm doing, like they testify on behalf of me.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And then finally he goes to the third witness, which is scripture.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: He goes to the third witness of scripture and he says, You study the scriptures diligently, because you think that in them you have eternal life.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: These are the very scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 46, he says, If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Friends, ultimately the book of John is about making this one decision.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: Whose voice are you going to listen to?
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Whose voice are you gonna listen to?
34:54
SPEAKER_00: My dad told me a story once uh about a cave explorer named Danny.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: It's a great story, right?
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Danny uh they love to with his buddy, they love to go spelunking and going and exploring caves and cave diving.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And and one day, uh like the guy goes up to Danny and says, Hey Danny, why don't you come with me?
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I found this amazing cave last weekend.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I gotta warn you, like, it gets really tight at some of the spots, and so we're we'll go through this cave, but once we get through the really tight spot, on the other side is an underground lake.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, and it's beautiful, and there's an and there's all these like incredible minerals, and like the scene is breathtaking, and there's this underground lake, it's incredible, and I would love for you to come with me.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Will you come with me?
35:39
SPEAKER_00: And Danny goes, Okay, yeah, sure, I'll go.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: And so they go to the cave, and and as they're going through the rocks, they finally get to the crevice point, and he says, Okay, like it this part's gonna get really tight, so just follow me, okay?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So his buddy goes in first, Danny follows along, and as they're going, like Danny realize it gets smaller and smaller, and so he's he's standing and he's walking, and suddenly he kind of has to crouch a little bit, and as he's walking through this cave, it gets shorter and shorter and narrower and narrower.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: And and and soon enough, they are on their hands and knees crawling through the rock.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And as they're crawling through the rock, like it gets shorter and shorter, and it gets even narrower and narrower until they no longer can crawl on their hands and knees, but instead they have to get down on their bellies and they are army crawling through this rock to try and get to this lake on the other side.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: And as it gets shorter and shorter and narrower and narrower, soon enough, Danny he he can't move and breathe at the same time.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: He has to, so every time, so every time he takes in a breath, hold still, lets out his breath, scoots forward a couple inches, breathes, scoot.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Y'all okay?
36:54
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: I know it hurts me just as much as it hurts you.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: And as they're going through this, suddenly Danny has this thought.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get stuck.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get stuck here.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get stuck here, and then I'm gonna die in here.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna die, like I'm gonna die.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: He starts freaking out, and his friend notices that Danny is panicking, and he goes, Hey, hey, Danny, Danny, listen to me.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the sound of my voice, okay?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: If you start panicking, if you listen to those thoughts in your head, if you start listening to all those doubts and all those fears right now, you're gonna get stuck and then you will die.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: But if you just keep like, just remember, okay?
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Just remember, if you listen to the sound of my voice, if you listen to the sound of my voice, we're going to get through this.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: I have been through this, Danny.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, I've already gone this way.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, I know where I'm going.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Keep listening to the sound of my voice.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: We're going to get through this.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: And Danny died in that case.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm kidding.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine if that was just the end of the sermon?
38:07
SPEAKER_00: No, instead, Danny did his best to ignore the voices in his own head.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And he kept listening to the sound of his friend's voice, who kept saying to him over and over again, Danny, I've been through this.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: Listen, I know it's tight, I know it's pressure, I know you're scared.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: But remember, I've been through this before.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: I know exactly what you're experiencing right now, and I have come out on the other side of this.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: We're almost there.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't give up, just keep listening to the sound of my voice.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: And then as and as it got smaller and smaller and narrower and narrower, finally they burst through the end.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: And they're in Danny is able to stand up, and as he looks around, he just sees this glorious sight of this underground lake with all the minerals sparking, sparkling from their lights, and as they're looking, he is just struck awe by the sight of everything.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: The most important thing about this, the most important thing about you and me is this question whose voice are you listening to?
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Are you listening to the voices of this world?
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Are you listening to the voices in your own head that are saying you can't do it?
39:35
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a bad experience.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: You're scared.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: God's not gonna show up.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: I've been through this before, you're just gonna be disappointed again.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Whose voice will you listen to?
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna listen to the voice that says, I am been through this before?
39:59
SPEAKER_00: I have gone this path before, I have been through death before, and I have come out the other side.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: And if you believe in my name, if you believe in the name of Jesus, death can't hold you.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: There is life in his name.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who has sent me has eternal life and will not be judged, but has crossed over from death to life.
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is completely sufficient.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: He is far more gentle with you than you can be with yourself.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter where you've been.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: You don't show up to a vacation house and go, how do I apply this to my life?
41:11
SPEAKER_00: You just accept it and you enjoy it.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees don't run to Jesus because their pride stops them.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: Don't make the same mistake.