God Loves You

0:04As you sit down and get settled inside your bulletins, I believe, or on the back tables is one of these. It's our prayer card for September. These are just some requests for you that you can know how to be praying for us as a church. One of our distinctives is we have a genuine reliance on prayer, and we believe in that. And we believe that everything that we do here, if not buoyed and supported by prayer and done in human power, is going to fail.

0:25And so we need to be praying for our church, praying for our small group ministries, praying for the preaching, praying for our student ministry, kids ministry, all of these things. And this is a card that has some requests on it. We would love for you to put that up on your refrigerator sometime, someplace you're going to see it, and pray with us and for us, because we greatly value those prayers.

0:45Well, moving back to Texas has meant storms again, and I have missed them. In California, they don't know what a storm is. They don't. They don't know what barbecue is, and they don't know what storms are. Those 2 things, don't trust a Californian to be able to tell you what those are.

0:59But coming back to Texas has meant storms, and in fact, about a year ago, we got quite a big one that blew in, and our windows were rattling, and our kids were in the closet, and they were like, what's gonna happen? I said, I don't know, we may be meeting Jesus soon. It was awesome. It was so good. The storms are just unlike anything else, and my family and I have come across a show on Discovery Channel called In the Eye of the Storm.

1:21And if you haven't seen it and you're afraid of storms, don't watch it. Don't watch it. It goes through and it gives you— one of the benefits of these things is we get some pretty amazing footage of these storms these days. And so, it gives you these on-the-ground videos of some of these tornadoes. And I didn't even know what a derecho was until I watched this show.

1:42And they're talking about a derecho, and that's just a supercell of tornadoes. And it comes through. And I used to think about a tornado like a tornado, if it hit a building, the building's gone because the force of the tornado hitting it. But I was watching one of these episodes, and this was a tornado in Kansas, and as it was going through the neighborhood, it was sucking up everything in its power. Before the funnel cloud hit the building, the building was gone because the power of the storm was just drawing everything into it in the vortex, and then it was just obliterating things.

2:11Well, on the show, a lot of times they'll have the person, they're filming and they're filming and they're filming and they're filming until the tornado gets close enough that they're like, all right, I'm out. And then they got to bail and they got to go take shelter. And a lot of times they'll come back out after the tornado has passed by and they'll have their video out and you look at the devastation that's there, the wreckage. And a lot of times they'll walk outside their door and you'll see a neighborhood street that used to be lined with houses and you walk out there and then all of a sudden there's no houses left anywhere. It's unbelievable, the devastation, the wreckage that a tornado can cause when it hits a neighborhood like that.

2:49Well, God's love, when it hits your life, doesn't leave devastation, but it does leave its mark. It does bring wreckage to everything you used to be as it moves to set you up to rebuild who God wants you to be. When you are hit by the storm of God's love in your life, your life will forever look different. To be impacted by the love of God is something that you will recognize in someone who has experienced it. In fact, God has targeted you, Christian, with his love, with that devastating, that, that, that transformative love.

3:27He's targeted you with that love. He's entrusted you with his power and his mission, and he's commissioned you in that power to go and reach other people for Christ. The life impacted by the love of God will inevitably look different, and that's what we're going to see this morning in our passage. And as we turn to John chapter 12, I know what you're probably thinking. You're thinking, okay, here comes another message on evangelism.

3:48I feel like we've hit that hard. And unapologetically, you know what, we have. But you remember what John himself said about the Gospel of John in John chapter 20, verses 30 through 31? He says, I've written these things that you might— what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ.

4:03And so if you're walking away from this— these messages in John going, man, I feel like there's a lot of emphasis on people coming to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, then I think John would say, man, mission accomplished. Probably more than any of the other Gospels, certainly more than any of the other Gospels, perhaps more than any other book save maybe Acts, when you press the book of John, the Gospel drips out. This is all about seeing people come to know Jesus as Savior. Now, that said, as we come to the end of John chapter 12, next week we're launched into a new series in John 13 through 17. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.

4:405 chapters that are all going to be about the, the few hours that Jesus spends with his disciples in the upper room. And that series is going to really get into our kitchens on what true discipleship looks like. So we're going to shift gears and start to focus on what does it look like for me to be a genuine follower of Jesus as Jesus teaches in some of his last hours before the cross his closest followers there in John 13 through 17. But for now, we finish up what's called the Book of the Signs this morning in John chapter 12, verses 44 through 50. Read with me in our text.

5:10It says this: And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light so that Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to the world to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge.

5:37The word that I have spoken will judge him on that last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Jesus, it says in our text, cries out and begins to say these things.

6:01Now, we don't know when this particular utterance was made by Jesus. We don't know if this is chronologically occurring right after what we just looked at last week, because if you'll remember from last week, Jesus had gone and hid himself from the crowds. And so maybe this is Jesus talking to the, the others that are still around. Maybe this is Jesus talking to his disciples right after that. Or maybe this is just John knowing that this was the conclusion of Jesus' earthly public ministry here, putting this passage in here as that, that bookend to his earthly ministry.

6:34Either way, it does provide that, that helpful conclusion to his public ministry as we get ready next week to turn the page into his time with his disciples in the upper room. And again, there's some familiar themes here. And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me. The word belief is a word that has been recurring over and over in John's Gospel. In fact, the word occurs 98 times in John's Gospel out of 241 occurrences in the entirety of the New Testament.

7:07So over a third of the occurrences of the word believe, pistuo in the Greek, are here in John's Gospel. Again, that was one of John's main emphases in writing. That was one of Jesus' main emphases in preaching, was to draw people and call people to believe. But what is it to believe? Well, to believe is to trust, is to have faith in, is to do what all of you did this morning, aware or unaware, when you sat down in that chair.

7:33You trusted that that chair was going to hold you up and not collapse. You believed. You see, that's the thing about belief. Belief is defined by the object that receives our belief. For someone to say, I believe, what?

7:48That's an incomplete statement. We need to know what you're believing in. And so here Jesus is calling on the people listening to him to believe in him. Whoever believes in me believes not in me alone, but in the Father who sent me. What is faith?

8:08What is belief in Jesus? Our Partners Discipleship Manual describes it this way: to have faith in Christ is to trust his righteousness— trust, believe— trust in his righteousness and not your own to make you right with God. To trust in the righteousness of Christ and not your own to make you right with God. Or another way it says it is this: to have faith or to trust in Jesus is to trust in his payment for your sins on the cross to make you right with God. So this belief that Jesus is calling on is a belief in him that his righteousness and his payment is sufficient to make us right with God.

8:47We get that here, but what was he calling them to believe in? What was he asking them to believe in? Because this was prior to the cross. The disciples, even though Jesus had told them 3 times, 3 separate occasions that we know of at this point, that He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified, the disciples still weren't going to fully understand that He was going to Jerusalem to be crucified. They were going to, in fact, in just a few chapters here, all but one of them run when He's arrested.

9:15They were going to run when He was nailed to the cross. So what exactly was He calling them to believe in? Well, at this point, He was calling them to believe in everything that He had been teaching. He was calling them to believe in everything that he had been preaching. He was calling them to believe in everything that he had been revealing about himself throughout the 3 years of his earthly ministry.

9:35Jesus came to proclaim a message. It was the message that John the Baptist was proclaiming before Jesus burst onto the scene. John the Baptist was saying, repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand. John the Baptist is arrested, and on the same day, Jesus is launched into his public ministry saying, repent and believe, for the kingdom of God is at hand. This message is what Jesus was calling people to believe in, saying, hey, you need to be right with God.

10:01This is the call. This is the message. And he says this: whoever believes that message believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And so Jesus here is wanting the crowds to understand what I'm calling you to believe in is not just to believe in me but to believe in the Father. Now that's something that these Jews didn't really have a problem with.

10:20Their problem was not to believe the Father. Their problem was to believe Jesus. But what Jesus wants them to understand is to believe in one is to believe in the other. To see the one is to see the other, as he's going to go on to say here. This is not new in John.

10:32John 4:34, Jesus said to them, my food is to accomplish the will of him who sent me, the Father who sent him. My food is to do what he wants me to do. John 5:36, the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I'm doing, those works, they bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. What I'm doing, I do because the Father sent me to do these things.

11:00Or John 6:38, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And so this is not a new theme in John's Gospel. Jesus has said these things over and over and over again, and now in some of his final words to the crowds, He is saying, believe in me, and in believing in me, you're going to be believing in the Father, because he says in verse 45, whoever sees me sees him who sent me. This relationship between the Father and the Son, it's one that's important for us to understand. Jesus has basically removed all division between the Father and the Son as far as their representation.

11:40Whoever sees him Wrapped up in the word sees there is hears him, observes him, learns from him, watches him. Whoever sees him sees the Father. This representation of the Son and the Father, it's been there from the very beginning of John's Gospel. John wrote this in John 1:1-2, in the beginning was the— what? The Word, the Logos, the self-expression of the Father.

12:08In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. That word in with means face to face, in close proximity with God. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And so we see the close relationship between the Son and the Father right there at the very outset of John's Gospel.

12:30He goes on and he says this in John 1:18, no one has ever seen God. The only God, who's at the Father's side, He has made Him known. The Son, the only God who's at the Father's side, has made the Father known to us. He has exegeted the Father is what that means. He's revealed the Father to us so that when we see the Son, we see the Father.

12:54They are one in purpose, one in will, one in ministry, one in everything that they do. But it's, it's more than that even. Is that they are one in essence. The Father and the Son, both fully God. Trinitarian theology says that we believe in one God, 3 persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

13:18And herein we see Jesus saying, whoever has seen me sees him. Anyone less than God could not make that statement. Jesus can make that statement because Jesus is fully God, the exegete of the Father, the one that explains the Father. And so that impacted John even at the beginning of his gospel as he introduces us to Jesus, but also in his first epistle that he wrote in 1 John 1:1-3. 1 John 1:1-3 says this: That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life, The life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was revealed, or made manifest, to us.

14:08That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. The intimacy of the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Son does what the Father wants the Son to do. The Son speaks as the Father has given the Son to speak, so that as you see the Son, you see the Father.

14:32The unity of the Son and the Father has long been a hallmark of the faith of the church, and the reason is for passages like this one. But so what, right? Why does that matter? We've made this point before. Why does this matter?

14:47What's the significance to this? I want to suggest to you this morning, church, that this is a necessary and helpful reminder to us us, because when we look at Jesus and we see his grace and we see his mercy and we see his compassion, when you see Jesus with the woman at the well, or when you see Jesus with the woman who touches the edge of his cloak, or when you see Jesus heal the paralytic or raise the widow's son, we see a picture of grace and mercy and compassion that I think we sometimes erroneously compartmentalize to Jesus without realizing that when we see Jesus, we see the Father. That when we see the grace and the mercy and the love and the compassion and the patience of Jesus, we see the grace and the mercy and the love and the compassion and the patience of the Father. I think the danger that we have to work against, church, is thinking of the Father as the one who's angry, the one who's disappointed, the one who's distant, the one who has better aims for you than you're able to live up to. And we think of the Father that way, and we think of the Son as the one that stepped in and said, God, don't be mad at them.

15:50Please don't be mad at them. Look what I did for them on the cross. Accept the cross in their place. Don't be mad at them anymore, God. And we think that the Son is that mediator in the sense that the Father just looks at us and shakes his head and says, I'm disappointed in you.

16:05But what Jesus is saying here is when we see the Son, we see the Father. When you see the grace, the love, the mercy, the compassion of the Son, you see the grace, the love, the mercy, the compassion of the Father. And he goes on, he says this in 12:46, what has the Father done? Well, the Father sent the Son and he's come into the world, verse 46, as light so that, for the purpose that whoever believes in me should not remain in darkness. Again, a common motif we've seen in John's Gospel so far, light and darkness, and that Jesus came to be the light.

16:36And in John chapter 3, we read about how this is the judgment that men love darkness rather than the light. They didn't want to come to the light of Jesus.

16:45And but for Jesus, we would still be in our darkness. But I want to suggest even broader to you, church, this morning, but for the Father, we would still be in darkness. I want us to understand this from the point of view of the Son doing the will of the Father. If the Father doesn't send the Son, if the Father doesn't have the grace, the mercy, the compassion, the love on us that we see manifested in the Son, then you and I are always going to still remain in darkness. Church, this first point this morning is about understanding and appreciating the Father's love for you in Jesus.

17:18Point number 1 is just that: see the Father's pursuit of you in Jesus. See the Father's pursuit of you in Jesus. The Father, the uncreated, the omniscient, the omnipotent, the holy, the self-contained, the self-sustained, the owner of everything, the lacker of nothing. The one that has no debtors, but who is himself the creditor of every human being, of everything in creation. That one took the initiative to come after you by sending Jesus to pull his Son, to pull you out of darkness by plunging his Son into the darkness of your sin.

17:58That one, that God decided not to leave his creation in the dark, but to provide the sacrifice necessary for For us to come to the light that we so desperately needed. John 3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. We're talking about the Father in that verse, y'all. The Father so loved the world that he gave his Son. That word gave, wrapped up in that word is the sacrifice involved in the death of Jesus.

18:31Romans 5, another passage that's important along this line. Romans 5, verses 1 through 11, the Apostle Paul writing there. He says, therefore, as I read this morning in our Scripture reading, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Think about that, church. The peace that you enjoy with the Father only came at the expense of the Son.

18:52And the Father is the one that provided that for you. He goes on, he says this, God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, verse 6. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. At what time? At the right time.

19:10What was the right time? The time that the Father deemed this is the time. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. What Paul's saying there is you may have a category of someone in your life that you'd say, yeah, I would die for that person. Maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your children.

19:29You might think, yeah, I would die to save this person because of your love for them. You've got a relationship, you've got a reason to die for them. But Paul's about to magnify the love of God by saying he had no reason based on us to send Jesus for us. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, still openly rebelling against God, still rejecting him, Still defiling his name, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

20:06For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. Y'all see the Father's pursuit of you in Jesus, his love for you, his compassion, his mercy, his grace, all of those things that you see in Jesus and you think, I love that about Jesus. Love that about the Father too. Is he holy and just and wrathful? Yes.

20:31But that doesn't negate his love, his mercy, his compassion, his long-suffering, his patience towards you. When did all this begin? When did the Father's pursuit of you begin? Well, it wasn't John 3:16. That's not when it began.

20:49It wasn't even Luke 1 when the angel showed up to Joseph and Mary and said, hey, you're going to have a baby and that baby is going to be the Son of God. You're going to name his name Jesus because he's going to be the Savior of the world. He's going to save his people from their sins. Wasn't there. That's not where it began either.

21:01It also— it didn't begin back in Isaiah 53, 700 years before that, when God through the prophet Isaiah said he's going to bear the iniquities of many and by his offering will make many to be accounted righteous. It didn't begin there. It didn't begin in Isaiah 53. It didn't begin in Psalm 22 when we read there that David prophesied that the Son of God was going to cry out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? As he bears the weight of our sin.

21:26It didn't begin there. It didn't begin in Genesis 12. It didn't begin there when God told Abraham, through you will all the families of the earth be blessed, and that offspring would ultimately be Jesus, one of the descendants of Abraham. It didn't begin there. It didn't even begin back in the garden.

21:42In Genesis chapter 3, when— after Adam and Eve sinned, just 9 verses after the fall, God said to Satan, the offspring of the woman, Jesus, is going to crush your head. It didn't even begin then. Y'all, God's pursuit of you began even before he said, let there be light.

22:02God created a world in which he said, let there be light, knowing that the darkness of sin was going to come into the world through us. And knowing that to bring light back, he was going to have to say, let there be light again, by sending Jesus to be the light for you, to pull you out of darkness into himself. And he still did it. Why?

22:23I have no idea.

22:28But I do know this: what should that do for us? What should our response to this be? A couple thoughts here. Number one, don't pit Jesus against the Father. Don't even in your mind and in the categories of thought about God think about Jesus as, well, Jesus is loving, kind, and compassionate, and think the Father— well, the Father is disappointed with me and he's angry with me.

22:46That's an unbiblical paradigm.

22:50Don't pit the Son against the Father. Second, don't create categories of an Old Testament God and a New Testament God. That's pretty popular in today's culture and society. Well, the God of the Old Testament, I reject that God because he's a wrathful God, he's an angry God, he's a cruel God. But the God of the New Testament, I like that God.

23:09The problem is what we see in the wholeness of Scripture, and I just went back and hit on some of the highlights, is we see that thread run through the entirety of the Bible of God saying, hey, I'm going to come for my people. I'm going to bring the solution to sin. The Old Testament God is the God that prophesied Isaiah 53. The Old Testament God is the God that promised that there would be a descendant from Abraham. The Old Testament God is the God that right after the fall said, hey, I'm going to provide a solution for the fall.

23:32And so there's not a category of an Old Testament God and a New Testament God, because when we see Jesus, we see the one and the same. Third, let that tension that you still feel prompt you to worship. There is a tension that we're going to feel. There's a tension that we're going to feel between the wrath of God and the, the mercy and grace of God. And, and here's the thing, that tension is not ours to resolve.

23:58It's ours to feel and be prompted to say, God, you are amazing, and I'm going to worship you. Romans 9, at the very beginning of it, Paul says, I wish that I were accursed that all my Jewish brethren might be saved. And then just 2 chapters later, in the same breath, along the same thoughts, he says, oh, how great and unsearchable the depths and the riches of God's wisdom. That's an example of holding those things in tension. Paul's saying, I want something I know that I can't have.

24:25I wish that they were all saved. And yet I know that's not gonna be the reality, and so I'm gonna trust you, and I'm just gonna worship you, God, because at the end of the day, I get to the end of my finitude and realize that you are the infinite Creator, and I'm left to, all that I can do is say thank you and praise you and worship you. Let that prompt you to worship. Fourth, be humbled. That follows.

24:44Be humbled by this great reality.

24:48The fact that he said, let there be light, when you were in darkness, and that light was his Son to pull you out of that darkness. And finally, give thanks daily, daily, every single day. Give thanks for this great reality. Preach the gospel to yourself daily. I'm not the first person to say that, but I'm a firm believer in it.

25:08Remind yourself daily of the reality of the Father's pursuit of you in Jesus, and that should inevitably prompt and promote gratitude in your heart. See the Father's pursuit of you in Jesus.

25:23John 12:47, Jesus continues. He says this, he says, if anyone hears my words— which to hear his words are to hear the Father's words, as we just talked about— if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge them, for I did not come into the world to judge the world but to save the world. Not only did the Son come from the Father to do the will of the Father, but the Father sent the Son with a message to proclaim in accordance with that will. He says this: if anyone hears my words— the word words in the Greek there is the Greek word rhema, which refers to the content of Jesus' teachings, the things that he had been teaching up until this point in all of the Gospels. And so Jesus says, if you've been listening to me If anyone hears these words— in the Gospels we see Peter say in John 6:68, Lord, where should we go?

26:18You have the words. You have the rhema, same word there. You have the words of eternal life. You have the, the content that matters, Jesus.

26:29We often think about Jesus and we think about the high points. We think about the miracles in his life, don't we? When you think about the life of Jesus, the earthly ministry of Jesus, you think about water to wine. You think about the woman at the well. In that interaction, maybe you think about the healing of the paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda.

26:44You think about walking on water and feeding the 5,000 and raising Lazarus. And then certainly we think about what's coming. We think about the cross. We think about the empty tomb. But have you ever stopped and realized that the main purpose and the main pursuit of Jesus during his 3 years of earthly ministry wasn't miracles?

27:00It wasn't casting out demons. It wasn't healing people. That the majority of what Jesus was doing during his earthly ministry came down to teaching. In preaching. You say, how do you know that?

27:10Mark chapter 1. In Mark chapter 1, Jesus, as he sets out on his earthly ministry, he's been up late. He's been healing people, he's been doing all the things that we so often think about him doing. He's been doing the miracles and working all these things, and it's like, wow, look at Jesus, he's so awesome, he does all these cool things. He goes to sleep for a few hours, gets up before it's light out, while it's still dark, beats his disciples up— beats his disciples out of bed, doesn't beat them up.

27:34And then he leaves and he goes to be with the Father. And the disciples wake up and they don't know where he is. And so they go and search for him and they finally find him. Well, by the time that they find him, news has gotten out around the community, hey, Jesus is doing this healing thing. You should come hang out over here and get yourself some healing.

27:51And so people are lined up waiting for Jesus to come back and do round 2. So the disciples go to him and they say that. And they say, hey teacher, Simon says this. He says everyone's looking for you. Why?

28:02Because they want you to do more miracles. Jesus responds in Mark 1:38 and says this: Let us go to the next towns that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out. There it is. Why did Jesus come out and do his earthly ministry? What was his point?

28:20He came to preach. He came to teach. He came to teach these words, as Peter called them, The words of eternal life. That's why Jesus came, is to bring those to the table. The Gospels record 3 or 4 public sermons from Jesus, but I'm sure there were far more than this.

28:36I mean, we've got the Sermon on the Mount, we've got the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6, which is similar in content but different occasion. We've got the Missionary Discourse in Matthew 10 before he sends them out, and then we've got the Olivet Discourse in Matthew chapter 24 and 25. Those are the major sermons of Jesus that we find in the Bible. But what Mark 1 tells us is that's what Jesus was doing. He was going from town to town bringing the words of life.

28:58This was his primary activity. He came to preach the gospel, the good news, and to call people to believe in him. And what I want you to notice in verse 47 again is the connection between his words and his mission. If anyone hears my words— and then he goes on to say, for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. How did he come to save the world?

29:17And you think, well, through the cross and the resurrection. Yes, but that's what his words were about. They were calling people to be ready for the cross and the resurrection. Repent and believe, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

29:32What mattered in the end was what people did with that message. We talked about that a little bit last week. It shows up again, verses 47 through 48. If anyone hears my words, and then 2 things here. Number one, does not keep them.

29:43And then look at verse 48, the one who rejects me and does not receive my words. To keep is to observe and to follow, to obey them. So Jesus says, if someone hears my words and doesn't respond in obedience, and the second is they don't receive my words. To receive, that's a word in the Greek that means to acknowledge as true. So Jesus is saying those are the 2 litmus factors.

30:07If they don't keep and observe, and if they don't receive as true my words, okay, so what does that look like? Is he preaching an obedience-based salvation? Only in the sense that he's preaching obedience and responding in faith and repentance to the Word. That's the first step. That's the keeping that we need to do.

30:23That's the receiving as true, and then we need to repent and believe in the words of Jesus. If anyone doesn't do that, he says, then the Word that I've spoken will judge him on that last day. Now we're back to the logos. The logos that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. And I think John's doing 2 things here.

30:37I think there's a dual meaning here. The logos, the self-revelation of the Father, the whole entirety of everything that Jesus had done during his earthly ministry wrapped up there in the word logos. But then also remember what Jesus was called by John at the very beginning of his gospel: in the beginning was the logos. And so if anyone does not keep my words, he does have a judge. The logos is going to judge him.

31:00And so it's, it's the word, it's the message, it's what people did with Jesus that will ultimately be the final deciding factor by Jesus about where they stand with him in eternity. This is why Peter said, where should we go? You have the words of eternal life. The, the teaching— they recognized that he had the words that were about eternal life. Y'all, this is why the content of the gospel matters so much to us.

31:24This is why we have to be faithful to the words of the gospel, why we can't tamper with it or alter it to make it more palatable to the lost and dying world around us. Only the pure, unadulterated gospel can save a lost and dying world. Second point this morning along those lines is this: accept no substitutes when it comes to the gospel. Accept no substitutes when it comes to the gospel.

31:49There are different people that fall into different categories in this life, right? There's the iPhone people and the Android people, and those two will never mix. When they do, it's a green bubble. You Android users know who you are.

32:05Or In-N-Out versus Whataburger, which I don't get that. I'm like, give me both. I'll take both. Same day sometimes. Give me both.

32:12I'm good with it. Then there's the people that put the toilet paper over the roll, and then there's psychopaths that put it under. There's different people in the world with different things, and with some of those things, you sit back and you take a meh. Approach to it. Fine, whatever.

32:29You know what, I don't even like In-N-Out or Whataburger. Just give me Burger King. We'll pray for you if that's you.

32:38But there are things in life that, that are polarizing, and that we say— that some people say, this is the only way, this is the only way, and you're in the middle going, I don't think that's true. I think there's a middle ground here. Listen, we— there's no approach of— to the gospel that can say meh.

32:54Yeah, there's more than one way that we can couch this. It's not that important. No, it's the most important thing. If eternity is at stake based on our response to the words of Jesus, we have to make sure that we are guarding and protecting the words of Jesus. We have to make sure that we are accepting no substitutes.

33:09And in Jesus' day, he was preaching against and combating a legalistic moralism from the Pharisees that was teaching adherence to the law to be right with God. And Jesus was pushing back against that. And while we may not have the Pharisees in our midst, We do have threats to the gospel all around us. We have substitutes to the gospel that exist everywhere we look. And there's one that I want to call your attention to that's, I think, more prevalent in our culture and society around here in North Texas today than perhaps any other form.

33:34And it's called moralistic therapeutic deism. Moralistic therapeutic deism. This is the gospel of cultural Christianity around us. And it says this, this is what moralistic therapeutic deism says. It says God exists.

33:47We're willing to acknowledge that. And he exists and he watches over human life, but he doesn't interfere with things. Okay? This is the deism part of things. He's a God that's there.

33:55He's responsible for why we're here, but he really doesn't interfere too much with us. Second, that God that exists, you know, he just wants people to be good and kind and fair. Just be nice.

34:10Just be good people. That's the moralistic side of moralistic therapeutic deism. That the point of life is just to be a good person. Just be nice. Just be kind.

34:18Just be, just be fair. That's, that's why religion is here. Religion is here to make morally nice, kind people.

34:26Third, it says this: God wants you to be happy and satisfied with yourself. That's, that's all he cares about. He just wants you to be happy in life. He wants you to be satisfied with yourself in life. He doesn't want any negative toxic voices in your life.

34:42He just wants you to be okay with who you are.

34:48Third, fourth numbers. God, God's there, but he's, and he's there to solve problems, but only if you need him to. He's not going to interfere. He's not going to meddle with your life too much, but hey, if you get stuck, if you get in a tight spot, hey, good old God, he's going to be there for you. Just fire up that prayer.

35:03He'll respond. He's that cosmic vending machine waiting for you.

35:09Finally, God is there and says, hey, you know what? Good people go to heaven. Good people go to heaven.

35:19Y'all, I'm going to suggest to you, I think this is the gospel that the majority of your neighbors buy into. I think this is the gospel that the majority of people who say, yeah, I'm a Christian, these days, I think this is what we're buying into. This is not the gospel.

35:35This is not the gospel in any way, shape, or form.

35:40This is what we have to battle against. This is why we preach about adhering to the faithful gospel. This is why we hammer this home time and time and time again. And listen, I know we know this. My question is, are we doing anything about it?

35:54Your doctrine without the devotion of obedience is dereliction of duty.

36:00God's not going to care if you know this stuff when you get to heaven. He's going to say, what did you do with it?

36:09Did you fight for the unadulterated, pure gospel? Because that's the only solution. The solution is to say, look, you've got a holy God who does very much meddle with the affairs of mankind. He's sovereign, he's holy, he's just, he's righteous. And you've got a problem as man in the fact that you are sinful and you are alienated from that God, and there's no amount of good works that you can do that's going to get you from you to him.

36:36The gospel wrecks us. It doesn't self-affirm us. The gospel says you can't be good enough. You're not good enough. You're a sinner.

36:48But then the good news is that the gospel gets to Jesus. God sent Jesus not to make you a moral person. God didn't send Jesus to make you feel good about yourself. God sent Jesus to pay the penalty, the payment, the debt that you owed so that you might be righteous before him by what? Believing in him, as we talked about back in point number 1.

37:08And that's the response— belief, faith. Guys, we've got to get to that so that we accept no substitutes for the gospel, so that when we see any substitutes to the gospel, we We respond and react against those things by bringing the true, pure, unadulterated gospel to bear on those situations. And so, church, work against it. Accept no substitutes for the gospel. In the end, let me ask you a question.

37:33What good is it going to do your lost neighbor to stand before the Lord and know where you vote politically?

37:39What good is it going to do for your lost family members to hear about a Jesus who just wants them to feel better about themselves?

37:48What good is it going to do your homosexual relative to hear you say that God just wants you to be straight?

37:58The answer is nothing.

38:01And yet all of us are willing to talk about all those things way before we get to the thing that does matter, which is Jesus, the pure, unadulterated gospel of Christ. 49, for I have not spoken in my own authority. I've not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment and what to say, what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father told me.

38:32So Jesus' words are going to prove to be all the judgment that is necessary because the words that Jesus speaks are the words that come from the Father. That's the message that he's been given. He's been given it as to what to speak. Now, the ultimate source of life when it came to words for the Jewish mind was the Torah, the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Therein was contained the promises of the seed of Abraham, the seed that would come from Eve, the promises of the atoning sacrifices in the law and how to go about all that, the prophet like Moses that would come.

39:02So they held the Torah in high regard, and yet Jesus is here supplanting that, superseding that, so, so to speak, by saying, I have the words of life. And what I speak, I speak because the words I speak are the commandments that come from the Father. Back in John chapter 5, Jesus had talked about the Torah. He said, you study the scriptures, you search the scriptures, verse 39 of chapter 5, because you think that in them you have eternal life. But it's they that bear witness about me.

39:27They're pointing to me. I do not receive glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. Verse 43, I've come in my Father's name. He sent me and you do not receive me. You don't receive me.

39:38You don't accept me as true, like we were talking about just a moment ago.

39:44Verse 45, don't think that I'm going to accuse you before the Father. There's one who does accuse you, Moses, on whom you've set your hope. For if you believe the writings of Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. Now he's saying, I've got another commandment for you. I've got another thing for you to consider and to believe, and that is the commandment that's come from the Father through me.

40:02And that commandment, he says in our text, Back in John 12, is eternal life. You have the words of eternal life. The commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Okay, you wanna know something that's really cool?

40:18There's a chain of custody here. The commandment from the Father to the Son, and guess where it went from the Son?

40:26You and me. Us. There's a chain of custody that's uninterrupted about the gospel from the Father, the Creator of everything, to you. And it goes through his Son. The Father gave the commandment to the Son, the commandment being eternal life, meaning the gospel, and told the Son, these are the words I want you to speak.

40:46What did the Son do before he went back to the Father with the church? He said, hey, I've got a commandment for you. Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. What it was— the commandments that came from Christ to the church, the commandments that came to Christ from the Father. See, there's an uninterrupted chain of custody.

41:06That means that what we preach when we preach the gospel is the same gospel that Jesus preached to the lost as well. That's point number 3 this morning. Remember, you preach the same gospel Jesus did. Remember, you preach the same gospel Jesus did.

41:23Which gives you a sense of authority, doesn't it? You're preaching the same message he preached. When I got to Texas and eventually ended up at the private school that I was going to, Trinity Christian Academy, we were a small enough school that I could do this, but I went and signed up to be the waterboy for the football team in 6th grade. And yeah, that's a lesson in humility is what that is right there. But I didn't think that.

41:48I thought I was something big. I even got a jersey, a practice jersey. And this was before we had the fancy Gatorade squeeze bottles. We just had the paper cups or whatever. So I'd run out onto the field with my tray of water and the quarter— the varsity quarterback took a water from me and I was like, no way, that's so cool.

42:05And then I ran back to the field and I got shoved out of the way by the coaches and the players. But I thought I was going out there with the full authority of the coach. I was like, coach wants me to get you some water. Here's some water. And this is like small private school stuff here.

42:19None of those guys went on to do anything in sports, but I thought they were the superstars. And I was like, this is so awesome. And I thought I went with an authority because I was the water boy. And I was, I was, I was nothing. I was just a vehicle to bring water to them.

42:31Y'all, you have been commissioned with the true authority of Christ. He's given you the same message that he brought. That message, repent and believe. Why? For the kingdom's at hand.

42:41We preach that in a different way because we preach repent and believe in Jesus. And what he's done for you, because the kingdom's at hand. And you might think, yeah, but I'm not Jesus. I'm not John. I'm not Paul.

42:51Okay, fair. I'm going to grant you, you're not Jesus. Valid excuse on that one. Same. But John, Peter, Paul, James, they were men just like you.

43:06They were commissioned with a message just like you've been commissioned with a message.

43:11You think when John and Peter and James and Paul shared the gospel outside of their scriptural writings that it lacked the power that they had when they wrote the Scripture that they wrote?

43:22That all of a sudden that gospel message was less than? Nothing changed about the message.

43:30I was looking at one of my degrees this week that said that you're entitled to all the rights, privileges, honors, and marks of distinction thereunto pertaining. I have no idea what that means. But it's there on, on the degree. But I started to think about it. I was like, okay, I think it'd probably be more significant for us to think about ourselves as Christ ambassadors in that sense, that we are as Christ ambassadors given all the rights, privileges, honors, and marks of distinction thereunto pertaining to that role.

43:56You've been commissioned by him. You represent him. You preach his words. You preach his message. Church, it's hard to be bold with the gospel sometimes, isn't it?

44:04Let's just be honest. It is. Would you feel better if Jesus was with you as you were sharing the gospel with someone? I think a lot of north-south on that one. Yep, we're doing this.

44:13Yeah, yeah, I'd feel better. Of course I'd feel better if Jesus was with me. But let me ask a follow-up question. What would change about the gospel?

44:21What would change about the content if Jesus was sitting down next to you with your lost neighbor? Nothing. In fact, if you tried to change it, Jesus would smack you upside the head. He'd be like, what are you doing?

44:36We think, man, well, having Jesus with me would change things. Look, church, Jesus is with you. You've got the Spirit dwelling within you. You've got the presence of God with you. You're preaching the message that he preached.

44:47You don't need anything else.

44:53Listen, here's the thing, y'all. The biggest hurdle you and I have to overcome in this regard is unbelief.

45:00You say, well, I believe in the gospel. I do believe in the gospel. I'm not saying unbelief when it comes to the gospel. I'm saying unbelief when it comes to whether or not someone else is going to believe the gospel.

45:10That the gospel, that the message that Jesus preached is enough. Is it enough? We sang that song this morning. Just the cross is enough. Just the cross is enough.

45:19Just the cross is enough. Do you believe that for you but not your lost coworker? Do you believe that for you but not the lost Hindu that's across the street from you? Do you believe that for you but not your gay uncle? Do you believe that for you but not— fill in the blank?

45:38Is the message of the cross enough? Is the gospel Jesus preached enough to save those people? That's the unbelief we have to overcome. That's the battle that we have to, to, to Fights on a regular basis.

45:55So what does that look like? How can we do that? A few thoughts. Number 1, pray for God to speak through you. When you go and you know you're going to share the gospel, sometimes this is a millisecond prayer because we just have that opportunity dropped in our laps to share the gospel.

46:08So this is, okay, God, speak through me right now. Even then, do it. But if you have an appointment with someone, you're having somebody for dinner, you're going to have lunch with somebody at your office. Pray that God would speak through you because you're speaking the message that Jesus spoke that came from him to begin with. Second, pray for the hearts to be softened because though you have the sufficient message, you are insufficient when it comes to softening their heart.

46:31You can't do that. So pray that God would soften their hearts so they would be receptive, they would receive his word and keep his word. Third, preach the full gospel without reservation. Preach the whole thing. Don't leave anything out.

46:47Don't shortchange it. Give him everything.

46:53And finally, we've talked about this before, but call for the response expecting God to work. This comes back to, do you believe that it will? Do you believe that it can? Call for the response expecting God to work. Again, even if Jesus were to sit down next to you, what would change about the words that you were speaking?

47:16Nothing. Matthew 28:18, and Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And sometimes we forget this last part of the Great Commission.

47:40Jesus says, lo, or behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. As we go and as we proclaim and as we make disciples, Jesus is with us. And one of the primary ways he's with us is in the message that we proclaim, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is why, church, Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.

48:07Church, God has targeted you with his love and trusted you with his message and commissioned you in his power.

48:13Has your life been impacted by the love of God? If it has, these things that we've been talking about this morning, these are some of the effects that you're going to see in the aftermath. Let's pray. God, thanks so much for your love, your grace, your mercy, your compassion to us. We are so overwhelmed by it.

48:32It's more than we can fathom. It's more than we can understand. It's more than we can ever fully appreciate. In fact, we're going to spend eternity trying to, to grasp and hold on to and understand more and more and more of who you are and your kindness to us in Christ. And so, God, we thank you.

48:47We love you. We praise you. We pray for a great week this week, that we would live on mission, aware that this is one of the main reasons why we're still here and Christ hasn't come back yet, because there's work to be done. Enable us to do that. Give us favor with the lost in our lives.

48:59We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Have a great—