Words and Works
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3 scenes
3 scenes
The relationship between Jesus words and his works is the ever present question in John.
Is he who he says he is?
John 10:22–30 (HCSB)
22 Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter. 23 Jesus was walking in the temple complex in Solomon’s Colonnade. 24 Then the Jews surrounded Him and asked, “How long are You going to keep us in suspense? If You are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 “I did tell you and you don’t believe,” Jesus answered them. “The works that I do in My Father’s name testify about Me. 26 But you don’t believe because you are not My sheep. 27 My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish —ever! No one will snatch them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
His works say yes.
The hard hearted
Jesus at the Festival
Big idea:
Jesus sheep listen to his voice.
Why? Because the Father has given them to me and the Father and I are one.
Jesus is promising certainty.
We insure everything under the sun.
The most ironic product you can buy is called life insurance.
The only reason we don’t call it death insurance is it would be hard to sell.
Jesus is the only one who can promise absolute certainty.
He is the only one who can insure our lives.
The reason WHY we are secure in Christ is because we are not a part of the picture.
The biggest danger to your own eternal security is yourself.
I think this is why we oftentimes struggle mightily with the question “Am I saved”
We are a hyper individualistic culture.
I make plans.
I get the job I need.
I discipline my schedule,
I feed my family
I make mistakes
I sin.
One of the results of that, is we begin to see our own salvation through the lens of “I” as well.
And when we do that, we wonder am “I” really saved, because “I” keep on sinning.
“We put an end to all these doubts and uncertainties immediately when we think of the perseverance of the saints not as an accomplishment of the human will, but as a work of God which from the beginning to end is affected by God himself.”
Now we can camp in this passage and draw all sorts of nice systematic theology out of it.
In fact, that’s what I was originally planning on doing for this message.
And if I was teaching a class on doctrines of God and salvation, I might start here.
Here we have the doctrine of the Trinity,
A doctrine of salvation,
and a doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. (Once saved always saved.”)
But doctrines are like flowers.
Doctrine is best when it is rooted in the soil, drawing nutrients and flowering with all it’s beauty in season.
When we divorce theology from the POINT of theology, it’s like we’re picking that flower, and pressing it between the pages of a book.
Yes it’s still beautiful to look at but it’s not alive anymore.
In Jesus, we have all of the doctrine of scripture, but he’s fully alive.
That’s exactly what these Jewish leaders don’t get.
They have the genuine article right in front of them.
But because they are not Jesus’ sheep, they can’t hear his voice.
These doctrines are completely animated by the story that follows...
Jesus on the way
1 Now a man was sick, Lazarus, from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Him: “Lord, the one You love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. 7 Then after that, He said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.” 8 “Rabbi,” the disciples told Him, “just now the Jews tried to stone You, and You’re going there again?” 9 “Aren’t there 12 hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 If anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.” 11 He said this, and then He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on My way to wake him up.” 12 Then the disciples said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” 13 Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought He was speaking about natural sleep. 14 So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15 I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”
What is death to God?
It’s just sleep.
It is no harder for Jesus to raise someone from the dead than it is to nudge someone who has fallen asleep at the DMV and didn’t hear their number called.
Jesus almost comes off as nonchalant.
But here is where we will see the humanity of Jesus.
Because he’s not bumping someone who is simply dozing in a waiting room, he’s on his way to his dear friend’s house who’s body is now stiff from rigormortis and the rot is starting to set in.
Jesus at the Tomb
3 Sheep all waiting
All hearing,
All responding.
3 sheep in 3 completely different conditions.
3 sheep all needing the rescuer.
John 11:17–20 (HCSB)
17 When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem (about two miles away). 19 Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. 20 As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him. But Mary remained seated in the house.
Sheep number 1: Martha.
She hears, and she follows.
21 Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Yet even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will give You.” 23 “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her. 24 Martha said, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live. 26 Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she told Him, “I believe You are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
Jesus uses the exact same language that he did with the Jews a few days prior.
“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish --- ever.”
“Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die --- ever.”
Jesus is literally showing the world, the actualization of what he just taught.
But what Jesus is going to do next is going to turn everyone’s conception of what he is talking about, on it’s head.
Martha believes in the resurrection.
She knows that God is going to make all things new again.
What she doesn’t fully realize is that because Jesus is right there with her, it’s going to happen today.
Jesus says I AM the resurrection and the life.
The kingdom of heaven is about to invade the kingdom of darkness in a very real way.
This is Jesus vs Satan.
Some of us feel like Satan is the most dangerous adversary to our faith.
Some of us feel like it’s ourselves.
They’re both true.
That’s why Jesus said “No one will snatch them out of my hand.”
Not Satan.
Not you.
And the way he’s going to prove it is by snatching Lazarus out of a tomb.
This is why Eastern Orthodox crosses often depict Adam’s bones buried underneath the cross.
Adam’s sin can’t snatch Jesus’ sheep from him.
Satan can’t snatch Jesus’ sheep from him.
Jesus is gonna prove it.
But before he does, there’s one more sheep to attend to.
Mary.
Mary had not gotten up to go see Jesus.
She is struggling massively.
She KNOWS that Jesus could have healed Lazarus.
She KNOWS Jesus didn’t rush over.
She KNOWS Jesus stayed 2 whole days where he was before he got up to go.
Imagine that your loved one has just died 4 days ago. And the doctor, who has the miracle cure they need, who knew they were sick and just didn’t show up, finally walks in.
And he says, I’m here to wake up your loved one now!
How would that make you feel?
“How dare you?”
“Do you actually care about me?”
The inversion of the stories of Mary and Martha is fascinating.
The other story we have of them is almost the opposite of this one.
Mary is one of Jesus’ closest and most faithful followers.
She is radically commited to Jesus.
And she is having a dark night of the soul.
Even the most spiritually mature people, can be absolutely winnowed by suffering.
And Jesus is going to use this suffering to help his dear friend Mary trust him even more.
Let’s read.
28 Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29 As soon as she heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. 30 Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met Him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. So they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there. 32 When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell at His feet and told Him, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died!” 33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, He was angry in His spirit and deeply moved. 34 “Where have you put him?” He asked. “Lord,” they told Him, “come and see.” 35 Jesus wept.
We can talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, we can talk about the doctrine of the incarnation of God,
We can use fancy terms like “Hypostatic Union” to describe how Jesus can be fully God and fully man,
but nothing communicates the humanity of Jesus more to me than the shortest verse in the Bible.
“Jesus wept.”
God shed hot tears on the ground.
God’s sides ached as he felt the pain of His friends.
He’s God, he knows what’s coming next.
He’s man, Emmanuel weeps with us.
Jesus at one point in his ministry ruined a funeral by making the dead guy alive.
Jesus is really not ok with funerals.
It’s really the case that the God who knit Lazarus in his Mother’s womb is not happy about the fact that this body, which was designed to live forever, is now rotting in a tomb.
So what does he do?
38 Then Jesus, angry in Himself again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 “Remove the stone,” Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, told Him, “Lord, he’s already decaying. It’s been four days.” 40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You heard Me. 42 I know that You always hear Me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so they may believe You sent Me.” 43 After He said this, He shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Loose him and let him go.”
Why did Lazarus rise from the dead?
Because he belonged to Christ, and Christ’s sheep obey his voice.
So when Christ gives a command, the sheep obeys.
Lazarus, come out!
Who else can command a dead person from beyond the grave?
Only God.
If Jesus can call a dead man out of a grave, then he can forgive sinners of their sin.
God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, will hold you secure both in this life, in the grave, and the age to come.
The Father has chosen the his sheep from before the beginning of time, the Son lays down his own life on behalf of the sheep and accomplishes on their behalf what they could never do on their own, the Spirit seals and protects the believer till the very end of the age.
Every step of the way from before you were born to the moment you are born again in Christ till the day that you rise from the dead like Lazarus, the Trinitarian God Yahweh is accomplishing your salvation and protecting your salvation.
The result of witnessing this was split.
45 Then many of the Jews who had come with Mary and saw the things which he did believed in him.
I don’t think you should wager with God and say,
“God if only I could have seen you do these things with my own eyes than I would believe.”
You might not believe.
There were people who saw a dead man walk out of a grave.
And they still turned their back on Jesus.
Why?
Because they weren’t His sheep.
The sheep listen to His voice.
And His voice is calling today.