THE UNITY

THE UNITY 

The Works Verify the Person 

John 10:22–42 

Series: The Covenant Signature — So That They Will Know  |  Week 10 

Introduction.  The Author Steps Into His Story 

For nine weeks we have been in this courtroom. 

One exhibit after another. One witness after another. One signature after another pressed into the record of history. 

We watched God bring Egypt to its knees. We gathered manna off the desert floor and learned that the God who moves kings also feeds His people one morning at a time. We heard Moses say it plainly on the plains of Moab — Yahweh is God, there is no other — and watched Solomon carve that verdict into stone in the middle of the ancient world. We watched God name a Persian king before that man’s mother ever held him. We walked through Ezekiel’s rubble and found out that God does His best work in ruins. We heard Joel announce that God was done visiting and had moved in permanently. And last week we stood at Calvary — where every signature we had been following for eight weeks suddenly made sense, because the cross told us who had been signing His name all along. 

Every exhibit pointed somewhere. Every witness pointed to someone. 

Now we arrive at John 10. 

And the question on the floor is simple. 

How do we know Jesus is the God who authored all of that? 

Not another prophet. Not another miracle worker. Not another gifted teacher with a following. 

The Author. 

Jesus answers that question Himself. And He doesn’t answer it with an argument. He answers it with His hands. 

Every work He ever did was the Father’s work. The God of Genesis. The God of Exodus. The God of the prophets. He stepped out of the story He had been writing and walked into it in flesh. And He brought His fingerprints with Him. 

I.  The Courtroom Returns 

John 10:22–30 

John drops us back into a courtroom. 

It’s the Feast of Dedication. The religious leaders have Jesus surrounded in Solomon’s Porch. They’re not there to listen. They’ve already decided. They just want a confession that matches their verdict. 

“If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 

They want words. Just words. A direct claim they can take to the council. 

Jesus won’t give it to them. 

He points to something they’ve been ignoring for three years. 

“I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.” 

The witnesses aren’t His sermons. The witnesses are His works. The evidence isn’t in His credentials. It’s in His hands. Three years of blind men seeing, lepers walking clean, bread multiplying on a hillside, dead men walking out of tombs. That is His testimony. That is His case. 

Then He says the one thing they don’t want to hear. 

“My sheep hear My voice. And they follow Me.” 

The people who belong to Him recognize the Signature. Not because they’re smarter. Because the Shepherd’s voice is familiar to His own sheep. 

II.  The Father’s Signature 

John 10:37 

Then Jesus says something bold. 

“If I do not do the works of My Father, believe Me not.” 

That is not the statement of a man trying to manage people’s expectations. That is a man who knows exactly what the investigation will find. 

Look at My hands, He says. Examine what I do. If it doesn’t match the Father’s work, walk away. 

But it does match. It matches perfectly. Because every miracle Jesus performed was the Old Testament walking through Galilee in human flesh. 

When He opens blind eyes — that’s the God who formed the eye in the womb.  When He feeds thousands on a hillside — that’s the same hand that opened heaven and rained down manna.  When He forgives sin — that’s the God who promised through Jeremiah to remember sin no more.  When He calls Lazarus out of that tomb — that’s the God who told Ezekiel He would open the graves of His people. 

His ministry is not a string of unconnected miracles. It is Old Testament theology with skin on it. It is nine weeks of this series walking around in sandals. 

The works are the Covenant Signature. And there is only one Author of that Signature. 

III.  Believe the Works 

John 10:38 

Then Jesus does something I want you to see. 

He lowers the bridge. 

“Though you do not believe Me, believe the works.” 

He knows unbelief is stubborn. He knows the human heart can dig in even against overwhelming evidence. So He says — if you can’t take My word for it, then watch My life. 

Study what I do. Examine the pattern. Ask yourself if any merely human explanation can account for it. 

That is not weakness. That is mercy. 

This is who God has always been. He has never in all of Scripture demanded blind faith. He has always put evidence in front of people. Creation. History. Israel. The prophets. The miracles. The cross. The resurrection. The Church. 

One witness after another, for thousands of years, because God is patient and thorough and He wants the world to be without excuse — not because He enjoys condemning people, but because He wants them to know. 

The works of Jesus are the summit of all that testimony. The Father spent the entire Old Testament building a case. Then He sent His Son to be the closing argument. 

IV.  The Unity of Being 

John 10:38 

Now here is the center of the sermon. 

“That you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” 

Jesus is not saying they are in agreement. He is not saying they share the same mission statement. He is not saying they cooperate well. 

He is saying the Father is in Him. And He is in the Father. 

One divine life. One will. One purpose. One Author. 

And that is why the whole series makes sense. 

For ten weeks we have followed the same fingerprints through history. The same pattern of action. The same purpose clause stamped across every exhibit. The same Signature, from Egypt to the wilderness to Jerusalem to Persia to the ruins of exile to Joel’s permanent dwelling to the cross. 

We kept asking — who is doing all of this? 

John 10 answers the question. 

One God. One will. One eternal decree moving through history without interruption, without confusion, without division between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. 

The works of Jesus look like the works of the Father in the Old Testament because they are the works of the Father. Now performed in flesh. Now visible. Now walked out in towns and hillsides and synagogues so that the watching world could see with their own eyes what God looks like when He moves. 

The Author stepped into His own story. And He wrote exactly the way He has always written. 

Because He cannot be anyone other than who He is. 

V.  The Greatest Blindness 

But here’s the thing that should stop us cold. 

The Pharisees saw all of it. They saw the miracles. They saw Lazarus walk out of the tomb. They heard the arguments. They had the Old Testament in their hands, every exhibit, every signature, every purpose clause. 

And they still refused. 

Why? 

Not because the evidence was weak. The evidence was standing right in front of them. 

They refused because they loved their position more than they loved the truth. 

Their problem was not intellectual. It was moral. You cannot argue a man out of a position he did not argue himself into. You cannot give enough evidence to a heart that has already decided what it will not do. 

They didn’t hate the miracles. They hated what the miracles required. Repentance. Surrender. Bowing to someone who had authority over every part of their lives — their reputation, their institution, their comfortable religious arrangement. 

That was too much. So they found reasons to resist what they couldn’t honestly refute. 

Our generation does the same thing in updated language. 

“Give me more evidence and I’ll consider it.” 

But God has already given His Son. The question has never been whether there is enough evidence. The question is whether your heart is willing to do what the evidence demands. 

VI.  The Works Continue 

Now here is where it gets personal. 

The ministry of Jesus did not stop when He ascended. 

The works continue. Not on their own. Through His body. By His Spirit. Under His headship. 

The same Shepherd is still seeking lost sheep. The same Savior is still speaking forgiveness into lives that have no right to expect it. The same King is still building His Kingdom in places that look, from the outside, like nothing could grow there. 

The Church doesn’t invent new works. She continues His works. Not to earn anything — earning is finished. But because the same life that was in Him has been placed in her by the Spirit. And that life cannot sit still. 

It moves the way the Father has always moved.  The way the Son moved through Galilee.  The way the Spirit moved at Pentecost. 

The Signature is still being pressed into history. Through you. 

VII.  The Signature in the Church 

That brings it home. 

God revealed Himself in Egypt. In the wilderness. Through the Temple. Through the cross. Through the empty tomb. 

And now He reveals Himself through His people. 

The Church is Exhibit Ten. 

Not because she is perfect. She is full of the same broken, inconsistent, sometimes embarrassing people that Israel was full of. But because Christ continues His work through imperfect people filled with His Spirit — the Church becomes a living Covenant Signature. 

When the Church forgives someone who had no right to expect forgiveness — Christ is working. The Father is visible.  When the Church shows up for the people nobody else showed up for — Christ is working. The Father is visible.  When the gospel goes out and someone believes who had every reason not to — Christ is working. The Father is visible.  When a ruined life gets rebuilt and there is no natural explanation for it — Christ is working. The Father is visible. 

The living stones Peter talked about are not decorative. They are testimonial. They are exhibits. They are signatures pressed into the neighborhoods and the families and the broken places where God’s people carry His name. 

And the watching world, whether it knows it or not, is reading the same purpose clause that has echoed through every exhibit in this series. 

So that they will know. 

VIII.  The Forensic Call 

Church, the evidence is in. 

The Father’s works are visible in the Son. The Son’s works continue through His Church. The Author who signed His name across Egypt and the wilderness and Jerusalem and Persia and the ruins of exile has now signed His name across the life of His Son — and through His Son, across the life of everyone who belongs to Him. 

Jesus Christ is Lord. That is not a conclusion to argue about. It is a verdict to respond to. 

So the question I want to leave you with is not just whether you believe it. The question is whether your life has become part of the evidence. 

Stop treating your Christianity like a belief system you carry around in your back pocket. The God who rained bread from heaven and named kings before they breathed and rebuilt ruins and took up permanent residence in His people has taken up residence in you. 

That changes things. 

Let your life verify your confession. Let your works bear witness to your King. Not so people will admire you. Not so your church looks successful. Not for any reason that puts you at the center. 

So that they will know. 

The same words that echoed through Egypt and the wilderness and Sinai and Jerusalem and Persia and Zion and Calvary are still echoing. They are echoing through your home. Through your neighborhood. Through wherever God has placed you. 

Be the exhibit. 

Let us pray. 

Application Points 

1. The works of Christ reveal the Father because they share one divine life. Study the miracles of Jesus not as displays of power but as windows into the character of the God who has been acting throughout all of history. 

2. God has never asked for blind faith. He has filled history with evidence and put the ultimate evidence on a cross. Follow it honestly and see where it leads. 

3. Every miracle Jesus performed was Old Testament theology with skin on it. Let that connection deepen how you read both Testaments. 

4. Knowing the right things is not the same as living the right way. Examine where your confession and your daily life have drifted apart. 

5. The Church is Christ’s continuing exhibit. Your life should make the Father visible through the work of the Son by the power of the Spirit. That is not an aspiration — it is a description of what the Spirit is doing in you right now. 

6. Don’t just defend the truth. Display it. Your love, your forgiveness, your perseverance when things are hard — that is evidence. The world doesn’t need more arguments. It needs more exhibits. 

Fairfield Baptist Church  ·  Dry Prong, Louisiana