TO SUM IT ALL UP

Introduction

-Do you remember whenever you would return to school at the end of summer and the teacher would give you that dreaded assignment: write a few sentences or a short paragraph about what you did over your summer vacation.

~That was always a dreaded assignment because (1) it meant having to write, and (2) because it was near impossible to summarize an entire summer’s-worth of trips and games and playing and adventure.

-Now imagine you were given the assignment of having to write a few sentences or short paragraph that would be a summary about your entire life. For those of us who have been around a while, there’s a lot packed into our many years. You’d never be able to adequately summarize yourself in such a short amount of time.

-Now imagine if you had to write a few sentences or short paragraph that summarized the nature and essence and ministry and saving work of the Son of God. That would be seemingly impossible task for us. Yet Jesus did it Himself.

-In the passage we are studying today, Jesus gives His last public sermon recorded in the gospel of John. Now, we aren’t even 2/3 of the way through the gospel of John at this point, but the rest of the gospel records for us teachings and instructions given specifically to His disciples before telling of His crucifixion and resurrection.

~In today’s passage Jesus sums up what He has taught and claimed about Himself throughout His public ministry, reiterating the main themes that have already been recorded throughout this gospel.

-This passage succinctly tells us some of the most important theological beliefs about the work and person of Christ. And once one understands these themes and beliefs and claims, they demand a response on our part.

-As we see how Jesus sums it all up for us, my prayer is that we would seek a greater knowledge and devotion toward Christ in every aspect of our lives, and as Leonard Ravenhill would put it, that we would become people who would want Jesus Christ above all else and not just want to play church.

John 12:44–50 ESV

44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 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. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.”

What main themes did Jesus discuss in the summary of His life and ministry:

I) Jesus’ identity: One with the Father

-In vv. 44-45 Jesus says that to believe/trust in Him is to believe/trust in the One who sent Him (which would be God the Father), and to see Him would be to see God the Father

~This is a direct statement of the shared nature that Jesus as God the Son has with God the Father, and is as direct a statement as we can come to in confirming the doctrine of the Trinity of God

-The doctrine of the Trinity states that there is one (and only one) God in nature and essence, and yet there are three persons within the Godhead, and that each share the nature and essence and characteristics and attributes of divinity.

~It is not a truth that is necessarily easy to define or grasp onto, and yet it is a truth that is found in Scripture.

-Jesus is God the Son who took on humanity without losing His divinity, and so in His humanity He demonstrates to us what God is really like—Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God since He is God and is one with the Father in shared nature and traits

-John the apostle shared this truth right from the beginning of His gospel when He stated:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2 He was in the beginning with God. (Jn. 1:1-2 ESV)----Jesus is the Word

-John continues with this truth as He makes a claim about Jesus that is made about God right at the beginning of Scripture

As it says in Genesis:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen. 1:1 ESV)

John claims of Jesus:

3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (Jn. 1:3 ESV)

-Jesus is One with the Father in that He shares and now reveals what God the Father is really like in ways that simple human minds can comprehend—however Jesus and the Father remain unique personalities. Jesus is not the Father and the Father is not Jesus.

-We have to beware the heresy of Modalism:

Modalism states that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes or forms. Thus, God is a single person who first manifested himself in the mode of the Father in Old Testament times. At the incarnation, the mode was the Son; and after Jesus' ascension, the mode is the Holy Spirit.

{Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry}

-THAT IS A BIG NO NO! When we say that Jesus is One with the Father, we are stating that to hear and read Jesus’ words are to hear and read the Father’s, and to comprehend Jesus is to comprehend the Father (as much as is possible), yet we do not claim that the two are one and the same person—there is a shared identity in divinity and yet uniqueness in personhood

-So, because of who Jesus is, if you want to know what God is like, all you need do is look to Jesus and you will find out everything you need to know about how great our God truly is.

II) Jesus’ essence: Light in the darkness

-In v. 46 Jesus claims that He comes to the world as light so that people don’t have to remain in darkness

-John touched on this theme at the beginning:

4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn. 1:4-5 ESV)

-Jesus also made this claim for Himself:

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (Jn. 8:12 ESV)

-You see, when light shines it reveals what is there and enlightens the way that you need to go. Light shows what is and what ought to be.

-Jesus as the light exposes us to ourselves, but also shows the only way to God, which is through Himself. Without that light, you are in spiritual darkness without knowing the truth and reality of your condition, and without knowing a way to fix that condition.

-Jesus as the light of the world exposes the ugly truth of sin in ourselves and others. It shows that sin exists, and it shows the horror that sin truly is. But then Jesus shines the light on God’s plan of redemption—sending the Son to die on the cross to pay for man’s sin-debt so that whoever believes in Him has eternal life.

~Without the light we would know nothing about any of that. The light exposes and it enlightens. But once it does, you have a choice about what you’re going to do about it.

-While we are watching TV, I have a tendency to drop our remote controls through the sides of the reclining loveseat/couch that we sit in, so they fall through to the floor underneath the loveseat. So, I have to get up, get down on my hands and knees, and look underneath to try to find them. But it’s too dark to see under there, so I turn on the flashlight on my phone and shine it in there in the hopes of finding the remote control. And when I shine the light in there it exposes everything—I do eventually find the remote, but I also find old snacks, pens, cat toys, etc.

~Now, the light exposes that some cleaning needs to be done under there, but once I find the remote what I normally do is just turn off the light and ignore everything else I saw, acting like it never existed.

-I wonder how many people do that with the light of Christ. Jesus reveals your sinfulness and need to believe in Him for salvation and then sanctification, but instead of doing something about it you just turn the light off and ignore what you saw, pretending that it was never there.

-Just like my ignoring of the stuff under the loveseat doesn’t make that stuff go away, neither does ignoring your sin make it go away. Jesus came as light to expose your sin but then bring you to Himself so that you no longer need to be in darkness.

~And this leads:

III) Jesus’ purpose: Savior of the world

-Jesus says in v. 47 that He did not come this time around to be a judge of the world, but to save the world

~Jesus, in His first coming, did not come to judge and condemn, but to do all that was required to pay for our sin-debt

-This is a reminder of what was earlier said:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (Jn. 3:16-17 ESV)

-But then, I think it is very important to hear the rest of it:

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (Jn. 3:18-19 ESV)

-This is what is happening in our passage and in the John 3 passage. Mankind is born with a sin nature that gives us the automatic propensity to sin. The apostle Paul says that we are dead in our trespasses, Jesus says that we are in darkness. That is our default mode.

-If you are familiar with computers you know that in computers and programs there are default settings—the way that things are automatically set up. Your computer has one default printer=the printer it automatically prints to without further instruction. Programs save to a default folder, where files are saved automatically unless given further instruction.

-All human beings except Christ have the default settings of sin, darkness, and spiritual death. That is automatically who and what we are. And because we sin, we are already condemned—that is the default setting of our eternal destiny. All human beings with even one sin will be judged (and Paul makes it clear in Romans that this includes everyone).

-And with Jesus’ first coming, He came to fix that. Jesus came to change our default settings by dying on the cross and raising again. But you have to receive the gift of what He accomplished by grace through faith. Not by works, not by religion, but by faith.

-In John 3 it says that if you don’t believe you are already condemned because that’s your default setting—and most ppl like it that way b/c they love the darkness rather than the light. So, they don’t trust in Jesus and they reap the consequences of their sin.

-Don’t let that be you because Jesus came to be your Savior.

IV) Jesus’ authority: The Word lived and spoken

-Jesus says in vv. 48-49 that His words (that is His message that He spoke and lived) would be what judges people, because those words and that message have eternal divine authority behind them. The Words of Jesus are reflective of the Words of God the Father and therefore have His authority behind them.

-To refuse the Word is to refuse Jesus, and to refuse Jesus is to refuse the Father. To accept the Word is to accept Jesus which is to accept the Father. But to accept the Word is to accept its authority. And Jesus’ Word, by extension, covers the entirety of Scripture as authoritative within their historical and literary contexts.

-And therein lies the catch with a lot of people. They love the parts of the Word that are about love and joy and health and happiness, but the parts about devotion and commitment and holiness not so much.

~But Jesus never once said that you can pick and choose which parts of His authoritative Word that you can follow and which parts you can reject.

~When Jesus said to take up your cross and follow Him, that has God’s authority behind it. When Jesus said go into all the world and make disciples, that has God’s authority behind it. When Jesus said love your enemy…you get the picture.

-Imagine that you refused to submit to the authority in your school, and you broke the rules in all abandon. You’d eventually be suspended or expelled because there are consequences for refusing authority.

~Or imagine you refused the authority of your bosses at work. You wouldn’t heed their words of instruction. You’d eventually be fired.

~How much worse is it when we refuse the authority of Jesus as He has placed it in His Word.

-And that is why I cannot figure out people who claim to be Christians and yet claim that homosexuality is not a sin or abortion is not a sin. I can take you to several places in Scripture where these things are clearly and distinctly called sin. That would make it authoritative.

~But I ask of those who believe the opposite—what is your authority?

-I just have to shake my head at people who refuse to preach a full gospel message and refuse to believe that God calls anything sin and refuse to believe that God condemns ppl—they then follow that up by saying all we want to do is follow Jesus and be like Him.

~My question to them is: if you don’t follow the authoritative Word, how else do you know what Jesus was like and what Jesus taught and what Jesus called people to do?

~You know nothing of Jesus outside His authoritative Word. And you have the choice: I will accept the Jesus of the Bible and His authoritative Word, or I’m just going to follow a Jesus that I made up on my own.

-And the answer has consequences:

V) Jesus’ offer: Eternal life or judgment

-In v. 50 Jesus says that the authoritative Word is eternal life and is able to grant eternal life. The Word gives us the gospel message of Jesus crucified and raised, the need for repentance and faith, and the hope of glory for all eternity.

-But those who refuse the gift will be judged. We don’t like hearing about that part. That’s part of the message we’d rather ignore, and yet it is authoritative. To refuse to believe in Christ is to accept the consequences of your sin on yourself.

-When the Israelites were on the edge of going into the promised land Moses reiterated to them the authoritative Word, and then gave them the choice. He told them: I put before you life and death, blessings and cursings. Choose life.

-And I do the same for you today as well—life and death, blessings and curses. Jesus and the authoritative Word give life and light, sin and disobedience and a lack of trusting Christ brings death and curse.

-Choose life!

Conclusion

-If you have never trusted in Christ…

-Christian, maybe you need to rededicate yourself…maybe you want to ask Jesus for more of His light…maybe you need strength to follow the authoritative word…come to altar

-Maybe some here today looking for a church home that preaches Jesus in all His glory…