That's what we're going with that said in John chapter 5 starting at verse 39 I say to you hear the word of God you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life It is these the testify about me And yet you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life I do not receive glory from them, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in yourselves I've come in my father's name and you do not receive me if Receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father the one who accuses you as Moses and whom you have set your hope For if you believe Moses you will believe me for he wrote about me But if you do not believe his writings help my right I've moved around years of the death so that they might see and hear your great gospel. I pray for myself That you would be in my head and in my thinking and in my mouth And in my speaking and in my heart and in my understanding and your name amen and amen
You know For most of us it takes a whack on the side of the head at least for me It takes a whack on the side of the head to learn most things and not until my senior year in seminary Did I have a clue as to what drove me You ever ask yourself that you ever sit down sort of in the darkness and the recesses of your heart say what drives me What makes me do the things that I do in my whole life except with the except High school I had a D average I had a pretty driven person I had a relatively successful military career and a relatively successful college career and in in Seminary when Judy and I finally went to seminary We did we had determined that we wouldn't have children so she could work and I could make it through seminary And something happened that we ended up with two children by the time we left in three years So because of that that's a semester Because we had two kids row I had to work full-time as well And if that wasn't enough my dream and my desire was to go to graduate school after seminary So not only was I doing seminary not only is I working but I was studying extra language I was writing extra papers. I was contacting people around the country trying to get in to schools I mean I was completely driven And it didn't hit me how driven I was until I went to go in my first graduate school interview to enter a doctoral program He said flew up to the school. It's a pretty famous school one that I wanted to get into And as I was flying up to the school to do this interview in my senior year of seminary I brought with me Arthur Miller's play the death of a salesman And I fly a lot and so I like to read things that I don't necessarily have to read when I'm on the plane And I read the whole play except for the epilogue And it's pretty miserable if you remember I hate to spoil the end but it's been about 50 years So You're sort of late he dies will he dies at the end will you know me as a miserable life and he dies And I read the The play I go to do the interviews and the interview was one of those horrible experiences in my life I mean it would take me a half hour or more to just tell you what happened in the interview But it left me thinking is this really what I want to do And then I started thinking not only this what I want to do but it's like it's another five years of driven It's how is it going to affect my family? What's wrong with me? What should I be doing with my life? And I got on the plane and when I got on the plane to come home I remember that I never read the epilogue to death of a salesman It's what pulled it out. It's only a few pages and I thought to myself I'll read the epilogue and I read the epilogue and if you remember it's everyone standing around Willie Lomon's grave He had a miserable life. He had miserable familial relationships and yet around his grave people are basically spouting platitudes about what a father he was and a good man and the son who is most estranged Steps forward and he says no No, he wasn't a good man He said he had all the wrong dreams wrong wrong all wrong And for some reason or to weep it hit me that was my problem My problem was that I had all the wrong dreams wrong wrong all wrong and in that moment I can remember very clearly thinking that not only do I have the wrong dreams but of the wrong starting point that the thing that drives me Is approval from other people? It hit me like a ton of bread and I have the word doctrine in front of my name. No one will ever listen to me If I don't have the word doctrine in front of my name from a good university then I'm no one will really listen And I'm willing to go through hell and high water And I'm willing to drag my whole family through anything so that I can gain approval And in that same moment I also realized that I was a slave to that same approval That I was couldn't budge because I was wanting to put everyone to affirm me And so I came back and I told Judy we're not going to do that. We're going to do something easy like planetary
And another story But nonetheless Jesus today in this last part of John chapter five he makes a beautiful He's been tightening the knot around the describes and Pharisees who are trying to confront him And trying to sort of trick him and bring him down and he's been tightening the news around the neck And today what he does is he basically shows them the wrongness of their worldview and also their slavery to it And in fact, he sort of cuts the legs out from beneath the religious people But he also cuts the legs from beneath irreligious people because you see the worst thing the most horrible thing That you could ever say to a person who's driven by religion is that they're wrong He spent your whole life trying to do the right thing studying the right books reading the right things and behaving in the correct way And then someone comes along the worst thing they can say is that you're wrong. You don't waste your time You've been climbing this ladder and it's over here horrible But you know the worst thing you can say to the irreligious person the person says I don't I don't I'm not beholden to anybody I don't bow the knee before anybody. I rule myself. I do what I want the worst thing you could say to an irreligious person It's not that they're wrong the worst thing you say to them is that they're a slave You think you're free but really at the end of the day you are a slave and that's what Jesus is going to point out for the scribes But not only are they religious and wrong, but they're irreligious and slaves And so we're going to look at three things today basically is the witness of scripture And let me see the text here the witness of scripture the badness of goodness And the accusation of self-righteousness You know before I go into those points where we look at the witness of scripture You've got to understand some of the backgrounds what Jesus is doing here with this whole concept of witness You see Jesus as he tightens the news He's basically going to put some things in place to show the scribes and Pharisees all of the things that bear witness to him And the whole concept that bearing witness means almost one thing at the end of the day. It means commitment It means commitment to a certain set of facts In other words, if you were witness to a murderer You were just an innocent bystander and someone came and there you saw the murderer and you saw his face very clearly And then you got called into the courtroom and the lawyer says is that the man? By saying yes, even though you were objective about it You would just point to this is making this case for the fact that he has come from God to redeem sinners And he tells the Pharisees you don't believe the witness given to you But let me tell you all the things that are committed to me And the first thing he says is John the Baptist He says John the Baptist came and bore witness to the truth and you rejoiced in his light for only a while Now why did they rejoice when John came but never got it and the answer is actually pretty simple because John the Baptist came and he pointed to Jesus And yet what excited them was the fact that a prophet was here In other words, you know, maybe you know, Halle's comic comes every 76 years It's sort of the feeling that I was alive when Halle's comic came and I actually saw it. No one else is going to see it Or you were you were alive at the turn of the millennium You get to look back and say I was alive when the clock picked over to the year 2000 or the year 2001 Whichever side of the coin you come down on nonetheless It's the same thing God had been silent in Israel for 400 years And all of a sudden there was a prophet on hand and everyone knew that he was a prophet And then he was from and everyone knew that he was preaching and yet and they never listened to him There were more excited about the fact that they got to be alive when God finally sent a prophet And if they would have just listened to him they would have heard among other things Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world Jesus said you rejoice but you rejoice in the wrong thing You see he didn't trust John's witness that wasn't good enough But you know, there's even more because you have the witness of my war partner says about Messiah The hill makes the lame leap for joy and the death here and the mute sings the whole fight began because Jesus healed a man who'd been lame for 38 years And they were more concerned about the fact that he broke the Sabbath than the fact that he healed the man and that it the fact that he healed him He might in fact be from God He says that's not good enough for you He said that's the thing that you can't get around You see we usually go from God and say if that doesn't work we start giving evidence Jesus says here's all the evidence and if that doesn't work here's something you're you're compelled to believe the witness of the Father The Father has testified that I have come and there's a sense in which Jesus expects us to just take his word for it And if that's too hard to swallow he goes on You see because God not only testified through Jesus that he had come from the Father But Jesus had got his testified in the scriptures In other words that the scriptures the Jews believed and Christians believed today are inspired by God There are the very words of God and Jesus says the scriptures bear witness to me the Father bears witness through them and yet you don't believe them Remember that should set something up. That's a horrible thing for religious people to hear you are wrong And so the first thing we'll look at is the witness of scripture listen to what Jesus says here He says in verse 39 to them He says you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life It is these that testify about me And you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life Notice he says you search the scriptures to find life remember who he's talking to here He's talking to the scribe and the Pharisees in the Jewish world There's no one probably up to that point or since then who knew the Bible any better than these men So they better in every cup they will numbers and they would say but And you would say what's the middle letter and they got as easy when you They knew everything in fact scribes were so had so much attention to detail to the letter of the law Every jot in tidal that apparent according to Jewish tradition when a scribe copied a manuscript He had to look back at the original after every single letter
You couldn't have attention deficit can be a scribe
Every single one you see they looked at the Bible as if it were some kind of big math problem And it was something to be the reason they never got it is because the answer was standing right in front of them Jesus was standing there the answer the one who is the answer to this math They were sort of making up the Bible and yet they were viewed Christians do this You see what Christians tend to do with the Bible is instead of looking to the Bible for Jesus You look to the Bible for principles on how to live Right on how to be a good moral person on how to get our country on good moral fitting the Bible has great principles Right principles for finance principles for how to have a good marriage principles for running your family Principles for any number of things you can find them in the Bible they're there But the problem is this that is if you look to the Bible for principles only You don't get it to let me tell you something about principles A principle can never hold you A principle can't forgive you a principle can't have compassion on you a principle can't love you a principle can't pursue you A principle just is the only one who can love you and hold you and have compassion on you is a person And what the Bible has said from the very beginning is don't look for principles look for a person Remember when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden
The earth was cursed and God came and he started dealing out discipline and the very first thing he said before anything Was there's going to come a person he says the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent And throughout the whole Bible there are there's there's things that you could make into principles But what they're really pointing to is a person Look for a person he says you search the scriptures for eternal life and the scriptures are about me But the reason I didn't see it is because they were either looked person and until you start looking for a person You won't find what heals your soul you see the Pharisees looked at the the Bible particularly the Old Testament That's all that was written them And another metaphor they looked at is if it was a medical textbook and it was a medical textbook where they could figure out all the diseases that Everyone around them had and they could look at you and say oh, there's an adulterer there is someone who's petty There's someone who's a liar all of these things they became a master at diagnosing disease But the problem was their own disease kept them from knowing that they needed to go to the doctor Because they had the most wicked despicable horrible nasty disease that anyone could ever have It was goodness Their goodness kept them from seeing their badness their goodness Only allowed them to see other people's badness because their own goodness made them blind to their own need They didn't know that they needed to go to the doctor They didn't know that they needed someone to save them And that's what Jesus says next basically is that your biggest problem is the badness of your goodness Because if your goodness isn't good enough then you're in trouble listen to what he says to them next He says in verse 41 I do not receive glory from men, but I know you That you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I've come in my father's name You do not receive me if another comes in his own name you will receive him How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God
Notice how Jesus begins with them He first basically states who he is he says I Jesus do not receive glory from men In other words, I don't live for the approval of men. I don't live their praise I don't live for any of that and the reason Jesus doesn't have to live for global It's because he already has it He has it. He is the son of God and it's the son of God remember when he was in the pan This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased You see to the extent that you understand God is pleased with you It's the extent to which you're able to say I don't live for the approval of other people And then Jesus says what is sometimes a good word, but in this case is a horrible word. He says but He says I don't love men, but I know you You know something's coming. I know you He says you don't have the love of God in you and here's how I know how first of all if I come in my father's name You do not receive me But if another comes in his own name you will receive him Now what does that mean? It's actually much simpler than it seems you see Jesus says I come in the name of the father And you don't receive me another comes in his own name you receive him in other words Someone who is going to come according to your expectations And according to what you expect the Messiah to be you'll receive him I come in my father's name you don't receive me. What did they expect of the Messiah You see they expect the Messiah that would come and basically do two things Messiah would come and affirm their goodness Messiah would come and begin to immediately pass them on the back Guys, I love the way you take the most high place in the synagogue That is most beautiful thing in the world and the way you only get exactly 10% but really don't take care of the poor That's beautiful all these things you do really. I'm excited about And the other thing he would do besides affirming their goodness is he would overthrow the the Roman Empire and it put Israel back in their proper place of ruling the world And it said Jesus comes as an out of work carpenter he affirms their badness and he is killed by the Romans He says one comes in according to your expectations you receive him one comes according to the father And you don't receive him what that shows me is you don't have the love of God in your heart You don't know what you're looking for even But there's a bigger thing here, and he almost I spent he says it was some compassion. He says how can you believe How can you believe when you seek glory from one another Instead of the glory that comes from the one and only God In other words the Pharisees had a nasty disease that everyone in this room has to a greater or lesser extent And it's not just sin It's the fact that everyone here to some extent are number lives for the approval here Utilize their goodness to show off that they utilize their goodness in order to gain the approval of others and that made them slaves Jesus is how can you believe when you live for the approval of others? That's the same question you and I have to ask How can you believe in Jesus when you when you live for the approval of others? And how do you know that you're a slave to approval ask yourself a few questions? The list could be endless name a few do you are you worry about what people are going to think about the way you look all the time Are you afraid to speak sometimes because you're afraid you might say something wrong or say it in the wrong way And if you say it in the wrong way people will think you're stupid or they don't like you or they'll attack you or they'll confront you Do you think that? Are you afraid ever to take risks because if you take a risk you might fail And if you fail then you're going to be shown to the world to be a failure and you'll lose everyone's affirmation If you have any kind of feelings like that at all
You are enslaved to self to the approval of others It's a horrible thing to be enslaved You know the only remedy to being a slave to the approval of others is to basking in the approval of Jesus Right, that's what Jesus says he says you seek glory from one another when you could be seeking the glory from the one and only God You could have gods approval and yet you don't even seek it And the beauty of the gospel is that if you and I would simply go to Jesus and ask his approval you would find him waiting You would find him anxious saying what took you so long to get here and the way you get the approval of Jesus is because when he went to the cross He took every single bit of your sin and nastiness and wickedness and darkness and it was nailed to the cross with him And when he died your sin died with him In the moment you trust all of his goodness is given to you So when God looks at you He sees nothing but the beauty of Jesus and so he doesn't look at you as sort of sneer He doesn't look at you a wonder he looks at you with delight and grandeur So the fact is this that if you have in fact trusted Jesus you're not a slave anymore You might feel like a slave and you might act like a slave But you're not because remember what Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free Why would you not be free when you can be What you have to do though is you need to seek glory in the only place you can get it And that of course is the person of Jesus. Will you seek glory from Jesus? Glory for murder act. I have tiredness. I guarantee you. I know The other problem that they had was not just That they sought glory from one another. It was this. It's that they sought glory from their goodness You see the Pharisees were very good. They used sort of the law of Moses like a shield And they used their self-righteousness as a shield So when someone like Jesus came along and said your goodness isn't as good as you think They would sort of pick up Moses the law and say look at how good I am In Jesus points out next the accusation of Moses for the accusation of self-righteousness listen to what he says to them He says in verse 45 Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father The one who accuses you is Moses in whom you have set your hope For if you believe Moses you would believe me for he wrote about me But if you do not believe his writings. How will you believe my words?
You see the Pharisees would have responded. I guess I would have with some kind of defense Jesus would say you lived for the approval of others and they might have said Jesus We are only doing with the law of Moses says we're obeying God isn't that what it's all about And Jesus says you know what he anticipates he's God he knows what they're thinking you know what You don't have to defend yourself for me because I'm not the one who accuses you This accuses you The law accuses you Any of us use the law not to diagnose our illness, but to treat it You see when you read the law you say the the the law says you should have no other gods besides God And I find myself following everything else the law says don't commit adultery And you find yourself as a lustful pig all the time right all of these things And so do you try and obey the law in order to be acceptable or do you say the law has diagnosed me and I have been found wanting I need something else or do you use the law to treat the symptoms of your disease You just try and be good and the problem with that is it works for a while But all you can do is mask the symptoms they can't heal you it can't fix you And so at the end of the day the law ends up accusing you and that's what Moses says do you want to rely on the law? Do it you want to rely on Moses do it because at the end of the day Not only did he accuse you now, but at the end of the day I can almost imagine the scribes and the Pharisees and probably some Christians coming before G.D. Peter
I can't believe it I tried to tell you How did he tell him you see the Pharisees meticulously meticulously followed the law of God but apparently they never made a connection between two things The moral law and the sacrificial law If the moral law was good enough in itself, why did you have to have sacrifice? Why why did they meticulously lay out such standards for sacrifice and the reason is quite simple is because the moral law Isn't good enough to save you You need to do on the day of atonement you need to take a sheep and you need to take a goat and on the sheep You need to slash his throat and pours blood on the altar and pray to God that he forgives you And you need to take the goat and lay your hands on it and confess your sins and send him into the wilderness You wonder that they never made a connection between those two things and what Jesus says is Moses will accuse you because Moses wrote about me The law has shown you how you can't meet up to the standards and the sacrificial law has shown you how it was Taking care of and I am the one I am God but I am the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world Why won't you come to me and the answer is their goodness And you can rely on your goodness or you can rely on Jesus, but that's about the only options you have And at the end of the day it will be your goodness that accuses you and let me add something It's not just your goodness if you're Moses. It's the goodness. It's every other worldview in the world at the end of the day It will accuse you because it tells you that you don't have what it takes Because if you have what it took to be in relationship with God or you have what it took to actually live a healthy whole life You wouldn't need that religion in the first place It assumes you're fallen every religion every worldview it assumes you've got a big problem And the fact that you have to work toward the end of it and the fact that it never ends. Why doesn't anyone ever arrive Have you ever met anyone who arrived that's a set of finally figured out all my problems I'm never guilty. I never do anything wrong I never offend my wife. I never offend my neighbor I do everything perfectly and completely now and on top of that I'm glorious and happy every minute of the day Have you met that person yet? You haven't it's because there's no every worldview contrary To helping you ultimately accuse you in other words People who live out good moral worldviews or who live out their own worldview separate from Christianity with integrity At the end of the day Jesus will not say you did a good job living that worldview come on in What he will say is that whole worldview should have been showing you your whole life You don't have what it takes and I am here to give you what it takes will you not accept it now? Think about that. You see that's the message for both Christians and if you're not a Christian You see if you're not a Christian the question is are you going to rely on your own goodness or are you going to trust Jesus if you are a Christian The question is like unto it. Are you going to rely on your own goodness or are you going to trust in Jesus? Are you going to be driven by the approval of others or are you going to bask in the approval of Jesus? Did you can bask in his approval? Nothing will be able to touch you Think about that. Let me pray Jesus you have seen fit To win our salvation and you not only won Forgiveness of sins for us, but you secure come more delightful to the Father Besides trusting in your delight on our behalf And so I pray this morning that you would come and you would make us as those who feel as children who his parents Delight in them and that we would feel the fatherly affection Of the Father and your name we pray all of these things. Amen and amen