who are stuck, you can find the text in John chapter 12, verse 44 through 49, if you have a Bible, if you don't have a Bible, you can find the text on the back of your order of worship. So I say to you, hear the word of God, 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've 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, or I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge. The word that I've spoken will judge him on the last day, or I've not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has 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, let us pray. Father, I pray this morning that you would teach us from this summary of Jesus' teachings. Who is Jesus and what did he do? Why did he come? I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf. I do pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart, in my understanding, in my mouth, and in my speaking. In Christ's name, we pray these things. Amen. Amen. Well, this morning's text isn't specifically related to Palm Sunday, but if you remember, we've been looking at this portion of the book of John for, I don't know, a month now, and it actually began with Jesus' triumphant entry and worked his way through a few different things. And now this morning, we're looking at what is going to be basically the summary of Jesus' teaching. You remember the first 12 books of John. I mean, the first 12 chapters of John had seven signs and seven IAM statements. I'm not going to go through them all. And they worked the way all the way up until you get to chapter 12 and what we talked about last week. And if you remember, after laying out all these signs and all these IAM statements, John gave us a summary of the response to Jesus. In other words, Jesus' public ministry had ended. And John says, here's what it looked like at the end. Let me read that to you very quickly. It was in verse 36 and 7. In verse 37, it says, though you'd done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. So Jesus does all this stuff and yet people still don't believe. And what we looked at last week is John basically given us a summary of that response and why they didn't believe. And also you remember, it sort of ended up, nevertheless, some did believe in Jesus, but they were afraid to say it publicly because they didn't want to be excommunicated from the synagogue. And then what we have today, remember I told you the public ministry of Jesus was over. And yet today the first thing I read is and Jesus cried out and said he probably didn't. I'm going to explain that in a minute. John has given us a summary of why people didn't believe. Now he's going to give us a summary of what Jesus talked about in those first 12 books. What I just read to you is a summary of the whole gospel of John and what Jesus taught in the gospel of John. We're going to look at three things this morning. You're really three words that we're going to use as sort of pegs to hang things on. The first word is revelation. And I don't mean the book of revelation, but I mean to reveal something. The first word is revelation. The second word is salvation. So you've got revelation, you've got salvation. And then the last word we're going to talk about is repetition, okay? Revelation, salvation, and repetition. That's what Jesus, that's the summary of Jesus whole ministry. Let's look first at Revelation. If you look at verse 44 it says in 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've come into the world as light so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. These are some pretty bold words from a guy, if you think about it, and out of work, Carpenter, an itinerant rabbi. He doesn't, he does something that no other religious teacher has ever done at least ones that weren't a little crazy. He says the summary of his teaching is basically this, I came and I reveal God to you. And so much do I reveal God to you that if you've heard me, you've heard him. And if you've seen me, you've seen God. In other words, Jesus doesn't, if someone comes to Jesus and says, you know, can you tell me how to find God? Can you tell me what to do? What you imagine Jesus going? What do you think? You're looking at him. That would seem crazy unless you begin to really think about it. Unless God reveals himself, you can't know him. And unless he reveals himself in a person, you can't embrace him. I mean, you can know stuff about God, right? Paul, the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter one, that God has revealed himself, his invisible attributes are well known to everyone around in the world so that they're without excuse. In other words, you can know about God's attributes. So what? Think about it. If you're familiar with the confession of faith, the Westminster shorter catechism, you know, that's the question. And chapter, question number six says, what is God? Okay. And now get ready for this because this is going to minister to you. What is God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable and is being wisdom, power, holiness, goodness, and truth. Let me make your heart flutter. You see, you can know those things about God. Tommy, can you tell me about God? Yeah, I know he's a spirit. Okay. He's infinite, eternal and unchangeable. Okay. He's got being wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. All those things are true. And that is who God is. But you don't know him that way, do you? You can't. In other words, a lot of you know, a lot of things about me, you know, I was in the army and you know, that I used to work with Eli Lilly, but do you know me? You can't know me unless you actually have a conversation with me, unless you actually interact with me. And the problem is is you can't interact with someone unless they're there obviously. But that leads to a bigger part. Why did God become a man because He wanted to reveal Himself to us? But also only in the person of Jesus can you actually see that God is kind, that God is gracious, that God is merciful. And you know, God's attributes can't hold you. God's attributes can't comfort you. You know, it's thinking it had a blast of an inspiration a few weeks ago after the fact is, you know, you're I'm thinking through why did why did God have to be a man? How do you explain that to people? Why did he have to become a man? Why couldn't he just sort of proclaim Himself from the heavens? Why couldn't he just sort of give a give you a Bible and tell you the right things to do? Well, it's because it's actually pretty simple and it's going to take an object less than to show you. A few weeks ago, it's actually a few months ago now, my wife Judy who likes birds asked me to make her some bird houses. And I thought, okay, and she showed me a picture of what she wanted. Here's one of them. This is actually for a friend. Cool, right? It gets better. Check it out. The back is clear acrylic with suction cups on it. So you can put it outside of your kitchen window or you can put it outside anywhere. And when the birds nest in theory, they come and you can watch them nest through the window. So Judy wanted me to make these, to be honest, I don't care that much about birds, but I made them. But as soon as I put them up there, anyone who makes, who does woodwork or does anything else like that, you want to, you, you, you want to know if what you made actually works. And so every day I go and I'm staring. A few, a few weeks ago, remember when it was snowing and everything. And I was standing in our kitchen window. And all the little, the bird, our house now is like, you know, village, they chirp. There's these things on every single window. And the birds were outside of the kitchen window and three feet away from the bird house. The birds were there. And they were all in the branches of a tree whose leaves are phonal. And they're just, you know, the little beaks are chattering and they're just standing out there. And I just said, come into the house. It's warm in there. And then it hit me. This is a new spin on all the illustration. How could I get the birds to come in? The only way to get the birds to come in is if somehow I was able to go outside and tell them, dude, it's warm in there. You're freezing your little claws off and inside it's warm. But what would have happened if I would have just gone out like I am now with the birds have received me? They wouldn't have. They would have flown away because they would have been scared. I'm too big and powerful and awesome in their sight. Emphasis on the awesome. And I said to Judy, I felt almost stupid because I said, if I could just become bird and go out there and tell them that it's warm inside, then they would know and they'd be able to understand. That's why Jesus had to become, that's why God became a man. Because if God came to us and all of his power and all of his glory, he would simply crush us. We look at the prophet Isaiah. He had a vision of God on his throne. And the first thing he said is, whoa, I am undone. I'm being disintegrated. I cannot stand in this presence. And so God wants to come to us and tell us, come home. Your sins are forgiven. I'm going to take care of everything. He had to do it in a way that we could understand. And Jesus is the way. Jesus is the one who came as a man to let us know that God is not angry. Or that if God is angry, he's going to take that anger out on someone else. And that would be Jesus himself. Jesus reveals God to us. And he has to. Unless you know Jesus, you cannot know God. And there's something else remember Jesus came and said that I came as a light so that they might not walk in darkness. You see, the good news is that Jesus reveals God to us. The bad news is he reveals us to us. In other words, Jesus as light not only reveals God to us, but Jesus reveals who we are. And with the light of Jesus shining upon us, what it shows us to be is sinners. And yet Jesus came and said the same light that came to reveal your sin is the same light that will dispel your sin. The same light that will dispel your darkness. And unless you have that light, you will walk in darkness. Jesus says so the first thing when you summarize Jesus teaching is just this is he came to reveal God that God came to make himself known and he came to make himself known not just in a book, but in a person. And that person is Jesus. And why did that person come? He reveals God, revelation. Why did he come? Salvation, right? Salvation. Let's look at the next few verses. Verse 47, Jesus says, if anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge them for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 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. That's surprising that you say that if you're a legalist, I know it is that Jesus comes and says I didn't come to judge the world. In fact, it almost makes it sound like if people don't believe there's no sweat off my back. He said I didn't come to judge the world. I came to save the world. And the question is what does he mean by that? Your most Christians take it for granted, right? And they ask people that don't know Jesus. Are you saved? And people say what? What are you talking about? Or people say Jesus saves, right? I'm a recologist. There's a guy, whenever you say Jesus saves, he'd save what? The green stamps. What is Jesus saved? When Jesus says I didn't come to judge the world, but to save the world, what does he mean by that? And the answer is just this. There are two things from which Jesus saves us. And they both have to do with this thing called sin. The first way that Jesus saves us is from the guilt of sin. He saves us from the guilt of sin. You and I are guilty. You know, sometimes like kids, you say dad, you make me feel guilty. And you know, my response is whether you feel guilty, it's because you are guilty, right? I don't want to make you feel that way, but come on. You and I are guilty of our sin. And Jesus comes to save us from the guilt of sin. How does he save us from the guilt of sin? He saves us from the guilt of sin on the cross. When Jesus goes to the cross, he bears our guilt. He bears your guilt. He bears my guilt. And for that guilt, he also bears the wrath of God. I mean, the full out full bore anger and wrath and justice of God. Because you know, when you think about God and you say what does God like? And a lot of people say, well, I believe in a loving God or I believe in a merciful God or I believe in this kind of God or that kind of God. If God is loving, which he is, and if he is all merciful, which he is, and he is all just, which he is, then we have a problem because we're to mercy and justice kiss. Somehow they've got to come together. You see, because when we talked about forgiveness before, forgiveness is never free. Someone always pays the bill. Someone always bears the brunt of it. And only at the cross do the mercy of God and the justice of God come together and kiss. Because Jesus bears the wrath of God that you and I deserve. And whoever believes in him is freed from their guilt. It's gone. He remember Hebrews 9, 14 says, he has cleansed our conscience from guilt. It's gone, but there's something else. He cleanses from the guilt of sin, but also the power of sin. Right? If you're going to save someone, saving them out of bondage is a good thing. Saving them out of slavery is a good thing. Remember Jesus was having an argument in John chapter 8 with some religious leaders. They were talking about this issue of bondage and oppression. They said we've never been oppressed by anybody, right? Which they're, even when they said that, they were under Roman oppression, not to mention the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians. Nonetheless, Jesus cuts to the chase and he says, I tell you the truth. Anyone who sins is a slave to sin. That by nature, we're guilty of sin, but also we're a slave to sin. You can't free yourself from it. Trying to free yourself from sin in your own power is like stepping on a piece of bubble gum on a hot sunny day. You ever done that in the parking lot? Man, it makes me mad. You step on it. The more you try and get it off your shoe, the more it spreads everywhere else. You just can't do it. And Jesus comes to save us not only from the guilt of sin, but from the power of sin.
Would you be cleansed from your burden of sin? Would you be cleansed? Would you be a slave to your sin and have it constantly rule you or would you be freed from it? Some of you, whether your Christians are not have been struggling with sins your whole life, particular sins, besetting sins, and the question is, do you really believe that Jesus can free you from the power of that sin?
I can't answer that for you. You have to answer that. Do you really believe that? And if you believe he can, do you believe he will? Will you give it to him? Will you put your faith in him? That's how he came to save us, not only from the guilt of sin and then you've got it out for the rest of your life, but from the power of sin to help you right now. Do you believe that? It gets better. He not only reveals God, he brings revelation, not only to bring salvation, but he brings, get this repetition. What do I mean by that? I don't mean repetition like a father and their children, although he did that too. I mean, repetition in that Jesus repeated something that was given to him to tell us, what is that? Let's look at the last few verses. In verse 48, in verse 49, it says, but I've spoken on my own authority, but the father who sent me has given me a commandment, what to say and what to speak. And I know that this commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say, as the father has told me. Jesus is saying, he's not trying to let himself off the hook, but instead he's telling us where his authority comes from. Whatever you hear, me say, that's what God says. In fact, the very things that I say, I say to you on behalf of God, that Jesus not only reveals God, but he represents God to us. And that's important because even though Jesus said he came not to judge the world, but to save the world, he does say that the world will be judged there. Did he not? He says, I'm not going to do the judging now. The judgment against people will be the very word that I spoke to them. He said the very words that I spoke are going to judge them. In other words, if you think back, I'll like to John chapter 5, when Jesus is arguing with some Pharisees, and they basically say to him, you know, we don't need all of this because we believe in Moses. And Jesus said, when Moses is going to be the one who accuses you at the end of the day, there's what he's talking about. And he said, when Moses wrote about me, and if you believe Moses, then you would believe in me. But since you don't believe in me, then Moses is going to accuse you. And what he's saying here is what the word that I've spoken to you is the thing that at the end of the day, that is going to accuse you. And it's one thing. It's a command. And did you notice it was a singular? It was command in the singular. And he says, probably I've 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. So Jesus has all of heaven and hell, all of your whole life, everything that you ever were, are all of your sin, everything, and right relationship with God relies up on one commandment. Not the ten commandments, Jesus said, not the whole law, one thing. What is it? What is that one commandment? The father gave me a commandment to tell you, what is it? But whenever you're interpreting the Bible, the best thing to do is first things to interpret the Bible with the rest of the Bible, and especially if an author of one book wrote another book, and fortunately for us, that John who wrote this gospel also wrote the books for a second and third John, and he explains to us what this commandment is. What is the commandment that Jesus expects from us? In John chapter 3 verse 21, he says, beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God. And whatever we ask, we receive from him because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment. You ready for this? That we believe in the name of his son, Jesus Christ, and love one another. That's it. All of life, all of heaven and hell, all of your sin, all of God's justice, everything revolves around that one thing. This one command, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember in John chapter 6, when Jesus had just said 5,000 and people come to him looking for more bread, and Jesus said to them, he said, don't labor after that kind of bread. And so what kind of works does God want from us? What does he expect from us? Let me read that to you. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God that you believe in him whom he sent. That's it. Now, his obedience and stuff important, ultimately sure it is. But the primary thing that is important at the beginning is whether or not you have faith in Jesus Christ. Do you? Do you have faith in Jesus? Have you trusted him? Have you believed in him? That is what God is commanding. It's not even an invitation. It's a command. And I ask you, if you're not going to believe in him, what else is going to save you? What else brings you deliverance from your guilt, the guilt and power of sin? What else reveals God to you? You know, the Judy and the girls and I watched a pretty good movie. Yes, right? It's some good parts in it. The title of the movie, if you've not seen it, it was the last senator. Someone recommended it to me a couple of years ago. I just got around to it. We watched him over the last senator. If you've not seen it, it's basically it's set in Appalachia in about 1840 and it's a community of people from Wales who moved there. And basically, I want to give away the movie, the community committed a sin. And on the basis of the community's sin, they revived an old Welsh tradition by appointing one of the individuals in the community to be what's called a sin eater. That's sin, E-A-T-E-R, sin eater. And that person's lot in life is that when people die, he comes to the grave side and people leave an offering of bread on the person's chest and he comes and eats that bread and symbolic gesture of taking their sins upon him. He eats their sin. Now, his problem, he runs into a problem because there's a 10-year-old girl who has a very personal issue. Her name is Cady Forbes and she's just burdened down by the weight of her sin, the weight of the things that she thinks she is guilty of and she can't live with it. And so she goes to seek the sin eater before she dies. She wants him to take her sins away now because she can't live with him. And so she finally finds him and he tells her to leave, go away and she says, if you don't take my sins away, I'll make it so you have to. In other words, she threatened to kill herself and he says, all right, all right, all right. And so he makes her lay down and they go through the process of taking away her sin. He eats this bread and he begins to walk away and she cries out. I don't feel any different. And he says, I can't help you anymore. And she said, what really takes away my sins and he yells back, I wish I knew Cady. I wish I knew she goes home and there's an itinerant preacher there and she bumps into him and he sees that she's distraught and says, Cady, what has got you so distraught and she tells him all of her sins and tells her that she gave her sins to the sin eater but he couldn't help her and it didn't change anything and he looked down and said, you believe this? She said, doesn't everyone? And he said, oh, a child. And he brought her into his arms and said, long, long ago, God sent the real sin eater, the original sin eater who took on all of your sins and gave you complete forgiveness and washed away every black mark and everything that you've ever done. And she said, when you see him, could you tell him how sorry I am and asking to forgive me? And he says, I think he just did, child. And the greatest part is he hugs her close to him and she asks, does he have a name in the preacher's whispers? Jesus. Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can take away your sin. Jesus is the only one who can break the power of sin in your life. The question is, will you trust him? Think about that. Let me pray for us. Father, I pray this morning that as we consider again, Jesus, that we would believe in him, that there are those here who don't yet believe in him, I pray that you would give them eyes to see. I pray that those of us who profess belief that you would give us faith to pursue Jesus even into the darkness and depth of our heart. Father, we pray these things in Christ's name by man and amen.