True Security

[0:00] Doesn't crave security in various ways. Job security, financial security, relational security, political security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security, national security.

[0:18] look for your security, how would you answer? Does your security come from your relationships? Does it perhaps come from your bank balance or pension scheme? Do you find security in the status your job provides? The trouble with the things in which we tend to seek our security is that they all have a shelf life. They don't last. Relationships, even the best of relationships, don't last because of the certainty of death. Money, it has a habit of running out. Jobs, they come to an end. Politicians promise but don't deliver. John writes this gospel from which we've read to show us that Jesus is the Son of God who became the Son of Man to give us eternal forever security as we put our trust in Him. And that is the message of this little story we read in John chapter 18 as our Lord Jesus encountered the soldiers and others who were sent to arrest Him. Please would you picture the scene?

[1:41] It must have been dark among the trees of the olive grove. The soldiers had come with torches and lanterns. Jesus had gone there as He often did with His disciples to pray. Judas the betrayer, he knew that so he was able to guide the soldiers to Jesus. The soldiers were armed for a fight. They probably anticipate having to search for a hiding or a fleeing Jesus. But look at verse 4. Jesus didn't hide.

[2:20] On the contrary, He went out to meet them. Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to Him, went out and asked them, who is it you want? Now notice their reply. They said, Jesus of Nazareth.

[2:37] They were seeking a man. But will you now look at verses 5 and 6. Look what happened. I am He, Jesus said. When Jesus said, I am He, they drew back and fell to the ground. Now, why was that?

[2:55] Why did they fall back and fall to the ground? Well, those soldiers, they went seeking a man, but instead they encountered God. That's what was going on. Literally, Jesus' words, I am He, they are actually simply two words, I am. It's not the first time in John's Gospel that Jesus uses I am to describe Himself. Just back in chapter 8, during a discussion with the Jewish leaders, Jesus declared, Jesus declared, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am. And when He said that, they picked up stones to stone Him. Why? Well, because I am, in the Bible, is the title reserved for Almighty God. I am is the way God revealed Himself to Moses. Do you remember at the burning bush?

[3:54] I am is God's name. I am is God's name, by which God reveals that He is the eternal, always existing God, the always present tense God, the forever and always the same Lord. So these soldiers, they came looking for a man, but they encountered the eternal Lord. And there must be something in the way Jesus spoke that caused them to react as people always react in the Bible when they encounter God, with awe, with reverence. They fell to the ground. It would seem that at that moment, just for a moment, they were given, as it were, a glimpse of the fact that this man in front of them was none other than the eternal Son of God. What does John say at the very start of his gospel? He says, no one has ever seen God, but God, the one and only, that's Jesus, has made Him known.

[5:03] And what I want to suggest to you this morning is that the way our Lord Jesus active in that olive grove that day, it reveals the basis of the security that you and I can find in Him as we put our trust in Him and in Him alone. So will you this morning consider with me three security-giving truths about the Lord Jesus? Here's the first. Oh, there you go. True security. Three security truths. Number one, His willing submission. Do you like to know what's on your agenda each day?

[5:45] Jesus knew. When Jesus woke up each day, His agenda was clear. It was to do the will of His Father who sent Him. That's what we just read in John chapter 6 verse 38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of Him who sent me. On another occasion, Jesus spoke about His food being to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. That's why when those soldiers came looking for Jesus, Jesus didn't hide. He didn't run away. No, He went out to meet them. And look again at verse 4. He did so knowing all that was going to happen to Him. All is a pretty small word, isn't it?

[6:39] But when John tells us that knowing all that was going to happen to Him, Jesus went out and asked them, what do you want? John is telling us that Jesus knew all that was ahead in every little detail.

[6:50] each detail being part of the plan to which He was willingly submitting Himself. It's Easter week. Will you just think with me of all that was going to happen to Jesus in that first Easter week? There was nothing pleasant ahead. It would have been no surprise if His knowledge of what was going to happen had caused Jesus to shrink back.

[7:26] He was about to be arrested. He was then bound. He was put on trial before those who hated Him and had already made up their minds they were going to condemn Him to death.

[7:42] He was struck in the face by those who should have bowed before Him. He was led before the Roman governor Pilate as a criminal.

[7:55] He was interrogated. He was rejected by a braying mob in favor of a murderous rebel. He was flogged mercilessly.

[8:10] He had a crown of thorns thrust on His head. Think of the pain you get when a thorn bush pricks your finger. And then think what it was like to have a crown of thorns pushed down on your forehead.

[8:26] He was mocked. He was struck in the face again and again. He was paraded in a purple robe and the crown of thorns as an object of ridicule. He was rejected again as the crowd cried, Crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him, take Him away.

[8:43] He was forced in His weakness to carry His own cross to the place of the skull. And here they crucified Him.

[8:56] Those four words, here they crucified Him, describe the most barbaric form of execution. To quote one author, Jesus the carpenter, who had driven many nails into wood with His hands, had five to seven inch rough metal spikes driven into the most sensitive nerve centers of the human body.

[9:22] His hands and His feet. And He was nailed to a wooden cross, stripped naked. He was then lifted up and His body dropped into a prepared hole, causing His body to hang on the spikes through His hands and feet.

[9:40] And then they watched as He died in thirsty agony. Gruesome. Horrific.

[9:54] Dreadful. Ghastly. Definitely all of those. One old commentator draws a contrast between Adam in the Garden of Eden and Jesus the second Adam in the Olive Grove.

[10:14] And he says this, The first Adam in his guilt hid himself in the Garden. Remember that? The second Adam, Jesus in his innocence, went out to meet his enemies.

[10:30] Earlier in John's Gospel, when people intended to come and make Jesus king by force, He withdrew and hid Himself. Now when the soldiers came to force Him to wear that crown of thorns and to die on the cross, Jesus went out and offered Himself.

[10:52] Make my own mistake, Jesus didn't suffer on Good Friday because He couldn't escape. Look at verse 10 in our passage.

[11:03] Jesus drew His sword and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off His ear. Jesus said, Put the sword away. Why? Verse 11. He was committed to drink the cup the Father had given Him.

[11:18] The cup of wrath against sin. All the soldiers in the Roman Empire could not have taken Jesus if He'd not been willing to be taken.

[11:32] They couldn't have heard a hair on His head without His permission. Why? He is, I am. He is the eternal Lord. So friends, this morning, why on earth did Jesus do it?

[11:48] He did it for us. He did it to give eternal security to all who will trust in Him.

[11:59] God's plan was that through His willing submission, He would be the basis of our security with God's. Think of a passport.

[12:12] If you've ever been abroad, you'll know the drill at passport control. At Heathrow or Gatwick, it's great when you arrive back home and you're in that quick queue of British passport holders and the poor folk having to wait for ages in their long queue.

[12:30] With my British passport, I've never felt insecure as a British citizen when I've arrived back in the UK. But I have known it the other way around.

[12:43] I remember going to Chad in Central Africa, one of the poorest countries in the world. And I remember feeling really uncertain and insecure as I entered the country, not my own.

[12:54] Will I be allowed to enter? Will they find some floor in my passport? Or as that lady in Hong Kong, that MP, when she tried to get to Hong Kong this week, she was sent away again.

[13:10] None of us here this morning have any right to be accepted by God, either now or when we die. The, as it were, spiritual passport with which we are each born, it identifies us as sinners, rebels against God, children of the devil, not children of God.

[13:35] But in his great love for sinners like me, the plan of God the Father that sent his eternal Son in human flesh was that he would willing to submit to the plan by which he took upon himself the punishment my rebellion deserves.

[13:56] So as I simply trust in Jesus, he, as it were, gives me a new passport. To use the language of John 1, to all who received Jesus, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

[14:14] To use the language of John 3, to be born again as a child of God's. A child with secure rights of access both now and forever when I die.

[14:26] Julian's beating me in the number of grandchildren. But our second grandchild, Hallie, she's two. And over the Christmas period, there were a couple of occasions when her mum and dad left her with me.

[14:41] We had a lovely time, I thought. But the next time I was in a house with her and then mummy left the room, panic.

[14:52] Because clearly she dissociated. If mummy's not there, then papa's looking after me. Oh no, I want mummy. Perfectly natural for a two-year-old, isn't it? Why?

[15:03] Because their security is in their mum. The security of a relationship that makes them feel secure. Secure. Friends, relational security with almighty God is our greatest need as human beings.

[15:22] It's seen most perfectly and wonderfully in that secure relationship the Lord Jesus had with God the Father as he walked this earth. And it's that quality of relationship that's given to a sinner like me, sinners like us, by the same eternal Lord Jesus as a result of his willing submission to the plan that took him to the horrors of the cross.

[15:57] Security is found nowhere else. But that isn't the only security giving truth to which these verses point us.

[16:08] The second is this. His shepherdly protection. Now, have you ever had anyone stand in front of you to protect you from danger?

[16:19] It is the logic of the principle my mother taught, my brother and I, about a man always walking curbside if you're walking along the road with a woman.

[16:29] Some nods from some guys. And it proved true one day for Sandra and I up in London. It was a very rainy day. We'd just crossed the road opposite King's Cross. So I moved from being on Sandra's left to be on her right.

[16:43] And as I did, a bus came by, went through a massive puddle, and I got completely drenched. It was horrible. London muddy water. My mother would have been proud.

[16:59] More seriously, I read of a man called Ludovico. He was meant to be enjoying a friend's quiet birthday meal in a Paris restaurant when a gunman turned up.

[17:15] Ludovico could have died for cover in terror, but when he saw a gunman take fire at a woman nearby, he dived in front of the oncoming bullet, saving her life while ending his own.

[17:29] I read of a man called Adele in Beirut. Seeing a man in an explosive vest approaching a crowd of people, he tackled him to the ground, detonating the bomb, a move that undoubtedly saved many lives.

[17:46] Look at verse 7. Having asked the soldiers once, who is it you want? Jesus asked the same question again, and when they again said Jesus was an aderist, note his reply in verse 8.

[18:00] I told you that I am he. If you're looking for me, then let these men go. Do you see what the Lord Jesus was doing? He was physically standing between the soldiers and his people.

[18:17] A picture of his protection of them. John 10, Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.

[18:32] In the Old Testament, bad shepherds are described as those who only ever took care of themselves, while a good shepherd cares for and protects his sheep. By standing between the disciples and the soldiers, Jesus was saying, I'm the shepherdly protector of my people.

[18:50] Now this first of all points to his selfless substitution. He stood between me and God's wrath when he died on the cross and he took it. So my protection from the wrath of God that I deserve on the day of judgment, it comes from his shepherdly protection in my place.

[19:09] But it's also the basis of our security as we live in a hostile world trusting the Lord Jesus.

[19:24] Just before leading his disciples to the olive grove, Jesus warned them, in this world you will have trouble. He didn't pull any punches when he warned them.

[19:39] As the world has hated me, it will hate you as well. No servant is greater than his master he had taught. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

[19:52] Will you glance back to chapter 17 verse 15. What did Jesus then pray for his disciples? He prayed, my prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.

[20:10] The shepherdly care of Jesus is for the protection of his people. That's what he put on display in the olive grove.

[20:22] You may have heard of a man called John Payton. He was a pioneer missionary to the cannibals of the New Hebrides which is nowhere near Scotland.

[20:33] He was under constant attack from wild cannibals and was amazingly preserved time and time again. On one occasion a man furiously rushed at him with an axe only for another man to defend him with a spade.

[20:49] And I want to quote John Payton to you. Listen to what he said. Life in such circumstances led me to cling very near to the Lord Jesus.

[21:01] I knew not for one brief hour when or how attack might be made. And yet with my trembling hand clasped in the hand once nailed on Calvary and now swaying the scepter of the universe calmness and peace and resignation abode in my soul.

[21:24] He continued Next day a wild chief followed me about for four hours with his loaded musket and though often directed towards me God restrained his hand.

[21:37] I spoke kindly to him and attended to my work as if he had not been there fully persuaded that my God had placed me there and would protect me until my allotted task was finished.

[21:52] Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus I left all in his hands and felt immortal till my work was done.

[22:08] Is that not an example of the security the shepherdly protection of Jesus gives to those who trust in him? Now that doesn't mean that as we trust the Lord Jesus we'll never be physically or otherwise harmed by God's enemies.

[22:25] Did you notice what John Payton wrote? Looking up in unceasing prayer to our dear Lord Jesus I left all in his hands and felt immortal till my work was done.

[22:39] And that leads to the third and last security given truth. The reliable words of Jesus. Look at John's explanation in verse 9 of Jesus' protection of his disciples.

[22:53] This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled. I have not lost one of those you gave me.

[23:03] Now we read those words in John 6. Jesus said for I have come down to heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me and this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me but raise them up on the last day.

[23:23] When someone dies it's sometimes said we've lost them and it's true.

[23:36] Some of you know that's true. We've lost their companionship. We've lost their presence. But someone who like a lost sheep has been found by the eternal Lord Jesus the good shepherd can never be lost by him.

[23:56] Every believer is a gift from God the Father to the Lord Jesus his son. He has guaranteed that he will never lose one of them. Jesus says of his people I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

[24:10] no one can snatch them out of my hand. And so the words of Jesus are the basis of security forever.

[24:25] When John Paton was being chased by that wild chief with his musket what was he trusting in?

[24:36] he was trusting in the reliable words of the eternal Lord Jesus that even were his work on earth to be done he could be sure that he would be raised up by Jesus on the last day and therefore was secure whatever this world threw at him.

[25:01] One of the most memorable books I've read in recent years. You may not have heard of it. It's worth a read. It's called The Insanity of God by a missionary called Nick Ripken.

[25:14] It recounts first-hand testimonies of persecuted believers throughout the world in the last probably 60 or so years. It includes the testimony of a son of a persecuted pastor in a communist country.

[25:33] let me just read this testimony to you. This is the son of a pastor. I remember the day like it was yesterday. My father put his arms around me and my sister and my brother and guided us into the kitchen to sit around the table where he could talk to us.

[25:55] My mama was crying so I knew that something was wrong. Papa didn't look at her because he was talking directly to us.

[26:06] He said children you know that I'm a pastor of our church. That's what God has called me to do to tell others about him.

[26:19] I've learned that the communist authorities will come tomorrow to arrest me. They will put me in prison because they want me to stop preaching about Jesus.

[26:31] But I cannot stop doing that because I must obey God. I will miss you very much but I will trust God to watch over you while I'm gone.

[26:43] He hugged each one of us and then he said all around this part of the country the authorities are rounding up for those of Jesus and demanding that they deny their faith. Sometimes when they refuse the authorities will line up whole families and hang them by the neck until they are dead.

[27:03] I don't want that to happen to our family. So I'm praying that once they put me in prison they will leave you and your mother alone. However, and here he paused and made eye contact with each one of us.

[27:20] If I am in prison and hear that my wife and my children have been hung to death rather than deny Jesus, I will be the most proud man in that prison.

[27:37] What enabled that pastor to speak like that to his children? Only trust in the reliable words of Jesus.

[27:51] Jesus. His words are the basis of real security forever and ever and ever. Why? Because he is the great I am.

[28:04] He is the one who exists forever and ever and ever who is always present tense and who actually means that as we trust in him we also will be always present tense with him.

[28:19] even after death comes for each one of us. If Jesus says he'll never lose us we can be sure that he will never lose us.

[28:38] when I was a pastor in London we had an elderly persons meeting every Monday afternoon and once the police came they always heard from the Bible they always did other things as well and the local police came and they suggested to all these older people living in London that they should invite the police to come round and give them a security check to check that their front door and their windows and everything were secure to calm their fears as we draw to a close can I ask you would you be willing to do a spiritual security test this morning do you have that deep assurance in the eternal Lord Jesus that means you have forever security it's the gift of

[29:43] Jesus to ordinary people like us who simply take him at his word where is your security is it in the willing submission of Jesus do you know if it is in his willing submission it will show as we are those who willingly submit ourselves to Jesus as he willingly submitted himself to his father where is your security is it in the shepherdly protection of Jesus it will show as we entrust ourselves in every situation into his nail pierced!

[30:29] hands where is your security is it in the reliable words of Jesus it will show as we allow his words not the words of others not our own internal talking to ourselves but his words to actually shape every part of our lives it is the security Jesus gives that frees us to live distinctively as his disciples to follow him whatever the world may say resisting that temptation which is constantly attacking us to find our security in things that actually will not last the security Jesus gives courage in the face of persecution the security

[31:31] Jesus gives peace in the face of death is the eternal security found only in him the great I am the eternally forever present Lord so friends where is your security let's bow our heads and let's pray Lord Jesus Christ we may not be physically bowing down before you but in our hearts we want to bow down before you the great

[32:38] I am the eternal always present tense always the same unchanging Lord God we thank you that you came in willing submission to your father's plan we thank you that you came to provide shepherdly protection to men and women like us who don't deserve it because of our rebellion against you we thank you that we can trust your reliable words and find in you and in your death and in your resurrection true security that nothing else can bring Lord Jesus if we've never trusted you for security with

[33:39] God for eternal security please help us to trust you right now thank you that you will never drive away anyone who comes to you and Lord Jesus if we would already profess to be finding our security in you Lord Jesus may that be a reality would you help us as day by day we're tempted to put our trust our confidence in so many other things or in ourselves or in other people Lord Jesus knowing who you are knowing what you've done and what you are doing please may we truly be those who find our security in you we ask these things for your namesake amen the advantage of being a visitor is that

[35:01] I don't know you and if you're here this morning and actually you wouldn't yet call yourself a Christian you don't have the assurance of security with God I have a little booklet here called if only I knew how God could accept me so you might be sitting standing here thinking well Johnny you don't know what I'm like you don't know what I've done you wouldn't want anything to do God won't want anything to do with me well look I'd love just to give you this little booklet I won't try and engage you in conversation unless you want to I'll stand at that door over there after the final song and if you'd like one of these just come and take it if you'd like to talk to someone well I'm sure that Daniel and Philip and Jerome would love to speak to you more we're going to stand by singing a song about the security that we have in the Lord Jesus it's the song when I fear my faith will fail he Christ will hold me fast