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[0:00] John chapter 5, verse 25 through 27. If you're not familiar with John chapter 5, Jesus has healed a man on the Sabbath day, and the leaders are upset, and they're trying to question him and try to find out what's going on with that.

[0:21] And so he's answering them that he and the Father are one. He does it in several ways, but we come to this passage, verse 25 through 27, and he lays out for us who he is with both being Son of God and Son of Man.

[0:38] Beginning in verse 25, he says, Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live, for just as the Father has life in himself, even so, he gave to the Son also to have life in himself.

[0:56] And he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for the reminder that the way you work is very different from what we would have expected, what we would have wanted, how we would have done things.

[1:19] And yet in your infinite wisdom, you have sent your Son into this world as a child. So, Father, I pray that you would help us to understand more about this child, to understand more about who he is, so that we might love you more.

[1:44] And Lord, I pray for those that, at this time of year, they're struggling because of suffering, because of loss of loved one, because of difficulty at work, because of the struggles of this life.

[2:00] Though it should be joyful, we are reminded so much of so much pain. And so, Lord, like Peter, I pray that you would help us to get our eyes off of the waves and the winds and put our eyes upon you.

[2:15] And we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. So, I had two young Mormon missionaries who stopped by my office one time. I was at a church as a pastor, and Mormon missionaries stopped by my office.

[2:28] Now, why they chose to do that, I'm sure when they left, they thought, we'll never do that again. But it had been a long time since I had visited with a Mormon missionary, and I wasn't sure exactly how they had been training them to teach and stuff.

[2:44] And I was really surprised by a couple of things. They said two statements in particular that I'm just going to say directly as they said it to me. And I just wanted to hang in the air for a second for you to sort of feel this.

[2:56] The first statement they said was this, Jesus is the Son of God. I mean, you know, in the face of that, I kind of go like, well, yeah.

[3:14] They went even further saying, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. And I'm like, I remember looking at them and said, so you believe in the Trinity?

[3:25] And they were like, yeah. And if we just leave it there, and we just go with the bare words of it, we might think to ourselves, well, then we just have so much agreement with them.

[3:37] But the fact of the matter is, is that we have absolutely no agreement with them or with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Because you see, when they say that Jesus is the Son of God, what they mean is that this man, Jesus, once had a human father who had him by marriage with his wife.

[3:59] He had several children, and this father attained to some godhood status and eventually created the universe that you and I are now in. Because he made it through what they call the law of progression.

[4:11] Now, it doesn't matter all those fancy terms. Don't worry about that. Here's the point. If you understand what the Bible says about who Jesus is, then once you dive deeper into somebody's statement like Jesus is the Son of God, you can begin to see we are miles apart.

[4:29] And while it might be easy for us to think about what someone in some group like the Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses say, one of the things that I think we often miss is that we don't think deep enough long enough and hard enough ourselves about what it is we believe so that we can worship Jesus rightly.

[4:52] As a matter of fact, I said this earlier, I'll say it again. What you believe about God, what you believe about Jesus is the most important thing about you.

[5:06] I know you have experiences and you have family, you have sufferings and pain, you have joys and dreams and ideas, but none of that is as important as the question of what do you believe about God.

[5:23] We've been talking about taking joy, rejoicing in Christ over the last few weeks and I'm telling you that we cannot do that if we don't know who he is. So, this morning, we just want to look at two things about him that this passage tells us that he is the son of God and he is the son of man.

[5:44] First of all, he's the son of God. You'll notice in verse 25, it says that the voice of the son of God is powerful. How does it say that? It says that the dead hear the voice of the son of God and they live.

[5:59] The dead hear his voice and they live. That's pretty powerful. That's sort of the kind of power that you would see at creation that let there be life and the dead live.

[6:13] But the question is, why is he powerful? Why do they live? What makes his voice effective to give them life? And the reason is found in verse 26. For just as the father has life in himself, even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself.

[6:33] So those who hear will live and you need to ask the question, how is this possible? Because verse 26 starts with a little word, for.

[6:44] And that for tells you how or what's the cause. And the cause is that the father has life in himself. Now just stop there and think about that for a second.

[6:56] It's not that the father has been given life. It's not as though life is some sort of other entity out there or some force that the father has access to. No, life is in himself.

[7:09] It's his very nature. It's the very nature of the father to have life. And so the father gave to the son. That's past tense, before all time.

[7:21] And so before all time, the father gave to the son to have life in himself. In other words, the father shares his nature with his son. So if the father has one nature and he shares that with the son, then the son has the exact same nature as the father.

[7:41] So as the father is infinite and eternal and all powerful, so the son is infinite, eternal, and all powerful. people, they share the same nature.

[7:52] So Christians, here is the doctrine that we need to believe, we need to hold on to, and that is this, that Jesus is the son of God shares the same nature as the father.

[8:04] Jesus, as the son of God, shares the same nature as the father. And we don't talk about this too much, and because of everything that goes on in this world and people don't like to hear doctrinal sermons or whatever, we've lost ourselves just a little bit.

[8:20] Let me give you an example. Ligonier Ministries is a ministry out of Florida and they've been doing this thing for about the past eight years called the State of Theology. And they do these polls and find out what people are believing, both the public at large as well as Christians, which means all denominations, and then more particularly evangelical Christians.

[8:45] And one of the questions this year was this statement. Okay? Now the statement says this, and they're asked to either agree or disagree with this statement.

[8:59] All right? Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. Now if you're sitting there going like, I'm not sure which way I'd go, it's okay, we'll tell you in just a second.

[9:18] You say, well, I won't get to that. So the statement again is Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. 55% of everyone who responded agreed with that statement.

[9:39] Now if that doesn't hit you, let me see if I can help you understand, Jesus is uncreated. If he is infinite, he has no beginning and no end.

[9:54] Now I know we get confused because of the incarnation. A lot of people would look at the incarnation and say, well, there's a change happening in God and the answer to that is no, there's not.

[10:08] God is infinite and unchangeable. He takes on human flesh but his divinity is unchanged. So as we look at Jesus, he is not the first and greatest being created by God because he is an uncreated God.

[10:26] What's even more disturbing is that when you look at the responses and you just pull down to the evangelicals, that's supposed to be people like us. 70% of them agreed with this statement.

[10:43] He is uncreated. He shares the same nature with his father. He is infinite and unchanging.

[10:55] The son and the father are divine. Their divinity is the same and as the father is uncreated, so the son is uncreated. The son's divinity is not less than the father.

[11:07] It is the same divinity. That's why there's one God and three persons. And what this means is that this ought to give us as Christians a little bit of hope and a little bit of joy as we think about this.

[11:21] Let me give you a couple of reasons why. Number one, if Jesus is God, if he is divine, if he's uncreated, then his death can fully pay for our sins against an infinite God.

[11:34] here's what we fail to understand most often, that our sins against God are not just sort of little mistakes or little faux pas or maybe even primary major transgressions, but like it can be dealt with.

[11:52] You have to understand that the nature and the worth of the father is that he is infinite. So any sin against him deserves infinite punishment.

[12:03] I don't know about you, but last time I checked, none of us were infinite. So if we're going to be paying for our sin, we will have to pay for it for all eternity.

[12:17] But Christ, Jesus Christ, being the second person of the Trinity, being God himself, being uncreated, being infinite, in a moment upon the cross, paid the infinite payment that needed to be paid because of the infinite challenge given to the infinite God.

[12:37] So that when he says it is finished, paid in full, that's what that word means, paid in full, the debt paid, he in that moment satisfied the infinite wrath of God.

[12:54] That ought to give us hope. There's nothing left now for us to pay. But the second thing is that because Jesus is God, because he's divine, because he's uncreated, when you and I get to heaven, we will never exhaust the depths of who God is.

[13:14] Now, contrary to popular opinion, heaven is not fluffy white clouds with little charman angels strumming harps. When you die, you do not become an angel.

[13:30] Angels are servants to humans. So, matter of fact, scripture teaches us that we will judge angels.

[13:42] So when you and I die and we go on to be with the Lord, we don't turn into angels, that would be a step down, and we are also not strumming harps, but there is the infinite God in front of us, and for all eternity, we will never exhaust who he is.

[14:01] Now, just think about that for a second. You think about his love. We love his love in Baptist life. We love the love of God. We sing about his love. We got more songs about the love of God than we've got songs about anything else in the hymn books.

[14:13] We love the love of God, and we know a lot about the love of God. love. But I'm telling you that when you die and you go on to be with the Lord, you will never exhaust the depths of understanding about his love.

[14:33] There's so much about his love that you will never grasp. There's so much about his love that you could live a thousand years and you would still only scratch the surface of what his love is like.

[14:43] And he is holy, just, powerful, mighty, compassionate, merciful, faithful. He is all of this.

[14:57] I don't know if you're getting overwhelmed, but like when I start thinking about things that are infinite and eternal, I just can't even fathom it. We have so much of God to learn about.

[15:08] But finally, I'll say this, because he is God and he is divine and he is uncreated, it means that our salvation will never, never, never, never perish.

[15:25] And as Christians, this ought to give us hope, but if you are not a Christian, you see, here's the thing, I think sometimes we fail to understand, none of us are born Christians.

[15:37] We're all born in the kingdom of darkness, we're all born enemies of God, we're all born under the wrath of God. And something has to transpire in your life, something has to come at some point in your life, what we call conversion or salvation in which you are moved from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

[15:57] You move from being enemies of God to being children of God. There has to be some point in your life that that happens, some point of conversion, some point of being born again.

[16:08] You don't ooze your way into it, you don't baptize your way into it, you don't church member yourself into it, you don't read the Bible yourself into it, there's only one thing that can happen and that is that Christ saves you, that he convicts you of your sin and you turn your allegiances over to him.

[16:27] You stop being the boss of your life, you stop calling the shots in your life, you say I will no longer do what I want to do but surrender myself to Christ.

[16:38] trust that his death and his resurrection pays for my sin. He is the son of God and if he pays for your sin it will be always paid for and so I say to you if you're not a Christian this morning come to Christ.

[16:59] But now we get to the second part and that is that he is the son of man. This was Jesus' favorite title for himself and that's the first thing I want you to understand is that this is a title.

[17:10] New American Standard uses the word the to kind of help us understand that he is the son of man. The son of man. Did you hear my voice? I just have to call it out because it distracted me entirely.

[17:24] There we go. He is the son of man. You'll catch up. Some of you are still sleeping. You're kind of going like what did you just say? Here's the problem. Most of us when we think about son of God and son of man we think divinity humanity.

[17:41] Right? That's the wrong thing to think. Son of God you should think his divinity his nature his person but son of man you should think title job work.

[18:01] son of God is who he is son of man is what he does. Okay? So hold that in your mind because I hear all the time people say well he's the son of man so he's human.

[18:14] It's like well that's not what that means. So let's look at what it means. Okay? This son of man comes from Daniel chapter 7 verse 13 through 14 one of these visions that Daniel had and we're not going to get into all the ins and outs but just look at what it says here verse 13 I kept looking on the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and to him was given dominion glory and a kingdom that all the peoples nations and men of every language might serve him his dominion is our everlasting dominion which will not pass away and his kingdom is one in which will not be destroyed so you see the son of man is coming in the clouds sounds like the ascension of Jesus he was presented before the ancient of days and he's given dominion glory and kingdom that is everlasting in other words the son of man is a messianic title that means he's the messiah king and we talked about

[19:15] Jesus being king last week in psalm 110 that's what son of man means so every time Jesus is talking in the gospels and he says son of man that kind of irks everybody because he's basically saying I'm the messiah king now what this means then if we go back to john chapter 5 verse 27 it says that the father gave him authority to execute judgment because he's the son of man so he executes judgment not because he's human but he executes judgment!

[19:49] he's king and it makes sense for the king to execute judgment he's the one that gives the rules he's the one that pronounces the commandments!

[19:59] he therefore should be the one to bring the judgment and judgment is just simply looking at some sort of act thought or person and discerning the rightness or wrongness of that and then making a decree but because he is the son of man he has the right to judge our lives and just so that I can you know offend as many people as possible he Jesus judges us Jesus judges us I know John 3 17 I know that verse some of you are going like John 3 17 what's that say you might have to look it up because you know 16 but you might not know!

[20:44] 3 17 says that God sent his son into the world not to condemn the world but to save it what that verse does not say is God sent his son into this world and he will therefore never judge you why did he send his son into this world to save it why did he need to save it why did he need to save it and not condemn it because if you look around through history and you go to the time of Noah and you look at all the history that's happened humanity is a mess we are wicked cursed people who hate God and hate one another and do all manner of violence towards one another he came when he came he did not come into a world full of people going like I really wish that God would come here he didn't come into a world full of rainbows and unicorns that were ready to just bow at their knee he came into a world that hated him he came into a world already condemned condemned the reason he didn't come to condemn is because we were already condemned and because

[22:05] Jesus died and rose again he sits at the right hand of the father and he judges our lives passages like Acts chapter 10 verse 42 Acts 17 31 2nd Timothy 4 1 1st Peter 4 5 tells us that Jesus sitting upon the throne is the one who judges the living and the dead he is Christ the king it's that baby in the manger stands in judgment over you so the question is this you stand before Christ and he asks you why should I let you into my heaven what will be your answer why should

[23:07] I let you into my heaven there's so many people that like to give so many reasons but there's only one right answer to this because you died for my sins you rose from the dead and without you I'm lost without hope you saved me whatever else you might say it's wrong and so I would just beg you if you're not a Christian if you find yourself today hearing this question hearing this answer and thinking wow that's not what I would have said then I love you and I want you to come to the truth and it wouldn't matter if I'm here for 60 years or six more days this is still the truth regardless of whether

[24:13] I'm here put your faith in Christ but Christians I don't want us to be fooled that Jesus doesn't judge us because he does his judgment of us ends up being a little different his judgment of us is even sometimes felt inside this world as he disciplines us as Hebrews calls it and there's a good example of that in the Lord's supper there's a part of the Lord's supper that I think a lot of people fail to look at and take into account I just want to show it to you because we're going to start making our way towards the table but in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 Paul is laying out how we should think about the Lord's supper and in verse 27 he says therefore whoever eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord now I just want to say that at the same time the

[25:16] Lord's supper is both a super serious thing and a super joyful thing it's super serious because there is this warning here about being guilty of the body and blood!

[25:29] of in an unworthy manner and I usually find that there's one of two kinds of people that read that verse there's usually some who without any thought rarely ever examine their own heart and life and think that well I you know I'm I'm just as unworthy as everybody else but I don't have any big thing going on that I'm fine and it's sort of an unexamined life an unexamined heart that comes to the table and you shouldn't be that way you should examine and you should look at yourself but there are some who examine themselves so much that I've had people come to me not here other churches who come to me as we go about the Lord's supper and they will walk up to me and say hey listen pastor this past week I just got so angry I done some sin I've done some things this week I'm just not proud of and I'm just going to abstain from the

[26:30] Lord's supper today and I just look at him and I go like what are you talking about and they say well you know in an unworthy manner and I'm like okay let's just understand something here this unworthy manner is not you were not sinless this last week this unworthy manner is a very specific thing as a matter of fact it's specific to the church of Corinth in this that they had factions in their church they had divisions in their church they had some people who would not give time and space to other people in the church and would go ahead and eat the Lord's supper without them because they were divided you see we're called the body of Christ and when we take of the Lord's supper taking in the body of Christ there should be no divisions among us so

[27:33] I would say to you here in a few moments when we come to partake of the Lord's supper if there is someone that you have something against or there is someone who has something against you really the right thing is for you to abstain from eating this until you get that straight if there's someone that you need to go ask them for forgiveness and when I say someone let's be very specific I'm talking about a believer who's in this body of believers you would be partaking of the Lord's supper in an unworthy manner to do so with division and unforgiveness in your heart but if you come to the Lord here in a moment and you say Lord I am so sorry I have this unforgiveness in my heart I need to to get this right then I say come come come to the Lord's table we must examine ourselves because in first

[28:39]  Corinthians chapter 11 29 through 30 he says forever eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly for this reason many among you are weak and sick and a number sleep that sleep that means to die God has brought judgment upon his church when many of his people come and without getting things right with another believer partake of the Lord's supper I don't want that to be for us because this is a beautiful time this is a glorious time and as the scriptures say we should examine ourselves so here's what we're going to do I'm going to pray to