Where's Stacy? Nathan, Stacy, we want to bid you farewell temporarily. Nathan and Stacy have
! Nathan and Stacy have been with us longer than they anticipated. Nathan and Stacy
! Where is little bright Sophia? Where? Oh.
A little effervescent little girl and Noah, the quiet one. Nathan and Stacy were sent here on
temporary assignment from Washington, D.C. and the company he is with, and they stayed far longer
than they anticipated. They've been a blessing to us, and Nathan, one of our deacons, gave the
deacon board a letter of his official resignation from that responsibility as he is going to be
leaving town. We are packing him Wednesday what time? After the evening prayer service. And so
you can kind of, it's a two-for-one, and we won't charge you for the second opportunity.
You come and pray with us, and then you come and pack with us. It's kind of like a double P
that's pastoring at the best, you know, when you can put P's together and make it sound reasonable.
We want you there to pray. We want you there to pack, and we will send Nathan and Stacy off
with our love and affection, and we know that we will be apart for only a short time
because the day is coming when we will enjoy the presence of Christ forever. Isn't that right?
Amen.
Well, that being said, turn in your Bibles to John chapter 5.
So, question, how many of you already started praying for me? Come on, raise your hands. I trust
that it's kind of instinct that you, among the other things you do today, is you pray for me.
There are people here today that need Christ, and that won't happen apart from the work of the Holy
Spirit. Do you understand that? And you who are believers this morning need to see the Lord Jesus
lifted up so that He consumes your heart, and that won't happen apart from the work of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit. It's very easy for us to be pretty dull and indifferent to the holiness and the absolute
glory of Christ. Isn't that right? And we need the work of God to do something.
Pray with me.
Father God, this morning we are thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ and for the blessing we have of
gathering in His name and being able to open this book that tells us about Him and being able to rely
upon the work and the ministry of the Spirit of God. We want to walk out of here more like Jesus,
and that won't happen if we rely simply on our own intellectual ability or maybe the momentary flash of our
emotion. That won't happen. And we're thankful that we can come with confidence and depend upon you to do
a work that reflects the glory and the supremacy of Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
So, John chapter 5, I want you to read to you verse 24 down through 29, and I want you to think about
one particular thing as I'm reading. Stop just for a moment. Don't go to your Bibles yet. I just want you
to follow what I want you to think about. How persuaded are you of the reality of hell?
Think about that. How significant is hell in your present thinking?
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life.
He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you,
an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,
and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also
to have life in Himself. And He's given Him authority to execute judgment because He's the Son of Man.
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice
and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil
to the resurrection of judgment.
So, question.
Do you really believe in hell?
If hell is as real as Jesus makes it in the Scriptures, in other words, can Jesus still be Jesus and lie?
And what's the answer? No.
So, if Jesus tells us that hell is real, and heaven is real too,
the reality of hell should have affected our conversations this last week and our behavior.
Agreed?
I mean, I'm talking to you who are believers, and I'm not talking to you about,
well, if you misbehave, you're going to hell. That's not what I'm talking about.
But if you who know Christ are not affected by the brevity of life and the reality of eternal judgment,
enough that your conversation and your behavior reflects upon those realities,
there's something missing in your understanding.
Agreed?
Well, here's Jesus.
John chapter 5.
Remember?
He started out his ministry by walking into Jerusalem, and what did he do?
You know, the idea that kind of Jesus...
Get this thing right. I'm sorry.
I need a piece of tape in the future to just kind of stick over here,
and nobody would notice it, but this wouldn't move.
You know, or maybe some kind of surgical procedure to make this stay.
Newton, where are you?
You know, there's a couple stitches right there, and it'd stay.
Bugs me.
Okay.
Anyway, Jesus came to Jerusalem, and he announced his presence by walking into the temple,
and he cleaned house.
Didn't make him real popular.
And so he goes up to his hometown, Galilee, and he stops at the well in Sychar,
and there's a lot of people that are saved.
And back he comes to Jerusalem.
Now, we know already that he was beginning to face pressure and persecution.
They weren't really happy with Jesus.
He hadn't accommodated their religious conventions, and he irritated them a great deal.
Instead of just kind of being quiet and subtle about the whole thing,
when he comes back to Jerusalem, the first thing he does is he goes down to the pool at Bethesda,
and he heals a man on what day?
You got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you skip over to Sunday,
you can heal on any of those days.
But Saturday, don't be doing healing on that one.
He heals on the Sabbath.
And it just really irks them because here is Mr. Healed Guy tromping through the city,
carrying his bed.
That was a no-no.
Everybody knew, don't do that.
What are you doing carrying your bed?
He says, hey, listen, the guy who healed me, he said, carry it.
What am I going to do?
Carry it.
Well, who's that?
You know, it was Jesus.
And so they're all irritated with Jesus about this.
And you'll remember, instead of backing away, he makes it clear that he indeed is God's son,
equal to the Father.
And he goes on and he makes it clear.
And look with me, if you will, at verse 24.
He says, truly, truly, I say to you, and that's kind of like highlighting in your textbook.
It's like, get this point.
Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.
Now, the Jewish spiritual religious leaders, they kind of proposed, if you want to have
some marginal confidence in the possibility that you may get to heaven, you need to do
all these particular things.
How many of you have been around people that have the idea that eternal life is kind of conditional?
It all really depends on how you behave, right?
You talk to some people and say, so, when you die, where are you going?
I'm not sure, but I'm hoping I'm going to heaven.
And why are you hoping that?
Well, I'm hoping that I've been a pretty good person and I've kept the Ten Commandments.
And, well, you know, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope.
Jesus made the issue of eternal life undeniably clear.
And he also made it clear that eternal life is something we receive not because of our good
works, but because of his finished work on the cross.
And so here he says, hey, listen, those who believe in me, they have eternal life.
They don't come into judgment.
You've passed from death to life.
That is kind of an overview of what we're going to see in the remaining part of our study this morning.
Jesus makes this announcement, I'm the one who has the power of salvation,
and I'm the one who has the power to judge forever.
That's verse 24.
Now we step in, and Jesus is going to explain two different pieces,
and he's going to use kind of a poetic language to drive the point home.
He's going to talk about resurrections.
And so I want you to understand that as you look at this passage,
I want something to ring in your ears, and when you walk out of here,
I want this thought to resonate.
I am going to heaven, and I want as many as possible to come with me.
I'm going to heaven, and I want as many as possible to come with me.
Do you understand that point?
Remember I said, how much do you think about hell?
How serious are you about hell?
If you are here this morning and you're a believer,
I trust one of the things that is fixed in your mind is you're going to heaven.
You're going to heaven.
But I trust one of the other pieces that goes along with this is that you want others to come with you.
And it's not just kind of a passive, well, I'm hoping they make it,
but you're out there talking about it.
You're interested in living in such a fashion that unbelievers say to you,
what's the deal with you?
You're different.
Oh, I'm a vegetarian.
No.
I came to know Jesus.
I was a miserable, lost, broken sinner, and Jesus saved me.
Now, either you're going to heaven or I want you to walk out of here fully persuaded of this.
I'm on the path of hell, and I have no hope unless I come to Christ.
Let's think about that.
I am on the path to hell, and I have no hope unless I come to Christ.
I am on the path to hell, and I have no hope apart from Christ.
Well, let's come to the text.
Verse 25.
Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here
when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
I want you to mark the repeated phrase that we find in verse 25 and verse 28.
Keep your finger on 25 and just skip ahead just a little bit,
and here is Jesus saying the same thing in some sense.
Again, he says, do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming.
Repetitious.
An hour is coming.
Verse 25 and 28.
He uses the same phrase to highlight something and to draw our attention to something important.
We repeat things when it's important.
Jesus did that.
And while the two phrases are identical at this point, and they draw our attention to something,
what follows is different and amplifies our interest.
In verse 25, Jesus says the time is coming and is now here.
What does that mean?
The time is coming and it's here.
Present.
Now.
Right this minute.
Present.
So there you are.
You're driving in the car and you're going on a long journey.
And your children, Judith and I, had four of them all in the car at the same time.
And the minute we leave the home, I mean, we haven't even pulled off onto Trebu Road,
someone in the back would ask that proverbial question.
You know what it was?
Are we there yet?
I could say justly the time is coming.
We will be there eventually.
But when we pull into Grandpa's driveway or something, I can say, it's now here.
We're here.
And so when Jesus says, it's now here, he's talking about something that's in the present.
In verse 28, he says this.
He says, for an hour is coming when.
We don't have that is now here.
And so we understand that 25 and 28 are talking about two different resurrections.
I want you to recognize that as you look at the passage in 25, the indication there is
that those who hear come to life.
In 28, it says those who hear either come to eternal life or they come to eternal judgment.
And so the thing I want you to remember from our study this morning is that part of the larger question
that Jesus answered for the religious leaders as to, well, what right do you have to do this?
He says, listen, I've got the power.
I'm the one who has the power and the authority to save and to deliver from judgment.
I'm the one who can do that.
And very, very clearly, I want you to recognize that those religious leaders understood that only God had the right
to identify himself as the savior of the world and as the judge of the whole world.
Let's see something else here.
Jesus makes it clear that salvation moves a person from a state in which they are dead to a position of being alive.
You look there in verse 25, it says,
the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.
Many of us here have loved ones that are not saved.
We have friends that are not saved.
We have people that we work with and around that are not saved.
And if you were to say to them, hey, listen, you're dead, what would be their reaction?
You think?
I mean, it's like, you're talking about me?
I'm alive.
No.
In fact, I tell you about the party I had on Saturday night.
It was the greatest thing.
I was alive.
Really.
The Bible says that apart from Christ, those who do not know Christ are dead.
And by the way, how capable are dead people to reason, think, figure things out, come to wise conclusions, avoid difficulty?
Do you follow that?
Can they do those things?
The answer is what?
No.
I want you to understand that the Bible is consistent in giving us a picture of the fact that those who do not know Christ are dead.
Dead.
Turn in your Bible just for a moment.
We're going to follow this track just for a little bit of time.
Over in Ephesians, you're in John, so kind of go to the back of the book.
Come to Ephesians chapter 2.
Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1.
And you were, what?
Look at it.
Say it with me.
Dead.
In the trespasses and sins.
How were you prior to your salvation?
You were dead.
Dead.
You know, one of the things that I wouldn't call it troublesome, but it's confusing to some is recognizing that at the very heart of gospel ministry is the imperative that we help people understand what the Bible has to say about their condition prior to conversion.
And we don't get saved by just kind of helping God along with whatever needs to be done.
Salvation is something that He does to those who are dead in sin.
Ephesians 2, verse 1.
Dead.
And Ephesians chapter 2, verse 5.
It says,
Even when we were dead in our trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ.
By grace are you saved.
Let me have you look at another passage.
You're in Ephesians.
Keep your finger in John because we are coming back there.
But in 1 John chapter 3, verse 14, here's the apostle again writing on this subject.
And here's what he says.
1 John chapter 3, verse 14.
We know that we have passed out of what?
Death into life.
I can tell you one of the things that I have noticed characterizes some who are concerned about their eternal condition and they're bent on doing the best they can.
They've kind of bought into the idea that salvation is something that must be attainable by virtue of doing good things.
Try, try, try, try, try.
They're trying to kind of elevate their spiritual status by things they do.
But there's all this niggling concern in the back of their mind that they're not getting there.
Not only that, but they are painfully aware that even the best of their motives are flawed and their intentions are messed up.
How many of you realize that a wife is not at all persuaded when you have been an absolute skunk and come home and just give her flowers and think that covers it?
Am I right?
Just want to check here.
Am I right?
Huh?
I mean, you walk in the living room and you throw them on the couch and say, those are for you.
I mean, it's like, oh, really?
No.
Something's got to change in the heart.
The flowers don't do it by themselves.
So the idea that we can kind of work our way into heaven by bringing flowers home, it's not going to cut it.
You see, let's understand, going back to John chapter 5, that what Jesus is teaching us here is that those who hear the voice of Christ and respond in faith are saved.
Saved.
They enjoy a spiritual resurrection from death to life.
Death to life.
Truth of the matter is, there may be some of you here this morning, the reality of it is, you may have grown up in a home where you heard gospel truth.
You understood the fact that salvation is the work of God.
But all your life, you have been working desperately to kind of pull it off on your own, and you've been profoundly frustrated that there's never, ever really been any significant evidence of the power of God to bring change.
You're still the same.
And the problem is not that you haven't tried hard.
You have.
But you're dead.
And only Christ can bring you to life.
Let me have you understand another thing that goes along with this business of coming to resurrection power and to life in Christ.
And it's this.
Let me tell you something.
If you have come to Christ, you will never get over the reality of the resurrection from death to life.
It's always there.
I appreciated John asking that question, and that fit well with the song this morning, John.
You know, one word to describe Jesus, and I'm sitting over here, and I said, Savior.
There are a lot of other words, but I think about Jesus.
He's my Savior.
Do you understand that?
Do you know what it means to need a Savior?
It means to be a rotten, miserable, broken skunk.
And Jesus delivered me.
I never get over that.
Do you know what?
People know whether you've gotten over it or not.
Do you understand that?
Well, I'm a Christian, and it's been a really rugged journey.
And, you know, I'm looking forward to the future.
But it's not really good right now.
But, you know, I go to church and kind of sit and, God, do it because I'm supposed to, you know.
Oh, by the way, we are having evening service this evening, just so you know.
And I'm going to preach my heart out of the book of Proverbs.
And so, you all come up counting noses this morning.
I'm thinking, now, some of you are thinking you're going to go play t-ball, and some of you are thinking you're going to take it easy.
Try this.
There will be the preaching of the Word of God here this evening.
And why don't you just show up and see if it's going to make a difference in your life.
Okay.
We got off the track, didn't we?
Let's go back to the sermon.
That was an announcement.
People who have moved from death to life, they never get over it.
They never get over it.
And as you sit here this morning, my question to you is, in part, are you awed?
Are you overwhelmed that He spoke faith into your dead heart, and He lifted you out of the pit, and He's given you a name, and He's loved you,
and He's promised to take you home to be with Him in glory, and that He has committed Himself to that unrelenting task of helping you change to be different from who you used to be?
I love that.
See, I get to say to people who are hurting and broken, I love it.
You don't have to stay this way.
I like that.
And if they say, well, you ought to know me.
I am not the hero in my story.
Jesus is.
So, understand this.
When you get your hands around the fact that Jesus brings salvation into the broken and ruined, into those who are dead in Christ,
it makes a difference in the life that you live.
Check it out.
We come to another piece that's really critical.
There in verse 27, 28, and 29, He hammers on the issue of eternity.
Let me read it.
He says,
As we take up this second portion of Scripture, I want you to recognize that what Jesus is making clear here is that the Father has given Him the right and responsibility.
We've already seen that truth declared earlier.
Go back just for a moment to verse 22.
Here's what it says in verse 22.
John chapter 5, verse 22.
The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.
You remind yourself of the passage we looked at in Genesis chapter 18, where John references, Jesus actually references this.
He says, I didn't say that.
I meant to say it this way.
Where we reminded ourselves in Genesis 18, where Abraham said this.
He says,
Shall not the judge of the whole earth do right?
The point is, is God's the one who judges.
And here's Jesus saying, I want you to understand that God the Father has given me the responsibility of judgment.
Now, He adds some understanding to why He is in this position of being the judge.
And follow along with me, if you will, there.
He says, the Father has life in Him.
I've said that He's given Him authority to execute judgment because, because that's the reason that's coming.
He is the Son of Man.
So, what's the reason that Jesus will be the judge?
What's the answer?
Right there it is in the Bible, right?
He's the Son of Man.
Now, if you don't know what it means to be the Son of Man, you're sitting there scratching your head saying, I wonder what that means.
The title, Son of Man, is one of Christ's names, and it refers to His humanity.
How many of you realize there are some things about God that are just bigger than our little pea brain?
And there are some things that God even tells us about Himself that are hard for us to put together.
Give you an illustration.
How can Jesus be 100% God and 100% man?
How many of you are reasonably good at math and understand that when you hit 100%, you've maxed out?
How many of you are?
Well, what is AP?
You have to have the code to go along with the variance in math.
And so it means this, that if you take certain kind of credits, you get extra points, and it can take you above 4.0.
I thought 4.0 was 100%.
How can Jesus be all God and all man?
He is.
The Bible says that.
And so here we are, seeing that Jesus is referred to as the Son of Man, and what that's telling us is that He is 100% human.
And because He is human, He is able to die in our place.
Because He is human, He was able to live a perfect life, and we have His righteousness, not only the righteousness that we received in salvation as a result of His blood covering our sins, but also the righteousness of His behavior.
So what's your record, Tim?
Oh, please refer to line 14 where Jesus did it all.
That's inaccurate.
How many of you just got confused?
Okay.
We receive complete forgiveness, and we also receive the righteousness of Christ imputed or attached to our account.
Hey, Tim, were you a good person down there?
Please see line 14.
It's what Jesus did that counts.
And it's because He was all human that His righteousness attached to me.
Well, anyway, we understand that His complete humanity means that He can die in our place, means that His righteousness can be carried over to us.
But it also means that He was profoundly sympathetic to our frailty and our difficulties.
He understands.
Let's think about this a little more carefully.
Keep your finger in John because we're coming back.
But go, if you will, to 1 Timothy 2, verse 5.
1 Timothy 2, verse 5.
It says this,
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man.
Men, the man Christ Jesus.
I'm not going to reference Job 9, verse 32 through 34,
but just kind of make the reference in broad terms here.
We'll not turn to it.
But in Job, you remember Job was struggling a great deal with the suffering that he was going through.
What's going on?
Why is this happening to me?
And he said,
I would like to be able to march into God's presence and say,
What are you doing?
What did I do to deserve this?
Right?
And in Job chapter 9, he says,
There is no mediator.
There's no daisman.
There's no go-between that can put his hand on my shoulder and put his hand on God's shoulder and say,
Well, why don't we come together and work this out?
You see, because Jesus is completely human,
He is our go-between.
And He steps into our nature and takes it upon Himself.
And He is the one that brings God and man together.
And we are blessed by that reality.
And I want you to understand that the one who executes judgment in eternity will be Jesus who understands completely what it is to be man.
There will never be anyone who will be able to justly say,
God has been unfair in condemning sinners to hell.
Now, will hell be a real place where people will suffer forever?
Yes.
One of the things that will make hell unbearably difficult,
and there are many things that will make hell unbearably difficult,
but one of the things will be this,
there will be a sense of justice, but also a sense of ongoing rebellion.
Now, can you understand the confusing thought of that?
I'm here because I deserve to be.
I don't like being here.
How many of you have trouble with more than one thought at a time?
It's why we stay awake at night, right?
We're trying to put the...
They're just...
Hell will be a place of unbearable suffering.
It will be a place of unbearable consciousness.
And no one in hell will ever be able to say,
I don't deserve to be here.
And the one who judges me has no right to be a judge because he doesn't understand.
Have you ever heard anybody say that?
You don't understand.
Let me stop just for a moment and drift left to center.
Bruce Jenner is still a man.
Do you understand that?
Bruce Jenner is still a man.
I want to make this very clear.
Every one of us in here, apart from the grace of God,
is profoundly affected by our own unbelievable dissatisfaction with our disconnect from God.
And how we try to fill that void varies.
Our heart should be profoundly grieved and sympathetic for the heartache that Bruce Jenner continues to endure.
However, silicone and amputation don't satisfy a broken soul.
And our heart should grieve for that person and suffer along with a desire to...
Remember I said, do you take hell seriously?
Let's make this clear.
No one will ever be able to say,
Jesus, you don't understand what it is to be a person,
to be human, to be tempted.
Yes, I do.
How do we know that Jesus will judge forever?
Because he tells us.
Because he tells us repeatedly.
And so as you look at verse 29 as we close, mark what it says.
All those who are in the tomb will hear his voice and come out.
Those who have done good to the resurrection of life
and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
Those who refuse his convicting voice and gracious offer of his substitutionary death,
he died in your place,
will be assigned to hell forever.
That's a fact.
And let me say this.
I'm persuaded that there are far too many Christians
that really don't think very seriously about hell.
How do I know that?
Because the vast majority of professing believers
just kind of stumble through life
and seldom ever
let people know who are on their way to hell
that there's hope in Christ.
Do you follow that?
The only reason Tim Kenoyer is here and not up there
is not because my worship is enhanced and enriched here
or because it's better here.
Jesus left Tim Kenoyer here
because there are people that need him
and they need someone who knows brokenness
and knows the power of the cross
to say,
I have good news.
You can avoid the eternal consequence of hell
and judgment for sin
through the finished work of Christ.
Say it to yourself.
I know Jesus.
I know hell is real.
And this work
and this week
will be different.
Can you say it to yourself?
I know Jesus.
I know hell is real.
And this work
and this week
will be different.
To say yes or no to God
is the purpose of preaching.
Right?
Let's close in prayer.
Father God,
I'm reminded of the passage
in Zechariah,
not by power,
not by might,
but by my spirit,
saith the Lord.
And this morning,
you who abide in heaven,
who have given all judgment
to the Lord Jesus Christ,
fully intend for us
who have been delivered from the fall
and delivered from the brokenness,
delivered from sin,
you have called us
to this holy purpose
of displaying the glory
of our Savior
who has delivered us
and who we will someday see.
Make us fit,
joyful,
proclaimers of the hope of the gospel.
We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.