Okay, well, good morning, everyone. It's lovely to see you. Lovely to see some new faces as well this morning.
You're so welcome with us. My name's Graham. I'm the pastor of the church here.
And let me just invite you to turn back to those verses in John chapter 5.
If you need to scroll on your phone to find them, then please do that.
If you need to use the contents page of the Bibles in front of you, then please do that as well
to get God's words open in front of us.
So there's a man who used to be the school chaplain down at Worcester College in Oxford called Tom Wright.
And his pupils used to come up to him and they'd say, Mr. Wright, listen, I don't believe in God.
And slightly provocatively yet lovingly, he'd reply and he'd say, well, okay.
Why don't you describe to me this God that you don't believe in?
Which I think is a cracking question, isn't it, in response to that?
Put the ball back in your court kind of question.
Let me ask you, how would you answer that question this morning?
Who is this God?
Now, it was Julie Andrews, wasn't it, who sang that song about the beginning being a very good place to start.
You know that song?
And it's true, isn't it?
As you open page one of the Bible, what kind of God are we instinctively expecting?
Well, we're expecting a God who creates and purely because of that demands something in return.
In other words, we're expecting a God who deals with his creatures, not relationally, but contractually.
In other words, if we perform well for him and in his eyes, he will reward us and he will affirm us.
But if we do bad, he is a creator who will punish us and dismiss us.
It's tit for tat.
It's I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine.
As we find ourselves caught up in a spiritual and moral survival of the fittest competition.
As we come to the opening page of the Bible, that is the God that I think as human beings we are instinctively expecting.
And you see, that's often the version of God that pupils used to describe to Tom Wright when he used to ask them to describe the God that they didn't believe in.
And when he heard that response, his response back to the people was, do you know what?
I don't believe in that God either.
You see, the God of the Bible is delightfully different to and doggedly defiant of all of our man-made shallow assumptions about who he is.
This God who created the world.
And if you think about it, he didn't have to create the world.
It's not like he gets anything from it.
He needs it.
No, no, no.
This God is totally self-sufficient.
But this God speaks and creation happens.
This God who created the world, who gave beauty to it, who gave diversity to it.
If you think about it, God could have just made us all as human beings to survive on one food source.
Is it not amazing that God has such a variety of foods in his world for us to eat?
Not because God had to, but because it brought God delight to.
This is the God of the Bible.
Now, you might be asking yourself, why does that matter?
Let me put it to you that who you understand God to be or not to be profoundly trickles down the streams of your life and it affects everything else.
Right?
Maybe think of it like this.
I don't know if this is helpful, but we'll go for it.
Okay.
I had a fellow parent tell me recently about a school that used to have a really bad reputation.
Right?
You know how it goes.
Poor exam results.
Pupils feeling unsupported.
Teachers coming at their job with low morale.
That kind of thing.
Okay.
It used to have a really bad reputation.
But they said they've just appointed a new head teacher and everything has changed.
They've turned it around.
I mean, have you heard things like that before?
Yeah?
The person at the top, who they are like, it massively filters down to the rest of the organization.
Right?
As they set the pace, as they implement the standards, as their character impacts everything else, as they create the culture, that influence massively impacts everyone else.
So it really matters who we understand is in the hot seat.
Who's right at the heart of Christianity.
Really matters who is right there.
Who God is and understanding him rightly affects everything else.
Let me just say a little apologetic angle here.
It's why the triune God of the Bible and Allah of Islam, we love our Muslim friends, very different cultures.
And it all starts from who you understand God to be.
I read a cracking book on that recently by a guy called Andy Bannister, who is a Christian guy.
He did his PhD in Islamic studies.
If you want to check it out, come and speak to me afterwards.
It's just in my room.
Massively matters who you understand God to be.
It affects how you understand yourself.
It affects how you understand others.
And most importantly, I think, it helps you understand the shape and the goal of the Christian life when you understand who this God is.
And it's almost as if in John chapter 5, we're invited in to come and see the person who's in the chair in the school head office of the Christian faith.
That's the invitation that's made to us this morning in this text.
Now, last week in John chapter 5, we saw Jesus in heated discussion with the religious leaders.
If you just scan your eyes over the first bit of the first 18 verses of chapter 5, you'll get a little bit of context.
Because what Jesus is saying here, it's not just a blog post.
It's not just his thoughts.
Actually, it's in conversation with creatures.
The religious leaders are livid that he's had the audacity not just to heal a man on the Sabbath.
Remember, there's Saturday, this holy day.
But he's also had the audacity to tell this man to pick up his mat and walk on the day of no work.
And because he's done that, verse 18, and here's the clincher, he's made himself equal with God.
So this isn't a case of crossed wires.
This is not a case of misinterpretation.
Jesus is unapologetic in his claim as he steps into the world.
And the guy's got some explaining to do.
Okay?
This all happens in the context of Jesus on the defense.
As he explains himself, who he is.
And the Sabbath, the healing, is almost the, is it the dig to the spike?
You get that analogy?
He's teeing himself up to help the world understand who he is.
That's the context.
And I find how Jesus answers that question fascinating.
He doesn't firstly appeal, and see this, to might.
Because he could have done, couldn't he?
He could have called down thousands of angels and flexed his divine muscles and said, see?
Nor does he primarily appeal to right.
Okay?
We live in a world of rights.
That's how we would have gone about defending ourselves.
But do you see how Jesus does this?
He helps people see his true identity.
And he unveils it in the context of explaining a relationship.
Now that tells you something hugely significant about who the God of the Bible is.
And it tells you something wonderfully profound about what it is to know him.
Now Jesus has used that little title, Father, before in this gospel.
He's used it in a count, I think, three or four times.
But he's used it as a title, never with an explanation.
But here for the first time in John's gospel, we're invited almost as it were to take a glimpse of the glorious relationship that exists between the Father and the Son.
And all I want to do here in the time that we have left is just pick out four words that Jesus uses to help us get our heads around how that relationship works.
And know that as we take these in together, we are rowing out into some unfathomably deep, mysterious yet breathtaking waters.
I'll tell you my mindset as I started this week.
It was a bit like when I went with my daughter to Grace Mount Swimming Pool a few weeks back.
You know what she loved to do?
Favorite game.
She's got four sinkies.
You up with a sinkie?
Do you know what that is?
Yeah?
And the game was I would throw them in, they would sink to the bottom, and she would go down and she would come back up and she would hold it aloft like the World Cup trophy.
Got my sinkie.
Okay?
Goggles on, deep breath, up she came.
That's how I kind of came at this passage this week.
But by the end of the week, I realized that we are friends, we are paddling in the mid-Pacific.
Okay?
11,022 meters down, that bad boy is at its deepest.
And you're not going to get a sinkie when it falls in there.
It's often said that the gospel is shallow enough for a babe to come and drink from without fear of drowning.
But it's also true it's deep enough to swim in without ever touching the bottom.
And this is the God of the Christian faith.
You ready for a deep dive?
You're getting a deep dive.
Here's the first word.
You just get it straight in the text, verse 19.
It's the word seeing.
See, at verse 19, Jesus says, truly, truly, which is his way of saying, mark my words.
Underscore this.
Understand.
Jesus says, I only do and act according to what I see the Father doing.
So there is no disconnect between God the Father and God the Son.
And I tell you what, this was a real game changer for me in my Christian life.
Because I remember hearing when I was younger that the Old Testament kind of contained this big, bad, scary God.
Whereas the New Testament presented you with Jesus.
And let's be honest, he's a much friendlier version of divinity.
Okay, it left me thinking that God was somehow like that crazy uncle that you'd see at Christmas time,
who loves a rant and is prone to an odd, non-PC comment.
And Jesus comes along as the trendier uncle, almost apologetically covering for him.
And if that's your understanding of how the Old Testament and New Testament comes together,
if that's your understanding of how the Father and the Son work like it was mine,
then can I just say we are in for a wonderful surprise.
Because there is an exact continuity between the character of both.
And it's more than Jesus is just like the apple hasn't fallen far from the fatherly tree.
It's more like than he's just like, oh, he's so like his dad.
The Father is exactly like Jesus.
The New Testament makes a big thing of that.
He is the exact imprint.
He is the perfect stamp of God the Father.
Which means that if you're here today and you want to understand who God is,
what is he like?
The transcendent God.
What is he like?
He is like the God up close in the person of Jesus.
So that means when we see the heart and work of God the Son,
we're seeing the heart and the work of God the Father.
And that's what these religious leaders need to see.
Perhaps they're coming at this with a cold, shallow, moralistic and legalistic view of who the Lord is.
And Jesus is upsetting everything.
But there is a wonderful continuity.
Jesus says, I've seen the Father.
But lest we think Jesus is just a delivery boy for God,
here's the second word, verse 20, and it's the word loving.
So it's not just that the Father approves of the Son.
It's not just that the Son is on friendly terms with the Father.
The Father loves the Son.
Do you see that in the text?
Just getting a little glimpse of this relationship here.
The Father loves the Son.
And so the question,
what was God doing before he created the world?
Told you we're going deep here, right?
Before anything was,
what was this God doing?
The answer is that the Father
was delighting in the Son
in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
And that delight was absolutely reciprocated.
Love is not something that God does.
Love is something that he is.
And that's why we can say
that God is love.
Because what was he doing before the world was created?
He was a community of love.
A wonderful union of three persons,
of Father, of Son, and of Holy Spirit.
Our good God is not one.
He is one in three.
He is triune.
And that's what the works that Jesus is doing
are telling us.
Every single healing and miracle
is declaring to us
that the Father loves the Son.
He's not just a big fan, right?
He's not just a groupie.
The Father loves the Son.
And here's a thought for you.
And maybe for some of us
here in our Christian lives,
our friends, our hearts get so distracted
by so many silly things.
Here's a thought that maybe has drifted
from some of our minds.
What is it to be a Christian?
It's to be somebody
who simply by God's grace
that he has transformed our hearts,
not because we're good,
but simply because he is good.
And that we have come to feel the same way
about Jesus the Son
as the Father does.
Yeah?
We were the first time going up in church
and hearing an older man
talking about how he loved Jesus.
What?
I can sit here as somebody
who's almost 38 and say,
I love Jesus.
Come to feel the same way
about God the Son
to honor him
as God the Father does.
Is that another thought for you this morning?
That's what it is to be a Christian, isn't it?
Love the Son.
And here's the reason why
that's even possible
because of this third word
and it's the word giving.
Yeah?
Loving, seeing,
loving, giving.
Now I remember
sitting in St. James' Park
down in London
one hot summer's day
with a good friend of mine.
And he turns to me
and he says,
deadpan,
he says,
do you know what?
If I didn't worship Jesus,
I think I'd worship this.
Do you know what the this was?
It's his son.
Right?
I didn't worship Jesus,
I think I'd worship the sun.
Deadpan.
And the thing is,
I kind of got what he was meeting.
You ever thought about
where the sun is?
Right?
This thing that's
fascinated human beings
ever since time began,
this enormous,
big ball of fire
that sits in the sky,
this giant centerpiece
of our solar system
that pulls everything
into its orbit,
the first source
of every living thing.
I kind of get
why people down the years
have worshipped the sun.
Right?
But here's a little thought for you
and it's Andrew Wilson,
I'm indebted to this guy
for helping me understand this
over the last month.
And this is a wonderful book
if you're looking for something
just a little bit different
for devotions
or to read before bed.
Okay?
He just takes the things
of the world and nature
and helps us see
God's character
through them.
Okay?
He says this,
other than human beings,
it's hard to think
of anything in creation
that highlights
as many of God's
characteristics
as the sun.
Right?
Stick with me.
Think about it.
Why can the sun
give light and heat?
Because it is light and heat.
It doesn't need anything
to sustain it.
It gives but never depletes.
Its action
reflects its identity.
Have you ever thought
about the fact that
so much of what God created
was created to give us
insights into who he is?
Why can God give life
because he is life?
Do you see it?
And by life there,
Jesus is speaking
about physical life.
Okay?
The kind that Lazarus
is going to experience
later in chapter 11.
The kind of life
that only our creator
can give us.
Right?
I was listening to
Nicky Campbell
in Five Live
on Thursday morning.
If you listen to
Nicky Campbell,
he was asking his listeners
to phone in
to discuss the recent studies
that were showing
that people are dying younger.
Did you see that
this week in the news?
People dying younger?
He said,
what do you think?
And it's a wonderful
question to ask
and we're interested
in the answers to that
and I know many of you
are medically
not just minded
but you work in the field
and it's a wonderful
question to ask
and we care about it
because we love people.
Okay?
But I'm sitting
listening to Nicky Campbell
in the car
asking this question
but I'm thinking
there's a deeper question.
Not just why
do people die young
but why do people
die at all?
Okay?
You see,
you start seeing the world
through a biblical lens.
Welcome to a world
where every death
is unnatural.
This is not the way
God designed it to be
because sin has entered
the human condition
and ruined God's
good creation.
We are now like
flowers
who die
and I don't want to
spoil your mother's day
but who die
the minute that we
were cut off
from the life
source of the stem
and are slowly
wilting and dying.
There is physical death
in our world
because there was first
spiritual death.
In other words,
we rejected
our creator
and our sin
has led to
death in the world.
There is physical death,
there is spiritual death
and to nick a line
from a song
we often sing
with the kids,
when it comes
to spiritual life
and us giving
ourselves it,
friends,
a rock has a better
chance of swimming
and a potato
has a better chance
of dancing
than we do
of making ourselves
spiritually alive.
It's why when you
speak to your
non-Christian friends
and family
and we love
our non-Christian
friends and family
it's primarily
a spiritual reason
why so often
they just don't
get you.
It's why as we
deny ourselves
and as we take up
our cross
and follow Jesus
the world thinks
that we are weird
as it contemplates
a God-shaped
world view
with views
and decisions
that come out
of that
it's why they
think they are
so outdated
and borderline
offensive.
It's primarily
a spiritual reason
why they look
at Christians
and think
that they are
actually the ones
who have moved
from life to death
and I know
some of you
are feeling that
right now
the pressure
that's coming
from a world
to say
that you need
to conform
you need to
move from death
to life
whereas Jesus
says
and we always
need to allow
him to form
our world
to form our
view
he says
that for all
those who hear
and respond
to his voice
it's the other
way around
and it's why
we should never
underestimate
the fact that
you and I
are Christians
and if that's
you here today
however unspectacularly
you think
your life is
however weak
you think
your faith is
be encouraged
that you might
not have a story
that Netflix
will phone you up
and make a documentary
about
you might have
the most boring
story in the world
but make no mistake
if your faith
is in Christ
that you have
passed
because of his grace
from death
to life
and that life
is a gift
from Jesus
it's like a
balloon that
you blow up
for your birthday
party
right
you ever done
that recently
little girl's
birthday
beginning of March
blowing up
these balloons
right
just picture it
right
just blowing up
a balloon
and that's what
the Bible's talking
about it
when it says
God has given
us spiritual life
balloon's dead
right
balloon is dead
and along comes
Jesus
and blows
the breath
of life
into us
and we become
spiritually alive
just like the balloon
because he is
the Lord of life
and light
that's who he is
now why can he
do this
because Jesus
didn't just enter
our world of
death and darkness
he became
the penalty
that we deserve
for our
rejection of God
as he hung
on the cross
why can he
raise the dead
why can he
give life
because he
bore our
penalty
on the cross
for our sin
in our place
and he rose
and the resurrection
life that he
enjoys
he imparts it
to his people
so if you're here
today and the fact
that you're a Christian
doesn't get your
heart singing
doesn't make you
think it's a big
deal
this text would
tell you to
think again
that you have
passed
from death
to life
not because of
the strength
of your faith
not because of
your affections
for him
not because of
our hearts
are so often
weary
we have passed
from death
to life
because God
the son
breathed
spiritual life
into us
and we moved
over
all the praise
goes to him
and do you see
how
in the text
it tells us
that God
the son
didn't just
feel indifferent
about that
and it
pleases him
to give
life
it's his
good pleasure
to give
eternal life
to his
people
he's the
giving
God
and lastly
just really
quickly
fourthly
he's the
judging
God
because the
father has
given
do you see
verse 27
all
judgment
all
authority
to the
son
Jesus
calls himself
here the
son of man
what he's
doing there
is he's
just taking
a divine
title
that the
Jews would
have understood
from Daniel
chapter 7
where Daniel's
talking about
the son of man
who's going
to come
Daniel's
speaking there
about the
divine
warrior king
who God
would appoint
and who
would come
to bring
in
victory
and rule
for his
people
and caught
up in this
idea of the
son of man
is this idea
of God
in him
defeating
decisively
evil
and Jesus
is saying
to this
generation
he's saying
to our
generation
God the
father
has given
me that
role
he's given
me that
role
this God
is blindingly
holy
this God
cannot
tolerate
evil
friends
do not
mistake
his
patience
with his
approval
though this
God will
one day
in the
person of
Jesus
come back
and he
will make
all things
new
the father
and the son
are committed
to each
other's
honour
and so the
question is
friends
will we
honour the
son
will we
honour
Jesus
and on
that day
the son
will rouse
every human
being who's
ever existed
and all
will be
judged on
how they've
responded
to him
seeing
loving
giving
judging
so friends
tell me about
this God
you don't
believe in
here he is
this morning
is this him
is this the
God you've
got in your
mind
what do
we do
with this
well really
the response
we need
to make
comes in
the word
that appears
four times
from verse
25
and it's
the word
hear
right
will you
hear him
will you
find life
in his
words
and his
work
you know
just as we
close and
leave you with
this thought
when we think
about application
I had coffee
with a good
friend of mine
the other
week
and I look
at his
phone
and I
noticed that
his phone
is in
black and
white
what he's
done is
he's
I don't
even know
you can
do this
on phones
he's
turned the
tint of
his phone
right down
some of you
might do
that I
don't know
I said
why are
you doing
that
and he
just said
that because
when it's
full colour
it just
demands my
attention
all the
time
all the
time
texts are
going
notifications
are going
and he
just says
I keep
looking at
it all
the time
right
you know
it's true
with your
phones
don't you
it's always
demanding
your attention
remember when I
used to work
in law
we used to
have
blackberries
right
remember those
days
good days
just remember
the red
flash on
the eye
right
the guys
the people
I worked
with used
to call it
the red
eye of
Mordor
right
it was just
calling you
in
come and
answer me
it's why
they call
them
isn't it
they joke
about blackberries
being crackberries
wasn't it
because we get
addicted to our
phones
they're shouting
for our
attention all
the time
I think that's
why there is
something in the
fact that our
generation is
information heavy
but wisdom light
because our phones
and here's the
point are forming
us
they're forming
us all the
time
and it's scary
isn't it when you
get that notification
on your phone
that says how
long you've been
on it
last week
and the
question is
we are
we are in a
world that is
fighting to
form us
and we've got to
take that seriously
haven't we
the things that
are going in
the things that
are shaping us
the big
biblical principle
is
that we become
what we behold
as we think
about where we
spend our
hours the
things that our
eyes take in
the things that
our minds
comprehend we
are becoming
what we behold
and the invitation
of this passage
is to make that
thing the one
who gives life
are we gazing
at Christ
are we
delighting
are we feeding
our souls
in him
are we
allowing the
words of the
good shepherd
to draw
alongside us
and quench
our souls
are we
gazing at
him
and the
life that
he offers
and becoming
more like
him
see this is the
promise he makes
and we end with
this
very truly I
tell you
whoever hears
my words
and believes
him who sent
me
has eternal
life
and will
not be
judged
but is
crossed over
from death
to life
let's pray
that's a
wonderful and
gracious father
thank you for
your word
thank you that
you are a
God who has
revealed yourself
lord we would
be
have no idea
we would be
in the dark
if you
hadn't done
that
father thank
you that
you've revealed
yourself in
creation
father thank
you that
you've revealed
yourself in
your words
and thank
you for that
special revelation
that comes as
we look at
Jesus in
action
and so father
I pray for
us here this
morning lord
that our
understanding our
view of who
you are
it would be
shaped and
you would
shape it and
hone it so
that true
truth is the
thing that
guides our
understanding
about who
you are
father pray
for those of
us here this
morning who
have drifted
maybe in their
affections whose
hearts are
weary
that lord that
you the God
who delights to
give life
father that by
your spirit you
would draw
alongside us
this morning
and father
build us up
and strengthen
us as your
people father
for those maybe
that here this
morning who
don't know you
father may today
be the day where
they come to
trust in Jesus
the son father
we thank you
for our time
this morning and
we pray all of
these things in
Jesus is worthy
and precious name
amen