ding-dong! I went to answer the door. It was a Saturday morning. There on the porch stood a young man carrying some brochures. “Hello. I’m from a group that is concerned about our treatment of the environment. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” OK. “Are you troubled by the news you hear of global warming, the hole in the ozone layer, and things like that?” Well, those things concern me, but I’m not always sure who’s giving accurate information about them. “Do you see where mankind is wrongfully exploiting our natural resources and are you concerned where this could lead?” Yes, I care about the earth. We ought to take good care of it. “Do you think that the earth could ever be restored to a perfect order of balance and harmony?” Red flag! -- What group do you represent? “We are Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
I don’t know what makes them stand out in your mind, but there are two things that I think of when I think of the practices of this group:
(1) They’re very evangelistic. We could learn some things from them. They’re serious about getting their message out, and they work hard at it. People join their group because they’re asked to.
(2) Their teachings about Jesus. They believe that Jesus was created the son of God; that He isn’t as exalted as the Father -- He’s less. Take a close look at their own attempt to translate the Bible, and you’ll see how they’ve altered it to fit that idea. As a result, His life and death mean less, and He means less to us today.
But that’s just not consistent with honest Bible study, and, most of you who grew up learning about Jesus weren’t taught that. So, we don’t want to even entertain the idea, do we? Is Jesus less than God? Does Jesus come in 2nd place?
It may be because of convictions like that we tend to breeze over parts of the Bible like this one today. We don’t want to wrestle with what it really means. Look what Jesus Himself says:
I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself (v19); By myself I can do nothing (30)
But in this same passage, Jesus talks about His authority; about having the ability to give life, just like the Father; about the plan for Jesus to be honored just as the Father is honored. And the Jews were wanting to kill Him because He was making Himself out to be equal with God.
How can we understand Jesus’ position to be equal with God when He clearly speaks about submitting to Him as well? No book of the Bible records more than John when it comes to Jesus’ deity (the fact that He is God). At the same time, no book of the Bible has more recorded about the humanity of Jesus either!
1:1. Remember how John begins his gospel, talking about Jesus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
How Jesus can be God and still be the Son is hard. We see everything in linear, human terms. We look at the first in line, The top of the organizational chart, the CEO, the President, and we often relate that to a person’s worth. To begin to understand the Father, the Son, and the HS, we have to put away that very human approach. It may work for establishing a grievance procedure at work or a chain of command in a company, but when it comes to our humble attempts at describing God, we’re going to have to try something else.
Tradition tells us that St. Patrick used a 3-leafed clover to explain how God is one, yet has 3 distinct parts. Someone else has used water - it can be a liquid, solid, or vapor, but it’s still water. All 3 are definitely different from each other, but they’re still H2O. They all 3 do different things, but they’re chemically still the same.
So, Jesus, when He left heaven, remained God, but came to do something different.
Philippians 2:6-8
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross.
Hebrews 2:8-9
at present we do not see everything subject to Him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
When we look at Jesus on earth, we’re looking at the One Who emptied Himself, Who set aside His equality with God, Who became nothing, Who was a little lower than the angels for a time. That’s how Jesus can be God but still speak of Himself as One Who must follow the Father’s lead while He’s on the earth.
Now, that’s some heavy stuff. But we need to let that soak in. OK, let’s go home! (ha!)
There are 2 reasons we need to grasp these things: (1) So we’ll know what to say when a JW comes to our door. (2) because Jesus’ relationship with the Father determines the relationship we’ll have with the Father and with Him.
In other words, what I learn from this Scripture has to do with where I’ll spend forever, and how I’m going to spend NOW. I want us to leave here this morning with something in our heads more solidly, but I want us to also see that it has a lot to do with the way we approach life.
It’s important because of what it tells me about…
I. Obedience to the Father
Joe Craig, Tucson, AZ, was nearly 4 yrs old. He was well-behaved except for one habit--he didn’t like to wear shoes. When it was time for his first Vacation Bible school, his parents told Joe he must keep his shoes on at church. He nodded in agreement, but they worried about his ability to resist temptation. On the final night of VBS, their fears were relieved. On display were the crafts the kids had completed during the week. In one section, there were hanging up 11 plaster plaques of children’s feet…and one plaque of little Joe’s hand! Good for Joe!
There’s an obedience crisis in our world - a general rejection of authority.
We’re losing the very idea that someone should be in a position to tell someone else what they ought to do. Why? Because this idea that there’s a source of truth, that there’s a right and wrong apart from our individual opinions, comes from God. When man rejects God, he also rejects God’s ideas about authority and obedience.
1 John 3:4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
The very essence of sin is an attitude that says, “I’m my own authority.”
There’s even a debate in the theological world that Jesus can somehow be our Savior without being our Lord. What’s the big deal with obedience? Doesn’t God accept us the way we are?
Listen to what Jesus says about Himself and the Father and obedience:
(Mat 26:39) Yet not as I will, but as you will."
(John 4:34) "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
(6:40) I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.
(7:28) I am not here on my own
(8:28) I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
(8:42) I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me.
(12:49) For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.
(14:10) The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
(Phil 2:8) - He became obedient to the point of death...
(Heb 5:7-8) During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered
Here’s the point: If Jesus, the Son of God Who went from heaven to earth, must submit Himself to the Father’s plan and must be obedient, how much more must we, His children that He created and has recreated, accept His authority in our lives?! These words of Jesus teach me that accepting God’s authority isn’t something optional in my life. It’s a necessity. Obedience to the Father wasn’t optional to Jesus. Why would it be to us?
Ill - When local magistrates sentenced [John] Bunyan, writer of The Pilgrim’s Progress, to imprisonment unless he promised them he would not preach, he refused. He declared that he would remain in prison till the moss grew on his eyelids rather than fail to do what God had commanded him to do. Obedience. Let’s learn it over again.
This Scripture also teaches us about…
II. Dependence Upon the Father
Look at the wording of these verses carefully:
v22 He has given all judgment to Jesus
v26 He has given the position of life-giver to Jesus
v32 He bears witness of Jesus
Sounds like Jesus has these things because the Father has given them to Him; like He’s dependent upon the Father for those things. But most remarkable of all are statements like v19 “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees the Father doing.”
Let me be sarcastic for a second: Hadn’t anyone explained to Jesus that when you make your plans for life you make them around yourself and don’t make them depend on anyone else, you don’t let anyone else interfere with them? Hadn’t Jesus learned how to avoid the humbling experience of saying you need God’s help?
Jesus refers to Himself as Someone Who’s sent. He speaks about being someone Who has been given authority to judge, has received the right to be honored, been granted the right to be a life-giver. It all adds up to tell us that while He was on earth, Jesus was in a position of dependence upon the Father. Don’t just breeze over that because it’s hard to understand. Instead, let’s embrace it & work with it! When we tune in to that fact, we can begin to understand why Jesus would often slip away into a lonely place to speak with the Father. We can understand why He prayed to be strengthened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was constantly leaning on the Father for help.
The point of all of this comes at us just like the last one: If Jesus, the Son of God who went from heaven to earth, can do nothing on His own, how much more must we, His children, learn to depend on the Father and seek to fit into His plans for our life?! These words of Jesus teach me that I can’t expect to go through life on my own strength or by my own agenda. I’m dependent on the Father even more than Jesus was.
If Jesus needed to spend time in prayer, how much more do I need to?
If Jesus needed to ask the Father for strength to fulfill His life’s mission, how much more do I need to ask for strength?
If Jesus, from boyhood, increased in wisdom, how much more do I need to increase in wisdom as I grow up in Him?
Do you believe it? It’s easy to say we do, isn’t it? But living like it is another thing. Praying like it, admitting daily how much we need God’s help, hungering and thirsting to know God the Father – that’s how we say we really believe it. What about your life says you’re depending on God…for anything?
This text also teaches us about…
III. Life from the Father
Here’s something you may not have thought of: Apparently everyone is going to be resurrected and given a new body!
v28 - all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out...
There’s no doubt for everyone here today that, if the Lord tarries, you’re going to experience passing from physical life into physical death. There’s also no doubt that everyone is going to experience a physical resurrection into an eternal state. It’s not a question of whether or not we’re going to live forever. The question is where are we going to spend that eternity.
Man’s life is made up of 20 years of his mother asking him where he is going, 50 years of his wife asking him where he has been and one hour at his funeral when everyone wonders where he is going!
(A. A Current Reality)
That’s all future. But notice, life in Jesus is happening right now.
What’s more important than the details of the Lord’s return?; more important than knowing exactly how the resurrection will work?: Knowing that you have crossed over from death to life right now
21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
Has the Son given you life, spiritual life, that’s happening now?
That’s one detail of life in Jesus I wish we could all get straight and remember: we’re not just waiting for real life to begin when Jesus returns.
“Boy, I can’t way till Jesus comes, because I can’t wait to start living!” OK, but let me point out that Jesus says that life in Him is also taking place right now!
If you’re in Jesus today, eternity has already begun for you! Those who are in Christ are a people who, right now, have “crossed over from death to life.”
John 5:24 "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.
Ill – You’ve been told you have an incurable cancer. There’s no hope, no cure, no future. You can’t last a year. I imagine it would have a big impact on the way we approach life.
3 years ago, my brother-in-law died of cancer that he had battled for a few years. At first there were treatments – a surgery, then attempts with some experimental drugs. David lost his hair, and he had to be very careful about infections. Then at one point, it was clear that he wasn’t going to recover. In his last couple of years of life, Dave’s outlook was deepened. Being around him gave you a sense that he was making the most of every moment, because he knew that his days were limited. And we listened and watched. You just don’t have that kind of an experience and go on like nothing happened.
Let’s say you get a diagnosis like that. Then, after a week of letting that soak in, another test reveals that it’s suddenly vanished. There’s no trace of it. The cancer is gone, and your life is back. Would you go back to being the same old person you were before? No way! You’d appreciate good health. You’d treasure each sunrise and every moment with your family. You’d take opportunities to share your faith in Jesus. You’d find yourself making the most of every day because you have had to face the fact that you have only a limited number of them.
Are you living like that? Do you face each day like a person who has gone from having an incurable disease to someone who will live forever? Think about it. Those who put their faith in Jesus are living that real life right now. That’s a current reality.
(B. Dependent on Honoring Jesus)
There are plenty of groups who would like to leave Jesus in the background—to make Him into a kind of extra you get from seeking God; another step along your road of faith, an inspirational example, a great teacher.
But underline v23 “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, Who sent Him.” There is no other way to pass from death to life.
Luke 10:16 "he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
1 John 2:23 “No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
Whether you can understand how Jesus can be equal with God and still be in submission to God or not, you must understand this: There’s no way to have a right relationship with God except through Jesus Christ!
Whether you can understand how Jesus can be fully God and fully man and still speak about being dependent upon the Father or not, you must understand this: God can’t be honored by anyone who refuses to honor Jesus Christ!
“Oh, but how can I accept Jesus when I can’t understand that?”
Well, you have a brain. Do you understand how it works? Not entirely? But you still use it, don’t you?
You own a DVD player? Do you understand it? Sorta. Do you use it anyway?
When you turned the key to your car, did you fully understand why it started, why it goes forward, and why you put gas into it? Probably not completely, but it didn’t keep you from coming here.
Conclusion:
Boy am I glad that there isn’t going to be an entrance exam to get into heaven! But if there is one major question that the Father might ask of us, I imagine it would be, “What did you do about my Son Jesus?” “I sent My Son to you, to die for you. Surely you did something about that.”
What will you do with Jesus this morning?
Christian author C. S. Lewis wrote the series of books entitled “The Chronicles of Narnia,” and in the last book in the series he creatively describes what eternity will be like. It’s called The Last Battle, and at the end of it, Aslan the Lion (who is the character of Jesus) tells Peter, Edmund, and Lucy there has been a railroad accident and they are dead. Here is how it reads: “…as [Aslan] spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
