Journeying With John (JWJ-21)
Honoring the Son
John 5:18-24
This morning I want to start off asking you a question - and that question is this:
“How does one honor Jesus?” How would you answer that? I suspect I may not
have taught you the correct answer to that question - but I have come to see it
as a very significant question. The title of my message comes directly out of our
passage in John 5 - and it is this. “Honoring the Son.” Now while you are turning
there my mandate from God this morning is to talk with you from the Word of
God about one of the most intellectually challenging, perspective shaping,
theology forming and life transforming truths you will ever hear me or anybody
else talk about.
Jesus has just healed the man at the pool of Bethesda - and then He went on to
deal with the religious spirit. He is now going to deal a second blow to the
religious spirit is such a powerful way that it will shake each and every one of us
up - and challenge us to the core of our beliefs.
John 5:18-24 - Read - Pray
Let me set the backdrop for a moment if you will. 1 Thessalonians 4:1 commands
every Christian to live so as to please God. No problems there - we can all
understand that and agree with it. Right? But there is a rider that I think is not as
easy, even though on the surface it appears to be. One of the most profound
yet ignored statements in all of Scripture is this, and it comes from the book of
Hebrews 11:6:- “Apart from faith you cannot please God.” So we know we are to
live to please God - but we also know that apart from faith we cannot do that.
Now it seems to me, based on the weight of that single statement - that that
message ought to be central to all of Christianity. We should have it stuck up on
our walls, on the dash boards of our cars, in our cupboards and on our mirrors.
Apart from faith you cannot please God. That statement is so significant that It
ought to arrest the heart of every believer. It consolidates the entire intention of
the Christian life - what it is and how we do it. This one statement captures the
heart and plan and purpose of God for each and every one of His children.
This is what God has for you, and this is what God asks of you. Do we desire to
please God? Are we seeking to honor God? Then what we need is to
understand this statement that apart from faith we cannot please God, we
cannot honor God, we cannot honor Jesus. If you and I are not living a life of
supernatural faith, we are not living the life that pleases God. May I say that
JWJ-21 - John 5:18-24 - Pg 2
again please - don’t want that to surf on over your head. If you and I are not
living a life of supernatural faith we are not living the life that please God.
Let’s talk about faith a little if we can!
Faith lives in the unseen, the ‘what we cannot see’ - and it transforms it into the
‘what is seen.’ As a matter of fact - it creates the seen. It takes the ‘is not’ - and
out of it creates the ‘is.’
That means that if we are to live so as to please God, we need to live in a faith
that moves from the ‘unseen’ to the ‘seen,’ from the ‘is not’ to the ‘is.’ In other
words, faith is anchored in the unseen. And it releases the supernatural.
So Abraham of O.T. and Hebrews fame, we are told, believed God - even
though he was 90 years old - when his body was incapable of producing
offspring - and his wife’s was no better off.
The Bible says that his faith was unwavering - unwavering faith because he did
not consider the obstacles he was facing but believed that God who promised
was faithful and he gave glory to God despite circumstances. In other words,
watch this - faith thrives on the impossibilities.
You see, faith brings the divine presence, perspective and reality into any
situation. Your faith connect God and His supernatural remedy with any
situation.
Love is great and passion is incredible - but if you and I encounter God we will
encounter Him in the supernatural - and that supernatural will manifest in what
we do.
Faith does not grow because I decide to grow it.
Galatians 5:6 - Faith comes about, it works by, is energized, as the Greek literally
says, by love. The motivation, power and purpose of love. True love releases
faith - and that is why ‘genuine love’ knows no impossibilities. In ‘sympathy’ there
are restrictions and limitations - but genuine love knows know limitations and no
impossibilities.
John 5:36“But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John;
for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish - the very
works that I do - testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”
JWJ-21 - John 5:18-24 - Pg 3
Greater than the testimony of John, greater than the testimony of the prophets,
greater than any other testimony of the authentication of Christ other than His
resurrection were His works. As a matter of fact, He says something profound in
John 10:37 “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me.”
I long for the day when we as a church stand up and say the same thing, when
each of us individually can stand up and say the same thing, “If I do not do the
works of our Father, do not believe us.”
Jesus greatest concern about the church when He returned to the earth was this
- would He find faith. Why? Because without faith it is impossible to please God.
I believe it is possible for every person in this room to have the sort of faith God is
speaking about here.
By embracing what you cannot understand, by yielding to that which God has
prepared.
It is the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember, it is not God the
Father, God the Son and God the Holy Scriptures. It is the Holy Spirit.
If we are going to live to please God we are going to have to learn to embrace
the supernatural ministry of the Holy Spirit and learn to move in the supernatural.
In our passage Jesus spoke of His miracles, then He spoke of greater works.
Let me tell you about honor - or the barriers to honor. The greatest barrier to you
and me honoring God is the fear of man. You see, there is a place in your heart
that can seat only one of two things - either the opinion of God about you - or
the opinion of man about you.
Another major barrier to honoring Jesus is our sinful nature that hates to give up
control. It hates being off the center stage.
When we stop honoring the Son the miracle power stops flowing.
When you live in the fear of man, to be concerned about rejection from man, or
the comments of man, or the opinions of man, that will rob you of the ability to
live in the fear of God. But when you focus on God those other things simply
don’t matter.
John 6:25
JWJ-21 - John 5:18-24 - Pg 4
John 6:27 “Seal” - mark of ownership and protected or sealed in the contents.
Eph. 1:13 “You were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise.”
John 6:29 “This is the work of God - that you believe in Him.”
This is the heart and soul of why you are on the planet - it is not to do miracles
and testify, it is not to witness, it is not to build churches, or to feed the hungry - it
is to believe - and anything that is authentically Jesus is the authentic focus of
believing. This is the work of God - believe - believe in Him.
John 6:35
John 6:54 - lets take it up a notch.
My flesh is food indeed, my blood is drink indeed.
He has thousands of people surrounding Him - and they are there because of
the loaves and the fish. So Jesus makes it difficult. Why? Because He is trying to
build a culture of faith. Faith thrives in the context of rejection and impossibility.
So He is talking to thousands of people, and right here they all leave. There must
have been about 10 000 there.
John 6:66 - Only the twelve stay.
You have to eat His flesh and eat His blood. All my life I thought that was
communion. I don’t think so.
It is too easy. He spoke that to the 10 000 and they all walked away except the
12. Then to have today’s church say that what He was speaking about was a bit
of cracker and a thimble of grape juice does not make sense. It grossed them
out.
We honor the Son by eating His flesh and drinking His blood. So what was that
about. It was about the works of faith. What do you mean?
The most essential ingredient for the culture of faith is the willingness to hold on
even when you do not understand, when it is hard and does not make sense,
when it does not line up with anything you know or believe. It is about the
appetite for His voice no matter what He says. 10 000 left, but here is how the 12
responded, “Lord, to Whom else shall we go - You have the words of eternal
life.”
“This,” says Jesus, “is the work of God - that you believe in Him Whom He sent.”
(John 6:29)
JWJ-21 - John 5:18-24 - Pg 5
The key of the whole verse is this one phrase - if you want to understand that
verse you must understand this phrase - “whoever eats my body and drinks my
blood abides in Me and I in him” 6:56
Now here is the deal - to abide in Him you need to build a culture of faith, a
culture in which you believe God. This is not for . . .
Those who do not embrace what they cannot understand.
Those who do not receive the hard saying - but just the things that advance their
agenda or make comfortable their lives.
Leonard Bernstein, the great American composer, conductor, and educator,
once said that the hardest orchestral instrument to play is the second position in
any section. Everyone wants to be in the lead, “And yet if no one plays second,
we have no harmony” (Buchanan, p. 213). But when we surrender our lives to
Christ, we also surrender the right to call the shots. That means we don’t get to
pick and choose whom and when we serve and what and when we believe.
It is not time to subject the gospel to our understanding, but to subject our
understanding to the gospel.
It is time to step down and let go - allow God to have His way with us.
This is the time for disciples who are willing to die as well as to live.
This is the time for lovers of God who will love humanity on His behalf.
This is the time for people who delight to find another impossibility and bend it’s
knee to His will.
This is the time for men and women of faith.
I am not here to run my program - I am here to be run by Him
I am not here to do my thing.
I am not here to accomplish my agenda.
I am here to demonstrate and illustrate what a culture of faith looks like.
I am here to please Him - and I cannot do that without true, supernatural faith.
We have come to the end of the service - and we have come to the time when
you decide what to do with what God has said.
Now I want to pray for you and with you. Would you stand up and pray with me
please.
Say this if you will. “I embrace a culture of faith, of supernatural faith.
Some of you have been prisoners of the fear of man.
JWJ-21 - John 5:18-24 - Pg 6
