Do you ever get frustrated? Do you ever look around at the things that go on at work and get frustrated? Or maybe things at school? I know that we all look at things going on in government and get frustrated. And inevitably, when we get frustrated like that, what is one of the first things we think about? We think—man, if I was in charge, things would be different. Sometimes when we get frustrated with things, we like to sit back and fantasize about what it would be like if we were the ones in power. If I just had the power, I’d really change things. But if you’ve ever been promoted, you know that’s not really the case, is it? If you’ve ever gone from “cook and bottle washer” to “chief cook and bottle washer” you know that just because you’re a chief doesn’t mean that you have the power to change things. Every time that there’s an election, we talk about electing people into positions of power. We vote for Governor and Congress and President. Those are powerful people, aren’t they? Can you imagine what you could do with that kind of power? Really—not much. At least, not much on an eternal scale. Don’t get me wrong. People in positions of power can do some good things sometimes. And there are a lot of times when they can do some very destructive things. People in positions of power can cause war and death and destruction on large scales. But no matter how powerful they might seem to us, their power is limited. As a matter of fact, it’s infinitely small compared to the only true source of power. Compared to God’s power, even the power of the most powerful person you can imagine is miniscule. The Jewish leaders in our passage were looked at as powerful people. You remember that Jesus had just healed a man. And because He healed him on the Sabbath, He broke one of the Jewish leader’s laws. Then when they confronted Him about it, Jesus told them that He is God in the flesh. Back up in verse 17, He told them that He is working just like His Father is working. And verse 18 says that by saying that, Jesus made Himself equal with God. And from that point forward, those Jewish leaders tried to show Jesus their power. They constantly and continually came against Him. And eventually, they used every bit of their power to arrest Him and beat Him and hang Him on the cross. They were powerful people. Or so they thought. Because, in reality, the only power that they had was the power that Jesus gave them. And when you think about it, that’s the only place that power still comes from. The only place that we can ever hope to receive power is from the God of all power. And just as God the Father is the God of all power, God the Son is the God of all power. That’s the claim that Jesus makes in this verse we’re looking at this morning. In this verse, Jesus claims to be God in power. What kind of power does Jesus have? You might remember from when we first started looking at this book, what John said in John 20:30. He said, “And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.” Jesus did many, many miracles. Far more than are recorded in any of the four Gospels. And John records fewer than any of the others. As a matter of fact, John only records 7 miracles of Jesus—he calls them “signs”. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John picked out only 7 of them. He specifically picked out these 7 signs to show us different aspects of Jesus’ power. And he does that, so that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And when we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that we might have life in His name.
The first sign that John records is back in 2:1-11. You might remember that as the time that Jesus turned the water into wine at a wedding in Cana. Tell me, what was there before the miracle? Six waterpots filled with water. What does water have in it? Are there any grapes in water? Is there any yeast in water? So how did water become wine? Because Jesus showed that His power is not limited by materials. He doesn’t have to start with the right ingredients to create something. People make wine every day. But when people make wine, they have to start with the right ingredients. And they have to combine those ingredients in the right way. But Jesus doesn’t have to do that. Because Jesus has the power to fundamentally change things. That shouldn’t surprise us because He created it all in the first place. And if Jesus is the one who sustains His creation, it only makes sense that He can fundamentally change it at even an elemental level. And that’s what He did at that wedding feast. Jesus showed that, as God, His power is not limited by materials. But in the second sign that John records, he shows us something different.
The second sign that John records is in 4:46-54. Jesus made a return trip to Cana and when He got there, a nobleman approached Him. He told Jesus that his son was about to die. The problem was that he lived in Capernaum which was nearly a day’s journey away. So he begged Jesus to come to Capernaum with him and heal his boy. Do you remember what Jesus told him? He said, “Go away. Your son lives.” No magic. No hocus-pocus. No nothing. Just, “It’s done. Now go away.” Even though the boy was at least 16 miles away, Jesus didn’t have to move from where He was. Because Jesus showed that His power is not limited by space. Even though Jesus was in the flesh, He was still not limited by that flesh. Just as God the Father is everywhere at all times, God the Son is everywhere at all times. The Psalmist said in Psalm 139:7-10, “Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.” Just as David declared that God the Father’s power isn’t limited by space, God the Son’s power isn’t limited by space. And that takes us to the third sign that John records.
The third sign that John records is 5:1-18. That is the one that brought on the confrontation with the Jewish leaders. And that confrontation is what brought on these claims of Christ that we’re looking at now. You remember that the text makes a big deal about the fact that the man that Jesus healed had been crippled for 38 years. That’s a long time. Imagine what would happen to legs that haven’t moved for 38 years. The muscles would have completely atrophied. The joints would have deteriorated to the point that they would have been completely unusable. The ligaments would have shriveled and drawn up tight so that a person probably couldn’t have pulled the legs straight if they tried. And do you know what happens to bones when they aren’t used? They get extremely hard and brittle. So brittle that they can break with even the slightest pressure on them. So do you realize what all was involved in that? It involved reversing 38 years of deterioration in that man’s body. And Jesus did it instantly. He did it instantly, because as God, His power isn’t limited by time. Now, those are all of the signs that we’ve already looked at. But there are four more we haven’t looked at yet.
The next sign that John talks about is in 6:1-14. We’re all very familiar with what happened there. Because of all the miracles that Jesus had been doing, He was gathering a huge following. At this point in His ministry, everywhere He went the crowd was huge. And this one time, they followed Him to the edge of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus gathered up the disciples and headed up a mountain, but the crowds followed them there. It was getting late and Jesus knew that they weren’t going to get home in time to eat, so He took five loaves of bread and two small fish and performed a miracle. He miraculously multiplied that bread and fish until it was more than enough to feed 5000 men, besides the women and children. That meant that the total amount of people there was probably close to 20,000. That was a huge crowd to feed. And the only food they had in the whole place was five loaves of bread and two small fish. One boy’s lunch was all they had in the whole place. That’s pretty small, isn’t it? But Jesus’ power isn’t limited by size. It isn’t limited by the smallness of what He starts with or the bigness of what we need. Just as God the Father’s power isn’t limited by size, God the Son’s power isn’t limited by size. Jesus’ power isn’t limited by materials, space, time or size. That’s four signs. Three more to go.
The fifth sign that John talks about happens right after Jesus finished feeding the 5000. And that’s when He walked on water in 6:16-21. That huge crowd of people were so excited by the way that Jesus fed them that they were going to take Him by force and make Him their King. Jesus knew what was in their hearts, so He kind of snuck off into the mountains alone. The people must have disbursed when they realized that Jesus was gone. And the disciples got in a boat and started heading across the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum. When they got out into the water, it became dark and it started storming. After they were about 3-4 miles out, they looked across the stormy water and saw Jesus walking toward them on the water. The other Gospels tell us that they thought they saw a ghost. But when they realized it was Jesus, they invited Him into the boat. And when they did, the boat was miraculously transported from where it was immediately to the other side of the lake. When Jesus did that, He defied all natural laws. He defied the law of gravity. He defied the laws of buoyancy. Boats float because they’re buoyant. People aren’t buoyant. Especially people who are upright and walking. He defied laws of space and time. How could Jesus do that? Because He is the power of God. And as the power of God, Jesus is not limited by nature.
As we move on through the Gospel of John, we find the sixth sign in 9:1-41. If you were able to be at the Crusade on Tuesday night, he referenced a verse in this text. This is the time when Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth. The strange thing about this miracle is that it seems as if the man who was being healed is completely in the background. It’s as if he is the object of an object lesson that Jesus is teaching His disciples. They ask Him the question, “Why is this man blind?” And they showed what kind of a narrow view that they had of suffering. They knew that all suffering is as a result of sin. They got that part right. But they took it to the next level. They thought that the suffering had to be as a DIRECT result of sin. They asked Jesus, “Is he blind because of something he did or was it something his parents did wrong?” And you remember Jesus’ answer. He said, “Neither.” “The reason that this man has been blind his whole life is so that the works of God might be on display through him.” “He has suffered his whole life so that God’s works might be put on display.” Things that we might see as coincidence or circumstance are all part of God’s plan. God’s power is not limited by circumstances. And as God, Jesus’ power isn’t limited by circumstances. And that brings us to the final sign in the book of John.
The seventh sign is found in 11:1-44. And that, we might think of, is the greatest sign of all. Because that passage tells of the time that Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been sick for a while. But Jesus didn’t come and heal him from his sickness. Jesus loved him and his sisters Mary and Martha. But He still didn’t come. He didn’t even come when He knew that Lazarus had died. Jesus had already raised at least two other people from the dead. But that was immediately after they had died. He waited four days to show up at Lazarus’ grave. Now, keep in mind that they didn’t embalm people like we do today. They didn’t even use caskets. They used cloth strips and spices. That was it. So after four days, the body was already decaying. But when Jesus got to the tomb, He made them roll the stone away anyway. And into that open tomb, He cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth!” and when He did, Lazarus came back from the dead and walked out of that tomb. That was the climax of all the signs that John recorded. It was the capstone. It was the way that Jesus showed the people that His power is not limited by death. As God, Jesus’ power isn’t limited by materials, by space, by time, by size, by nature, by circumstance or by death. As God, Jesus’ power isn’t limited by anything. He is all powerful. And how did He choose to describe His power to the Jewish leaders back in our passage in 5:21? He told them, “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.”
Yes, Jesus’ divine power is shown in His signs. But more than that, do you know where Jesus’ power is shown? Jesus’ power is shown at its fullest in His death. That just sounds strange, doesn’t it? How can Jesus’ power be on display, even as He is beaten and mocked and spit on? What kind of power display is it to have your clothes taken away and gambled over? What kind of power display is it to be hung, beaten and naked in front of dozens of mockers? What kind of power display is it to be so physically helpless that you can’t even breathe without causing yourself extreme pain? What kind of power is that? I’ll tell you what kind of power it is. Flip over a few pages to John 10:17-18.
JOHN 10:17-18
Who is laying down Jesus’ life? Jesus is. Who had the power to take Jesus’ life from Him? Did Pilate? Did Caiaphas? Did Herod? Did Caesar? Did Satan? Nobody had the power to take Jesus’ life from Him. Because as God, Jesus is the only one who is all-powerful. No—Jesus had to willingly give His life. Philippians 2:5-8 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus, as God, chose not to greedily hold on to that power. He willingly chose to humble Himself. For the joy that was set before Him, He chose to pay for your sins and mine on the cross at Calvary. He had the power to lay down His life. And He did it for you. But that’s not the end of the story, is it? Because not only did Jesus have the power to lay His life down… He had the power to take it back up again. After His body lay cold and dead in that grave for three days, Jesus took His life back up again. And when He did that, He showed that His power isn’t limited by anything.
For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will. Who is that? Who are the ones that Jesus brings to life? Who are the ones that He will raise from the dead? Those who have confessed with their mouth that Jesus is Lord. Those who have believed in their heart that God has raised Him from the dead. The fact is that every one of us in here is either dead or alive. Either you are dead in your trespasses and sins. Or you are alive in Christ. How do you know? If you’re alive, you’ve been made alive by His power and you have His power living in you. What kind of power is it? It’s the power to live for Him. It’s the power to call on His name. It’s the power to be convicted when you sin and it’s the power to repent. It’s the power to be sensitive to His Spirit. It’s the power to worship Him amongst His people. It’s the power to be a witness for Him. It’s the power to use the gifts He’s given you to build up His church and not tear it down. It’s the power to be content, no matter what circumstances you’re going through. It’s the power to glorify God in suffering. It’s the power to have the mind of Christ. Do you have that kind of power this morning? Jesus has the power to give it to you. Will you just ask Him?
