Our Miraculous Master
The Gospel of John
John 5:24-30
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - September 7, 2016
(Revised July 30, 2019)
BACKGROUND:
*Before we read our Scripture for tonight, remember that this chapter began with an amazing miracle. Verses 1-9 tell about this healing miracle that took place in Jerusalem by the pool called Bethesda. There Jesus instantly and completely healed a man who had been bedridden for 38 years. Praise the Lord!
*But Jesus performed this healing miracle on the Sabbath Day, and that was a crime punishable by death under the man-made Jewish laws of that day. As soon as Jesus began to respond to their charge, He committed another crime in their eyes that was punishable by death. This new crime is completely unheard of in our society, because the charge against Jesus was blasphemy, making Himself equal with God by saying that God was His Father.
*We can see these charges unfold in vs. 15-18, where God's Word says:
15. The man departed and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16. For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.
17. But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.''
18. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.
*Last week in vs. 19-23, we saw that Jesus pled guilty to the charge of making Himself equal to God. Rightly so, because Jesus is and always has been the one and only eternal Son of God.
*And we should honor Jesus as God, because:
-No man can see like Jesus sees.
-No man can do what Jesus does.
-And no man can judge like Jesus judges.
*In tonight's Scripture, Jesus continued His defense against the Jewish leaders, so let's read vs. 24-30. And as we read, think about our miraculous Master, Jesus Christ.
MESSAGE:
*Well, this all started with an amazing miracle. Have you seen any miracles today? You might not think so, but if you are a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, all you have to do to see a miracle is look in the mirror!
*Jesus Christ is our Miracle Worker! And as we look into His Word tonight, we see 3 miracles the Lord works in the life of every believer.
1. FIRST: JESUS GIVES US THE MIRACLE OF REGENERATION.
*Regeneration is the miracle of being born again by the Holy Spirit of God. Titus 3:4-6 says this to Christians:
4. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
5. not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6. whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
*Christians: We were born again into God's family through the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration. Jesus talked about this new spiritual birth in John 3:5-7. There the Lord told Nicodemus:
5. "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'"
*When we believe in Jesus Christ, when we receive Him as our Lord and Savior, we are literally born again spiritually, and we have two birthdays!
*A few years ago, I bumped into Trish Barmore and her little boy at Walmart. They are some of our friends from McClendon. The first thing out of that little boy's mouth was this: "I got saved on my birthday!"
*I said, "That's great! Now you have two birthdays on the same day." And he can always remember when he was born again, because when we trust in Jesus Christ, we receive God's eternal life through a new, spiritual birth.
*This miraculous gift of new life is absolutely essential for salvation. It gives us the everlasting life Jesus talked about in vs. 24-26. Here Jesus told His accusers:
24. "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me HAS EVERLASTING LIFE, and shall not come into judgment (or condemnation), but has passed from death into life.
25. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
26. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself."
[1] NOTICE THE MANNER OF THE MIRACLE.
*How does the miracle of regeneration happen? Jesus gives us two keys, and the first in vs. 24 is that we must HEAR HIS WORD. That is why it’s extremely important for us to do everything we can to spread His Word around our town, and around our world.
*Hundreds of millions of people have never heard the good news about Jesus Christ. And hundreds of people within a short drive of our church may have heard it with their ears, but they haven’t heard it with their hearts! We need to get God's Word out, because they need to hear!
*How does the miracle of the new birth happen? The first key is that we must hear His Word. And the second key is that we must believe. As Jesus said in vs. 24, "He who HEARS MY WORD and BELIEVES IN HIM WHO SENT ME has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."
*We must believe in God the Father who loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us. We must put our trust in the true and living God by receiving His Son as our Lord and Savior.
[2] THAT’S THE MANNER OF THE MIRACLE. BUT ALSO NOTICE THE MOMENT.
*Some Christians "hope" they'll live forever in Heaven, but they aren't sure. Well, God wants us to be sure! And His Word shows us that we can be sure we have eternal life.
*Tonight's Scripture shows us that we can be sure, because our eternal life begins the moment we believe! Eternal life is not something we receive off in the future. In vs. 24, Jesus said, "He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me HAS everlasting life."
*So, if we have put our trust in the True and Living God, if we have believed in Him, then we already have everlasting life! We have already passed from death to life, because Jesus gave us the miracle of regeneration.
2. BELIEVERS: JESUS HAS GIVEN US THE MIRACLE OF REGENERATION. HE HAS ALSO GIVEN US THE MIRACLE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
*True righteousness before God is a miracle from God!
*In vs. 26-30, Jesus again stressed His role as the Judge of all the earth. And the Lord tells us that God the Father:
27. . . has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
28. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice
29. and come forth those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
30. I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."
*Now, if we take verse 29 out of context, it seems as if good works can get you to Heaven, but that is absolutely not the case. William MacDonald explained that "verse 29 does not teach that people who have done good will be saved because of their good deeds, and those who have done evil will be condemned because of their wicked lives.
*A person is not saved by doing good, but he does good because he has been saved. Good works are not the root of salvation but rather the fruit. They are not the cause, but the effect. The expression those who have done evil describes those who have never put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus, and consequently whose lives have been evil in the sight of God. These will be raised to stand before God and to be sentenced to eternal doom. (1)
*No one has ever been saved because of their good works. And we are sure of this fact because of Scriptures like Romans 3:9-10. There Paul said:
9. What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin.
10. As it is written: "There is none righteous, no, not one."
*Then in Romans 3:19-23, Paul also said:
19. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
20. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21. But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
22. even the righteousness of God which is through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
23. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
*If being good is the way to get to Heaven, then nobody is going, because none of us is perfectly good. And God's kind of holy perfection is His standard for us getting into Heaven by good works, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
*It astounded me when I began to really think about this truth. The glory of God?!? That’s the standard? The unlimited, indescribable, perfect glory of God? The glory that He must shield us from, or we would melt like a snowflake in the hot desert?
*Could we ever measure up to the glory of God? Could a goldfish climb Mt. Everest? Could a mosquito get elected as President? Could a germ make a perfect score on the A.C.T.? Of course not!
*But us measuring up to the glory of God is like asking a germ to make a perfect score on the A.C.T. It’s never going to happen, and it never could happen. In fact, the gap between us and God’s glory is infinitely greater. Our best works will never make us good enough to live forever with God.
*Christians: We have no real righteousness on our own. That's why Isaiah 64:6 says "we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; we all fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." We have no real righteousness on our own. That's also why in Romans 7:18, Paul said, "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find."
*True righteousness can only come through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us! So, we have to look at these verses in the context of the rest of God's Word. Even in tonight's Scripture, vs. 24 quotes Jesus telling us, "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but has passed from death into life."
*Paul explained in Romans 3:23-26, where he said:
23. for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24. being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
25. whom God set forth to be a propitiation (i.e. God the Father set forth Jesus to be a place of mercy, or atoning sacrifice) by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,
26. to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
*Through the cross of Jesus Christ, God is just to justify us, because the death penalty for our sins was already taken by the only man who had no sins of His own. Jesus Christ is our Righteousness! That's why Jeremiah 23:6 says: "Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."
*On top of all this, Jesus Christ has changed our lives! In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul said, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
*I don't think one of us would stand up and say we are all that we should be. But thank God, we are not what we were! God has done a transforming work in our lives, and He’s still working on us!
*That's why in Philippians 2:12-13, Paul said this to all Christians:
12. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;
13. for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
*Church: Right now, God is at work in us both to desire and to do His good pleasure. And this is another part of His miracle of righteousness in our lives. True righteousness before God is a miracle from God!
3. AND JESUS HAS GIVEN US THE MIRACLE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. BUT HE ALSO WILL GIVE US THE MIRACLE OF THE RESURRECTION OF LIFE.
*We see this miracle in vs. 28-30, where Jesus said:
28. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice
29. and come forth those who have done good, to THE RESURRECTION OF LIFE, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.
30. I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me."
*You know, just the reality of the resurrection is a miracle, to know that the body of everyone who has ever died will be raised up.
*You may have heard the expression "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." That phrase comes from the 1662 version of the burial service in the English Book of Common Prayer. It is based on what the LORD told Adam after he and his wife Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3:19, the LORD told Adam, "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.'' (2)
*"Ashes to ashes," and "dust to dust." But wherever those ashes are scattered, wherever that dust has settled, it is going to be miraculously raised up by our God.
*We are only weeks away from the 18th anniversary of the despicable terror attack on 9-11. Islamic terrorists hijacked four passenger jets. Two of those planes were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center Towers in New York City. The third plane plowed into the Pentagon across the river from Washington D.C. And the fourth plane crashed nose first into a field in Pennsylvania. It had been headed toward Washington D.C. But it was stopped by brave passengers, who gave their lives to keep that plane from hitting the White House or the Capitol Building.
*Almost 3,000 innocent people were murdered on that day, and many more were injured. At first, the news estimated that up to 50,000 people had been killed. That's because on a typical weekday 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Center buildings, with another 200,000 passing through as visitors. There were also 2,600 people working near the impact site at the Pentagon. Only by God's grace was the death toll 3,000. (3)
*At the time, an author whose name I can't remember was living in New York City. I remember him writing about going home that evening. There he noticed all of the ash on his tennis shoes, and it suddenly dawned on him what was in that ash. So, in reverence, he took those shoes off and never wore them again.
*Those hundreds of bodies that were never found at the World Trade Center, they will be miraculously raised up by our God. The millions of people in unmarked graves forgotten by history will be miraculously raised up by God. He knows where every particle is resting today.
*And the reality of the resurrection is surely a miracle. But there are two separate resurrections in vs. 29: "The resurrection of life," and "the resurrection of condemnation." They are a thousand years or more apart, with drastically different outcomes. And there can be no joy in your resurrection, if you are part of the resurrection of condemnation.
*The only resurrection miracle that can give us joy is the resurrection of life! And only Jesus Christ can put us there! How? By His cross, by His resurrection, by His mercy, and by His forgiveness.
CONCLUSION:
*The Resurrection of Life is an amazing, wonderful, everlasting miracle. And this miracle belongs to you, if you belong to Jesus.
*So put your trust in Jesus Christ! Receive Him as the Lord and Savior of your life. And then, if you want to see a miracle, just look in the mirror, because you are born again. The Lord is your righteousness. And you will live forever!
(1) BELIEVER'S BIBLE COMMENTARY by William MacDonald - Edited by Arthur Farstad - Thomas Nelson Publishers - Nashville - Copyright 1995 - "Jesus Defends His Claim to Be Equal with God" - John 5:19-29
(2) https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/ashes-to-ashes.html
(3) Sermonillustrations.com illustrations for 9-11
