FBCWest 566 | Testimony Concerning Jesus
Recorded On: 08/06/2023
Bulletin
Hymn #160 “Saved, Saved”
SCRIPTURE READING – Romans 10:9 & 10
Giving of Selves and Our Offerings
OFFERTORY PRAYER
OFFERTORY MUSIC – Pru Hungate
Praise and Worship
“At the Cross (Love Ran Red)”
“God You Are”
“Overcome”
Proclamation of the Word
Message by Pastor Joe
“Testimony Concerning Jesus”
PRAYER TIME / Time of Reflection
“Holy Forever”
Acknowledgements and Announcements
Benediction “There Is Freedom”
Sermon Notes
John 5:31 Jesus acknowledges if He only testifies that is not proof
John 5:32 There are others who have testified about Jesus
John 5:33 – 35 John the Baptist (The Testifier) testified
John 5:36 Jesu’s works testifies who He is
John 5:37 & 38 The Father testified, but they haven’t heard Him
John 5:39 & 40 The Scriptures testified who Jesus is
John 5:41 – 43 They didn’t receive Jesus because He came in the Father’s name
John 5:44 – 47 Moses, not Jesus, accuses their unbelief
Scritpures
Transcript of Service
If you have your Bibles, please turn to the Gospel of John chapter 5 starting with verse 31.
This is now going to be the fourth message I brought from this chapter because I believe the contents of this chapter is important for us to go through piece by piece.
I'm going to confess something with you this morning in the sense of the first two-thirds or so of my message is going to be typical of my style and approach of teaching. The last third of it I'm going to venture into preaching and meddling.
So you're fair warned about that. So hopefully if you have your Bibles and as I say you ought to, turn to the Gospel of John chapter 5 verse 31.
Jesus has been, as we've taken a look, defended himself against opposition who wanted to kill him for working on the Sabbath and for claiming equality with God and he's spinning. We've taken a couple of weeks now taking a look at those defenses that he has the authority and the power to do these things and therefore he is equal with God.
Now if you and me or many other people who try to convince you that they're speaking the truth, they'll say things like, "I swear on a stack of Bibles" or "I swear on my mother's grave" and a lot of people will swear on their mother's grave even though their mother hasn't died yet. So that kind of tips you off that they're not really telling the truth. But Jesus who speaks the truth and who is truth, notice he doesn't say that.
See what he says. He goes, "If I alone testify about myself, my testimony is not true."
A strange statement, but the reason Jesus says this statement is because under the Levitical law that Jesus wrote, it says that every matter will be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses. And if you only have one witness, they're not saying that it's not necessarily true, they're saying you've not convinced us. You lose your case. You lose the matter. You need to at least have two or three witnesses. That's why many years from now when we get to that point, the trial against Jesus falls apart because they can't get two people to agree on anything. So in order to save that situation, Jesus has to confess it himself. And so Jesus is saying under the law, if the only person who testifies as to who I am is me, then you don't necessarily have to believe it or confirm it because it's only me.
But Jesus is going to call several other witnesses on his behalf. He goes, "There is another who testifies of me, and I know that the testimony which he gives about me is true."
This person is not the person that Jesus is going to talk about next. He's referring to God himself.
He's saying that there is another who testifies of me, and that testimony which he gives about me is true.
All you have to do, Gudu, is go back a couple of chapters in this Gospel, and you will hear the Father say, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
God testifies. Here in this Gospel, the Father is going to meet with Moses and Elijah and Jesus, and they're talking, and Peter is so impressed. He goes, "Hey, why don't we build three temples, one to Moses, one to Elijah, and one to you, Jesus?" And all of a sudden, the other two, and he goes, "This is my Son, listen to him.
There is no equal." And so the Father will, throughout Jesus' ministry, testify to who he is. But Jesus says, "But I'm giving you just that as a sample." He says, "You being the Father have sent to John, and he has to testify of the truth." So he's saying, "John, who we call the Baptist, who I've called the testifier," because he's come to testify that he wasn't the Messiah, that Jesus is, and that he was confirmed that when the Spirit descended on him when he baptized. So John has testified to the world and to the disciples, and even his disciples, that Jesus is the Son of God. But the testimony of which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. So he's going, "I'm giving you a number of different areas that you might understand the testimony." And so Jesus is saying, "I don't need the testimony of men, but I gave you one. But I'm going to give you much better testimony." So in essence, what Jesus is doing is like a competent lawyer. He brings a series of witnesses.
Each witness is stronger than the last one, so that you're left with the impression when it's time to decide that there was a strong case here, and that I believed the witnesses, and they knew what they were talking about. So he says, "So that you might be saved."
And he was the lamp that was burning and was shining, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his life.
They said, "You initially liked John the Baptist. He was preaching, and people were coming to him, and you even were trying to get baptized yourself until he shifted his emphasis and pointed to me."
While he was talking about his ministry, it was fine. When he started pointing to Jesus, people started to fade.
But the testimony of which I have is greater than the testimony of John.
So he's going to bring another witness for the works which the Father has given to me to accomplish, the very works that I do, testify about me that the Father has sent me. Jesus says, "All I've got to look to see is what I've done.
I perform miracles like turning water into wine. I've healed the sick and the lame, and I've done many other things. He's going to, in the future, he even healed a nobleman's son from a distance. He's going to do other miracles and healings.
He's also going to do things like raise the dead and raise himself from the dead. He's saying, "All of these works that I do testify exactly who I am." And one of the things is that when Jesus heals the deaf.
He's going to say, "Game changer."
No one ever did that before.
And so Jesus is saying, "You don't have to accept my testimony alone. Look at what I'm doing.
And the works that I do testify that the Father sent me."
Notice Jesus keeps going after and after. Not that you just believe me, but that you believe the Father sent me.
It's a package deal.
And the Father who sent me, He has to testify to me, "You have neither heard His voice at any time or seen His form."
He's going, "John heard it. I heard it. Others heard it. But you did it because you don't know Him." He's going to say, "You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him who sent me."
Again, we keep thinking that, well, there's the Father and then there's Son. Jesus is saying, "You don't get the Father without the Son."
It's a unit.
You don't believe the Son, you don't believe the Father. You believe the Father, you believe the Son.
So Jesus is saying, "The Father again has testified." So He says, "The Father testified.
I've testified. The Father has testified. John has testified. Now I bring up the Father again. I testify about my works. All of these testify of who I am, and then He's going to bring another witness."
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
It is these that testify of me.
He's saying, "You look at the Old Testament. You look at the Scriptures and you keep thinking that you're going to find that magic little verse that is going to cause you to be saved, to be knowing that you're saved.
And you keep searching that thinking that you're going to find in the Scriptures life."
And Jesus says, "When you search the Scriptures, you're going to find me because the Scriptures testify of me.
When you are unwilling to come to me so that you may have life."
They search the Scriptures because they want to have life. The Scriptures testify of Jesus, that they refuse to come to Him.
I'm going to come back to that in a moment.
He goes, "I do not receive glory from men.
I'm not here to get your approval.
I'm not here for you to say, "Oh, what a wonderful teacher. What a wonderful rabbi." Doesn't He do wonderful miracles and healings and all these things?" I'm not seeking your glory, but I know you that you do not have the love of God in your soul."
Boom.
He's just said, "You search the Scriptures, and what do the Scriptures tell us? That we're the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul, and all our strength.
And the second one is to love our neighbor as ourselves." And Jesus goes, "You don't even get the very basic."
Because in the basic it says you're to love God and you don't.
I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in His own name, you will receive Him." Now some commentators will say what He's talking about here is the Antichrist. He could be. I think He's talking about anybody who shows up talking about how wonderful they are.
And to tickle your ears with nice words of encouragement that you're so special that
how God existed in eternity passed before you were born. You're just so special.
And people want to hear that. And so when people come in the name of philosophy and psychiatry and sociology, people will hear that because that's what they want to hear.
How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?
You're not interested in the glory of God. You're only interested in the praise of one another. And unfortunately so many pastors, and that's I guess one of the reasons why God puts me where God puts me is because I guess my ego could really jump out and whatever. But there are a lot of pastors who just think that their great church is their great church because they're such a wonderful guy and a great leader. They went from X number 100 to X number 1000 and they went to the new church and they had a building program and thought they were so lucky to have them. Everybody says, "Boy, let's buy His book because He's a great person."
Rather than saying, "I've only done what God told me to do, glorify Him."
Jesus says, "I've come to glorify the Father.
Don't come for your glory. I come to glorify the Father, the one and only God.
Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father."
See, that's how Jesus is rolled. Jesus is rolled when we become His followers, His disciples.
He is our advocate.
He's the one who says, "My blood paid it for."
The accuser is Satan, but there's going to be another accuser.
The one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.
If Moses said it, it must be true. Moses was the lawgiver, and wrong. God was the lawgiver. Moses just simply was the deliverer.
He brought the tablets down. He didn't write them.
But they always want to praise men and women rather than give glory to God.
So he goes, "You think by searching the Scriptures that you're going to find life, and as you search the Scriptures and you come to the day of judgment, Moses isn't going to be there and go, "You guys blew it," because I wrote about him.
In Deuteronomy, when I talked about the prophet, that was him. When I said, "You're supposed to love the Lord your God," he showed you how to do it.
When I wrote, "You're to love one another as I love you," not only did he do that, he said, "We're to love one another as he loved us."
Moses was pointing to him, "For if you believed Moses, you would believe me," for he wrote about him.
A real quick break. So many churches who are "New Testament" churches.
We are a Old Bible church because the Old Testament talks about Jesus, and the New Testament talks about Jesus. What I want to do is talk about Jesus.
We'll be talking about the whole Scripture because it talks about Jesus. It talks about how we are to live in accordance with God's will and plan for our lives.
You don't really understand Jesus if you only read the New Testament.
You see the depth and the quality of who he is. When you read passages like Psalm 22 and Psalm 23 and Isaiah 53 and all those other passages, you see the depths of who he is. You see things like the kinsmen redeemer, and you see things like Joseph and all these other things that were a type of Christ. You miss out when you don't fully read the Scriptures.
Now he accuses the people that are standing there that they searched the Scripture.
I wish believers did that.
All too often we wait until the pastors show up, give a 30-minute sermon, and then we go on.
Oh, that we would search the Scripture, that we would understand.
But if you do not believe his writing, how will you believe my will?
Again, Jesus goes right back and says, "If I testify about myself alone, then you can take it or leave it. But Moses, who you idolize, testified of me."
You won't believe me. You don't believe Moses.
Now that's where I'm going to get it into a little medley.
I want to first start with people who claim to be believers.
The Scripture I read this morning, two verses aligns salvation.
It's in other places like Ephesians 2, "For you've been saved by grace through faith in that and out of yourselves. It is the gift of God that anyone should boast."
We have now gone through five chapters of the Gospel of God.
In every chapter, several times, it says the way you get eternal life is faith in Jesus.
Never once does it say that your faith in Jesus, plus your good little boy or girl, gets you into heaven.
It is never faith plus anything. It is faith alone and Christ alone.
That's it. But you will hear people say, "There's no way for that. That you've got to do something. That you've got to earn something. That you've got to accomplish something for God to be impressed. Either you've got to accomplish it, or you've got to flagellate yourself. You've got to beat up yourself, because you're not worthy. You've got to do something to earn God's love. The point is, that's what grace is. Unmerited favor.
There are these people who claim to be Bible scholars who will talk about that you must do something. That you must be baptized, or you must take communion, or you must go on a holy trip, or you've got to do certain things. You can never swear. You can never go to a bad movie. You can't play movie cards.
All these things you can't do.
Let me give you a secret.
We are saved by faith.
How do I know that I've been saved? How do I know that I have grace? Because I have faith.
My faith is not blind. I believe the testimony of Jesus and the other witnesses.
My faith is not blind, because I see me kicking and screaming, but he is sanctifying me.
He's making me more holy. Now, I ain't holy, and there's a long way, and I'm kicking and screaming while he's doing it, but he's the one who's going to accomplish my holiness.
And not only am I saved, and not only am I becoming sanctified and holy, I am going to one day be glorified.
Isn't it interesting?
Somebody keeps seeking glory from each other when God says, "No, no.
Can you keep glory from me? I will glorify you."
And if you've had any opportunity to have anybody say nice things about you, you know that those only last for a little time. Sometimes they only last for, "You are a great person, but..."
So, it's not even a full sentence. And then, it's down.
God is going to glorify us for eternity.
Why should I care what you have to say?
Well, I care, but not that much.
It's what God has to say to you. But those who think that you have to do something to earn salvation, the Scriptures are going to accuse you.
Because it was clear throughout these first five chapters that salvation is by faith.
That eternal life is based on the faith in our Savior.
Next group of people I want to talk to.
You're not here, probably. You might be listening on.
There's a lot of people who look down on we believers because they think that our faith is illusory and it's blind and whatever. But if we had intelligence, if we were smart, then we would know that science has overcome our stupid faith and it knows all.
Just let me be very clear.
I'm not afraid of science.
Science is accurate.
I don't have any faith in scientists who don't know what they're talking about, who come to the wrong conclusion.
And that they will talk about their conclusions as if they're fact. For instance, you'll see on the program about the age of the earth and the universe, and they won't say, "We believe that the earth is three billion years old." They'll say, "The earth is three billion years old."
I'm looking forward to the day when God tells them, "Joe, where were you when I created the heavens and the earth?"
They speak as if they know.
This is where I'm preaching and whatever, and I may be a little outside because I don't have an exact quote, but I'm going to give you.
There's going to be a time when people who have put their faith in astronomy and astrophysics,
when those disciplines will accuse them because you came to the wrong conclusion, the heavens
and the stars declare the glory of God.
And you said it just happened.
And those who are geologists, who are convinced that it took millions and billions of years for the earth to be made informed, will accuse you because you came to the wrong conclusion and you worship the rock rather than the creator.
Those who are biologists and microbiologists and zoologists and marine biologists and all of the other biologies who think that we all just kind of showed up and we evolved into whatever, the day of judgment, those disciplines are going to accuse you because you came to the wrong conclusion because God made it evident that He was the creator.
I'm not going to leave alone the mathematicians and the statisticians.
You think your math and your statistics will prove whatever.
Those disciplines will accuse you in the day of judgment because you came to the wrong conclusion.
Philosophers, oh I love philosophers.
They think they're lily-pucian ropes.
While lily-pucian ropes may have tied down the gulliver, the lily-pucian ropes of philosophers cannot limit the power of God.
They say it's impossible for anything outside of natural things to happen, therefore I ruled it out.
Until God ruled them out.
My last group that I want to talk about, computer nerd.
We are so enamored with artificial intelligence.
Now I'm going to tell you more than I know.
By understanding artificial intelligence, it's just a bunch of data.
You put a bunch of data in a computer and because of the speed of electrons and all that, it can go through and come up with an answer faster than we can perhaps.
Because it has a bunch of data.
Unfortunately in our world today, it seems that people have less and less data in their head.
Ask the average person who is the first president and they have no clue.
Because I think we all think our smart phones will tell us.
Unfortunately our smart phones are smarter than we are.
But I don't care how intelligent you make artificial intelligence.
God gave you intelligence and God gave you the opportunity to acquire wisdom.
Artificial intelligence may become intelligent, but it won't necessarily be why.
And I suspect for all the computer nerds out there that even artificial intelligence will say you are stupid to rely on me.
You should have got wisdom from the guy who is judging you now.
The religious people seem to, if they search the scriptures, don't seem to come up with the right answer.
Non-religious people in their smugness think they're brilliant.
God is God over all. And He will obtain glory.
And even those who are convinced that God had nothing to do with it and there is no God and the earth was formed 3 billion years ago, that person will kneel and confess that Jesus is Lord through the glory of the God of God.
You see we read the scriptures, not to read the scripture, but to understand who God is and what He has done.
Our God has done a mighty work that can be reduced to two sentences.
Confess Jesus is Lord with your mouth.
And believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. You shall be saved.
For with the heart, with the all of who you are, faith results in righteousness.
And with confession results in salvation.
The demons don't just believe that there is a God, they know there is.
And they bow in fear and tremble before His presence.
And to do everything that they can to delay that.
Faith and confession results in salvation.
Simple.
God said, "Believe my Son whom I see."
And if you believe Him, you believe me.
You don't believe Him and you don't believe Him.
Pretty simple.
Have that confidence.
I don't think we need our beautiful intelligence to tell us.
We just need to read a few chapters.
All God's people said.
Stand with me as we pray and as the band comes to lead us in our Benedict.