Jesus Being God Is The Gospel

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This morning, uh, before we get started, uh, was told this at the first service I was sitting uh before we got started, and one of our men who um I think very highly of came and sat down next to me and he said, you know, one of things I love about this church, one of the reasons I stay at this church is uh there's just a lot of authenticity.

And so he said, it's just my prayer uh that this morning that you're gonna be real and clear as a bell.

Uh I was like, what does it look like to be real this morning?

Um and start off the right way.

And so here's me being real this morning.

How many of you have ever had just a day where nothing goes right and you were convinced that you were being sinned against and wronged because life is supposed to be prosperous and grand?

Yesterday was one of those days for me.

I'll spare you all the details, but nothing was going right, and all my best-laid plans were falling apart, and all the work I've been putting in with my son on how to properly catch a pot fly and then make the play to the cutoff man was not working, and I'd become that dad that I said I'd never become at the Little League Ballpark yesterday, right?

And then I get to my barber to get lined up.

I'm looking pretty good, right?

So I go to my barber and I go to one of the barber shops where I'm one of the only ones of this complexion.

You know what I'm saying?

And um talking to the guy and I known him for a couple years and he's a strong believer, and he just starts sharing me with me about um this ongoing process.

He and his wife were trying to buy their first house, and he and I was like, man, why don't we we we've been having this conversation for months, man.

My wife's a realtor.

I know it shouldn't take this long.

And he said, It's just this ridiculous thing, and we just feel like we're being attacked.

And it's like, what are you doing?

He's like, we just sat down last night and we realized that there was one person that was in the way, and we just started asking the Lord to move that person out of the way.

And then on Friday, their house closed and they're moving in next week, right?

And so it was one of those things, yeah, absolutely.

You can applaud for that.

So um I just I left the barber shop after, and I was like, you know what, I'm done feeling sorry for myself.

And I just started praying.

I was like, God, what have I allowed to get in the way?

What has the enemy brought in the way?

And let's just pray for that.

So here's it.

That's how I want to start this morning.

So if you do me a favor and bow your head and you're like, man, we already read scripture.

Uh Neil already came up here and we already prayed.

I want us to pray one more time because I feel like sometimes we do not properly prepare ourselves to hear God's word.

Does that make sense to anyone besides me?

And so let's take a moment, we're just gonna pray, and we're just gonna say, God, whatever is in our way this morning, we ask for you to move that.

You're the mover of mountains, you're the creator of all things, everything is under your command.

And so, because of that, we can pray confidently, asking that if there is any distraction, if there is anything that's kept us from hearing the truth of your word for the first time.

If there's anything that's keeping us from just laying down our preconceived notions and being vulnerable this morning, God would pray that you remove that as well.

God, speak.

I don't want to be heard.

I want your word to be heard this morning.

So that's our prayer, and we ask you to make it our experience as well.

We pray sing your name.

Amen.

Amen.

Do me a favor if you don't have your Bible, um, uh there's a hardcover one around you.

If you do have your Bible, grab that.

We're gonna be in John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

As Neil mentioned earlier, we're gonna finish out um beginning at verse 22.

Um, what we started two weeks ago at the beginning of uh of John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

And the majority of what I'll be reading this morning will be on the screen as well.

So John chapter 10, beginning in verse 22.

John 10 · chapter mention

At the time the feast of the dedication took place at Jerusalem, it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.

So the Jews gathered around him, they said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

And Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand, and I and the Father are one.

The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

And Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father, for which of them are you going to stone me?

And the Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy.

Because you, being a man, make yourself God.

And Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said you were gods?

If he called him gods, to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, You are blasphemy, because I said I am the Son of God?

If I'm not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.

But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand the Father is in me, and I am the Father.

And again they sought to arrest him.

But he escaped from their hands, and he went away again across the Jordan, to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained.

And many came to him, and they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true, and many believed him there.

This is the word of the Lord.

Um a few thoughts just by way of introduction before we jump into this morning.

Um first, I am not near smart enough to um write a sermon on these 21 verses by myself.

Um, and for the sake of brevity, I didn't have the media team put all the quotes that I'll be using.

And so if you're a nerd and you want some sources afterwards, come give me your email, and that way I can be absolved of any plagiarism guilt that I commit this morning.

Um secondly, uh the I mentioned earlier, Neil preached the first half of 10 two weeks ago.

We paused last week, we celebrated communion as a family, and then we pick up here.

And the reason I bring that up is there's a background of this passage that some time has passed before the end of where we were two weeks ago and where we picked up this morning.

Um and so there we pick up this uh this this uh this celebration that Jesus is walking into, this feast of dedication, we're now in winter time.

And so we're all probably most of us familiar with Hanukkah, right?

So this is Hanukkah.

This is what they're now celebrating.

Um thirdly, just because we are we are covering this, I want to I want to not miss this because we're not we're not gonna dig in once we get to the actual text.

It says in verse 22 that it's the time of the feast of dedication.

And this feast is commemorating in the same way they do Hanukkah the rededication and the cleansing of the temple.

Um uh almost almost 200 years before this, by a man named Judas Maccabeas, who has the coolest nickname you've ever heard, Judas the Hammer, who's jealous.

I am.

All right.

So the Jews are they're going to this feast and they're remembering that God's deliverance.

Over three years, Judas launches this guerrilla warfare against the Syrians who have come in and they've taken the temple and they slaughter a pig as an offering to the god Jupiter, and so they come in and God brings this deliverance.

And so they're gathering at this feast and they're remembering God's deliverance, and while they're doing that, they're doing that with this posture of hope, asking that God would again deliver his people.

And then in walks Jesus.

And it's deliverance with skin on in the name of Christ.

And it's this deliverance that's possible through Jesus that's the cornerstone for for for our message this morning.

And it's it's it's it's it's it's the title of the sermon, and I got good news for you this morning.

I have a one-point sermon.

All right?

Yeah, that's right.

And when I preached it three times this morning, it was only like an hour and 15 minutes.

So you guys are I'm just joking, it's 57.

All right, so um so so our title this morning and our one point this morning, and hang with me, is that the fact that Jesus is God is the gospel.

The fact that Jesus is God is the gospel.

Um, so here's our group participation.

If you've been here before when I preach, I like a little group participation of sealed youth pastor in me.

When I want to make sure we're all on the same page and we say the gospel.

So when I say gospel, what comes to mind for you?

Good news?

Great, we got one answer and 300 people.

What else you got?

You hear gospel, what do you think?

Redemption, saving grace, fruit?

Five people don't save you from answering.

Come on, people.

Love?

Love?

Death, burial, resurrection.

All these are right, all these are good.

So I want us all to be on the same page.

So there's three quotes that are gonna pop up on the screen behind you that I want us to read.

Um, one from Martin Luther, one from the battle in Scotsman Alistair Begg, and one from Scripture.

And so the first one from Martin Luther, at its briefest, the gospel is a discourse about Christ.

That he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, and that he has been established as Lord over all things.

Alistair Begg says this here's the gospel in a phrase, because Christ died for us, those who trust in him may know that their guilt has been pardoned once and for all.

And we will have to say, but what, and excuse me, what will we have to say before the bar of God's judgment?

Only one thing, that Christ died in my place.

That is the gospel.

And as we get to the end of this book that we're studying through in the book of John, this is in John 20, right before the last chapter, and John says, But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

That by believing you may have life in his name.

The fact that Jesus is God is the gospel, and that is our one point for this morning.

And why?

So a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was a youth pastor, right?

And I had an obnoxious goatee and I wore flip-flops with slacks.

And I apologize for that because now I wear the Canadian tuxedo almost every Sunday.

Anybody?

Denim on denim?

All right.

And so back when I was a youth pastor, I was adamant.

I was adamant uh about pushing students to understand the fullness of what they profess to believe.

And I believed then, and I believe this morning, as I stand up here, that being a Christian should be horribly inconvenient and horribly unsettling.

It should be horribly inconvenient and it should be horribly unsetting.

I've often heard Neil say that when he does a premarital counseling um session with a couple that one of uh his biggest goals is to break the couple up.

And it's not because Neil doesn't believe in marriage, it's the contrary.

It's because he fully believes in it.

Because if you're not fully invested in the covenant of marriage, you shouldn't get married.

Because the honeymoon will end soon.

And the fact that he does not clean up after himself will get old quickly.

And she is correct that you need to put down the video game and pick up a book.

All right.

See, that happened in the first service too.

Why is there angry about that?

You feel that towards me?

Hey, don't go mad.

It's my video game.

You don't come see me after the service.

All right.

I'll give you some book recommendations.

In the same way, um, on one more than one occasion, I had parents make verifying, I'm sorry, varying statements, rather, about just asking the question, are you trying to convince kids not to follow Jesus?

And I'm like, absolutely not.

I want them to come to Jesus.

I want them to fully understand what a relationship with him looks like, but I want them to die first.

I want them to die to this preconceived notion that they can make Christ in their own image.

I want them to die to the fact that they think that they can put Jesus down and pick him back up whenever it's convenient for them, right?

I want them to die to the lie that they can pick and choose what truths of Jesus they need to believe and they need to bow to.

And so, why did I take us all on this trip down angry youth pastor lane, right?

Because these 21 verses that end chapter 10 of John are the they're they're almost a paint by number set to understand what saying that I believe Jesus is Lord truly means.

And so, um, although we have one point, um, you'll see in the scripture kind of divides itself up into about two or three scenes, and we'll take some natural breaks there.

Um, and this first scene that we're gonna look at is the confrontation.

So if you're a note taker, it'll pop on the screen as well.

The first thing we're gonna look at as we revisit this is the confrontation.

Look back at verse 24 again.

It says, So the Jews gathered around him, and they said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you're the Christ, tell us plainly.

And Jesus answered them, I told you, and you don't believe.

There's a couple things here that we want to point out and make note of.

Um, the the the point to Christ's one, his holy authority, and two, his undeniable centrality to the gospel.

And here's what I mean by that.

Number one, this question that they ask him: how long will you keep us in suspense?

If you're the Christ, tell us plainly.

You have to understand this that this isn't an earnest desire from these folks to know Jesus.

This isn't an earnest, they don't want to, they're not trying to chase after Jesus here.

And how do I know this?

Because they're saying, hey, if you're the Christ, would you just go ahead and tell us plainly?

The fact of it is, Jesus has already told them.

Jesus has already told them who he is.

He's told them not only that he's the Messiah, but he's also told them that he's God.

In the Gospel of John alone, it's going to pop up behind me so you can see.

In the Gospel of John alone, he's already told them, beginning in chapter 5, that he's the Son of God.

He's told them that God has sent him.

And he's come out and said in chapter 8 that he is God.

And because of this, because he has told them this, that in the gospel, here's another underlying fact of why we know this isn't an earnest question.

Three different times since chapter 5, they've already tried to kill Jesus.

So he's clearly told them who he is, and they clearly don't like it.

So this is them trying to create another scenario to pick up rocks.

And so Jesus answers.

He says, I told you and you don't believe.

There's a clarity here, not to belabor this, but there's a clarity to Jesus' response that we need to take a minute and give our attention to.

Because when you read it, it's very simple.

And you read it, I told you, and you do not believe.

And so, kind of with a cursory glance, there doesn't seem to be much more meat on this bone.

But let's read it, let's put 25 in context of verse 24.

Jesus says, I told you, and you do not believe.

Jesus knows what they're up to.

He sees their eyes darting down to the rocks that are laying in front of them.

He gets the game.

But look at Jesus' response.

He doesn't yell, he doesn't get defensive.

What does he do?

He tells them the truth.

He says, Look, I told you you don't believe.

I told you I'm the Son of God.

I told you that my Father God has sent me, and I've told you that I'm God and you don't believe me.

And what Jesus is saying is you need to understand what all you're not believing.

Because I didn't just land here on this point in John 10, 21.

Jesus is saying, I've been doing stuff all along.

I've been saying stuff all along, and so I need you to understand what you're not believing.

Jesus has declared himself the I am many times.

If you might have heard this before, they refer to the Gospel of John as the I am gospel.

Throughout the Bible, he says I am, and he's identifying himself literally as the name of God.

He says that he is God, and he makes these claims, these true claims, and just like this, he's confronted with hostility and he's confronted with rejection and anger, but yet he continues to make these claims because hear this, here's our point again for the morning, one of many times.

Believing that Jesus is God is central to the gospel.

It is the gospel.

The message that Jesus is God is the message of Christianity, it's the message of the New Testament, it is the gospel.

So when Jesus responds to their questions with, I've told you and you don't believe, I want us to see together, it's gonna come up on the screen.

This is from John MacArthur out on the West Coast, a pastor on the West Coast, rather, and I want us to read this and understand what is he saying?

This is what I've told you and you don't believe.

This is what has been said of me that you are saying and picking up these rocks in just a moment that you're not gonna believe.

John says in the first chapter, we beheld his glory.

And it was a glory as of one of the only begotten of the as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

He was the very essence of God.

The writers of the epistles pick this up.

The writer of Hebrews says, He is the exact representation of God, the express image of God.

The Apostle Paul says, all the fullness of deity dwell in him.

John says, if you deny his deity and his humanity, you're cursed.

That's serious, right?

This is Christianity.

He is introduced by Matthew as Emmanuel, God with us.

He's introduced by Mark as the son of God, he's introduced by Luke as the holy one who was born as a child.

This is the heart of the Christian gospel.

He's not a noble teacher only, he's not a religious leader only.

He's not a highly moral man, he's not someone with unusual wisdom alone, although all those things are true.

Hear this church, he is God.

And anything less than that is blasphemy against him, against him.

Now, if you're looking at your Bible in the midst of all this, as I've prattled on for 10 minutes on one point, you might be thinking, hold on there, Beardy McBeard face.

Jesus says that he told them they didn't believe, but he also says something in this something else in the second half of 25.

You cut 25 in half, and I did, and here's what it says in the second half of 25.

The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness to me.

This is a true statement.

It's a true statement as well.

But the reason I separated them, and here this is the second part of 25 does not cancel out the first half of 25.

I want to say this again because it's important.

Hang with me.

The second part of verse 25 do not, does not rather cancel out the first half of 25.

And here's what I mean by that statement.

There's a common, and in my opinion, this is me talking here, a very lazy set of beliefs that think that until this moment, that until John 10, 25, or 24, or all through this, the rest of the scripture, that this is the first time that Jesus actually says that he's a son of God.

There's a commonly held belief that this is the first time that he identifies himself as the Messiah as sent by God and all that.

And maybe you're in that camp and maybe you believe that, and hey, that's okay, you can sit there and be wrong and all of your wrongness, okay?

But if Jesus being God is central to the gospel, which it is, then why would Jesus hide it?

He doesn't.

The answer is he doesn't hide it.

He repeatedly spoke of his identity, and because his actions are just as vital in presenting the power of the gospel, that's so good, I gotta say it again.

Because his actions are just as vital in presenting the power of the gospel, Jesus reminds them everything he's been doing in his father's name points to him being God.

Now I manuscript my entire sermon, which is why I spent a lot of time tied to here, because once I start going off here, we have 107-minute sermons, and I'm not going to do that.

But there's something here that does that look like your life?

Jesus reminds him that everything he's doing points to God.

Does everything that we do point to God?

Does the way we conduct ourselves, the conversations, the way we parent our kids, the way we treat our neighbors, the way we act at work, the things that we like and champion through social networks.

Just a question.

Back to the manuscript.

I'll quit meddling.

Alright, so Jesus reminds him of everything he's been doing in his father's name.

So he said, it's not just the things I've been saying, it's the things I've been doing.

I was in Starbucks yesterday, thankfully for all of you cutting out about 30 minutes of this sermon.

And I got to this point again, and I was reminded, my grandfather came back from World War II, bought a ranch, became a cattle rancher, true cowboy, whole deal, marble a man, like you see in the magazines when we were kids.

And um, big hunter, trained hunting dogs, all these things.

And he came back from a hunting trip when I was a kid, and he told a story about being out hunting and seeing an orange monkey.

Now, the other thing about my grandfather is he knew how to make corn into liquid.

Yeah, huh?

And uh, easy.

And uh there's an amen up front.

Uh can we have escort him out, please?

Um and he enjoyed that liquid that he was able to make.

Are we all falling?

We're on the same page, right?

So everybody just chalked it up to uh he's crazy, right?

Kid you not, a little over a week later.

So what uh the other thing about Southeastern Oklahoma is it, for whatever reason, it is the common destination for circuses to winter.

Turns out an orangutan had escaped and made his way onto his property, right?

So watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat and forgot a way to tie that back to my sermon.

So my grandfather was like, What why would you question my integrity and my character and everything that everybody in this community knows what I am because of the craziness of this story?

Jesus is saying, I get this is crazy, but I am the son of God.

And the reason that I've been doing these things and saying these things and the hope and the deliverance I bring is because I am the son of God.

It's just like we read in this quote from John MacArthur, you don't get to separate the things that Jesus does from what he says.

Sometimes we like the things that Jesus does.

We don't always like the things that Jesus says, and you can't do it vice versa either.

You can't have Jesus be simply a moral teacher who, for the most part, set a good example for our moral compasses and then ignore some of the things he says that we don't like.

You don't get to do that.

Jesus is God by his words.

Jesus is God by his works too, because what does he say?

He says, The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness to me.

Jesus says, I'm central to the gospel, and all I do is to point to the fact that I am God.

Look back and let's finish this confrontation and move on.

Verse 26, but you don't believe me because you're not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one.

See, Neil spent sometime two weeks ago when Jesus started talking about the sheep, and he was explaining about the power of the sheep, no matter how many there are and how many belong to other shepherds, they hear the voice of their shepherd and they respond.

They act, right?

But he Here in verse 26, in contrast, Jesus is still explaining the nature of their unbelief, and he says that they don't believe because nothing rises in them to follow, because they're not among his sheep.

He says, My sheep know my voice, and they respond, but you're not my sheep, and so when you hear my voice, nothing in you rises up.

Now, if you've been paying attention as you read the book of John, we we've seen hints towards this all throughout the gospel, and that's this word predestination.

And this word has become something kind of a sketchy term with some people and want to avoid it.

And here's how real it is I started talking about in the last service, and I heard two people zip their Bibles up over in this section of the sanctuary, right?

But but but it but here's what it is, and here's why people tend to shy away from it, and I'm gonna explain to you why you don't need to.

What Jesus is saying here is this doctrine that God and his divine rule as king over all has elected sing uh is elected to rather single out certain persons as his chosen people.

You read in the Old Testament, and we saw this operating Israel, right?

The descendants of Abraham.

God said, These are my chosen people.

And then in the New Testament, Jesus talks about his sheep.

He says, Many people have uh, or rather, many people have problems with this doctrine because here's here's the reason that we struggle with it if you struggle with it.

Is is is is you allow it to make you think that God is his puppet master and he's pulling the strings and he's just asking us to dance to his music.

And if you view it that way, then you begin to view it as fatalism, which it's not, but you begin to view it as fatalism, and then you start to think, well, man, I hear that God's a God of second chances.

If he's just pulling the strings, then why is there a need for second chances?

But here's the truth.

You still with me?

On one side, you have the Bible teaching something that's called divine sovereignty.

And here's the idea that everything in the heavens and the earth belongs to God because he made it.

You with me?

And it's up to him how he disposes of his possessions.

He is well within his rights as the creator to do as he pleases with all his creations, including us.

The idea that our decisions and actions are indeed ours, they have consequences, both temporary and eternal, and that we're responsible for the consequences.

The Bible holds both of these ideas together.

That God is the creator and that God can do what he will, but that also that we have the ability to make decisions and actions and the responsibility of the consequences, either good or bad, temporary or permanent, fall on us.

Now, it doesn't work just because I want it to.

Maybe you think that fits your doctrine, or maybe that fits you.

It's not.

It's going to come from the screens behind me.

Look what the Apostle Paul says as he's writing to the church in Philippi.

Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 through 13.

Philippians 2:12–13

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence.

Listen to it, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

God is saying, I am in control and I have made you, but I am allowing you to work out your own salvation.

I've been teaching a class upstairs.

We've been talking about how God is the creator and he invites us to be co-creator with him.

Less than, but co-creator with him.

And then we get to work out, Paul says, our own faith with fear and trembling.

But in the midst of that truth, don't miss that sat right down in the middle of this, there are people we know that are just like the Jews that have come and confronted Jesus.

They they do not believe in Jesus as God.

And what is Jesus' response to them?

And what is he calling us to?

He's saying, be like Jesus to them.

Identify God as Messiah, identify him as the Son of God, and be the gospel in your words and your work.

Just as Paul said, both will and to work for his good pleasure.

So we've connected these dots.

Are you still with me?

So we're gonna round towards home here.

We have the response.

So he says, I and the Father are one, at which point his hearers pick up stones to stone him.

Which leads us, like I said, to our second scene of the response.

And you have to ask the question as you read that.

What is it about that?

If we agree that Jesus said all these things through the last several chapters, what is it about when he says, I and the Father are one, that triggers the step towards murder for the Jews in attendance?

They had asked him back in 24, they said, Hey, tell us plainly if you're the Christ.

Quit keeping us in suspense.

And he answers them plainly, and for whatever reason, this drives them to murder.

And what that reason is, is it validates their plan.

And here's what I mean by validates their plan.

This has been building in them since back in chapter 8 of John.

Remember two years ago when we were in chapter 8 of John and Neil was preaching?

It's been a long time, people, in the book of John.

Uh the authorities directly ask him, here's how I know it's been a long time in John is I haven't preached in like over a year, and I went back and looked and I was preaching in John.

So it's been a long time we've been in the book of John.

The authorities directly ask him who he is and who he claims to be.

When he answers, they label him as a demon-possessed Samaritan.

Then they seek to kill him as a blasphemer.

But because Jesus, he ain't like recess and he don't play, in chapter 9, he comes out and he heals a man who was blind since birth, and the authorities lose their ever-loving minds, right?

Remember?

They track this guy down, they start talking to him, they talk to his parents, they talk to his neighbors, and they're having all these questions.

And here's this beautiful thing that builds, I just want to point out to you, is the way that this man who was blind from birth, the way that he begins to answer about Jesus, just begins to elevate and elevate and elevate, and it brings us to chapter 10.

And here's what I mean.

They come to him and they say, Hey, who healed you?

And he said, Well, his name was Jesus.

This is in chapter 9, by the way.

If you've forgotten all about chapter 9, I know it was like nine months ago.

But he says, His name's Jesus.

And then a little bit later, he says, Well, he's a prophet.

And then they come and they go, Well, where is he?

And then he goes, What do you want to be a disciple of him like I'm a disciple of him?

To the Pharisees.

Beautiful, right?

So now he's gone from Jesus to being a prophet to being, oh man, I'm a disciple of him.

And then when he talks to Jesus, he calls Jesus Lord.

And you have this just tension building.

And so now, back in verse 30 of chapter 10, now he's saying, I'm the Messiah.

And their collective minds explode and they pick up stones to stone him.

And then Jesus proceeds with, to me, is second only to when Jesus fashions his own whip as he's talking to people in the middle of a conversation.

And then he picks up the whip and he starts clearing the money changers out of the temple, right?

That's number one response for Jesus for me.

This is second.

Jesus responds in verse 22 as they pick up stones.

He goes, Whoa, okay.

I've shown you many good works from the Father.

If you're going to stone me, which one of them are you going to stone me for?

That is amazing.

Don't miss that.

Jesus is hilarious.

All right.

Not only is that an amazing response, right?

But don't miss that this is the first time when they've decided to stone Jesus that he doesn't leave.

Back in chapter 7, they're going to stone him and he moves.

He leaves.

Same thing in chapter 8.

But here they're going to stone him, and what does he do?

He stops them.

He stops him and he says, Now wait a minute, I've shown you many great miracles.

Which of these do you want to stone me?

And they answered him, It's not for good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.

And Jesus answered them, It's not written in your law.

I said you were gods?

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, do you say, of whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blasphemy because I said I'm a son of God?

If I'm not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.

But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, at least believe the works.

I threw the at least in there.

That you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.

I get that that is a big hunk up there, and that as a lot to consume.

And the teacher in me, so I've been the last couple years, the man here at Grand Parkway's got his foot on my neck, and I'm up teaching these 12-week classes, like the minor prophets, which there's 12 of them.

Hey, teach that in 12 weeks.

Don Minton sells that to me, right?

And then he retires and moves up to Alabama to be the number one Auburn fan.

He leaves me holding the bag.

Teach the prophets, right?

And because I know he listens to the podcast, I'm just gonna say, hey, Minton, gig a mags.

But anyway.

So I I've been I've been teaching a lot.

So the teacher in me wants to kind of pick this apart and spend a lot of time, and we're not gonna do that because we're almost done.

Amen.

Amen.

So I want to suggest there's three things that are gonna pop up on the screen here because I want you to see what Jesus is doing.

And and what will kind of hit the what's probably confusing to some of us.

The first thing is by not denying to be God, Jesus is telling the Jews that he is God.

Here's what I mean by that.

They tell him that it's not the works that he's doing that has them upside down.

Because here's the deal: the Jews, like many of us, we like the fish and loaves, right?

We like the food that Jesus offers.

We love when he delivers.

We like the Jesus who meets the needs the way we want him to.

But now he's telling them that he is the beginning and the end, that he is the Lord of their lives.

Now it's time to pick up the stones, right?

The second thing is Jesus meets an angry rock-holding crowd with the intent of stoning him right where they are.

Here's what I mean by this.

They want to stone Jesus.

And look at me.

This is what they're supposed to do.

The Old Testament law says if he's claiming to be God and he's not God, and in their mind he's not, then you can kill him.

But look what Jesus does.

He does this amazing thing.

He says in verse 34, Is it not written in your law, I said that you were gods?

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, do you say to them, Your father consecrated and sent to the world, you are blaspheming because I said I'm the Son of God?

What Jesus is doing says, Look, I see you picked up rocks, but can you be objective for just a minute?

Can you think with me for just a minute?

Can you set aside your fury and your emotion and your hate and stop and consider the Old Testament that you're holding so tightly to?

Why are you so inflamed that I'm calling myself God?

When in your own scripture, men are called gods.

This is what he's saying.

And here's one of the greatest things about this.

Jesus shows his aptitude and his understanding of everything of God by not referencing something from the law, not referencing something from the prophet, pulling a super obscure passage from the middle of Psalm 82.

That's where this comes from.

Where God had given authority over to the judges, and they served as little g gods because they were making judgment over the affairs.

And so he's saying, I know what you're clinging to, but let me tell you I am the true God, right?

And here's the greatest thing.

Here is why Jesus doesn't run.

Here's why Jesus doesn't go, you know what?

Just joking, I'm not God, I don't want to get stoned.

Here's why.

Because Jesus loves second chances.

His entire ministry had been about second chances.

The woman at the well, who was so ashamed because of her sin, a second chance for blind beggars who had given up all hope on life, a second chance for Nathaniel, who had become so cynical about life.

Even those who reject him, he gives a second chance to those who shake their fist in his face.

Indeed, he has kept coming back to Jerusalem and giving a second, third, fourth, and fifth chance.

Don't miss this, and I'm done.

He's coming into Jerusalem.

He's giving a second or a fifth chance to these folks, knowing well that the next time he circles back around and comes to Jerusalem, these same people are the ones that are going to kill him.

But yet he gives them a second chance.

And so for those of you who are here that are not disciples of Christ, you can't help but be confronted today with a claim that Jesus is Lord over your life.

And so you're faced with a question, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do with that truth?

If you've rejected him in the past, what he's saying is, I'm giving you a second chance today.

What do you want to do with it?

And for those of us who are disciples, we need second chances as well.

Why do we need second chances?

Well, how many good intention resolutions have you dropped?

How many kindnesses have you left undone?

How many injuries have we failed to apologize for?

How many times have we ignored God's clear teaching for our own convenience and our own comfort?

We need second chances as Christians.

So the question to you is, how will you respond?

Will you pick up a stone and say, I don't I don't need him?

Or will we go with him to our quiet place and pour out our heart and wallow in grace?

Because unfortunately, if you read the story all the way through, these hearers of what Jesus is saying, they don't believe and they pick up stones.

But it says Jesus retreats and they go, and here's the last thing I want you to hear.

And Clyde's gonna come now and he's gonna play and we're gonna have um our invitation.

But if you read that, don't miss.

It says that they go and they go to where John was doing ministry.

No, that was three years ago.

It was three years ago that John was doing ministry there.

They go to where Jesus was and they say, Well, John didn't do a sign, but everything he said about Jesus is true.

They heard, they heard from John three years ago because he proclaimed that Jesus was God.

He proclaimed the gospel, and it says, Because of that, they believed.

Fruit, three years later.

Fruit that John thought, what a waste of time.

I spent my time out in the wilderness covered in camel skin and eating locusts, right?

So I could preach this gospel.

And none of them are believing it.

And then three years later, they believe and they follow Jesus.

There is fruit in our obedience.

Let's pray.

Father, the sermon is simple.

You being God is the gospel.

What do we do with that truth?

So if you're sitting here and you're like, oh man, this is I've heard this kind of sermon before, it's gonna be heavy-handed, they're gonna play come as you are like 12 times until I come up front.

We're not gonna do that.

That's not what we do.

Here's what the invitation looks like: just ask the question what do I do with this truth?

And after Clyde's finished playing and we close, as Neil said earlier, there'll be pastors and elders.

We'd love to answer any questions you have.

We'd love to pray with you as you seek to find that answer.

But for now, let's just sit, pray, and ask.

Father, you told those who were um questioning you.

You said, I told you, and you don't believe.

Father, I pray for belief.

Pray for belief for the first time.

I pray for for those that have that have wandered far, that they rediscover that belief.

God, we know that you are the mountain mover and the creator of all things.

And that instills a confidence in the way that we pray.

And so we pray expectantly.

We pray things in your name.

Amen.

I appreciate your attention today.

Before we close for uh for the morning, um, there's some things going on in the life of the church.

And so if you do me a favor and uh direct your attention to the screens behind me, I'll tell you what's going on.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

ESL will be holding our monthly international coffee hour.

We would love for you to join us in the warehouse on Monday at 6 p.m.

for a beautiful collision of culture, language, and stories.

Today is a community group Sunday, where we will meet in our homes to unpack today's sermon.

If you're interested in joining a group, check out a listing on our website at grandparkway.org.

Our new devotionals are available.

These are a simple tool you can use to spend some time in the Word each day.

If there's anything you've heard today and you have questions, or you would like someone to pray with you, some of our pastors and elders will be down by the stage at the conclusion of our service.

Hey, do me a favor and stand to your feet.

And if you would, put your hands out like this.

And I want I want to read a piece of scripture to you this morning as our as our blessing as we close.

This is from Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 and 30.

Matthew 11:28

It says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.