(BONUS EPISODE) December 1, 2024 - Sunday School with Peter D. Jones IV

that the natural man cannot please God.

You cannot make any choices in and of your natural self that in any way please God.

So God has to change that nature so that you can will and do according to his will.

That you now have a free will for the first time as believers.

You really do now have a free will for the first time.

So we've looked at that but this inevitably comes up.

Well what about all of the invitations in Scripture?

And I don't want you to over correct.

You know there's a lot of notes here on the sovereignty of God just in general but particularly salvation.

And so that's what this last section on your notes in page 8 is.

Diana you got notes this morning? Good to see you guys.

Good to see you anyway.

He's not listening. Orpheus is ignoring me.

Seek the Lord while he may be found. Okay that's the topic of page 8.

So did you choose God or did he choose you?

In essence Scripture says we have no ability to choose God naturally.

So God must undertake to rescue some from condemnation.

He does this by electing us from eternity past and orchestrating the circumstances of history which he controls as creator and sustainer.

Remember those two ideas are separately linked.

You can't just think of God as creator who like a deist believed that God sort of just set everything up,

wound it up like a giant clock and sort of walked off to do some other things while the mechanism sort of runs itself.

That's not at all the picture that Scripture gives us of God.

He is a sustainer as well. If he were to walk away for one millisecond from the universe what would happen?

It would cease to exist.

And that's what he's going to do when he uncreates it to make way for the new heaven and new earth.

But anyway, okay so he does this by electing us from eternity past and orchestrating certain circumstances of history

which he controls as creator and sustainer to bring his son into the world to make possible our redemption.

Supplying his word and his Holy Spirit calling us to himself at the right time, giving us life to be able to hear and respond.

And then supplying his resources, the word, the Holy Spirit, the church, etc.

to enable us to walk in this life in a way that pleases him.

Eventually resulting in our being glorified with new bodies to live with him in the ages to come.

I'm trying to rival the apostle Paul for the longest sentence there.

I think Paul holds the record.

Anyway, I'm just trying to condense it down.

And then he rewards you for the works that he prepared in advance for you to walk in.

Come on, come on God, you know, okay, alright.

No, no, no, let me give you some more.

You get in the sense of the generous heart of God?

That's what he's doing. He's showing his love and he's showing us off.

But do we have a say in this?

Many passages of Scripture also give an invitation to anyone who wants to come to God to receive this gift of eternal life

and we don't want to ignore those. They're there, for sure.

And I didn't spell them all out here, but I'm giving you some quotes.

But let's look at one of my very favorites, okay, and your Bible is there.

If you want to turn to Isaiah 55, okay, this comes out of the Old Testament.

Some people struggle with whether the God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the New Testament

because there's such a contrast there.

When, in fact, what they're confusing is not the nature of God but his role

and his unfolding progressive revelation, okay.

He has a purpose in revealing himself the way he has.

But here is an Old Testament invitation, okay, Isaiah 55.

This whole chapter is just amazing, okay.

We're going to read verses 1-7.

In fact, somebody might want to read that.

You all are too quiet here. Did you get just started at this point?

Talk.

Anyone?

Oh, everyone who thirsts come to the waters

and you who have no money come by and eat.

Come by wine and milk without money and without cost.

Why do you spend money for what is not bread

and your wages for what is not satisfied?

Listen carefully to me and eat what is good

and delight yourself in abundance.

Incline your ear and come to me.

Listen that you may live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you.

According to the faithful, mercy is shown today.

Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples.

Behold, you will call a nation you do not know.

A nation which knows you will run to you.

Because of the Lord your God, even the Holy One of Israel,

will be glorified to you.

Seek the Lord while he may be found,

call upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts

and let him return to the Lord,

and he will have compassion on him and to our God,

for he will abundantly pardon.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

nor are your ways my ways, the clergyman will reward you.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways,

for my thoughts are not your thoughts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven

and do not return there without water and earth,

and make it bear and sprout,

and furnishing seed with the sower and bread to the eater.

So will my word be which goes forth from my mouth,

but will not return to me empty,

without accomplishing what I desire

and without succeeding in the matter for which I serve.

Okay.

Pretty awesome.

Good passage there.

Particularly verses 6 and 7, right?

And also verse 1,

come anyone who thirsts, come to the water.

Reminds me of what Jesus says in John 7, right?

The very last day of the Feast of Tabernacles,

when they have that final...

They have a water ceremony every day,

but the final day is the big water festival,

you know, water ceremony coming up into the temple there

in the morning as the sun is rising and pouring water out

and all of that.

And he stands up there in that jam-packed temple court

and shouts out, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me.

Very similar invitation there from our Lord.

And then verses 6 and 7,

seek the Lord why he may be found.

Call upon him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake his way,

and righteous man his thoughts.

Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him

and to our God for he will have by the thing of the heart.

One of the things that Purse says that's very sobering is that

it's very possible there could be times when the Lord can't be found.

And there are times when he's not near.

He needs to take advantage of the times that he calls.

You really have to call again.

That's right.

He may not.

So, and there's a lot more there in,

even at the very tail end of Revelation, right?

Revelation 22.17, that's the last one in your list of references there.

Which by the way, at the end of Revelation talks about that too.

When I come to the water and living waters and drink,

anyone who is thirsty.

By the way though, what's interesting in these invitations,

we're studying in the Gospel of Mark also,

we just started that in our men's group at the Ramble.

And Jesus talks about, let's hope that's what I'm going to say here.

Oh yes, he's being criticized by the Pharisees and the scribes

for healing on the Sabbath, right?

And he says it's not the sick or the well who need a physician.

I came to call sinners and not the righteous.

And we got to talk about that a little bit.

The point Jesus is trying to make is not that these scribes and Pharisees

don't need salvation, right?

What he's putting his finger on there is that they don't recognize

their need for salvation, right?

That's the thing.

And that's the same thing here in Isaiah 55, 6, and 7.

Let the wicked forsake his way.

And the unrighteous man, his thoughts,

for he will abundantly part.

What is that?

That says to me that you have a person here who has stopped

looking at everybody else and comparing themselves with everybody else

that the crowd of the Pharisees were doing,

and like we all have a capacity to do, and excusing their sin,

because this person did that to me or this happened and I couldn't,

you know, it made me mad or whatever, right?

And they simply, just like the publican in that parable that Jesus gave

with the Pharisee and the publican, the Pharisee prayed to himself

and I thank you, I'm not like others, and why was he doing it?

He was comparing himself to others, right?

But the tax collector says, God have mercy on me, I said.

And that's the response.

It's the only response.

And the invitations have that tone in them again and again,

that we have offended a righteous and holy God,

we have offended his justice and we can't blame anybody else,

and you have no recourse other than to throw yourself on the mercy of God.

Period.

Right?

And, but all these invitations, that's why I like this one particularly,

it's so beautiful here in Isaiah,

people abundantly part, right?

God responds to that.

And as parents, you want that with your kids too, right?

When they do something that's wrong,

you don't want all the excuses and the rationalization and the blah, blah, blah,

and the lies, right?

You just want them to say, when they're confronted,

son, did you do this?

Sweetheart, did you do this?

Why?

You know?

Will you forgive me?

I was wrong, right?

I mean, that's what you want instead of all of the will,

but you know,

where the, no, I didn't do that, and you can,

I didn't eat the cookies, and they got cookies, you know,

whatever it is, you know,

and sometimes as a parent, you have to really keep from laughing

when you're supposed to be serious in that moment, you know, you ever had that,

and especially with Sabrina with her big chocolate brown eyes

and her little sprouts looking up at me,

just, you know, getting a little watery,

because you know, and you can see the wheels turning, you know,

do I tell the truth or do I tell another one of my famous lies?

You just want your children to own up to it.

Yeah, I did what was wrong.

I had no excuse.

Will you forgive me?

That's really what the Lord is after,

and those invitations, time if you go reading,

in some form or fashion, allude to that.

Okay, so there's lots of examples of Scripture,

and there's some there.

These are given without qualification,

other than the point to a desire they have for what God is offering.

That's the whole point of thirsting, right,

and being hungry too, from John 6, we're talking about the bread of heaven.

You, only the living are thirsty and hungry, right,

did bodies don't hunger and thirst, right,

but a living person who is the life of God in them will be thirsty.

These are given without qualification,

except a point to a desire that they have for what God is offering.

Scripture lays these two truths out side by side

and does not offer any explanation of how what appears to us to be impossible is in fact possible.

We must then accept that they are both reconciled in the mind of God,

which is far greater than ours,

and that he is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think.

Perhaps the best answer to what Jesus is,

what Jesus says to his disciples when they realize the impossibility of the situation,

and this is from Matthew 19, 25, 26.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished,

saying, who then can be saved?

Right?

But Jesus looked at them and said, with man this is impossible,

but with what? God. All things are possible.

Do you think God is able to take the sin nature and the willful stubbornness of men and women

and turn that around when he wants to transform that?

We'll get a message in this one.

Oh yeah. And not just New Testament, right?

But he's not just cross, pre-cross.

He's not only able to do it, but he does it, and thank God that he does it.

And they recognize it like nothing does they did.

Yes.

As this unlikely band of disciples hears these words in the upper room

and on the way to Gethsemane,

they unknowingly are illustrations of how God uses the most unlikely people

in the face of overwhelming odds, the world of flesh and the devil,

to show forth His ability to do what nobody else can do.

Our salvation is the greatest display of God's power known to men or angels.

Think about that.

As amazing as it is for God to create and sustain the universe,

think about the amount of energy just to create and sustain our Son

and its energy output, let alone the countless stars of the universe.

All of that compares in the insignificance to the risen work of salvation.

That's truly amazing.

Alright, how we do it on time?

The Bible uses terms describing us as if we are a creation.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. New creation.

We've created a specific works that He's already prepared.

Romans 9 calls it, Paul calls it, Messles of Mercy.

Alright, well, let's actually have a little bit of time there.

Any thoughts before we get into our actual text here?

What was the text again?

Send your notes. Top of your notes.

John 15, right?

We're in John 15.

We finished the Vine and the branches,

and we are in chapter 15, beginning in verse 12 through 17.

I always put the text at the top of your notes as a subtitle.

So if you ever have that question, it's right there.

Alright, so let's get into our outline.

We'll start the text here.

In fact, let's go ahead and read that. Let's have somebody read that text for us here.

Chapter 15, verses 12 through 17.

This is my commandment that you love one another just as I love you.

For your love has no limits that one might down his life from his plans.

And you are my friends, if the future I can move you.

So no longer do I call to the slaves,

for the slave does not know why his master is doing it.

But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from your father,

and may know to you.

You did not choose me, but I chose you for the point of being

that you love the real and their free,

and that you frequently abide,

so that whatever you ask for the father of my name,

he may give to you.

This is my command that you love one another.

Thank you.

Alright, let me remind you a little bit just real quick of the context here.

First of all, where are they when Jesus is saying this?

The upper room.

They are not in the upper room.

This is part of what's called the upper room discourse,

but here in this part, they're not actually in the upper room.

How do we know that?

Well, read the very end of chapter 14.

Right?

Very last statement.

Rise, let us go from here.

Jesus was already on the way, back, probably, at that point,

with the parade of soldiers,

but at least they were soon to be coming to that room

because Judas had left there, right?

And knew that that's where Jesus and the disciples were,

and I guarantee you that's the first place that he went

with the soldiers to arrest Jesus.

Okay, that's there.

So Jesus tells the men to get up,

and of course, you've got a group of people here,

fairly sizable groups,

and now everybody gets up right away and gets through things,

and it takes a few minutes, and they get out the door.

But as Jesus is walking with his disciples

through the dark streets of Jerusalem,

probably with some torches,

or something to see where they're going,

crossing the Kidron,

and going up to the Garden of Gethsemane,

somewhere along that route,

that's when these words are happening.

Okay?

And so he's talking about the vine and the branches,

and a lot of commentators think that some make it sound like

he sort of just happened to have left Jerusalem,

and they're now in the Garden area,

and they see some vines there,

and Jesus says,

oh, hey, here's a good random illustration, right?

Well, we saw that's not the case.

We saw that that's an Old Testament metaphor

that has a lot of rich history there.

But they are probably, at this point,

walking through a garden,

and so it would be apropos that you would talk about

the vine and the branches.

But he is, we don't know exactly where,

but he is either in the garden

or on the way to the garden.

But he is, what he's doing here in our text

is he's closing out this section of the Upper Room discourse

where he is encouraging them.

Okay?

It's important you understand that,

because the next set of notes

are going to have a very different turn.

A tenor, starting verse 18.

Look at how verse 18 starts.

If the world, what?

Hates you.

Hates you.

Actually, it should be very translated,

since the world hates you,

or the world is going to hate you.

It's not a, well, maybe the world will hate you or won't.

Now, what he's saying is,

they're going to hate you.

They hated me, they're going to hate you.

Okay?

So it takes a darker turn

about halfway through chapter 15.

Okay?

But what he's doing here is, he is,

in this text that we just read,

do you hear some echoes of things

you've heard already in this Upper Room?

What have you heard already?

What he's already told them?

He's going to hand it over to Pilate.

He didn't say he's going to hand it over to Pilate.

He's going to die.

Yes, okay.

Well, actually he doesn't say it himself.

He just makes a blanket statement.

Great love is known in this that

he's like that for friends.

Okay?

But yes, clearly he is pointing to himself there, no doubt.

But what has, have we heard again

at really the beginning of this section,

way back in chapter 13,

it's repeated twice here actually in our text.

What's that?

He's leaving.

Okay, he's leaving?

Yeah.

What is he, what is he repeating here?

There you go.

Turn back to chapter 13

and look again, somebody read verses 34 and 35.

This is way back to the beginning.

He's washing their feet now, right?

And he's, he's dismissed Judas Iscariot

and he says verse 33 is one of those punches

that he gives them, right?

Little children, get a little while.

I'll be with you.

You will seek me, as I just, as I told the Jews.

So now I say to you where I'm going, you cannot come.

Right?

And then he gives them verses 34 and 35.

Somebody will read that?

New commandment I give to you, that you love one another,

even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this, all men will know that you are my disciples,

if you have loved for one another.

Very next verse, Peter gives indication that he didn't hear that at all,

because he's still thinking about verse 33, right?

And remember, not just Peter, but Philip and Thomas and,

was it Thaddeus, right?

They all, they all, Judas, sorry, the other Judas,

well who is Thaddeus?

They all are worried about really what he has said

and so he's taken a lot of words,

remember particularly chapter 14,

which starts and ends with, let not your hearts be troubled, right?

So he has been giving them a lot of words of comfort here

and those words are about to come to an end.

But as he is drawing those words of comfort to an end in our text,

don't miss this all important point that he's trying to get through to them

and to us, love one another as I have loved you, right?

That's what he's trying to, he says it twice in our text.

This is my commandment, that, let's say, new commandment here,

this is my commandment that you love one another.

And then look at verse 17, these things I command you

so that you will love one another, right?

Let's close with this thought and then we'll start this next time.

We'll get into our text in more detail.

Why is it so important that through the fog of the circumstances,

remember they've been all over the emotional scale, right?

They came into that upper room on a high.

You know, Jesus had just been a few days earlier welcomed

in a triumphal procession into Jerusalem

and the people were happy and the children were dancing and everything

even in the temple as he went day by day

and was teaching the temple and healing

and putting the Sadducees and the Pharisees and the Lawyers

and all of these different factions of Jewish seats of power.

He's putting every one of them in their place.

This is when you put all the Gospels together, okay?

And he talks about just all this stuff

and there's so many people that are so ecstatic and excited

and his disciples are on cloud nine and they come to this upper room

to celebrate this Passover because probably just on the other side

of this Passover he's going to take his throne of his father David

and we're going to sit and remember they are arguing about who's the greatest,

all of that.

He hits them with all these punches and I'm going, you cannot come.

I'm going to be betrayed.

You know, Peter's going to deny me all the blah, blah, blah.

And they're just like, their head is swirling, you know,

and they're leaving the upper room and they're going in the darkness of the night

to this garden.

What in the world is going on?

I don't understand.

There's point in these, trying to get through them again and again and again.

You guys got to love each other just like I loved you.

Why is that so important?

Because of what's coming.

Because they got to stick together.

Just like the church.

We've got to love one another in the church because of what's coming.

Because that spiritual warfare that is out there.

That's why it's so important to have a love for fellowship.

Not just be part of the bigger church, but to be part of the community.

It's a century.

It's a century for our growth and to sustain us.

And I'm still a firm believer when we get toward the last days

we're going to be very dependent on that.

I'm already dependent on all of this for growth and things like that.

But even for physical life, we're going to have to share it.

Love for church is extremely important.

We've lost plenty.

Just like it was here.

These guys are going to have to stick together.

If they didn't, the Bible would be even greater.

They would have nobody to depend upon.

That's my fault.

The Bible, they're needing to stick together.

That's right.

That was well said.

Anybody else?

The same kind of thing happened shortly after Pentecost.

The newly established church had to stick together to survive, really.

From a human perspective.

There's a real sense in which when the church was born there in Jerusalem

and in the following years, that they almost had to create an underground economy

just to be able to support each other.

You can see that behind the choosing of the deacons and those kinds of things.

Because you're exactly right, they had to.

That was a church in its purest form.

When people were selling and giving, so were other people.

They were carrying it to one another, one to five.

That seemed like it.

That was a purest form and for their own kind of blending.

But I can see it coming back.

I fully agree in core everything you said.

I hope that that's something that we have a small church here

and I hope we never lose that.

Because that's really the heart and soul of what a church is supposed to be.

It's not supposed to be a big Sunday, rah-rah session.

When you go about your rest of your life, the rest of the week,

we live in a culture where our needs are supplied.

We don't really have needs.

We have a lot of what we want.

There's nothing wrong with that.

I'm not criticizing that.

I'm going to thank God.

We just got through the Thanksgiving.

We thank God for the refrigerator full of all kinds of food

and the closet full of more clothes than you could possibly use all the time.

A house over your head made with several homes.

Cars to drive, all that.

And so unfortunately, church's experiences have kind of become more of this,

almost like a movie theater.

You know, you go, you may see some people that you know regularly.

But through the week, is there any support?

You know, you're great for each other.

But you're right.

Our need is no less great than their need.

They're about to lose the Lord, right?

They're going to see him crucified and die.

And they're going to need to lean on one another.

And they're going to have to step in, as it were,

with the same kind of love that Jesus has shown to them.

They're going to have to show now to one another.

And that is exactly right.

That is exactly what church is really all about, right there.

That's exactly right.

Debbie?

You're right. Monetary things don't really mean as much as encouragement.

You know, when I was at the eye doctor that morning, I was like,

Man, what a bummer.

This is like, I got to tell my family.

And that's why I told the church family.

And you guys all encouraged me.

So I mean, that's worth so much more than monetary.

To me, just, you know, just the encouragement to know that, you know,

we've got this multi-text going.

And at any time, any of us have a really hard time with something,

we just say something, and everyone's there behind them.

And that's really amazing.

We do have a small church.

I don't know if you find that in a large church.

I don't know.

We've been really hard on a huge church.

But we do have a large church.

And I really appreciate that.

Yeah, it's harder for larger churches.

They can't be done.

They think what they do is they break up into smaller,

little rubles.

They go blocks.

Like that. But God, what's He doing when He put me in the church

and He put us together?

We need each other.

We need to love each other.

Christ loves us.

And you know, really, too, Jesus is pouring out His heart to His disciples.

His family, so to speak.

In a way, He's telling them what's coming.

You know, it's not going to be easy on Him or them.

I mean, it's a two-way sharing.

You know, oftentimes we overlook that.

We take away Jesus' humanity, so to speak.

We just think of Him as God, not suffering, but He did.

And His humanity, and I think He related to people in His humanity as well.

That's right.

Well, let's close the prayer.

Father, thank You for Your body.

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your example of this kind of love that we are to show to one another.

Father, thank You for this eternal love.

I just finished the Thanksgiving season under my favorite lines and the solace there.

For Thy love, for Thy self-best gift divine, to our race so free to give.

For Thy great, great love of Thine, peace on earth and joy in heaven.

We just stand in awe of this amazing love, and then we can't grow deaf to this command, though,

to love one another with that kind of love.

So help us to be a body with all of our imperfections and our flaws and bumping and grabbing each one another

as we travel this road of life together.

Help us to really sincerely, as Peter says, to see your heart, to really love one another,

to care for each other, and when the need arises, the need for prayer,

the need to come over and help out with something or whatever the needs are to be there for each other.

Because this is a hard world to live in, and life can be really tough sometimes.

And so we thank You that You not only love us, but You've given us to one another to love each other in Your name.

And we thank You that we are members of Your family.

We are, and we are also members of one another as a result.

So again, thank You for this truth.

So drive them into our hearts today in Jesus' name.