John 10 (Part 2) :22-42

John Chapter 10, John 10. As we continue our study through the Gospel of John, we're in, this is kind of part two of chapter 10. We're picking it up in verse 22. So, John 10:22, follow along with me as I read,

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we get into Your Word this morning, we pray for your Holy Spirit to bring the enlightenment that you so graciously and so faithfully do for us. We ask you to speak to our hearts and help us to gain a heart of understanding, to know you, to know Your Word, to lay hold of it. And then Lord God, give us the courage and strength to abide in it. We thank You for this word. Feed us now we pray. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. You might notice in verse 22, this section begins by saying that 22“it was the time of the feast of the dedication that was taking place in Jerusalem.” For those of you who've done some Old Testament studies of the feasts you might look at this and kind of go, “oh, that's interesting I don't remember a feast called the Feast of Dedication.” And you would be correct, because this is not a feast that was given to Israel through the Mosaic law. This is a feast that actually was fairly recent at the time of Jesus. This came much later, in fact, the purpose of this feast and what it centered around actually took place in that period of time we call the “intertestamental period,” and that means the time between the end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New. There was about 400 years between the end of the writing of the Old Testament and the coming of Christ. And in that time, there was some pretty dark events that took place in the nation of Israel. There was a particular king that rose up, and this is after the Grecian Kingdom split under Alexander the Great who died fairly young, his kingdom split into four kingdoms and there was a Syrian king that rose up during those years. His name was Antiochus Epiphanies, and I don't have time to go through all of it, but just suffice it to say he hated the Jews and he hated everything they stood for, and he made life miserable for them. He killed many many many Jews. He stopped the sacrificial system in the temple. He violated and defiled the temple. In fact, the actions of Antiochus Epiphanies were a foreshadowing of what the Antichrist would eventually and will eventually come to do during the Great Tribulation. But it was a terrible time for Israel and eventually a revolt rose up to put down this terrible oppression that King Antiochus Epiphanies had started. And that revolt, we call the Maccabean Revolt. It was started and led by a man named Judas Maccabeus. And he essentially liberated Jerusalem and the temple, and so they cleansed Jerusalem, they cleansed the temple from everything that Antiochus Epiphanies had done to violate it and in celebration of that cleansing, they started a commemorative feast, which today we call Hanukkah. And

Hanukkah takes place during the winter months. In fact, most of you probably know it take usually happens during the time when we're celebrating the birth of Christ. In fact, there's kind of a funny story when one of my sisters was in like junior high she went to the store to pick out some Christmas cards, and she bought a bunch of cards that said, happy Hanukkah, not having any idea what it meant, and she was sending out these cards called Happy Hanukah. I think people were wondering if we converted to Judaism or something like that. But anyway, she was, and we had to tell her, honey that's a Jewish thing. It's like, oh, I didn't know that. Anyway, it was kind of funny. Well, that's what this whole thing is all about. So, the Feast of Dedication is this celebration of the cleansing, essentially of the temple and the restoration of Jerusalem, and Jesus was a part of it even though this feast was not part of what was given during the Mosaic law. This was something that Jesus came and celebrated along with his fellow Jews and were told in verse 24 “that the Jews gathered around Him,” you'll notice there in that verse, and they said, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? And they said, if you're the Messiah, tell us. I really, I don't like it when, I know that the New Testament was written in Greek, but the Jews wouldn't have said to Jesus, tell us if you're the Christ, because they didn't speak Greek they spoke Hebrew or Aramaic and in Hebrew they would've said, Messiah or Mashiachhe is the way that's actually pronounced. They would've said are you If you're the Messiah, tell us now, and so forth. And that question may sound legitimate. Hey, if you're the Messiah, tell us, just tell us plainly. And Jesus you'll notice He comes back, and He says I did tell you. I've been telling you, I've been actually telling you for a long time, and the fact of the matter is you don't believe it. You don't believe. In other words, you will not believe. What's kind of, what's interesting going on here, what the Jews are doing. Of course, we know that the Jewish, when we say the Jews, were talking about the Jewish religious leaders because there were a lot of other Jews that were following Jesus and believed in Him. But what they're doing when they say, so tell us plainly, if you're the Messiah, just tell us. I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but they're kind of like blaming Jesus for their unbelief. And I don't know if you've ever run into that with somebody. I have. They're filled with unbelief, but they don't want to admit that they're filled with unbelief. They don't want to admit that they just simply refuse to believe and so what they do is they end up blaming other things or other people on their unbelief, or because of their unbelief. And they're saying, well, it's your fault, or it's this, or it's that, or it is my parents or my upbringing or this or my church history or you name it. You name it. I've got all kinds of things that I can pull out and I can point to that and say, see, that's why I don't believe, and essentially what the Jews are doing, they're saying, you haven't just come out and just told us plainly, I am the Messiah. Of course, Jesus had been doing that through everything He did. They had the Scriptures. The Scriptures prophetically told what the Messiah would come and do. And Jesus was doing all those things and He had said He had made claims along the way that only the Messiah could make. And yet they, they were like, no, it's not good enough. Have you ever had somebody do that to you when you're talking to him about Jesus? And you're telling them this, and you're showing them that and whatever, that's not good enough. But see, what they're doing is they're putting the blame back on you for their unbelief. And so that's why Jesus comes back and He says, you simply just don't believe. You just don't want to believe. He said, he goes on there, He says, the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness about me. He says, but you don't believe because you're not among my sheep. Now be careful about that. Be careful about that phrase where Jesus says, here's why you don't believe. It's because you're not part of my sheep. He is not telling them that because they're not His sheep they can't believe, He's telling them that they're unwillingness to believe the evidence that they have seen and heard effectively renders them outside the flock of God. It's their unbelief that is at the root. Listen, we become sheep or part of the flock, if you will, of God when we put our faith in Jesus, in His work and so forth. But they refused to do that, and as a result, they were not among His sheep. So He goes on in verse 27, He says, “my sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me.” We talked about this last week, how Jesus goes ahead and leads the sheep. He says, I, and look at this, “I give them eternal life.” Isn't that interesting? Jesus doesn't just say, my Father gives them eternal life. He says, I give them eternal life. Do you hear what Jesus is saying? I have the ability to bestow eternal life. I have that ability. Do you know anyone who has the ability to bestow eternal life, except God? I know not one. And so, Jesus is making a very clear declaration of deity here. I give them eternal life. And He says, 28“and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29The 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 then Jesus makes this powerful statement that, of course causes the Jews to pick up stones. And he says in verse 30, “I and the Father are one.” Now you need to hear what He's saying here. And you need to understand it. He says, I and the Father are one. And those words are one, are incredibly important to understand. Do you know in the Greek, in fact same with the Hebrew, but words are often, they have either gender or neutrality or we, call them neuter if they don't carry gender. So, some words have a masculine gender, some have a feminine gender and when you're talking about things that involve persons, right, or personalities specifically, the Greek usually connects those gender tenses to the words, but some words are neuter. And that simply means that they don't have any gender connection to them. The word one here in the Greek, 30“I and the Father are one.” This might surprise you. It is neuter. Now that's an important thing because if it were masculine, if Jesus were using the masculine term for one, He would've been essentially saying, I and the Father are one person because masculinity or the masculine tense speaks of personhood, but he uses a neuter reference. 30“I and the Father are one”, essentially not speaking of personhood. In other words, He's not saying we are the same person. He's saying something else about His oneness with the Father, and He's saying, we are, according to the quality of our essence, we are equal in terms of our essence we are equal, and that is why that word is given in the neuter tense there. Jesus and the Father are not the same person. Do you understand that there are teachings that are very popular among many who believe themselves to be Christians. And those teachings we have different names for them. They're called “Oneness” or “Jesus only”, or “Modalism.” But these, and maybe some of you may have come from some of this in your background, but there is a teaching that says that there is one God, His name is Jesus. And He, at times, manifests Himself as the Father. At times, at other times, He manifests Himself as the Son, and at other times He manifests Himself as the Spirit. But there is one God, one person, and again, that's called oneness, or we call it “Oneness theology,” “Sabellianism,” there's different terms for this thing, they're often named after somebody who kind of championed the belief. But that is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible does not teach that God is one person the Bible teaches there is one God who has revealed Himself in three persons, distinct persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We call it the Trinity. Some people object. Well, the word Trinity isn't in the Bible. Doesn't matter. Is the idea in the Bible? That's what's important. And the idea is very clearly in the Bible and Jesus is not saying, I and the Father are one person. He's saying we are one in essence. And that is essentially what the author of the book of Hebrews was saying when he wrote in the very first chapter, let me put it up on the screen for you, Hebrews chapter one, verse three. He said,

Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God (and look at this) and the exact imprint of his nature... Listen, the nature of God is His divinity, is His deity, and Jesus is the exact imprint of that nature. And this is just another way of the author here of Hebrews saying, Jesus is God, it's as simple as that. And so that is what Jesus is saying. Now, let me say this. That's what the Jews understood Jesus was saying and that's why they picked up stones. And that's what we read in verse 31.

They knew exactly what Jesus was saying. He was saying, I am God. And if you don't believe it still, keep reading. Verse 32, Jesus answered them.

You think the Jews didn't understand what he was saying? They knew exactly what he was saying, and they considered it blasphemy. It is not blasphemy because it's true. Were it not true it would be blasphemy. I mean, if you said something like that'd be blasphemy. We probably wouldn't stone you. We'd probably put you in one of those little rooms that, with the jacket that ties in the back and the pads on the walls. But for Jesus, it's the absolute truth. He is God. There's no other conclusion. But before I move on from these verses, I want to go back and I want to deal with the statement that Jesus made in verses 28 and 29 where He talked about the fact that, “I give them eternal life and they will never perish. (And then He said this) and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” Did you read that? And then He really kind of said the same thing related to the Father saying that the Father had granted all of these people to Him and His Father being greater than all, no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. It's a wonderful passage. So, it's wonderful, it gives us great security in the sense of, who we are in Jesus and the fact that there is that security. Now I need to tell you something. These two verses are often cited when people are using or are trying to make a point about what they refer to as, “once saved, always saved.” Now, those of you who have been around Calvary Chapel for any length of time, you know that I don't like that phrase. I don't use that phrase. Once saved. Always saved. And the reason I don't is because I believe it's misleading. And I don't think the New Testament apostles would've used that phrase. I don't think they would've used it. Now, having said that, let me be quick to say that we are secure in our salvation. I want to make sure I don't want you to think that I'm preaching something else. We are secure in our salvation. And you know what? I have never once lost a minute of sleep worrying that somehow, I was going to lose my salvation. Never once. Totally secure, I think you should be as well. So, does that mean we can go ahead and use the phrase, “once saved, always saved?” Well, I wish you wouldn't, because the New Testament authors, when they talked about our salvation, it was always grounded in one simple reality. And that is that Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, right? But they also included the fact that our response to that sacrifice was very important, and that is the faith and the confidence that we have related to embracing the death that Jesus died for us on the cross. So, there's these two elements that play into our salvation. Jesus' work on the cross. His death, right? That He bore for you. And then secondly, your response to that death, which is faith, right? I'm assuming that everybody here today has put their faith in what Jesus did on the cross, and that's why you believe that you're saved, not because you're a good person, not because you do good things, or you go around, and you never sin and all that other good stuff. It's because Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Can I hear an amen? Amen. Okay, so that is the basis of how we are saved. And Paul reiterates this. Look at Ephesians two, eight and nine, up on the screen.

--- Ephesians 2:8-9 (ESV)

8 “For by grace (that means by a free gift of God) you have been saved through (What? Say it out loud guys. What do you see there? Right. You've been saved through) faith. (Right? And He tells you right there) And this is not your own doing; (You didn't do the work. Jesus did all the heavy lifting. It's, not your own doing) it is the gift of God, (And that gift means it doesn't cost anything, right?) 9 not a result of works, (there’s absolutely no boasting allowed as it relates to our salvation).” In other words, the faith you put in Jesus and what He did on the cross is not something you can boast in. You can't say, well, I put my faith in Him. Even your faith is a gift from God. I had somebody write to me just this week and say, where did faith come from? I said, listen, everything we have is from God except sin. It's all from Him. So, there's no boasting when it comes to your salvation. So, are we at a place where we can say, once saved, always saved? Can we say that with confidence? Can we say that's a biblical term? Well, again I wish you wouldn't. Because it's just, it belies the fact that salvation is based on faith. See, the idea when somebody says once saved, always saved it suggests that if I no longer have my faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross, doesn't matter, I'm good, we're all good, it's all good. The Bible doesn't agree with that. I'm going to show you a couple of examples. First from First Corinthians chapter 15. Check this out. 1 Corinthians 15:1-2 (ESV)

Let me ask you a quick question. Did the Apostle Paul believe it was possible to believe in vain? You tell me. He said it, “unless you believed in vain” What would be the, what would be the qualifier there of believing in vain? Now we'll talk about that here in just a second. Let me show you another one. I'll put it on the bottom there. Hebrews 3:14 says,

1 Corinthians 15:1-2 (ESV)

Hebrews 3:14 (ESV)

Jesus died on the cross for you. He did all the work. We put our faith and confidence in that finished work. And we are saved. Now, I want you now, I've got two passages and by the way, I could put more, but I'll just settle it with these two. There's something that each one of these passages has in common. It's very simple commonality. In fact, I'll circle it on in both passages for you. It is the simple word “if” and if you guys remember your grammar you know that the word “if” introduces a conditional clause. Whenever I say, “if”, you know that” I've just introduced a conditional clause and whatever promise or statement that I'm about to make, that it is conditioned on something. Now, both of these passages speak of a great blessing that comes our way through the work that Jesus did on the cross. And in Corinthians, he talks about the fact that it is the Gospel that He preached, that they received, that they stand in and are saved by, and then he introduces that conditional clause, “if you hold fast.” And then from Hebrews, we have come to share in Christ. That's a lovely promise, but that he then introduces a conditional clause “if indeed we hold our original confidence to the end.” Now these are passages in the Bible that a lot of people don't like to look at. And some of you might decide that you don't like me very much for sharing them with you. That's okay. My job is to tell you the truth, not to tell you what you want to hear. Our salvation is predicated upon the death of Jesus Christ, but it is conditioned upon our faith and confidence in that finished work, not wavering. And that is so important that we understand the reality of that. You've heard me say many times that we are saved by faith and kept by faith, and I believe that with all my heart. And I've been telling you a lot that, I run into a lot of Christians who believe that they, after getting saved, that they must keep themselves saved by living a good life. ---

Staying away from sin and abstaining from the things that, and to be sure we should abstain from sin, there's no question about that. But that doesn't keep you saved. We are saved by faith, and we are kept by faith. Let’s just put the word confidence in there. Okay? We're saved by our confidence in the finished work of Jesus, the work He did, and we are kept by that same confidence. It is faith from first to last. It begins with faith. It ends with faith, and faith is not a work. Okay? That's why the Bible says, “not by works, lest any should boast.” Let me show you what Paul wrote in first, or excuse me, in Romans chapter one. He said,

The righteous live by faith you guys through our faith, our confidence in what Jesus did on the cross. He did the work. We trust Him. Lord, I'm trusting what You did was enough. When we went through our study of Galatians, we learned a lot of important lessons, and if you didn't go through that study with us, I would encourage you to do it because the theme, the motto that we came away from the study of Galatians was Jesus is enough to save us, right? I don't have to add anything. I don't have to add water baptism. I don't have to add this or add that or add being a good person. I don't have to add, Jesus is enough to save me and you right? And that was the theme of Galatians. What were the Galatians starting to do? They were starting to put their trust in certain elements of the Mosaic law, like circumcision, keeping special days and months and years. And what did Paul say at the beginning of the book of Galatians? I am flabbergasted (that's a paraphrase), that you guys are so quickly deserting and veering away from the Gospel that I shared with you. I am just absolutely amazed. And he said to them, “did you receive the Spirit because of good works you did or was it because you simply believed?” It was because you believed. Everything is because of faith, because you put your faith in what Jesus did on the cross. So, you see that's why once saved always saved is just a very confusing statement and I seriously encourage believers don't use it. And I'm not saying you should jump all over somebody you know who does. I'm not saying you should jump down their throat and go, well, my pastor says, or anything like that. But just if somebody says it and they, I hear people say it all the time, well, I know the Bible says, once saved, always saved. I just kind of like let it go because you have to wait for a teaching moment. Kind of like this, where you can explain things, but do it in such a way that people aren't going to come away going, “it all depends on me.” It doesn't all depend on you. It all depends on what Jesus did, and as I said, you should never spend a fraction of a second worrying about your salvation. Jesus died on the cross for you. You just embrace it and have confidence in it and leave it at that and He'll do the rest. He comes, He fills you with His Holy Spirit, He begins to sanctify you through the convicting work of the Spirit. He begins to do the work of cleaning up your life. And the work is done by Him. Okay. I hope you don't hate me because I've said all this, but now we need to come up to what is another challenging statement in this passage the second one I'll say, in verse 34, where Jesus answered them saying, 34“is it not written in your law? I said, you are God's.” Now if you take that verse right there out of context, and believe me, many people have, and they've come up with all kinds of crazy conclusions, like, believers will become Gods, or he's saying that all people are gods or whatever like that, and that is not what He meant to say, and they're simply taking it out of context and so forth. But we need to ask the question what did Jesus mean? Well, when He says to them, Is it not written in your law? He's using the word law as a really kind of a general term for the Old Testament because he's citing a statement in the Book of Psalms and it's in Psalm 82. Let me put it on the screen for you so you can read it in context. He simply says, and this is what it says,

Now when He talks about the counsel, the Divine counsel, he's referring to the Jews that He gave a special duty to, to carry out His law and to speak for Him as it relates to the law. This is something Moses did, something the elders did, something that was carried on later on by the Sanhedrin. They were to use God's Word as a basis for justice, and they were to speak God's Word to the people, to settle disputes, to settle issues, problems, that sort of thing. In that sense, God speaks of them as god's (small g). Now, this is the Hebrew word, Elohim, which by the way can also be translated rulers or judges and some, if you have a different Bible translation, your Bible may not say gods, it may say rulers. And so, but it can also mean divine ones or even angels, Elohim. It can also refer to God Almighty, although it doesn't mean God Almighty. So, Jesus is making a reference to the fact that God called the agents of His justice. It's kind of like the judges that we have sitting on the bench of our nation. If God had actually put those men and women there, He would've said, I call you god (small g), because of here's why. Not because you are gods, or there's anything divine about you. I'm calling you that simply because you are my agents to speak my Word and to give the truth of that Word to people. And so, he says in verse 35, "If He called them god's, to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the Father consecrated, (that means set apart), and sent into the world you are blaspheming, just because I said I am the Son of God?" All right. Let me, and this is kind of confusing, but Jesus is making an argument from the lesser to the greater. And he's basically saying, if mere human beings were referred to by God Almighty as god’s small g, even though you're not, is it wrong? And frankly, how much more appropriate is it for that title to be given to the one and only son of God who has set apart by God and who truly is God? And why are you saying, I am blaspheming when I deserve the title? That's the point of what He's saying. And to prove that He is who he said He is, Jesus went on in verse 37. He's still talking about the same thing he says. He says, listen, if I'm not doing the works of the Father, then fine, don't believe me that I am who I say I am. If you don't see me doing what the Father does, then fine. But He says, "if I am doing the works of the Father, even though you don't believe me, believe the works, believe the things that I do (He says), that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father." I find it interesting there that Jesus said in verse 37, he referred to the miracles that He performed as “the works of my Father.” Did you catch that? He called them “the works of my Father.” What kinds of things was Jesus doing anyway?

Oh, raising the dead healing cripples so that they could walk again. Giving sight to the blind, hearing to the death, casting out demons. If you had to classify all those things, how would you classify them? I would classify them as supreme acts of compassion and concern. And that speaks of the heart of the Father, and that's why Jesus could say, I do the works of the Father. These are not counterfeit works. These are not works to bless me. These are works to bless people, and God is showing His love for people by the things that I do. But see, the religious leaders couldn't see that because they'd gotten so far away from knowing and understanding the heart of God that they couldn't recognize the heart of God when they saw it. It didn't fit their narrow interpretation of how God ought to work. Well, first of all He is never going to work on those Sabbath. That's one thing we know for sure. Do you know how much difficulty can be avoided by simply knowing the heart of God. Do you understand that? Do you understand how important it's to know the heart of God people? People, it's one thing to know the Word of God, and I encourage you to know the Word of God. I mean, get to know your Bible. Read through your Bible, study the Word and know what the Word says, but beyond that, figure out what the heart of God is saying. Because do you know that the Bible doesn't cover every single instance or every single question that you may ever ask in the world? Do you know that you can't open up your Bible and go, all right, am I supposed to marry this person? People do this, by the way, they open up their Bible. And then they find out that the verse says something like, my wife nags me, and my breath is abhorrent, and all that. That's from the Book of Job. I didn't, that doesn't work. Do you understand that the Bible doesn't, isn't going to cover every single question that you have? Well, how are you going to know? Do you understand that knowing the heart of God is a key to understanding His will? So, my question to you is, do you know the heart of God? Do you know His heart? I don't think there's anything wrong with beginning to pray and say, Lord, show me your heart. Show me who you are, what you love, what you hate, what you desire. Show me your heart because that is going to be a compass for my life. It'll save you tons of grief. Verse 39 says, again, 39“they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.” Wouldn't you have loved to have been there to watch him escape? I just I read those things, they pick up stones to stone him and I can just see these guys cocking back like this and it says, Jesus just walked them through them. And it's like, I would love to have been there to watch that happen. It's like they're like, stone him. Where'd He go? So, I mean, how weird would that have been? And the reason that He was able to walk away without them doing what they wanted to do to Him is because it wasn't His time yet to be arrested. And by the way, when they did arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, it wasn't because that they were clever or smart about the way they did it. It was because it was His time to be arrested. In other words, He let Himself, He allowed them to arrest Him. That's why it happened then and not now, right? So, it goes on to tell us in verse 40 that 40“He went away across the Jordan to a place where John had been baptizing at first. And there He remained.” And then He came to him and they said, John didn't even do any miraculous signs, but he talked about this guy and you know what, everything he said about this guy was true. And so it says that a lot of people believed in Him there. So, you know, it's comforting, isn't it? To know that even though the religious elite had determined that they weren't going to believe in Jesus, in fact they refused, that there were some common everyday people who said, I believe, I believe. What does that tell you about common everyday people, common lowly like us, right? I don't know. Maybe you don't like to think of yourself that way. I do. I am a common everyday person because I love what the Bible says about common everyday people. We will end with this one Corinthians on the screen. I love this, chapter one he says,

Don’t you love that? I love that, I really do. It's like anybody who wants to say I'm here, I've been chosen in Christ because I was an incredible person. I don't know about you, but I was just absolutely amazing. I'm kind of a big deal. No. He embraces, He reaches out to the lowly. Let's stand together. If you need prayer, come on up here afterwards. We'd be happy to pray for you. Thank you, Father, for the incredible richness of your love. Thank you that Jesus came and did all the work, and now all we have to do is believe, and Lord, we believe. We believe that Jesus is enough, and we are saved by grace through faith. This, not of ourselves, it is the gift of God. Lord, help us to abide in your Word every day. We ask all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, and all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your Sunday.