Our passage this morning comes from the Gospel of John, chapter eight, verses 48 to 59. Gospel of John, chapter eight, verses 48 to 59. So I will read, or actually I'll pray before we read, and then we'll go through our sermon. Let us pray. Gracious and holy God, we thank you for this morning. We thank you that we can gather here. Dear Father, please send the Holy Spirit. Please open up the eyes of our hearts to behold Jesus Christ. Please be with us. Father, you are a living God. May this word become living to us this morning. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Once again, John chapter eight. verses 48 to 59. Hear now the word of God. Then the Jews answered and said to him, do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my father and you dishonor me, and I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges, Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. Then the Jews said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead, and the prophets, and you say, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do you make yourself out to be? Jesus answered. If I honor myself, my honor is nothing. If my father who honors me, of whom you say that he is your God, yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I say I do not know him, I shall be a liar like you. But I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad. Then the Jew said to him, You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am. Then they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. going through the midst of them, and so passed by. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. So last week we went through, continued going through Abraham's seed and Satan's seed. And we saw that Jesus was going back and forth with the Pharisees. And we saw, you know, there was two families in this world and two houses. That there's the household of faith and there's the household of unbelief. There's the household that is born of God, as it says at the beginning of John. And it's kind of forceful and upfront, but it's true. But then there's the household of Satan, right? Just no way around it. And we saw that in order to become into the household of faith, it is by placing faith in the Lord's Christ, Jesus Christ. How do you become children of God? How do you become a son of God? How do you become born of God? Well, that comes through the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, the revelation of the Father. We'll see that a little bit here in this passage, but later in John, where Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. The revelation of the Son. And speaking of the revelation of the Son, the height of this verse really is kind of verse 58, right? Jesus said, then most assuredly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So you're seeing the foundation of who Jesus Christ is. He is divine, and he is also human. Jesus Christ is the great servant, and yet Jesus Christ is Yahweh. He is God. He is the mysterious revelation of God that brings us to the Father. So, you know, I mentioned here, as we're mentioning, this is kind of like the foundation. Remember Peter's confession? You are Christ, the Son of God, right? Peter has that confession. You are the divine Messiah. And what does Jesus tell Peter? It's not flesh that's revealed this to you. It's my Father in heaven who has revealed this to you. These Pharisees, those men of the flesh, right? They have not had the divine revelation. given to them from above. And this is a foundational principle. We mentioned before, we prayed this morning, the elders, we kind of gather and pray on Sunday mornings, and it was brought up, the foundations, and I mentioned I was gonna bring this up with the foundations. We see this time in Western society right now, the foundations, are being removed right now. What is the psalm? And it says in the Proverbs, if the foundations are removed, what should happen, right? When that psalm is bringing people's hearts to see God. Years ago, I was talking to a church planner who had made his way into the AARP and he was kind of disgruntled about what had happened in the PCA. And, you know, we were having a conversation and he was planning a church and he said, you know, God does this because he wants to remind us that our faith is ultimately in him in him alone. It's not in the institution of the church. Right. We see in Isaiah, the remnant principle, as we've seen on Wednesday nights, if you've been showing up, everything's about to happen. God is coming through. He's raising up. He's raising up the Babylonians, the Assyrians. He's going to judge them. And God is telling them, no, I'm going to leave a remnant and I'm going to do this. And ultimately, God is saying to the people, the hope is ultimately not in Israel. The hope is not in the ethnic lineage. The hope ultimately is in me, God himself. That's our ultimate foundation. It is God himself who knows what's coming in the future. But our foundation is in God himself. And we're seeing this in this passage. The Pharisees don't have a good foundation. The foundation is going to fade away. We've seen from last week. I won't bring it up too much this week about the ethnic principle. They were resting in their ethnic lineage and their covenant membership. And from the previous weeks, Jesus is saying you can't rest in that. That's a fading principle. Ultimately, your foundation comes from faith in God through Christ. So we'll continue. So our main point, once again, we're talking about the foundations, is that the foundation of Jesus divinity brings a response. And we've seen that response through the book of John. And for the faithful, for us, it brings hope. It brings assurance. It brings love. It brings faith. But with the contrast with the Pharisees, to them it brings confusion. It brings anger. It brings murder. It brings unbelief. So you see a contrast here continuing through the seed principle. So let's go through and we'll break these up. Let's go through verse 48. Then the Jews answered and said, then did we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan and have a demon? So what do we see here? The Pharisees are attacking Jesus. Now, at the end of this passage, they're literally going to pick up stones and try to attack Jesus. What's the response? From this group of gentlemen, in a nice way, or this group of men who do not have a foundation of faith in Christ, they seek to attack Jesus Christ, verbally. with verbal abuse, right? You know, sometimes, you know, verbal abuse can be overtaken. What's verbal abuse? But here it really is verbal abuse. They're verbally abusing Jesus Christ. So we talk about the cross, Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. That's the height of the humiliation of Jesus Christ. But his whole life was humiliation. the little baby Jesus was circumcised and he cried when he was circumcised. He was cold on certain nights. He walked through this world and he prayed and he agonized in prayer. The Garden of Gethsemane was a cross when he was agonizing for his disciples. And here you see more of the cross of Jesus Christ, of his suffering. He's verbally abused. He's verbally abused. You see the divine humiliation of God that Jesus in as God incarnate was verbally abused by his creation. Or another way to comfort us this morning, he was verbally abused for you. I'm sure there's times in our life where we've all been verbally abused. You've been berated. You've been yelled at. You've been had things pointed at you and said about you and you've been verbally abused. We hear Jesus Christ was verbally abused for you. He suffered for you. He was willing to do this because He loved you. This was part of His cross, a part of His suffering for you. And what was particularly the verbal abuse? They call Him a Samaritan, right? And so we saw from last week about talking about, you know, your mother was born out of wedlock and different things, and this is an ethnic slur. They're heaping a ethnic slur upon Jesus. Jesus was a Jew. He was not a Samaritan. We saw that when He talked about with the woman at the will. He was ethnically slurred. What else do you see a hint of here? Remember how last week there was the kind of the hint there of Jesus being born out of wedlock? Remember that with Mary? You have the same principle here. They're calling Jesus an idolater. They're calling him an idolater and someone who was born out of a un- unlawful wedding, basically, what's happening here. And they're slurring him. They're also calling Jesus crazy. They're calling Jesus crazy. Are Christians ever called crazy? Yes, they are. Are Christians ever demeaned for being mad? Are Christians in certain sins ever talked about as being filled with evil? Well, that's what's happening here to Jesus Christ. What does Jesus tell his church? They don't hate you. They hate me. What does the apostle Peter tell the flock and the congregations and around Turkey and ancient Turkey or whatnot in that sector of areas? Prepare yourself for this. You will be verbally abused by the world, even though You honor God, even though in your heart, you're doing the right thing. You will be verbally abused. And that's what's happening as he's being verbally abused. And we see in verses 49 to 51, Jesus answered, I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. And I do not seek my own glory, for there is one who seeks and judges. Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never see death. Jesus was honoring his father. What does this mean to honor, to honor God, to honor his father? What is he talking about here? He was making his father known in his earthly ministry. Through his words, through his teaching, through his life. He was making the honor of God known. See the old covenant, the old scriptures, it talks about how God is merciful. God is righteous. God is loving. And you get these ways that describes God. But in Jesus Christ, you see a further revelation of the Father. You see the merciful, the merciful nature of God. You see the love of God. You see how he loves his people. You see all of that ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ. And he was honoring. You see the Pharisees in other parts of the scriptures. Right before Jesus tells his disciples how to pray, he says, don't be like the Pharisees. Don't be like them who want to pray in front of other people and have the glory be brought to them. Go and shut the door and pray in secret for your heavenly father knows as you bring your heart before him. You see there, you see a contrast here. They're accusing Jesus. Jesus was about glorifying God. The Pharisees were about glorifying themselves. See the irony here, they're bringing him up on a judgment. Remember the context, once again, the water context in John. The Pharisees keep trying to sue him, basically, in a divine court. They're trying to bring up witnesses. They're trying to say that Jesus, you're a sinner, you're a lawbreaker, you are not who you say you are, and they can never do it. They can never bring him up on charges. Jesus refutes them by logic, by scripture. He points to himself. They can never do what they really want to do. They cannot justifiably bring up Jesus as a lawbreaker. So they bring up the stones. They're just angry. They're angry. They don't have any reason. They act out of a fleshy anger. They're in dark, they're not abiding in the words of God. That's why he says, anyone who keeps my word will never, will never see death, never see death. Abiding, we've talked about that in John, it's where you come to Christ, you rest in him by faith, you look upon him. But even you see this principle of abiding, you know, it says on certain things, it says, if you abide by the rules, you will not get hurt. Right. You see that like on a hazardous thing. If you abide by this, abide by these regulations, abide by these rules. And that's what's also at play here. Jesus is saying, if you abide in my words, if you live by my words, if you live by my instruction, If you live by my teaching, you will not perish. So he's bringing up a thing we saw two weeks ago, where Jesus tells his flock, abide by my words. And this is a charge for all of us this morning. We are to abide by the word of God. We are to abide by the words of Jesus Christ. Abide in his words, store it up, treasure it in your heart. Live by His words. Glorify God. Look to God. But then look at His commandments, at His regulations. You see it greatly summed up in the Ten Commandments. Live those out. Live those words in your life. Stay close to Christ experientially and practically in His Word. In His Word. Do not remain in darkness. Do not remain in death. As we see in verses 52 to 53. Then the Jew said to him, now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead and the prophets. And you say, if anyone keeps my word, he shall never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham, who was dead and the prophets are dead? Who do you make yourself out to be? So you see the confusion, you see the anger. This passage, you see the heightened anger where they're going at. They're living by their eyes. They say, Abraham's dead. How can you say that, Abraham? The prophets are dead. How can you say all of this? And here's once again, a theme in the book of John, whether it's a Samaritan woman, Nicodemus, other Pharisees, they cannot hear the words of God because they are in darkness and it leaves confusion and it leaves anger. because they do not have faith. Well, I'm sure they would adhere to this, the Pharisees, but Enoch in the Old Testament, he didn't die. Remember, he was taken up to heaven. Elijah, fire chariot, ascend up. There was a belief in the Old Testament there would be a resurrection. You see this resurrection theology all throughout what undergirds the Old Testament. There was always a hope for life. When the people died, even in the Old Testament, they lived by faith and they thought that, yes, there would be a resurrection day. There would be the day of the Lord. So we get the word Sabbath, you know, the Lord's day, right? Comes from John. He was, I was on the day, I was in the day of the Lord. There was always that hope of the day of the Lord, that the people who died in faith would not stay like that. They would behold the face of their God. As it says in the end of Ezekiel, we are going to where the land where Yahweh dwells. We are going to the land where God dwells. dwells. Things are de-progressing here, right? So from the Feast of Tabernacles, there were some who looked in faith to God. Things were going well. And maybe here some Pharisees were kind of, well, maybe this, maybe this Jesus guy, maybe he's got more than what we know. Maybe there's something to him. But as Jesus keeps talking and talking and preaching and preaching, the more they hear this message of Christ, the more they don't want it. the more they want to turn from it. This business that he's talking about, the father, the son, this Trinitarian message, it's becoming too much for them. Verses 54 to 56, Jesus answered, if I honor myself, my honor is nothing. If my father who honors me, of whom you say that he is your God, yet you have not known him, but I know him. And if I say I do not know him, I should be a liar like you, but I do know him. and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and he was glad. Here Jesus is bringing out the truth that he is the son of God, and he appeals to his father. It's a great message of the Trinity. One God, one God, three persons. It's mysterious, unified, and one God. And what Jesus is saying, He's saying, you're God. He's saying, you claim to know this God. You claim to worship this God. You tell people that you're a holy person. You tell people that you worship this God. Remember the Pharisees, you tell people how to live their lives. You sit on the seat of Moses. Everyone sees who you say that you say that you are, that you are the God people and that you are the people who say they know God, but you are a liar. And if I go with your message, I would be a liar. You see what's happening here? It's almost like they've been cornering Jesus. They've been cornering Jesus. And now he's cornered. If you use this analogy, he kind of comes out swinging verbally and he says, this is who I am. And if I was to deny any of this message, I would be a liar. By the truth that flows from God that flows within me, I cannot lie. I have to say who I am. I am the son of God. I am truth and you have false belief. You know, you're trying to call me out on this mock courtroom, but you are the one. That's the irony of it all. You're trying to bring me up on law charges. You know, it's what would happen. You've probably seen this in movies before where there's a there's a corrupt legal system. Right. And they're trying to bring up the innocent person on charges. And it's a stacked You know, it's a stacked court and they're bringing the person up and it's a sham. It's called a sham trial. And the person is innocent. They're arguing and they're arguing the case. And that's what's happening here. It's a sham trial. Jesus is being brought on the sham trial. He is the innocent one. And not only is he the innocent one, he's the rightful judge. He's the rightful one. And here the Pharisees are bringing Jesus up on a sham trial and the Pharisees are the one who are condemning themselves. They are the wicked ones. They are the ones without faith. And what else is Jesus opposed to? I know my father. I don't know much about JFK or any of these, imagine, just go with me on this, is if there was a bunch of biographies written on JFK or a former president, Eisenhower, whatever it is, fill it in, or FDR, and somebody would read a bunch of books about him at the time of still living, and they were like, oh, I know this guy, I know this guy, and imagine if they had a son, and they're saying, you're speaking about my father, but I grew up with my father. I know my father. You don't know my father. Imagine with your parents, if you had grown up and someone had spoke about your parents and they knew these stories and they're speaking about your parents as if they know them. And you say, no, no, no, no, no. I know my parents. I know who they were. You're talking about them, but I know them. This is what Jesus is doing with His Father. He's talking about a experiential knowledge that He's had with the first person of the Trinity, in communion with the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, since before the foundations of the world. Jesus knows His Father. Jesus is saying, you're not gonna tell me about my Father. I know about my Father. I know who He is. You cannot tell me about my Father. And he recognizes, he says, okay, fine, through the ethnic lineages, yeah, you're Abraham's children, through mere ethnic lineage, but you're not his real children. I'll just gloss over this, because we went through this in the past, but we have a circumcision of the heart in the Old Testament. All who are of Israel are not real Israel. And then we get to an interesting question about Abraham, and I think it is interesting. How much did Abraham know about Jesus Christ? This is really interesting. How much did Abraham know about Jesus Christ? Remember last week we read Genesis 3.15 about the Proto-Evangelion? We see that there is religious ceremonies right after the fall with Abel and Cain, where Abel is bringing up a sacrifice and Cain's bringing up an unholy sacrifice, not from his heart. He's outwardly bringing a sacrifice, but inwardly he has a black heart, which is interesting. Jesus referring to the Pharisees in the background as Cain a little bit. And he is Abel. He's bringing up a right sacrifice. And what happened with Cain and Abel? Abel was bringing up a right sacrifice and Cain murdered him. And why did Cain murder Abel? Because he was jealous of him. And he hated him. And that was a picture of the gospel. Because here, even in this passage, Jesus is honoring his father. He has a perfect heart towards his father. And the Pharisees are wanting to murder him. Well, you go through the Old Testament. There was a sacrificial system. They didn't know that much, but they knew that there was one true God who was a creator of the heavens and earth. They had the promises of Genesis 3.15. And for around 2000 years before Abraham come, there was a faithful remnant in the, after the Garden of Eden, who would worship God in this way. And then you get to Noah. He's the only righteous man. Imagine being Noah, being his family in that time, when there's so much wickedness. You know, we complain about the foundations falling. Imagine being Noah in that time. He's the only righteous man, right? He's the only righteous family, the only seed. Everybody has turned away. Well, we see Noah go through this and at the end he sacrifices. So then we see that there is a religion and there is a seed of faith. The religion continues. Then God calls out Abraham. And what does Abraham do when he goes on a pilgrimage? He plants an altar, right? So Abraham's kind of like an ancient church planter as a way to think about it. He goes as he's a pilgrim in the wilderness and he plants these worship centers where people will worship the one true God. So what is Jesus saying here? Abraham lived by faith in the promise of Christ. He lived by faith in the promise of Genesis 315 and the promise that was given to him that there would be a seed that would come from him, a singular seed representing a people and a champion that would come from him and would bring salvation to the world. Abraham looked forward to this. Also, Abraham talked to the angels. Remember that, when the angels visited him? And people have recognized that this was a pre-incarnate Christ. We don't know. But Abraham experienced Christ, a pre-incarnate Christ, even before he came. So what is Jesus doing here? He's saying, there's this whole reality you're not even aware of. Abraham would have rejoiced to see my day. His heart would have been glad. What is Jesus doing here? You have a heart that's of the devil. You have a heart that is angry. You have a heart that is jealous. You have a heart that is not glad at me. If Abraham was your standing in the flesh, His heart would rejoice. For all of our hearts this morning, does your heart rejoice at the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do you have a heart that rejoices? Many people rejoice at things in the world. Does your heart rejoice at the news of Jesus Christ? Put it this way. Are you happy that you're forgiven? Are you happy that you have eternal life as the foundations of the world crumble? Are you happy you have that promise? Are you happy that you have this promise? I'll bring Abraham at the end, but now we have to move on to the final verses. There's our hearts rejoiced at the gospel. Verses 57 to 59. Then Jesus, then the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old. You have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you before Abraham was. I am. Then they took up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. And so not much to say here on the retirement, 50 years was a pharisaical retirement age. I don't know if they took a load off. I don't know if it's like it is in those commercials. I have no idea what pharisee retirement looked like, but that's what they're bringing up. They're saying, you're not even of our retirement age. They're mocking him for his youth because Jesus was around, you know, his thirties, young thirties. So they're mocking him for his youth. Here you are in your youthful state. We forget about that, right? Jesus was only 30 something, young thirties. So they're mocking Jesus for his youth, saying, oh, look, look at this young guy telling us how much he knows. He doesn't know anything. You don't know Abraham. You weren't even around. You're not even 30. You can't even say this. So it's kind of a mocking. They're not looking to him. And what does Jesus say? He says, I And we've already looked at that in John. He's saying, you think Abraham was great? Abraham was looking to me in the wilderness. Abraham was looking to me not only in my not in the incarnate state that I would come in the future, but I was speaking to Abraham. Those promises, those audible words that came to Abraham on those starry nights. and the ancient Persian desert, that was me speaking to Abraham. That was me speaking to him when I spoke to him as the pre-incarnate angel. And we spoke with him and the other angels. That was me speaking to him. I am above Abraham. I am of God. I am pre-incarnate. existent. Remember, there's a circle, there's the creation side, there's the creator side. Jesus is on the creator side. And according this brings to them, they heard this is idolatry. No man can be God. Right. This is why this is a foolish religion. It's either true or it's not true. You can't be like what the old liberals were saying hundreds of years ago. You can't say that Jesus was just a good man. If Jesus was a good man, he would not say something like this. Jesus was the God man. Jesus is the hope. He is the foundation of creation. He is the foundation of our redemption. And they want to they want to murder him. And they pick up stones and then he leaves. And we see once again, he's providentially protected by God. It's not his time. He has to go to the cross. So in conclusion, why does this matter? It matters for our salvation. The foundations, everything in this world, every institution is going to fade in this world. Governments, families, everything in this world will fade away and will crumble. There is one entity that will not crumble and fade away, and that is God himself. Why is Jesus Christ's eternity so important for your salvation? Because if Jesus Christ is not eternal, your forgiveness of sins would fade away as well. Or another way to think about it, the blood of Jesus Christ that covers you has to be eternal. He has to be a eternal Savior, the foundation of the, as it brings up in Hebrews, the blood, the bulls of goats. We have a lasting, eternal Savior. Your salvation must be divine, because if our Savior is not divine, it would fade away. Right? In theory, if there was a really, really awesome guy, that was not Jesus Christ, I'm not saying heresy, if there was a really, really, really awesome guy that actually were to uphold the law, by the way, Paul says in Romans, by theory, this could have happened, but it didn't happen, wouldn't have happened because of sin nature. But in theory, if there had been some type of second Adam and he would have upheld and did everything right, and did everything right for you, he still would not have been enough because he was not a divine man. Does that make sense? Christ, only God could give a lasting salvation, a lasting sacrifice. Jesus Christ is our substitute. Let's end in our conclusion on Hebrews 11, 13. Let me turn there real quick, because this is important with Abraham and speaking of Abraham. Give me one second. Let's pull this up too, there we go. Hebrews chapter 11, 13. Speaking of Abraham. These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them before off, were assured of him, embraced him, and confessed him, and were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Why was Abraham different than these men? Because he had faith. And he died in that faith. Unless the Lord Jesus Christ comes back, we will die. And we will have to die in faith. But we have that assurance. When Abraham buried his wife Sarah, that was one of the low points of his life, where he's having to beg to a bunch of pagans to give him a burial plot. Abraham is burying his wife. Yes, he's been given a son, but Abraham was going through a crisis at that moment. And he was thinking at his oldest of his old age that now his beloved wife that he did love for many years is not without him. He's looking out and he's going through a heartrending time. He's at the end of his life as well. And he's having to die in faith. As Charles Wesley once said, Christians die well. You can have the assurance when you die in faith. And why is this? Because Jesus Christ is the great I am. Your salvation is linked to him. And I'll end reading this hymn that was written by Charles Wesley that was sang during many of the revivals in the colonial times. The hymn goes like this. And am I born to die, to lay this body down, And must my trembling spirit fly into a world unknown, a land of deepest shade, unpierced by human fault, the dreary regions of the dead, where all things are forgotten. Soonest from earth I go, what will become of me? Eternal happiness or woe? Must then my portion be, wake by trumpet sound, I from the grave shall rise and see the judge with glory crowned and see the flaming skies. That is the promise we have this morning in Jesus Christ. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let us pray. Gracious and holy God, we thank you for the promise you have given us in Christ. We thank you for the foundation you have provided for us in Jesus Christ. Gracious and holy God, give us grateful hearts. Let our hearts rejoice in the gospel. Let our hearts rejoice in this faith. Gracious and holy God, lift our hearts up to you this morning. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon our church. May you be present with us. And may we be people who lift up our hands and worship you and praise you, meditate upon you, walk in your presence before your face as people who have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, who have been given the righteousness of Jesus Christ and have this eternal joy that warms our hearts. the joy of Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name, amen.