and turn with me to John chapter five, the gospel according to John, which we're just slowly working through section by section. And this morning we'll be in chapter five, reading verses 30 through 40. This is the word of the Lord. I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another who bears witness of me, and I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. He was the burning and shining lamp, and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light. But I have a greater witness than John's. For the works which the Father has given me to finish, the very works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father has sent me. And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form. But you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. But you are not willing to come to me that you may have life." Let's pray. God, we thank you for this wonderful word. God, we thank you for sending Christ and we thank you for each of the moments in his life that he was fulfilling all righteousness for us. Lord, that he was obeying your law, Lord, and that he was proclaiming your truth. And we thank you that you recorded this incident, Lord, of him speaking with the Jews. and we just thank you for the gift that his words are to us even today and the witnesses that you've given that show the legitimacy of his message. God, just open our eyes to this as we just seek to examine this text of scripture now. Lord, pierce our consciences. Lord, speak to each everyone that is hearing me, each of their hearts, Lord, we know that your word is living and active, that it is life-giving, and I pray that it would be life-giving this morning. God, let me only say that which is true and right in line with your word. God, if I begin to say something that's wrong or veer off in a direction that your word does not go, God, I just pray that you would steer me back on course, Lord, supernaturally, Lord, that you would just guide my mind and my words, that I would speak only what is correct and true and righteous. God, just bless us now as we receive this word and as we study what you have for us. In Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. Well, we've been working our way through John 5 for a little bit of time now, and remember that our section of text today comes from the middle of a conversation that Jesus is having with the unbelieving Jews. They were upset that he had been healing on the Sabbath. He had healed the lame man at the pool of Bethesda and commanded him to take up his bed and walk. And this angered the Jews very much. And they were even more enraged that he claimed to be equal with God. Last Lord's Day, we looked at Christ's assertion, in fact, that all who believe in him have eternal life now, here in the present, and they will enjoy the resurrection of the body and the everlasting life of body and soul in the life to come. So Christ has been showing and telling the Jews about his authority and his divinity. He's the life giver. He's the healer. He's the judge of all creation. And though our Lord had more authority within Himself than anyone or anything else in all of creation, He still, in our text today, refuses to let His own personal testimony be His sole witness to who He is. So He says in verses 30 and 31, I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. While commenting on that opening statement, I can of myself do nothing, if I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true, the great Anglican Bishop J.C. Ryle said this. He said, this verse is perhaps one of the most difficult in Scripture. Now, as a pastor, when you read a commentator who's very well-revered, who says something like that, you feel a little better about yourself, thinking, phew, at least I wasn't the only one having trouble with that. I think Ryle is onto something. I don't think he was just using that as a cop-out. If we're being honest, it is hard to understand what Jesus means when he says this. How can the Son of God, who spoke the heavens and the earth into existence, say that he can of himself do nothing? This is the man who we've already seen in these first five chapters of John. He turned 125 gallons of water into wine just by thinking it. He didn't even say a command, water become wine. He healed sick children who were on their deathbed, who were cities away, showed that He did not even have to be near someone or to touch them with His hands to heal them. He's revealed that He can, in His incarnation even, see directly into the hearts of men and perceive their innermost character before He even talks to them. He's healed men who have been lame, now we've seen in this chapter, for nearly 40 years. He's clearly very powerful. He's done all these mighty acts and many more, and yet he says he can of himself do nothing. What does this mean? Well, far from implying that Jesus lacks any power or that He's any less than God or that the Father is essentially greater than He is, far from implying anything like that, what Jesus is teaching us when He says that He can of Himself do nothing is that Christ and the Father are one, indivisible God. They cannot be divided. One of the reasons it's difficult for us to understand that God is a Trinity is that it is a way that God is unlike us, or rather that we are unlike God. There's nothing in all of creation that is quite like God in this way. You see, humans, we're in the image of God, of course, but you and I and every single person in the world is just one human being and one human person. Everyone is just one human person. That's something that's especially important for us to remember today as we engage, especially in the fight to end the horror of abortion in our land and all its related dehumanizing evils of image bearers. Every human being is a human person. There is no human being that exists that is not a human person. That is impossible. It's contrary to our nature. But God is one being, but he's three persons. It's difficult for us to understand, there's a mystery there. And what Jesus is telling us here when he says that of himself, he can do nothing, is that he as one person of the Trinity cannot act in isolation from the other persons of the Trinity. Because to act independently of the Father or the Spirit, to act independently of the Father's will, would be to act independently of God himself. And Jesus, since he is God, he cannot, even in his humiliation as a man, he cannot act independently of God. It is contrary to his nature. It is an impossibility. And further, the Bible tells us this, that even though Jesus was in the very form of God, he emptied himself, or he humbled himself, and he took on the form of a servant. Jesus did not come to earth 2,000 years ago riding on a glorious white horse, banner flapping in the wind with the blood of his enemies on his robes. That's how he will come again, in glory. But during his incarnation, when he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, when he grew and learned obedience, when he became a man and he ministered among the people, he was humble, he was lowly, he had no place to rest his head, he was poor. He was not actively exercising the visible heavenly power of a king in the same way that he will when he comes again. He was emphatically humble and submissive. that he was a servant. He had freely agreed to lay aside his access to some of his divine glories, did not diminish his essence at all. He remained just as God as he was when he was sitting in heaven, but he willingly submitted himself humbly to the plan of the father. He only did and only sought to do what God his father had planned for him to do and what was pleasing in his sight. See, neither the king himself nor the king's messenger can act apart from the king's authority. Neither the king or the messenger. The messenger speaks for the king. He doesn't have a voice on his own. When a herald would run into town ahead of a coming king, he wasn't allowed to just give any message that he wanted to give. He had to give the exact message that he was commissioned by the king to give. And see, Jesus is both. Jesus is the king. and he is the King's messenger. He's fully and completely God, but he is a humble and obedient messenger of God as well. And as the messenger, Jesus did not come bringing his own unique message that he wrote up or decreed. He came carrying the message of the one who sent him. He came to glorify his father in heaven. He came to point people to his father in heaven. He came to restore us to his father in heaven so that as he teaches us to pray in the Sermon on the Mount, that same God would be our Father in heaven as well. And for both of these reasons, because of Jesus's unity with the Father, and because of his submission to the Father, Christ could truthfully say, without infringing on his divine power one bit, that of himself he could do nothing. That's a true statement. He could do nothing of himself. And he says that because of this, because I'm yielded totally to the Father, you can trust that my judgment is righteous judgment. I don't judge by my own independent, isolated standard. I judge just as the father would judge. Jesus is the judge, of course. He's not merely the judge's servant. He's not merely the bailiff who carries out the judge's order. He is the judge and he has full authority as the judge, but he judges in complete accord with the will of his heavenly father. Complete unity there. So thus far in this conversation that Jesus is having with these angry Jews, he's discussed the Sabbath, he's discussed his unity with the Father, his ability to give life and raise the dead, and his role as a judge. And now here in verse 31, he turns to the topic of the legitimacy of what he is saying. How can we trust this? Someone might've been asking. Imagine Jesus is in a court right now. Some of this language that's going on in John 5 almost seems to have the formality of a court proceeding. Maybe you've been to a court before. I hope you haven't. Or maybe you have watched a courtroom drama on TV or a movie or you've seen a play where there's a courtroom scene. There's always a judge. He sits behind the bench, he's the authority. There's a prosecutor, that's the person who brings the charges against the defendant who says, you did this wrong thing and I'm gonna prove to everyone why you're guilty. There's a defendant, that's the person, wrongly or rightly, that's been charged with wrongdoing. And in today's world, there's typically a jury as well. Well, the Jews here have really taken it upon themselves to act like the prosecutors and the judges in a courtroom. And they might think, well, after all, we're the ones to whom the law of God has been entrusted. We have the covenants, we have the law, we have the oracles of God. And they think they see a lawbreaker here. So they start to take things into their own hands. They say, this man is a Sabbath breaker and he is a blasphemer. He needs to be brought up on these charges and he needs to be executed. That was their goal. John says the Jews sought to kill him for his Sabbath breaking and his calling himself equal with God. Well, Jesus answers these Jews. They think they're upholding law, but he shows them that they are in fact doing no such thing. that they have wildly misinterpreted and misapplied God's commands. But when a man is on trial, when he's in that courtroom, when the defendant is being charged with these terrible things, a lot of times a judge or a prosecutor or a jury, they won't really care what the defendant says about himself. Because maybe that man who's been accused of wrongdoing is just lying. It doesn't matter that he took an oath to tell the truth. Maybe he's just doing anything and everything he can to save his skin. Because who wants to be executed? And I think, well, why should we trust just what the defendant says? Now that's, of course, not what Jesus is doing. He's not lying to protect himself. He's telling the truth just as God sent him to do. But it's at this point that he says, even though he's telling the truth, even though the Jews should believe him on his own authority, he says, look, you don't have to even take my word for it. just don't even listen to what I've just said. I've got four expert ironclad trustworthy witnesses that I'm going to call to testify about me and you say that you believe all of these witnesses already. These are four perfect witnesses. So Christ is showing us here in the act of calling these witnesses, not only that what he's saying has been true, not only how much of a law keeper he really is, but he's also showing that even in the calling of the witnesses, he is honoring God's law. Because in order for someone to be formally convicted of lawbreaking, God's word says that one witness is not enough. You cannot just trust one isolated witnesses. He says if someone is going to be convicted of a crime in Deuteronomy, God says you have to have two or three witnesses if it's going to be an execution. Now the Jews had zero real witnesses to Jesus doing any law breaking. They might have thought they had witnesses, but they had zero true witnesses. So they could not obey the scriptures they pretended to uphold here. But Christ, on the other hand, he brings several witnesses in his defense, doing even more than what the law requires. And in so doing, as I hope we're going to get into next week, he ends up establishing a case against the prosecutors themselves. He's the one who brings in the two or three witnesses, and he's the one that shows them how they've been breaking the law. So he actually turns the tables on them. And for now, we're just going to look at these four witnesses and the honor that Christ holds them in and how they testify to the truth of Christ's message. First, John says in verse 32 of John 5, Jesus says this, there is another who bears witness of me. And I know that the witness which he witnesses of me is true. So we might want to ask at this point, who? Who, Jesus? You have to name your witness. there's another that bears witness of you are gonna keep us in mystery. One option that has been put forward by some is that this other witness is John the Baptist. After all, he's specifically mentioned in the following verse. But I don't think that John is in view here. Verse 37 and 38 give us the key to understanding who this first witness is. It's none other than God the Father. Verses 37 and 38 read like this. And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form, but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe. The first witness is the father himself. After all, John the Baptist at this point has been dead for some time. And Christ says twice here in our text, in verse 32 specifically, he says twice that this other witness bears witness or continues to bear witness about him. So this is a living witness that he's got to be referring to. It's true, of course, that the dead can still bear witness. Hebrews tells us that Abel being dead yet speaks to us today. His faith, the testimony of his faith speaks to us and teaches us. But Jesus seems to be emphasizing a present active ongoing testimony that's just permeating his life here. The father did not only bear witness to Christ at his baptism where he spoke from heaven, we might think of that, oh yes, he spoke from heaven, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. But I don't think that's what Jesus is referring to at all here. He's referring to the Father's ongoing testimony to His Son through the three remaining witnesses He mentions. So the chief witness that Jesus calls in His defense is God Himself, God the Father. And we might say, well, Jesus says that they've not heard His voice. How then is God the Father witnessing to Christ in His truthfulness? What is God doing specifically that is witnessing or testifying about His Son? And the answer is the Father is the one who has sent the remaining three witnesses. And it's very clear here in our text. These are the three witnesses. Number one, John the Baptist. Number two, the works or miracles that Jesus performed. And then number three, the scriptures. Those are the three witnesses that Jesus says, God the Father has sent to testify about me. John the Baptist, who was the forerunner, the works or miracles that I do, and the scriptures. Let's look at each in turn. First, Jesus says, don't just believe my word alone, but believe John, whom my father had sent. He was a witness to the truth. He was a burning and shining lamp. And Jesus says here that the Jews were willing for a time to rejoice in the light that John brought. Though in part, Jesus is rebuking the Jews here and ultimately turning their accusation of him not honoring God's word on their own heads, he's also pleading with them here to repent. Listen to verse 33 and 34 with me. You have sent to John and he has borne witness to the truth. Yet I do not receive testimony from man, but I say these things that you may be saved. Jesus is the judge, of course. He's already said that in our passage today. But He's not executing His office as judge during His earthly ministry. When He was on earth, He was here to fulfill His office as our Savior and Redeemer. And though He's warning the Jews here of the coming judgment, He's doing so in order that some of them might be brought to repentance. and salvation. He wanted to see his brothers, according to the flesh, brought back into the family of God. He wanted to see the Jews saved. He came, God's word said, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And he says here, look, I know you respected John. At least for a season, you respected his word. You became suspicious. You had your doubts, but you also rejoiced in the light that he brought. You were excited about his message of the kingdom of heaven. And all that light, it was ultimately pointing toward me. He was a candle or a lamp burning brightly, Jesus says. He was revealing these heavenly mysteries. But candles and lamps, they only burn for a short period of time. Then they burn out. That's because the light is borrowed from a greater source. A candle can't generate light on its own. So Jesus says, if you could rejoice in the light that the lamp brought you, rejoice now in the flame that it was derived from. Rejoice now in the greater light. Whatever light John had, he has received from my father in heaven. Remember, John himself said he was not the light. He only came to bear witness of the true light that was coming in the world. And that true light was me. Jesus is pleading with the Jews. I'm telling you this so that you might be saved. You're trying to kill me. I'm trying to save you. Believe on me. In his commentary on this passage, that same man that I mentioned before, J.C. Ryle, he points out how much honor Christ ascribes to these three witnesses that the father has sent. John the Baptist, the works which he's prepared for him to do, and his word. And we, of course, we know, we as Christians, many of us raised in the church, we know that God honors his son, of course. We know that God honors his word and holds it in great reverence. But it's important to remember that God honors his servants too. We have a good understanding in our reformed tradition generally of how pervasive sin is, that it goes into every part of our being, that our root is sinful, that in our hearts, there is no good thing apart from the spirit of Christ, that we're sinful. But God honors his servants whom he regards as saints once he saves them. So we are servants. We're not the light. We are sinners, of course. Even the Bible goes so far as to say that we are worms in comparison to the great and glorious God. But in God's infinite love and mercy and grace, he chooses to honor creatures who are just like worms. He chooses to honor us. He chooses to dress us in shining garments, to give us royal crowns. He even says that he grants us the right to judge the world with him. Isn't that amazing? I was preparing this message and just looking through these notes here. I was just so moved by how Ryle draws out this point about Christ honoring his servants here and what he has to say about John the Baptist. Listen to his comments. And says J.C. Ryle, he says, John had been persecuted, imprisoned, and put to death by Herod, none interfering, none trying to prevent his murder. But this murdered disciple was not forgotten by his divine master. If no one else remembered him, Jesus did. He had honored Christ and Christ would honor him. These things ought not to be overlooked, Ryle says. They're written to teach us that Christ cares for all his believing people and never forgets them. Forgotten and despised by the world, perhaps, but they are never forgotten by their Savior. He knows where they dwell and what their trials are. A book of remembrance is written for them. Their tears are all in His bottle. Their names are graven on the palms of His hands. He notices all they do for Him in this evil world, though they think it not worth notice. And He will confess it one day publicly before His Father and the holy angels. He that bore witness to John the Baptist never changes. Let believers remember this. In their worst estate, they may boldly say with David, I am poor and needy. yet the Lord thinketh on me." So here Jesus is urging the Jews to believe that he is the one sent by God, as John testified. But not only did John testify of Christ, as we can see, Christ also testified of John. John's not only a witness to Jesus, and his identity as the Son of God, but here in our text and ultimately on Judgment Day, Jesus is the judge. Yes, he will be sitting behind that bar pronouncing judgment, but Jesus will also be the defendant, the advocate for John. He will be the witness that is called to the stand to testify of John's righteousness in Christ's own blood. And all who stand up for Christ here on earth are his true children that will be welcomed into his everlasting home because Jesus will remember them on judgment day. This truth should comfort us as we walk this pilgrim pathway of this world amidst a culture that often does not honor Christ and does not want to hear people honoring Christ. Unless Jesus comes back far sooner than I think he will, There will come a day when every single person in this room, every single person hearing my voice will be laid in the grave. We're all going to die. Our families will cry, they'll grieve, they'll be in pain. God willing, they'll laugh also as they share the funny memories of us at the reception. But then eventually our families will die too. And then after more time passes, their children will die. And eventually there will come a day where no one on earth remembers us at all. Maybe we'll just be a name on a gravestone nearby, a descendant that's still remembered. And someone will come visit that loved one and think, ah, that person has the same name as my grandfather. I wonder what they were like. Then more time will pass and the wind and the rain will wear down the name on the gravestone and you won't even be able to read it anymore. I've been to cemeteries like that where I look and I think, I just wish I could make out what that name is or what that year is. Who was this person who died so long ago? And unless you're one of those exceedingly rare families that has worked very hard to maintain your genealogy books, you won't even be a name on a page or a gravestone one day. You'll be just completely forgotten to the history of the world. And when we hear that, it can sound sad. We can think, well, that's discouraging. That shouldn't be discouraging for us. Our hope isn't in this world. What does it matter if no one remembers us? The ancients, they thought that immortality was really if you could do something so wonderfully valiant that you would never be forgotten, that your name would live on in posterity. But we know that's utter nonsense. That's not immortality. Immortality is when our life is hid within Christ, when our death is swallowed up in his death, when his resurrection is the hope of our future resurrection. That's immortality. If we trust in Jesus, it doesn't matter if everyone forgets us. It doesn't matter if no one comes to our funeral at all. We shouldn't be sad about that. We won't care if no one shows up to our funeral. If we have witnessed to Christ here on earth, then on that last day when Jesus speaks and all the graves burst open and we receive our renewed bodies as he's judging the world and we come before the throne and we look at him, we look at the king, he's gonna look at us and he's gonna say, I remember this one. He's mine. This is my friend. This is my brother. I think that Jesus on judgment day is gonna look at you, see you as righteous, and he's gonna say, you're my friend, you're my brother, you're my sister, you're my child. I've got a mansion waiting for you. Come in, receive the good and gracious life of the father. That will be a glorious day. The next witness that Jesus calls, the first one is John the Baptist. The next witness that Jesus calls in to testify to his identity as the Son of God is his own miracles. And this might sound odd, miracles are not themselves a person. How could they be called in as a testimony? And they're being done by Christ. So how is this different from Jesus testifying about himself? Well, Christ is crystal clear here that these works that he has been performing are the works which the Father has given him to finish. We discussed last week how the Father has planned out good works for each and every one of his children to do while they are here on earth. That's what the Apostle Paul tells us in Ephesians 2. Every single one of God's children will have at absolute bare minimum one good work done in the body, which testifies to their identity as a child of God. And here Jesus says that even the Son of God is not doing His good works on His own authority, but on the authority of His Father who sent Him. The Father even planned good works for Jesus. The Father in Scripture we see is the great planner of our salvation. He is the great decreer of all that will come to pass. God the Father decrees and the Son executes His decree. The Father plans our salvation and it's the Son who secures our salvation. And of course, the Spirit is involved as well. He's not prominent in this text, but the Spirit is the one who applies our salvation to us. And here we see that the Father planned, from before the worlds began, the Father planned Christ's signs and wonders, and Jesus came and obediently performed them. And they were chiefly done so that the Father's testimony of who Jesus is would be believed. These miracles, Jesus says in John 5.36, are an even greater witness than John himself. It's like he's saying, the first witness that the Father sent forth was John. But even if you don't believe John, even if he's not convincing, look at this greater witness that I have next. Believe the signs and wonders that you have seen. And we know that this line of reasoning is very powerful, especially to the Jews. Paul would go on to write that the Jews are the ones that seek a sign. They are the ones who are looking for these miraculous signs to prove that the Messiah had really come. And back in John 3, when Nicodemus, remember, comes to Jesus by night to ask him, Jesus, who really are you? This is what he says in opening. He says, Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God, for no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. So just as the Jews were willing, at least for a time, to rejoice in the light of John, Jesus knows that they cannot ignore these signs and these signs are pulling on their hearts. They are weighing on their mind. These signs mean something and they are convincing proof that Jesus is God himself. Today, I think we often downplay the miracles of Jesus and the role that they have in bringing people to salvation. We do this for a lot of reasons. First, just as Paul says, the Jews seek signs, but in that same breath, he says that the Greeks seek wisdom. We Westerners today are often more like the Greeks in our thinking. We're sometimes prone to doubt miraculous signs. We hear of a revival or miraculous healing. And the first thing in our 21st century reformed Christian minds often, if we're being honest, is to doubt. I don't know. I'm not so sure. Let me see myself. Let's give it time to tell. I'm not saying we shouldn't be wise and discerning, but we're not like these Jews. We're prone to doubt. Those of us who grew up in the church also, I think are often very desensitized to the miracles that Jesus performed. How often have you went home from church after a message and really just been excited and just overjoyed and jumping up and down because God, your God, fed thousands and thousands of people just from a few loaves and fish? How often in your evangelism have you emphasized that Jesus healed the blind and the lame? How often has your faith been strengthened by meditating on the fact that your Lord turned water into wine at a wedding? I can tell you that even if this is just run-of-the-mill Jesus to you, this was astounding to the people who witnessed these things. The people who saw these miracles were amazed. Their lives were changed from that moment forward. Even if they did not trust in Christ as Lord, they never forgot, I guarantee, some of these wonderful miracles. Unreached tribes in the world today, you can hear reports that when they hear these stories about Christ, about the miracle specifically, they are amazed. They're astounded that a man could do something like this. We just think, oh yeah, Jesus walked on water. I remember that from vacation Bible school. We're desensitized to it. Jesus says though, that the works, these miracles are an even greater witness than John the Baptist. We're mostly unmoved and unimpressed by the miracles that Jesus did while he was here on earth. We're more influenced oftentimes by our so-called scientific, naturalistic, post-enlightenment thinking than we would like to admit. If someone today stood at the front of one of the disaster relief food distribution lines here in Western North Carolina and just had a few items of food in front of them, and then they fed people all day long, from dawn until dusk and never got restocked. We would all be floored. We would think, how could this happen? Everyone would be flocking to the site just to see this miracle. It'd be all that we could talk about. But should the fact that these miracles of Christ happened long ago make them any less real or exciting to us? Of course not. No, they shouldn't. Should they be less impactful for our faith because they happened 2000 years in the past? No, they were written down for our benefit so that even today in 2024, they would serve as a witness of Christ's divinity. Let's find wonder and joy and strength in these things again, in these wonderful works that our Lord has done. He is the God who walks on water and he is the God that calms the raging sea. And the last witness that Jesus calls, which is the strongest of all three, you have an increasing degree of power here. John the Baptist is an amazing witness. Greater than him is the miracles. And then greatest of the three is the scriptures themselves. Jesus says this to the Jews in verses 37 through 39 of our text today. He says, and the Father himself who sent me has testified of me. You have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his form, but you do not have his word abiding in you, because whom he sent, him you do not believe. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me. The Jews first called Jesus to account because they believed that he violated the law of God as revealed in his word. They thought he was a Sabbath breaker. But Jesus here says that even though they think they believe the word of God and think they uphold the word of God and even defend the honor of the word of God, that they are missing the message of the word of God entirely. He says to these Jews who are likely religious scholars, who likely have memorized large portions of the Old Testament Scriptures. He says, you search these Scriptures because you think that by doing so you will gain eternal life. This is a good thing. Jesus is commending this. just like you were willing to rejoice in John's light, just like you were impressed by the miracles. It is good that you were looking to the word of God, but don't miss what God is telling you there. You rejoiced in John and you missed his message. You missed that one. It was a softball and you just, you swung and missed. You saw something divine in the miracles, but you still, somehow, you missed that also. You know the Bible to be the very words of God the Father. Don't miss their message too. You say you love the law. He might be saying to the Jews, I am the fulfillment of that law. You say you love the prophets. I fulfill all of their prophecies. You say that you are sitting in Moses's seat and that you are Moses's descendants. I am the prophet who is like Moses and even greater than Moses. You say you are jealous for God's name to be honored. I am the one who manifests God's name to his people and glorifies it above the heavens and the earth. The Old Testament, which the Jews claim to love, is primarily a book about Jesus. He's there in every single book. In Genesis, he's the promised seed of the woman who will defeat Satan through his life, death, and resurrection. In Exodus, he's the Passover lamb whose blood takes away God's wrath from his people. In Leviticus, he is typified by both the spotless sacrifices and the high priest. In the wilderness wanderings, Jesus is the manna from heaven, and he is the rock which followed Israel, and he is the pillar of cloud and fire. In Joshua, he's the one who fights Israel's battles for them. In Job, he's the redeemer who Job prophesies will stand on the earth on the last day. In Proverbs, he is wisdom personified. In Daniel, he is the one who is the fourth man in the fire who a pagan king said he looks like the son of God. In Hosea, he's our faithful husband who buys us back from harlotry and restores our dignity. In Malachi, he's the son of righteousness, rising with healing in his wings. Jesus is the fulfillment of every Old Testament promise. He is the faithful keeper of every Old Testament covenant. And if the Jews had been reading the Old Testament with the eyes of faith, it would have been impossible for them to miss this. They would have had no other option but to say, of course, this man that we are talking to is the one that we have been waiting for, the one to whom all of the Scriptures point. But they missed it. Now I say that, that the Jews missed the real meaning of God's word, but this isn't because they couldn't understand or because they weren't smart. It's because they were unwilling to understand. They were unwilling to repent. They were unwilling to trust in Christ. If someone reads the Bible and has not come out the other side as a committed Christian, it's not a problem up here. And it's certainly not a problem with the word. It's a problem right here in their heart. John chapter 5 verses 39 and 40 says, I don't know that it's even possible to pick up a single book of the Bible and not see Christ to some extent. The Jews miss Jesus' presence in God's Word in large measure, but they didn't miss Him because he wasn't there clearly. They missed him because their hearts were hard. And those times where they did begin to see, where they began to see his Messiahship, they suppressed that truth in unrighteousness. They pressed it down. They rejoiced in John for a time. They liked the miracles for a time. They read God's word. But when that word and those miracles and John the Baptist all demanded that they humble themselves and worship the Lord, they refused and they hardened their hearts against God's spirit. And so it is today. No one can truly search the scriptures as the Jews did. and not in some measure see Jesus. I'm not talking about a random verse here or there. You could easily miss Christ if all you ever do is pick up a random page of the Bible and read a line of one of the prophets half-heartedly. Sure, you could miss him, and that's, I could understand that. But if you truly search the scriptures, like Jesus says the Jews were doing, if you devote your life to reading these scriptures and to applying these scriptures, it is impossible to miss Christ. And if you do miss his salvation, it is because you are in the bond of iniquity, suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. So what do you do? And what should the Jews have done? What is our application from this? Open your Bible again, no matter how many times you've opened it before, and then pray that God would open your heart as he did for Lydia. Even if you're a believer, even if you are absolutely assured of your salvation, if you've been walking with Christ for decades and have never doubted him, take this advice, open your Bible again and ask that God would open your heart. Children here. Those of you who have never known a day when Jesus was not your Lord, when you cannot think of a time in your life where you did not believe in Jesus as your Savior, open your Bible. Even if you can't read yet, ask your mommy or daddy to read to you, to read their Bible to you. And you can pray, even a two or three year old can pray that God would open your heart. God, open my heart. You might not even know what else to pray. You might not even know what all that means, but you can pray, God, open my heart. Let me love you. Give me faith in you. Just open my heart. And then you receive the ministry of the word and you let Christ do his work. We are called to believe these faithful witnesses, just as the Jews were called in Jesus's day. The Father has sent them, and they are for us as well. We are to believe John the Baptist and his testimony. Behold, this is the Lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world. We are to believe that Jesus is the one who raised the dead, and in fact, raised himself from the dead on the third day. We are to believe every single word that comes from the mouth of God. And we must trust that one day, if we have trusted in Christ, Jesus will bear witness before the throne of God that we are his children and he is our great savior. He will never forget us. He loves us to the end. Let's pray. God, we just thank you for your word. We thank you that you do not forget a single one of your servants. God, we thank you for the abundance of witnesses you have given us. Lord, you have left us without excuse. Lord, you sent your son, your very son, very God of very God, God in human flesh. But God, even above and beyond that, you sent more witnesses. You sent the forerunners. You sent his miracles. God, you sent your word. And we thank you that after his resurrection and ascension on that great Pentecost Lord's Day, God, that you sent your spirit, Lord, and that all who trust in you. receive the outpouring of your Spirit within themselves. We thank you, God, that we as the church are the temple of your Holy Spirit, and the Spirit within us testifies also that you, in fact, are the Son of God. Lord, if there's anyone here that is apart from you, whose heart is hardened against you, I pray, God, even right now, that you would work a miracle. that you would take out that hard heart, that heart of stone, and that you would put a heart of flesh within. God, that you would reveal yourself in a fresh and new way that would cause your children to fall down on their knees and worship you. God, we pray that you would revive us again, and we thank you for this word, and we pray your blessing on the ministry of your sacrament. In Christ's name.