It's John 10, 17 to 21, First Sermon, I'm entitled, No Greater Love. This is Jesus speaking and he says this, For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so as to take it up again. No one has taken it from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have the authority to lay it down and I have the authority to take it up again. This commandment I've received from my Father. Division occurred, again, among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, he's a demon and he's insane. Why do you listen to him? Others were saying, he's not the sayings of one who's demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, Kenny. Bill O'Reilly is an American political commentator whose career spanned nearly five decades. He worked for ABC and later for CBS, where he hosted the program Inside Edition. And then from 1996 until 2017, he had his own program called The O'Reilly Factor. Well, besides being a newscaster, though, Bill O'Reilly is also the author of a number of books. Probably the best known are the first three in his Killing series, Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, and Killing Jesus. In that last book, O'Reilly and his co-author Martin Duger, it says this, detail the events leading up to the murder of the most influential man in history, Jesus of Nazareth. Nearly 2,000 years after this beloved and controversial young revolutionary was brutally killed by the Roman soldiers, more than 2.2 billion human beings attempt to follow his teachings and believe that he is God. Killing Jesus will take readers inside Jesus' life, recounting the seismic political and historical events that made his death inevitable and changed the world forever. Now, I've read a number of books about Jesus, obviously, but not this one, so I had to look to a couple of reviewers. Christian scholars Andreas Kosenberger and also Tim Chalice. Now, both stated that they thought the book was interesting and it was engaging. Not surprising that they would know how to write being journalists. But as to the theological pedigree, both O'Reilly and Duger are practicing Catholics, but neither claims to be an expert on the Bible. But they don't see that as a problem because their stated goal was to lay out the events that led up to the crucifixion of Jesus and the purported resurrection without making a theological evaluation of these events. Along the lines of Sergeant Joe Friday and the Dragnet series, just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts. Bill O'Reilly believes that much of the story of Jesus is mythical or allegorical. And like the liberal Bible scholars in the late 1800s in their quest for the historical Jesus, the authors of Killing Jesus are trying to separate the Jesus of history from the Jesus of faith. The truth of who Jesus was from the beliefs that arose about him among his followers after he was gone. So for instance, the miracles that Jesus performed are not reported as having happened, but alleged by his followers to have occurred. O'Reilly and Dugan do not outright deny that they occurred, but neither do they affirm that they actually happened. Now they did a fair amount of research for the book, drawing on the works of the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, but nevertheless they make some gaps, biblical gaps, in their book. They claim that the northern kingdom of Israel fell in 722 to the Philistines. No, it wasn't the Philistines, it was the Assyrians. They also assert that Jesus chose four fishermen to be his disciples because as fishermen, they would be multilingual, speaking Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin. Now that's mere speculation. The Bible doesn't even hint to that. Now both reviewers pointed out that the authors of Killing Jesus do a pretty good job in sticking with the gospel. narratives. I mean, you might recall that Hollywood miniseries, Noah's Ark, that was done a number of years ago. At one point, Noah and his family are floating on the ark in water, and Lot and some others who survived the flood come up as pirates to try to get on the ark. Now, Lot was not even alive at the time of the flood, and we're told in the Bible that only eight people made it through. Well, killing Jesus is not the equivalent of like the Da Vinci codes. But however engaging and informative the book is, It never deals with the most important questions about Jesus. Was He who He claimed to be, the Son of God? And did He do what He said He would do? Offer up His life as a sacrifice for sins, and then rise from the dead three days later? Well, the authors affirm that the followers of Jesus believed He did these things, but did He really? The answer to that question is not just a historical curiosity. What you believe on that score determines your eternal destiny. Now, we've already heard Jesus claim to be the good shepherd who calls and cares for his sheep. Even more importantly, he tells us that he lays down his life for his sheep. And elsewhere, he tells us that there's no greater love that any man has than this, that he would lay down his life for his friends. Well, here where Jesus speaks again about his self-giving demonstration of that love, we find some important truths about his laying down his life for the sheep. We also see the reaction of the crowds to his claims. And so today, to appreciate again, With wonder and amazement, Christ's sacrifice, we want to consider this portion of God's Word. So why don't we pray? Get into the text. Father God, I pray for grace and mercy. I pray that you'd cause all of the distractions in our mind and about us to give way so that we pay attention to your Word so that we might learn from it. So bless us that end. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I think we can outline this section with two phrases. The first one you can write down is simply this. Given, not taken. That's verses 17 to 18. Given, not taken. And secondly, divided. and conflicted. And that's 19 to 21. Now, a couple of weeks ago when we were last in John's gospel, we looked at just one verse, 16, where Jesus tells us, I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they will become one flock. with one shepherd. Now this foal that Jesus is referring to is Israel, the Jews. The other sheep are those from among the Gentiles. Now that the Messiah would come from Israel is clearly taught in the Old Testament, but that the Savior would not only be for Israel, but for all the nations is clearly taught in Isaiah 4, 6. Speaking of the Messiah, God the Father says this, And the accomplishment of this goal by the servant, God's son, was well-pleasing in his sight. We see that starting in verse 17. Given, not taken. By the way, 1 John 4.7-8 says this, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Both Judaism and Islam teach that God is personal, that he's a person. But since neither of them teach that God is triune in nature, neither Jews nor Muslims can say that God in his essence is love. I mean, think about it. For there to be a lover, there has to be a beloved. And since God is eternal, there must have always been someone who is eternal to whom he could express his love to. So the Father eternally has loved the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son has eternally loved the Father and the Spirit, and the Spirit has eternally loved the Father and the Son. No wonder Paul said, now these three abide, faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love. Joe Cocker sang that song, You are so beautiful to me. You are so beautiful to me. Can't you see? You're everything I hope for. You're everything I need. You are so beautiful to me. Well, Jesus is altogether beautiful and altogether lovely, and the Father loves His Son for many reasons, but Jesus focuses on what pleases the Father most about Him. He says in verse 17, For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so as to take it up again. No one has authority to take it from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have the authority to lay it down and also the authority to take it up again. This commandment I've received from the Father. Christians love Jesus first and foremost because he laid down his life for us. God the Father loves Jesus first and foremost because he laid down his life for us, and in so doing brought glory to the Father. There are four things that we have to say about Christ's death on the cross, and here's the first one. It's central to the Christian faith. The cross is central to the Christian faith. I'm sure most of you heard about the murder of the actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife, allegedly, by their son. Rob was the son of Carl Reiner, who was the producer of the Dick Van Dyke Show. So he was raised in Hollywood. He was also raised Jewish, but he became an atheist. Even so, though, he said he had appreciation for the teachings of other religions, particularly for Buddhism. He even said complimentary things about Jesus. But he saw Christian nationalism as a grave threat to America. He made a documentary called God and Country, warning against it. In an interview with Phil Vischer, the creator of the VeggieTales series, He said that he had gone through a dark period in his life. And it was during that time that he actually started to read the Bible, and he was very impressed by the teachings of Jesus, especially in helping the poor and the golden rule, which he saw as the essence of Christianity. But Rob Reiner's view was like a lot of people in the mainline churches. He saw Jesus as a great moral teacher, kind of like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. or Nelson Mandela, but not as the incarnate Son of God who died for sins on a cross. That Rob Reiner was raised Jewish and didn't believe in Jesus, as presented in the Gospel, really isn't all that surprising. But that you have people who claim to be the followers of Jesus, who don't believe what the Bible says about his identity, well that makes them hypocrites and unbelievers. During the modernist fundamentalist controversy in the 1920s in this country, J. Gresham Machen wrote a book entitled Christianity and Liberalism. In it, he argued that liberalism is not a variant form of Christianity, but it's actually a denial of it. Christianity focuses on the cross of Christ. If that's missing from our preaching and teaching, whatever labels we put on our churches, they're not in fact Christian. Now writing to the Corinthians, Paul reminded them in 1 Corinthians 2, 1-5, he says, When I came to you, brethren, I didn't come to you with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. In other words, he didn't use the rhetorical skills that people would normally use at that time. For I determined to know nothing among you except for Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my message was a message of preaching and were not of persuasive words. of wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit and power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. The second thing we have to say about this death, though, is that it was vicarious in its nature. Now, the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary gives a definition for vicarious as performed or suffered by one person as a substitute or to the benefit or advantage of another. I remember listening to an older Jewish woman give her testimony. how she came to faith in Christ. The Nazis came to her town and they rounded up the Jews who were all wearing the yellow Star of David. The guards had the number of Jews that they were supposed to pick up, but evidently they didn't have their names. And at the last moment, there was a man, a Christian man from her town, who told her to change coats with him. And so she did. He was going to take the place of her in the back of the truck. He just made her promise one thing, that if she got through all of this, when the war was over, that she would visit a Christian church, which she did to keep that promise. And as a result of that, she got saved. No greater love has any man than this, than he would lay down his Gentile life for a Jewish girl. I read of one time when they were showing the Jesus film in an African village. And when they got to the point where Jesus was being crucified, one older man, overcome with emotion, stood up and he cried out, Jesus, come down from that cross. It's I who deserve to die, not you. So on that cross, when Jesus died, the wrath of God, he satisfied, for every sin on him was laid here in the death of Christ. I live. The third thing we know about this was that it was voluntary on the part of Jesus. He said, I lay down my life so that I might take it up again. No one has taken it from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Was he a Christian martyr? I guess that depends on why the assassin killed him. But even if he took his life because he was a Christian, His life was taken. It wasn't given. Jesus' life was given. And in that sense, he wasn't a martyr. Do you remember when they came to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Eden, or the Garden of Gethsemane? Peter, thinking to protect his Lord, swung a sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest. But Jesus rebuked him, saying this, Put your sword back in its place. For all who live by the sword will die by the sword. Do you think that I could not call on my father and he would at once put at my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? But then how would the scripture be fulfilled that says it must happen this way? And after he was arrested, he stood before Pilate, the governor. The Jewish leaders insisted, we have a law according to which he must die because he claimed to be the son of God. When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. And he went back inside the palace. Where are you from? He asked Jesus. But Jesus gave no answer. "'Do you refuse to speak to me?' Pilate said. "'Don't you realize that I have the power either to free you or to crucify you?' Jesus' answer said, "'You'd have no power over me if it were not given from above. Therefore, the one who handed me over to you, his guilt has greater sin.'" In Achilles, they ask these eight, seven to eight. It says, "'Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what's to come?' and no one has power over the wind to contain it, so also no one has power over the time of his death. Pastor Jeff died two weeks ago yesterday, about 11 o'clock at night. He didn't decide when and where he would die. The Kessler sisters, they were identical twins who performed in the 60s with a singer, Frank Sinatra. They grew up together, they lived together, neither of them ever married, and they died together. They died together because they committed suicide together. Yeah, and they also perished together. But not everyone who attempts suicide even succeeds. So it's true that no one has power over the time of his death. But Jesus did have power over the time and the manner of his death. When he had fulfilled all the prophecies related to his death, we read Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. Having said this, He breathed his last. Matthew says he yielded up his spirit. The fourth thing that has to be said, though, is it was planned out from eternity past. You know, the Jews celebrate Passover each spring. Historically, the holiday has brought them kind of a sense of fear and dread. The Christian celebration of Good Friday and Easter are moved around from year to year so that it corresponds to Passover. But in the Middle Ages in Europe, during the Holy Days, Jews were sometimes attacked as Christ killers, and their synagogues were burned to the ground. This was known as the blood libel. Remember when the Roman governor Pontius Pilate placed Jesus before the crowds, also with a criminal named Barabbas, he asked them which of the two he should release. They said Barabbas. Pilate said to them, Well, then what should I do with Jesus who is called Christ? They said, Crucify Him. They said, Why? What evil has He done? Yet they kept shouting all the more, saying, Crucify Him. Now when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, I am innocent of this man's blood. You see it to yourselves. And all the people replied, His blood shall be upon us and our children. Then he released Barabbas for them. But after, having Jesus flogged, he handed him over to be crucified. You know, from a passage like that, there's some who've argued that Jews everywhere from that time forward are guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus. The Catholic Church has a long vein of anti-Semitism, but Vatican too. The Church made a declaration stating that Jews cannot be collectively held accountable for Christ's death. But were the Jews responsible for Jesus' death? Well, certainly the priests and the Jewish leaders were involved. They arranged the arrest. Did the crowd standing before Pilate that day, shouting for his blood, sharing that guilt? Yeah. Speaking of those Jews that were hounding and hindering the spread of the gospel, Paul wrote to the Thessalonians this, Listen to this, "...who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out. They're not pleasing to God, but hostile to all people, hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved, with the result that they always reach the limit of their sins, but wrath has come upon them fully." 1 Thessalonians 2, 14-16. And speaking to his countrymen in Jerusalem, Peter said this in Acts 2, 22-24, he said, "...Men of Israel, listen to me. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourself know. This man was delivered over," listen to this, "...by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. You nailed to a cross at the hands of godless men and put them to death. But God raised them up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in his power." Now, I want you to notice something here. Peter charges them with the death of Christ. But he says it came about by the predetermined plan of God. And then a couple of chapters later, after the disciples were released from arrest, they praised God saying this, "...for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do what your hand and purpose predestined to occur." Again, there's a number of actors playing their part in the drama of the death and resurrection of Jesus, but ultimately it's God who's directing these actors so that everything goes according to the script that He's pre-written. God is sovereign over the affairs of men, working all things after the counsel of His own will. And He's doing the same thing in your life. He's working all things after the counsel of His own will. Christ's crucifixion and resurrection was planned from eternity past in the minds of God. And that's why Revelation 13.8 refers to Jesus as the lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. So when you read through the New Testament, what you find though is the Jews are not so much condemned for their part that they played in the crucifixion of Jesus, as much as their refusal to believe in him now that he's risen from the dead. And though Jews and Gentiles living today took no part in Jesus' death, all stand guilty before him if they refuse to believe in Jesus. For John told us, he who believes in the Son has eternal life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. Jesus goes on to say in this section, no one takes it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up. This commandment, meaning this charge, I received from my Father. Everything that Jesus did and does is in accordance with the will of God. That brings us to our second point though, divided and conflicted. This is 19 to 21. Now it's not uncommon to hear people complain about the division that we have in Washington. I mean, why can't the Democrats and Republicans work together for the good of the country? I can explain why. It's because they can't agree on what the good that they should be working towards is. I mean, is it good for a woman to have the right over her reproductive freedom, as the Democrats argue, for abortion? Or is it good to protect the lives of unborn babies? Show me a compromise with abortion and I'll show you a dead baby. Conflict is not only inevitable, it's actually good and necessary when that conflict is over right and wrong, righteousness and sin, truth and lies. I mean, didn't Jesus himself say, do not think I came to bring peace on the earth. I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against a mother-in-law, and a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. And some of us have people who consider us enemies that are in our own household. Again and again, we've seen that disagreement and division come as a result of Christ's teaching. So we see here in verse 19, it says this, Now I titled this section, Divided and Conflicted. Merriam-Webster's dictionary defines conflicted as experiencing or marked by ambivalence or conflict, especially of emotions. The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as being confused or worried because you cannot choose between varying different ideas, feelings, or beliefs, and you do not know what to do or believe. On the one side, they weren't conflicted at all or confused about what they thought about Jesus and the teaching. They gave him an instant mental health evaluation and made their prognosis. It says in verse 20, many of them were saying, he's a demon, he's insane, why do you even listen to him? Not believing in him and not knowing what to make of him, they simply wrote Jesus off as being crazy. Like Dr. McCoy asked of Spock, are you out of your Vulcan mind? No human can tolerate the radiation that's in there. But Spock responded by saying, as you're so fond of observing, doctor, I'm not human. Well, Jesus was human, but he was more than human. These words were being spoken by the Son of God, the Holy One of Israel. These people were so blind in their sin that all they saw in Jesus was a demon-possessed man-man. But others, they're conflicted in their emotions. I mean, that first evaluation of Jesus just didn't fit with their experience of Him. They responded by saying in verse 21, these are not the sayings of one who's demon-possessed. A demon can't open the eyes of a blind man, can he? You know, even Rob Reiner, as a Jewish atheist, could see the beauty and truth in the teaching of Jesus. But he still wouldn't acknowledge those teachings as coming from one who claimed to be the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel, the King of the Jews. Now, at least the second group hadn't totally written off Jesus, but then again, they still hadn't embraced him by faith yet, had they? You know, there's a lot of people in that second group today. Some of them are well-known people. Joe Rogan. He's, I think, the most listened to podcaster in America. He was raised Catholic, but after attending Catholic school as a kid and having his knuckles wrapped enough by the nuns, he became an agnostic. But over the last few years, his opinion on Christianity and Jesus has shifted as he's had Bible scholars and Christian apologists interviewed on his program. He even started attending church every Sunday. He's not a Christian, but he's certainly rethinking Christianity. Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News caster, was fired a few years ago after Fox News settled a lawsuit against him because of comments he made about the Dominion voting machines. He was raised in a liberal Episcopal church, very nominal in his faith, but then he decided to do something he had never done before. He decided to read through the entire Bible. And he said he was blown away by what it taught. According to a Beliefnet article, he said this, Carlson said two things stick out to him. First of all, with the exception of Jesus, every figure is like really flawed. Like flawed in ways when you wouldn't even want to be friends with that person. He said he was shocked to read the story of Abraham giving Sarah to Abimelech, falsely telling him that she was his sister in Genesis 20. Carlson was confused by the story, but his wife suggested, well, maybe the point is that God takes people who are not perfect people and uses them for his grander purposes. He said the second thing that really struck him was that it's God who controls human history. He said, well, we have free will, of course, and we make decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions, that we're not really in charge of the arc of history at all. They're being act upon, these characters, as much as they're acting. And I never really appreciated that because I'm an American. And so I grew up feeling that we're the sum total of our choices. Well, that's not the way I'm reading all of this. Yes, people make choices. You need to do certain things and not do other certain things. But on the other hand, you're not in charge. You're being acted upon by a world that you cannot see. And finally, Carlson said in reading the Bible, it's been teaching him humility. He said, I do think we should approach these questions with humility. I've got very strong feelings about all kinds of issues. Still, it's so important to be open to the possibility that I'm completely wrong and that what I'm espousing is actually destructive, not constructive. He still attends an Episcopal church, but he says he has a lot of internal conflict about his beliefs. Jordan Peterson. psychologist from Canada. He rocketed to fame about 10 years ago when he refused to address his students by their preferred pronouns and he was threatened by the government with prison time. And he stood firm. He said that Christianity is the necessary moral framework that can keep American and Western culture intact. He even on one occasion said that he believed that Jesus was God, the eternal Logos. But when he was asked point blank by the atheist Richard Dawkins whether or not he believed Jesus actually died on a cross for sins and rose three days later, Peterson wouldn't answer directly. He obfuscated. On the other hand, Ayaan Ali Hershey was a Muslim who was raised in Somalia, but then after 9-1-1, she turned against Islam and became an atheist. Went around speaking in a lot of places, but a few years ago, she fell into a deep depression. She said she was drowning herself in alcohol. Well, during one counseling session, Her therapist, who was a secular person, suggested that maybe her problem was spiritual in nature, and she was spiritually bankrupt. She then asked Hersey, if you could design a god of your own, what would he be like? And she started to write things down. And as she did, she stopped and said, well, he'd be like Jesus. But she was also conflicted inside. She knew that the West needed Christianity as a bulwark against Islam, but how could it be that if it wasn't actually true? But unlike the others mentioned, Ayaan was able to resolve that conflict in her mind by coming to believe that Jesus was indeed who he claims to be. She became a Christian a short while ago. And I have to tell you, I took great pleasure in that, because about 10 years ago, I put her on my prayer list and started praying for her. This former Muslim turned atheist came to faith because she too was among Christ's sheep for whom he laid down his life. No greater love has any man than this than he would lay down his life for an ex-Muslim atheist. " But how about you? Have you come to grips with the claims of Christ? What's your evaluation of him? Do you think he's a lunatic? Lost his mind? Is he a liar? A megalomaniac? Some argue that he's a legend, that he never existed. The only other alternative is that he's the Lord that he claims to be. And if you deem him to be the Lord as his sheep, follow him as the good shepherd. But maybe you're still conflicted in your mind. Maybe intellectually you've come to believe that Jesus is who he claims to be, but you still haven't taken that intellectual ascent to be moved to a place of personal trust. Let me ask you, what's holding you back? Your pride? Your love for sin? All those are going to end on the day you die. Whatever pleasures you get out of them. Is it fear of what others will think of you? If you hear Jesus calling you to himself today, come. Come to the one who shows that he loves you by going to the cross in your place. For no greater love has any man than this, than he would lay down his life for his friends. You know, his critics used to mock him saying he's a friend of sinners. And now we sing songs about it, don't we? For that he is. And he's willing to be your friend as well. Killing Jesus, no one took his life. He laid it down voluntarily as a sacrifice for sins. Receive Christ today. Let's pray. Our Father in God, we sing a song, tell me the old, old story. And it is an old story. We've been telling it for 2,000 years, but it's still the best story that's ever been heard. It's still the good news that we need to receive if we would have eternal life. We pray for all the people here, Lord, some of whom don't know you yet, that you would open up their hearts and minds to see that this is what they need more than anything in the world. For those who are going to be listening over the internet and on the radio broadcast, Lord, we pray for them as well. So give grace, give mercy, give what we need. For we ask in Jesus' name, amen.