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Well, brothers, as I intimated in my prayer a moment ago, I have a very short meditation and simple series of points to bring to you, largely from John 17, 3. I'm going to read John 17, verses 1 through 5 to complete the section. And the overall question that I want us to consider today is a basic one. What is the gospel? So with that question in view, let us hear the Word of God from John 17, 1-5. Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come Glorify your son that your son also may glorify you. As you have given him authority over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. And now, O Father, Glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was. Thus far, the reading of God's word from John 17. You may be seated. When I asked the question a moment ago, what is the gospel? This question is tied intimately to a related one. How do we regard Jesus Christ Himself? I want to illustrate this in a couple of ways. I know many of you brothers, including myself, have young children in the home. And when you come home and you see your children, if they can walk, what do they do? Typically, they come running up to Dad and they're excited that Dad is home and they can't wait to jump into Father's arms. But consider a parallel illustration that may not seem parallel and may even seem strange initially. How do you regard your cell phone? Is there really any comparison? It may be useful. You may even say you love it. You may be excited to have it, and it may help you do a number of tasks. but you don't regard the cell phone the same way that a child regards his father. And we know the difference intuitively, don't we? Well, years ago, Jonathan Edwards described that with respect to Jesus Christ, there are at least two kinds of professing Christians. There are some that come to Jesus Christ as a husband, as the bridegroom to his bride, but there are others that attempt to come to Jesus Christ as a prostitute. And the idea is that the former loves Jesus Christ and desires his glory and loves his person as well as his work, and the latter simply regards him as a means to an end. To achieve a list of benefits in a way, perhaps in a less shocking manner, it's like the difference between a father loving his children and the children loving his father and simply how you regard your cell phone. One you love, one simply useful. What I want to look at from this text today is that the gospel is eternal life through knowing the true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. And what we're going to do as we look at this is consider its importance for our context in particular. Most of us here are either preachers or intend to be. And what I want to aim at in particular is the question of how we are to preach Christ, to know Christ, to involve Christ in our ministries. And I want to make that clear as we go through. Well, as we think about the gospel being eternal life, through knowing the true God and Jesus Christ whom we've sent, we can look at this under two heads. First, the nature of eternal life, or you could state this differently, it's quality. And then secondly, the means of eternal life. Now in terms of the nature of eternal life, I assume that this verse is well known to most, if not all of us. It is one of those great summaries of what Christ came to do. In fact, on one occasion, and probably the last occasion I preached this text was at a funeral. It's often a good practice at a funeral to have something that's easily remembered and that can be preached in about 20 minutes, that people will get the main point and walk away with it. Well, this text lends itself exactly to this purpose. But in the context, we need to recognize first what our Lord is doing, because even though I've selected verse 3 out of these five verses, I actually don't believe it's the main point of the section. The main point of the section seems to come in verse 5, where Jesus is asking His Father to glorify Him with the glory that He had before the world was. Everything else in this part of the prayer, in the first four verses, constitutes grounds of his primary petition in verse 5. Now remember what's going on in the broader context. If we could begin by looking at the text through a telescope and then narrow it down to a microscope. What we see going on is Jesus is about to depart from his disciples. They are distressed that they will no longer experience the joys of his earthly fellowship. And he begins to compensate them, not only with ideas such as the fact that he's going to prepare a place for them and for us by extension, But, He's going to send them the Spirit, who will more than compensate the loss of His physical presence. Well, now what we have in chapter 17 is what the Puritan Thomas Manton referred to as the true Lord's Prayer. What we call the Lord's Prayer, of course, is what the Lord taught us to pray. But it's not necessarily what he prays. After all, he doesn't say, forgive us our debts, as our Lord was sinless. But this is, in a proper sense, the true Lord's Prayer. And the first thing he prays for in this prayer is his own glory. The second thing he prays for is his present disciples. And the third thing he prays for is his future disciples. Now, of course, that's all-encompassing, isn't it? And the last part of the prayer would even encompass us in this room today. And rightly, this has become a favorite chapter to many people. With that context, then, what is our Lord doing in verse 3? Well, effectively, He is asking the Father to glorify Him for two reasons. first, that He might in turn glorify His Father. You see, Jesus is a walking transcript of the teaching contained in the first question of our catechism. He lived and breathed to glorify His Father in heaven. And His primary aim in the cross, even more than your salvation and more than mine, is the glory of God and the glory of His Father. And the first thing we need to recognize when we think about this question, what is the gospel? We need to remember what the gospel aims at. It doesn't primarily aim at the salvation of sinners, but it aims primarily at the glory of God. That sounds very simple, but I believe at the end of the day, brothers, this is what ultimately makes the difference between coming to Jesus Christ as a true bridegroom and spouse of His church versus attempting to use Him for His benefits. Do we approach the gospel as Christ did? fundamentally as a means to glorify God. This is why Calvin basically said in the 16th century that the way that we worship God is more important than your salvation. And in terms of our theology, the worship of God is the chief thing that we aim at. The way that Jesus glorifies God here is by saving his elect. That's where verse three comes in and why it's one of the grounds for his prayer that the Father might glorify him. I finished the work that you've given me to do. I've glorified your name on earth. You've given me authority over all flesh that he, that is Christ, should give eternal life to as many as you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent." Now why is this so important? The first thing that we need to consider here is that when Jesus describes eternal life, He's describing a quality of life more than a duration of existence. That's an important distinction. As you know, the tragic reality is that there are many people today and who will live, who will continue forever, but their existence does not match the biblical description of life. When Adam ate of the tree, he died spiritually, he would die physically, and ultimately, eternally, unless he has a Redeemer to stand between him and God, and to reconcile him to God. And so the life of the unbeliever is a continual death and will continue and culminate in the second death at the last day, even as some of you brothers and I have considered in eschatology this last week. Life describes a quality of life more than a duration of life. Now I need to borrow from the second point that I want to bring out in just a moment to round out this question. What is the gospel? Ultimately it's not simply possessing a list of benefits or even eternal life. But it's knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. the sum and substance of biblical Christianity is God Himself, the glory of our God. In other words, one of the most imperative things that we need to preach to people is not simply a list of benefits and not simply things that they must receive and things that they must hope in. We must preach those things, but fundamentally and primarily we must preach to people the glory of God. I always find it striking When I hear people like Carl Truman say things like, in the 3rd and 4th century, the best-selling books that were coming off the presses, so to speak, were about the Trinity and the person of Christ. Today, if we believe Amazon at least, then it's about Christian dieting. Doesn't that illustrate something of what I'm trying to bring before you from this text? We're losing sight in a big way of what eternal life is. We were made, brothers, to know God. And it ought to be our chiefest joy and our highest privilege to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. This is why Luther said that, I would rather be in hell with Christ than in heaven without him. because he is the heaven of heavens and he is the centerpiece of the gospel. That is the first thing. Eternal life describes a quality of life more than a duration of life. What is the quality of your life now? Is your relationship to Jesus Christ like that child to his father? Do you love Jesus Christ? Isn't that the fundamental question of all? Do you love Jesus Christ? Do you love the only true God? Are you resting in Him? Or is He no better to you than your cell phone? Or a man going to a prostitute looking for benefits, but not coming and loving Jesus Christ? What is the quality of your life, brothers? Can you say that Christ is your life? Can you say that you long for the day when Christ, who is your life, will appear in glory and you will appear with Him? What is the quality of our lives now? Because ultimately, we're not going to be able to preach the glories of God unless we live with our affections caught up with the glory of God. And our Lord exemplifies that in His own prayer, doesn't He? Just as He loved the Father, so we're to follow Him and love the Father. Well, secondly, we come in the text to the means of eternal life. Now, in some sense, I wasn't sure exactly how to title this point because I don't want to give the impression by means that somehow Christ and God the Father are a means to an end. But at the same time, we recognize that there are certain things that God has put in place without which we cannot possess everlasting life. And we recognize here that the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Christ are not only the means of eternal life, but the goal of eternal life and the substance of eternal life at the same time. And so all of these things spill together and blend together in our text. This reminds me, as we think about what our Lord is saying, of how the Dutch theologian Pieter van Maastricht defined true theology. I think it helpfully illustrates what our Lord is saying here. He defines true theology as the doctrine of living to God through Christ. The doctrine of living to God means that we can't simply know about the true God. We can't simply have head knowledge, but we must have heart knowledge. We must know God and we must know him through Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ alone. This is why, at least personally, I'm never very impressed when I hear these statistics about how many people in our country today still believe in a God. Well, you realize that unless we know the right God in the right way, then in Ephesians 2, Paul actually uses the word atheoi. to describe such people. Atheists, outside of Jesus Christ, regardless of what we claim, regardless of what we profess to believe regarding a God, we are as good as atheists at the end of the day, because we are strangers from the covenants of promise, from the commonwealth of Israel, and ultimately we are without God, without Christ in the world. And so the imperative in the gospel is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Now a question can arise here. Where's the Holy Spirit? He's featured prominently in John 14 through 16 and virtually disappears in John 17. And some will say, well, how do we account for this? God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to you and peace, for example, from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I think what we need to recognize, brothers, is what Jesus is saying is something like what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2.5. When he says there's one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Well, think about what he's saying. In Jesus's prayer, it's as though he's implying to us, if you want to know what is necessary to have everlasting life, it amounts to two things. You must know the right God and you must come to him in the right way. You must know, in this case, the Father representing the majesty of the entire Godhead, and you must recognize that the incarnate Christ is the only mediator between God and man. Ultimately, when we talk about the Gospel, these are the two things we need to know. Now, of course, we need to know how to receive Him by faith, how repentance unto life comes into view, and a whole bunch of other things, don't we? But at the end of the day, the heart and core of the Gospel is simple. It's knowing the only true God and coming to Him in the right way through Jesus Christ whom He sent. Now, think about this. What Jesus is saying is, Father, glorify me because I fulfilled man's chief end. I fulfilled my chief end to glorify you on earth. Now glorify me with the glory I had before the world was. I've also done the work you've given me to do, and I've come to save your people, and I've actually accomplished this work that you've given me to do. And they shall have eternal life. in me through knowing you and through knowing me." And that's the point of what our Lord is arguing here. Notice that he doesn't set simply eternal life as an abstract benefit of the gospel. He sets himself forward at the center of it. So we can't think of eternal life. We can't think of any benefit of the gospel or any teaching or any doctrine of the gospel apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. He is, as it were, the gateway through which we enter into all the Bible's teaching and theology and doctrines and practices and everything. Now brothers, I want to say more about how this applies to our preaching in just a moment, but by way of precursor. I believe this is one of the primary reasons why we need to preach Jesus Christ continually, directly, experientially in every sermon we preach, because without him there's no true knowledge of the true God. The thing about Maastricht, and I gave you the quote a moment ago, what is he doing? He's setting a foundation in his theology. It's as though he's saying in this early chapter on what is true theology, the doctrine of living to God through Christ, that when you go into the doctrine of God proper and into creation and the fall and sin and into Christology and soteriology and the doctrine of the church and the last things and all of this comes together, You must begin here, and you must carry it with you in everything that you do. You must be living to God in Jesus Christ as you walk through the system of doctrine. Are we losing that, brothers? I say this in a way that I find difficult to express when people start arguments with me about why do we need to preach Christ. I'm frankly, brothers, baffled. How can you know God without Christ? And in every sermon, don't you want people to know God? And here Jesus says, if you want these people to have eternal life, you want believers to persevere in glory, there are two things they need to know, not only to be converted, but to persevere and enter glory. the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he sent. I want to conclude by drawing this back where I began, to the originating thoughts. What is the gospel? To know the right God and to come to him in the right way. to possess not a duration of life, but a quality of life in fellowship and communion with this God. And brothers, I fear that rather than coming up with a homiletical theory or list of duties as to why Jesus Christ needs to be in our sermons, the first question we need to ask ourselves is, is Jesus Christ in our hearts? When I read the epistles of Paul, for example, I don't think anyone needed to tell him he needed to preach Jesus Christ. He couldn't help it. His meditations were on Christ. His thoughts were on Christ. His heart was with Christ. And Christ naturally spills out into his preaching, into his life, into his conversation, into everything. And if you learn anything under my instruction or under the other professors here at Greenville Seminary, if there is nothing else that stands out to you beyond this, then I feel like we've done something significant. To be lovers of Jesus Christ, that we might be preachers of Jesus Christ. to know that the gospel is ultimately Jesus Himself and knowing God through Him and that to know Him and to love Him is eternal life. So, brothers, at the end of the day, let us hold Christ in our hearts. Let us hold Him in our affections. Let us meditate upon His glory in His person and His work and let us look to eternal life in Him and let us preach this to others. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your merciful love and kindness to us. We ask, Lord, that you would bless us to grow in our love and affection for Jesus Christ, and we pray that you would enable us not only to know him for ourselves, but to minister to him to our families and in our churches. We ask it all in Christ's name. Amen.
What Is the Gospel?
Series 2015-2016 GPTS Chapel
Sermon ID | 217161228272 |
Duration | 23:43 |
Date | |
Category | Chapel Service |
Bible Text | John 17:3 |
Language | English |
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