Sermon Transcript
All right, everybody, turn your Bibles to John 8.
So, during Christmas, the world can so intensely focus on Jesus as a babe that we can quickly forget that Jesus is King. In fact, the people of the Czech Republic teach their children that the real gift bringer for Christmas is not a figure called Santa Claus, but this figure is called Jezushek, and this just means baby Jesus. They pray to baby Jesus to bring them their Christmas gifts, and as cute as it sounds, it really strangles the heart’s ability to see Jesus as Lord. And the truth is, He will never again be an infant.
Now, while we may not pray to baby Jesus every year to bring us our gifts, we do have another struggle in America. We love to see Jesus as the gentle and lowly character that He is, but we reduce Him so much that we forget that He is Lord and Judge.
So, what does Scripture offer us to correct this tendency to reduce Jesus to the likes of a cuddly stuffed animal? Scripture demonstrates for us that Jesus is Savior and Lord. And that is where we turn our attention today.
So please, Church, rise with me as we read John 8.
The Jews responded to him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you’re a Samaritan and have a demon?” “I do not have a demon,” Jesus answered. “On the contrary, I honor my Father and you dishonor me. I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it and judges. Truly I tell you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” Then the Jews said, “Now we know you have a demon. Abraham died and so did the prophets. You say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? And the prophets died. Who do you claim to be?” “If I glorify myself,” Jesus answered, “my glory is nothing. My Father—about whom you say, ‘He is our God’—he is the one who glorifies me. You do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say I don’t know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad.” The Jews replied, “You aren’t fifty years old yet, and you’ve seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple. (John 8:48–59, CSB)
This is the Word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
Father, I come to You in the name of Jesus right now. Lord Jesus, this is Your time to shine. I’m a feeble servant. My chest is tight. My vocal cords struggle. And yet You are God. You reign supreme, and You are Lord. And I beckon You to please come and show Yourself today. Rain down on me, the Holy Spirit, to do a great and mighty work in Your name. I pray that You open our eyes to see. I pray that You break stony hearts so that their ears can hear and understand that You are Lord, that You are Savior, that You are the God who loves us. And yet, You grant us eternal life. You grant us the ability to escape death if we do, in fact, obey You as Lord.
I pray that You would please break through my feeble body today and use me as Your vessel to proclaim Your glories, Your excellencies, so that we can see the beauty that Christ is, the great I Am. You grant us freedom from the enslavement to sin, but we need You to work that miracle. As Your Word says in the book of John, we did not choose You, You chose us (John 15:16), so I pray that You do a great thing today and that You would choose this body to work the gift of salvation. Break through and break through mightily.
I pray that You would also be with all those who are at home today who are watching from afar. I pray that they would feel encouraged and feel a part of this body. That they would know that they do not struggle alone, but the peace of God would reign supreme over them. Be with us, Father. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Church, I want you to know, today’s sermon was not chosen by me. My brother Bart, this morning, he told me—I told him late last night, I said, “Bart, we’re going to have to reschedule the Lord’s Supper. And also, I’m going to be there, I’ll preach, but I’m going to have to keep my distance.” And he said he was in bed and he was just talking to the Lord and wondering, “Lord, what if Josh can’t make it? What do You want me to do?” And the very topic and theme of this passage is what came to his mind. So even if I wasn’t here, this is what the Lord was going to give you.
So Church, I want you to take that as a love letter. You see, our church is small. We have a very quaint and beautifully intimate body. But the Maker of heaven and earth is here. And in that, we can rejoice mightily.
So let’s proceed with the message that the Lord wants us to hear. And I can say that with confidence.
Introduction and Main Point
So Church, today we set out to make sure that following Christmas, we properly tune our perspective on this Child born in a manger. And while we tune that perspective, I want to remind you to turn your attention to the bulletin leaflet. If you’re a guest here, we do follow a little leaflet, and you can fill in those blanks as we go through the sermon.
Yes, our Lord was born in a manger, but He is no longer a baby. He is far greater than that. And so we must understand that we need to tune our perspective to see Him more than just the Savior who was born, but He is also Lord. And He is more than just a Lord. He is specifically the Lord. Now, if you don’t understand the name of Yahweh, don’t worry. We’ll get there, and you will understand. But that is the specific Lord who Jesus is, and we’re going to see just how much that is true.
Church, salvation depends on properly recognizing that Jesus is Lord. In the book of Romans, Paul says that you must “confess with your mouth that ‘Jesus is Lord’” in order to be saved (Rom 10:9). And you’ll see football players on TV after a game, whether they win or lose, “I just want to give thanks to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” And we say this so frequently that I’m afraid that some of us might have lost the gravitas—the weight—of what it means when we say Jesus is Lord.
But today, we recapture that beauty. Because that is the kind of faith that saves you. It is a faith that recognizes Jesus as Lord in the Church. When you recognize that Jesus is Lord, hear me very carefully—a lord demands obedience. A lord has a king with a kingdom. And he expects you to live under that reign of his as lord. So a king with a kingdom demands obedience, fealty, and loyalty. And that’s the kind of Jesus that our country is very uncomfortable with. We like the cuddly Jesus. But this Jesus with rules, I don’t know about that.
But that is the kind of Jesus that our text today is calling us to. That’s why the main point of today’s sermon is:
We must recognize that the only saving faith is one of obedience to Jesus as Savior and Lord.
And as Lord, He deserves to be honored. Our passage today gives us three reasons to honor Him as Lord.
1. His Father Will Judge Those Who Dishonor Him (John 8:48–51)
And we begin with the first. We must honor Jesus as Lord because His Father will judge those who dishonor Him.
I’m going to say the word “Jews” a lot today because the word “Jews” is in our passage. But that does not mean I’m anti-Semitic. And that does not mean that anybody is allowed to be anti-Semitic either. Nor does that mean that the Jews of today are the same Jews that we’re reading about here. So with that caveat, the Jews in our passage expressly dishonor Jesus by claiming in verse 48 that He is possessed by demons and a Samaritan. Not possessed by a Samaritan, but that Jesus is a Samaritan and He’s possessed by demons. Which is another way of saying that Jesus is their enemy.
Church, we must not mischaracterize Jesus as demon-possessed. C.S. Lewis, who wrote The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia, is famous for also saying that you have to wrestle with the fact that Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. He cannot be anything else. He was either a liar, and when He said He’s Lord, He’s not telling the truth, or He’s a lunatic. He’s crazy.
Well, that’s where the Jews in our passage have settled—this Man must be possessed by demons because He’s absolutely bonkers. But C.S. Lewis is right when he says you cannot settle there because He’s done too many great things to say that He’s just a crazed, demon-possessed person.
And Jesus gives us a reason as to why we know He is not demon-possessed. He says that He’s not demon-possessed because He honors the Father. Verse 49b: “I don’t have a demon. On the contrary, I honor My Father.” And you go, well how can that be evidence? And it’s evidence because as it says in Matthew 12:25, a house divided against itself cannot stand. How can He be possessed by a demon when He’s playing up the enemy of demons—the Father of heaven and earth? So He honors the Father in the same way you know a tree by its fruit (Matt 7:16–20).
Jesus is not demon-possessed because He elevates and glorifies the Maker of heaven and earth, His Father.
But now Jesus has made His case that He’s not possessed. He turns to warn them, and that is where we need to make sure we pay very close attention. He implies that they ought to respect Him, Jesus, because the Father glorifies the Son. You see, this is an underhanded way of Jesus saying, tread very carefully, because you do not realize who you’re speaking to. He doesn’t pull the power card and say, “Hey, by the way, I’m your Lord. Watch it.” First, He does it in an underhanded way. He says, “I elevate the Father. So I’m on God’s side. And by the way, He glorifies Me.” This is an underhanded way of saying, “Be careful.”
And if you doubt that, He makes it even clearer that’s what He’s doing when He says, “Oh, and by the way, He is also Judge.”
So Jesus is telling them, tread very carefully. And this is where we get to verse 51.
And Church, this is where Christians in America are falling drastically short in their discipleship, their walk with the Lord. Where do we fall short? We fall short because we miss that being a disciple of Jesus requires us to obey Him.
Truly I tell you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” (John 8:51, CSB)
The word “keep,” tereo in Greek, refers to obedience. “Hear me clearly” is another way of saying it. “Follow through with what I’m telling you.” Jesus is expecting us to be obedient.
Church, this is like the Great Commission. The Great Commission is to go out into all the nations, making disciples and baptizing them first, and then teaching them to obey everything that He has commanded us (Matt 28:19-20). The entirety of the Church’s existence is owning the words of Christ and living them out.
You see, this is why I’ve been thinking more about this label we give ourselves—“Christians.” When we say, “I’m a Christian,” you hear so many people say, “I’m a Christian,” and you ask them, “Well, why is that?” “Well, because I got wet when I was four years old. I walked down that aisle in VBS when I was eight. I’m a Christian.” What are you doing this afternoon? “I’m going to go smoke a joint.” What? And it’s just not lining up.
Why? I think we have taken the label “Christian” and see it as a static label we acquire for ourselves, like our last name. And, you know, with your last name, it doesn’t matter what you do or where you go, that last name sticks with you for the rest of your life—unless you blatantly disown it. And that’s how people see the label “Christian” in their lives. They think that just because they’ve done a thing in the church, they’ve owned that for the rest of their life.
But Jesus says in verse 51, He says, “You will escape death if you keep My word.”
Church, this is in the gospel where we get our favorite verse for evangelical Christians. This is the same gospel. What’s the most famous verse in the whole world? John 3:16— which makes very clear that if you believe in the Son, you will escape death.
Well, Jesus is now taking what He’s already said in John 3:16, and He is tightening the definition. And I’m going to show you how.
Look at verse 30. You see, the dialogue of our passage really begins in verse 30. Jesus, in verses 21-29, has just had a strong dialogue with them, and He’s talking about how He and the Father work very closely together, as a team effort. It’s a beautiful match in ministry. And then it says in verse 30, “As He was saying these things, many believed in Him.” Who’s He talking to? People who call themselves believers.
But watch this. They’re believers in verse 30. Verse 31, He tells them:
If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. (CSB)
So, who are those who believe that are saved? It’s those who believe and obey. These are not people who just believe.
How do we know that? Well, because in verse 30 it says that they believed. But then look at this. Verse 37: “I know you are descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to kill Me.” Why? Verse 44: “You are of your father the devil.”
These are people who believed. And Jesus tells them, “You belong to Satan.” But they believed in Jesus. But they’re going to eternal damnation unless they keep the words of Christ.
Church, this is a wake-up call. If you think that you are safe with the label “Christian,” but you’re not following through with the teachings of Jesus, please turn, repent, and wake up. And give your life to Jesus as King and Lord.
So this is why I am beginning to adopt and replace “Christian” with “disciple of Jesus.” It’s because of verse 31: “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples.’”
So yes, I’m a Christian who is a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
Now, in our verse, in verse 51, you see that He mentions death. And He says, the Father is Judge, but if you keep Christ’s word, you will escape death. Church, what that means is death is the judgment that the Father brings. But if you keep the words of Christ, you escape death.
So, this is what we see. This is not referring to the medical death that we all experience. But that is why they think He’s crazy, because He just told them, you won’t die. And they’re thinking, but Abraham died, the prophets died, how can you say that your words will help us escape death?
Jesus is talking about the same death that we saw in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:17.
[B]ut you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” (Genesis 2:17, CSB)
He told Adam and Eve, “On the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you die.” Well, Adam and Eve ate. Did they die that day? Not in the medical sense. But they are kicked out of the garden, and they are exiled from God’s presence. That’s death. When you cannot draw near to the Lord, you are dead (Gen 2:17; cf. Rom 6:23).
That’s the death that the words of Christ save you from—eternal separation from God. This is what the book of Revelation says is the second death.
Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6, CSB)
And if you obey Christ as His believing disciples, then you benefit from Revelation 20:6.
Now, Church, what made them shift from being believers to wanting to kill Jesus? You see in verse 30, they’re believers, but then in verse 37, they want to kill Him. The shift is in verse 34. He says they’re enslaved to sin.
Jesus responded, “Truly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. (John 8:34, CSB)
You see, that’s where we’re at in America. Everybody loves the idea of Jesus until you tell them they’re sinners. We must, as Christians who are seeking to obey Christ and make disciples, understand that people are going to hate you because they hated Jesus first (see John 15:18). Do not be afraid to tell them that sin is a real thing. It exists. And there is a God who judges, and He will punish sin. How do we know? He punished sin on the cross.
So are you only going to call yourself a Christian as long as we keep the offensive stuff out? That’s where the Jews were. They wanted Jesus until He talked about the sticky stuff—sin.
So that is the first reason we ought to honor Christ as Lord, because His Father will vindicate Him by judging those who dishonor the Son.
2. Jesus Is Superior to All Faith Heroes (John 8:52–56)
But there is another reason. We must honor Jesus as Lord because Jesus is superior to all faith heroes. This is clear in verses 52-56.
We all have heroes of the faith. Sometimes it’s a grandparent. Sometimes it’s an author. Sometimes it’s a theologian. Sometimes it’s your chairman of the deacons. But one of the biggest heroes of the faith among Jews is Abraham. And the Jews think so little of Jesus, they cannot fathom that He is greater than their hero.
So they mischaracterize Him. They look at this Man, and they see a carpenter. And they go, surely a carpenter cannot be greater than our hero of the faith, Abraham. “You’re saying that your words help you escape death. Abraham’s words didn’t do that. Are you better than Abraham?”
Church, when we have assumptions in our theology, we build a caricature of Jesus. So are your assumptions in theology building who you think Jesus is, or are you letting the Word of God build who Jesus is in your eyes?
Church, this is why people have no problem with premarital sex. It’s why people have no problem getting drunk, getting wasted, living together, same-sex relationships—all of it. And then they say they’re also Christian. They believe in Jesus. It’s not because they really believe in Jesus. They are John 8:30 type of believers in Jesus. They say they believe in Jesus because they’re following a caricature of Jesus. But when that caricature turns up the heat and says, “You know, there’s sin,” all of a sudden that caricature falls apart.
We must not follow a caricature of Jesus. We must follow Jesus—the Jesus of the Bible.
So I say to my Muslim friends who cannot comprehend that Jesus is the Son of God or God in the flesh because your theology does not permit you that category. The Jews assumed Abraham was so high and Jesus was so low that they could not comprehend that a carpenter could be Yahweh or that grant them eternal life.
I say to my LGBTQ friends, do not let your theological assumptions about Jesus stop you from embracing the truth. Just because you do not see Jesus pronouncing judgment against gay people in the Gospels, do not misunderstand that for approval of that lifestyle. All of your misunderstandings and caricatures of Jesus lead to judgment.
That is the point of this sermon series that we call, “Who is Jesus and what does He want?” We are looking at Christ’s commands so that we can be good disciples and obey Him. But that also requires that we know who Jesus is. We have to make sure we’re not carrying caricatures of Him in our pockets.
So we must all ask ourselves, do we know Jesus, or do we just know a caricature?
One of the caricatures that they point at Jesus in verses 54-55, they call Him power-hungry. They say to Him, “Who do you think you are? Are you greater than Abraham?”
But let us remember what Jesus has already said. He does not need to grab for power because the Father has already given it to him.
The Father…has given all judgment to the Son, so that all people may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:22–23, CSB)
But in our passage in John 8:54, the Father glorifies the Son. The Jews thought they knew God, but Jesus is telling them they don’t. And this is what Isaiah was trying to tell them as well:
The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s feeding trough, but Israel does not know; my people do not understand.” (Isaiah 1:3, CSB)
Jesus says, “I know Him. You don’t.” Jesus says in verse 55 that His intimate knowledge of the Father is proven through His obedience. In the same way as Christians. If you say you know Jesus, we will know you’re telling the truth if you obey Jesus.
If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. (1 John 1:6, CSB)
This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands. The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. (1 John 2:3–4, CSB)
It’s very simple. Obedience and following Christ go hand in hand. You cannot separate them.
And as Protestants, we absolutely love the doctrine of justification by faith alone. I will wholeheartedly tell you, you will not be saved because you obey Christ. “Josh, it sounds like you’re speaking out of both sides of your mouth.” I’m not.
You see, being saved by good works means you have earned it. That is not what we’re talking about. You cannot earn your salvation. Jesus has done that. That’s where we differ with the Catholic understanding of the gospel. You cannot gain salvation through good works.
What we are saying is that if you are saved, you will have good works. Your good works, your obedience to Christ, are the evidence that Jesus has saved you. So if you say you’re a Christian, the proof is in the pudding. If He has saved you, you will obey Him.
Jesus says, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27, CSB)
God’s people do the hard things. Is it because of us? No. Because He saved us and He’s put His powerful Spirit inside of us.
Okay? So, Jesus demonstrates now—He’s demonstrated, “Look, I’m not power-hungry. I don’t need to claim power because the Father is glorifying Me.” So it’s foolish. “Why would I want to name a building after me when My Father just gave me the building?”
So Jesus demonstrates that He is greater than all the heroes of the faith. So, He’s not just power-hungry, but He is superior to all the heroes of the faith.
Recall their question in verse 53: “Who are You making Yourself to be? Are you better than Abraham?”
So why is Abraham so important to the Jews? What you must understand is we are in Genesis 11, and you have the Tower of Babel, and all the nations are coming together, and they’re constructing a building that will enable them to leave God behind. God says, “If I don’t stop them now, they’ll be able to do everything without Me” (see Gen 11:6). So He confuses their language, and He disperses them around the world. This is why we use the word Babel. So Babel refers to the idea of confused language. This is why we say a baby is babbling—she’s speaking nonsense, because that’s what everybody sounded like at the end of Genesis 11.
So these people are babbling, and God is doing it on purpose because He wants people to have a relationship with Him. And then immediately after, in the next chapter in Genesis 12, out of the nations, He says, “Abram, Abram, get up. I’m calling you on a mission. Pack your bags. I’m going to build a nation through you, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed through you.” (see Gen 12:1–3)
Abraham is the foundational father of the Jewish people. He is the George Washington of the Jewish people. He is the pillar through which they expected the saving Messiah to come. What they missed is that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
So, you understand, when they say, “Are You better than Abraham?” That is an offensive question for them to even ask. Of course, nobody is better—unless You are God.
So, how does Jesus respond to their question? The tension in the room is building and building and building. “You’re dishonoring Me—be careful.” “Yeah, I am better than Abraham.”
And now He says something that’s really cool. He says, “Abraham saw My day, and he rejoiced.”
Now, what does that mean? Now, of course, they think that means that Jesus is absolutely demon-possessed, and He’s absolutely bat-crazy because, “Jesus, you’re less than 50 years old.” But Jesus says that he saw my day and rejoiced.
What does that mean? He’s referring to the same idea as the author of Hebrews—Faith is seeing things “from afar” (Heb 11:13)
In Galatians 3:16, it says that the gospel was preached to Abraham in advance, when he was told, “Through your seed will come salvation.” Abraham put faith in the gospel, and Abraham was saved in the same way you and I are (see Gal 3:8, 16).
That’s how Abraham saw Christ and rejoiced. It’s the same idea in Matthew 13:17:
For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see but didn’t see them, to hear the things you hear but didn’t hear them. (CSB)
Church, please do not miss the fact that you are living in an incredible day and age. You live in the day and age where you do not have to travel tens, hundreds, thousands of miles to experience the presence of God because Jesus lives in you.
And Jesus is saying, the prophets and the people of righteousness in the ancient world longed to see my day.
So, when He says Abraham rejoiced, do you think He’s answering the question? “Do you think you’re better than Abraham?” Oh, yeah. He’s saying that He is better than Abraham. And therefore, he deserves to be honored. But now we turn to the third, at last reason in our text, why we must honor Jesus as Lord.
3. Jesus Is YHWH (John 8:57–59)
The Jews in our passage double down in verses 57-59. “Jesus, you’re not even 50 years old, and you’ve seen Abraham?”
This is the punchiest line in the Bible. This is my absolute most favorite verse in the book of John at least:
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” (John 8:58, CSB)
Honestly, I wish I could just close my Bible and leave it at that. “Before Abraham was, I Am.” That phrase has so much weight to it that it makes me tremble. I consider it an absolute honor to even preach a sermon on this verse. And I wish I could close my Bible and just stop the sermon right here because it is so weighty and beautiful. I feel like I am in the presence of the Holy of Holies. I am seeing God on Mount Sinai, pillars of fire, peals of thunder and lightning. And I tremble to even say, “Before Abraham was, I Am.”
But I cannot stop the sermon here because there might be someone who does not know what this means. So let me unpack it for you.
Jesus responds by saying that He is the Great I Am. This is playing on a very important theme. When Jesus says, “I Am,” He is equating Himself with the God of the Old Testament. We’re going to get there. But I want you to first understand that in the book of John, John has seven formal “I Am” statements. And I put those on your sermon leaflet so that you can look at those when you go home:
- I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35)
- I am the Light of the World (John 8:12)
- I am the Gate (John 10:7, 9)
- I am the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14)
- I am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25)
- I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)
- I am the True Vine (John 15:1, 5)
But then he has some informal statements where He says, “I Am,” but what He is exactly is not clear. This is an “I Am” statement where He does not say what He is, but it is very clear what He is referring to.
So what is He referring to? He is referring to Exodus 3:14 or Isaiah 41:4.
God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.” (Exodus 3:14, CSB)
The book of Exodus was written in Hebrew, and when the book of Exodus was translated into Greek, it uses the phrase ego eimi. It’s the same Greek phrase that He’s using here in this gospel. Ego eimi. “Before Abraham—prin Abraam genesthai, ego eimi—Before Abraham was, I Am.”
Now, it could be that passage, but I learned something new this week. (Which isn’t too hard, because I’m only 37.) But, this could also be a reference to Isaiah 41:
Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I am the Lord, the first and with the last—I am he.” (Isaiah 41:4, CSB)
The Greek translation of this Hebrew passage says ego eimi. The same ego eimi in John 8:58.
Jesus is YHWH.
How offensive is that to Jewish people? Very. It’s incredibly offensive. In fact, if you go to Israel and you stand near the Temple Mount and you say “Jesus is YHWH,” you will likely be spat on, if not stoned, today. It is still just as offensive. I have seen Christians being spat on and beaten up in Israel this year on video on YouTube just because they said “Jesus is Lord.” Now say “Jesus is YHWH.”
He is the same God who led the Jewish people out of slavery in Egypt. And now He is doing that with us and pulling us out of enslavement to sin. You want to know, can you obey Jesus? You absolutely can obey Him because Jesus is setting you free from sin. And you can know that He’s setting you free from sin because He is the same God who set the Jews free from enslavement to Pharaoh. He split the sea. They walked on dry ground. He is the same God who tore down the walls of Jericho, who crushed Ai, who destroyed Assyria, and who made Nebuchadnezzar tremble in his boots by turning him into an insane man. This is the God who saved Daniel in the lion’s den.
This Carpenter is YHWH.
I tremble to utter those words. This is your God, and He is going to return from heaven the same way we saw Him ascend. He is going to return, and He is going to demand fealty. And I am begging you, tell the world that your God reigns. Call people to repentance. I am begging you, go seek the lost, because this God is coming back to judge the world. And right now is the time of peace, but this will not last forever.
But in the meantime, you can take this image that He has given you in the book of John and truly enjoy the fact that Jesus is YHWH.
Jesus is YHWH.
I mean, I say so many things repetitively in the Christian faith. I use the word “gospel,” I use the word “good news,” I use the word “saved,” I use the word “disciple.” And you say these words over and over again, and they begin to lose their meaning to you. But one thing that never ceases to amaze me, the one phrase I will never get tired of, I’ll never lose the majesty of, is “Jesus is YHWH.” That will never cease to amaze me and make me tremble.
And this is the Baby that was born in Bethlehem. And why did He do that? Why did the King of kings of the entire cosmos come to be born in a feeding trough? Because He loves you.
Who loves you? Who am I?
“If you keep My word, you will be My disciples.”
So what’s your verdict? Keep His word.
I tell you this. Their verdict was to stone Him. Folks, some people are going to respond that way. Some people will stop inviting you to Thanksgiving. That’s okay. They wanted to stone this Man—a Man who lived a perfect life.
But what will you do with Jesus?
I want to also point this out. It says that “Jesus was hidden.” This is what we call a divine passive. It’s when a verb doesn’t have a subject, but the verb is clear that somebody is acting. Somebody did the hiding. “Jesus was hidden,” it just says. But it doesn’t say who hid Him. This is a divine passive. God the Father hides Jesus from being stoned.
Why do we know that?
The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.” (John 8:29, CSB)
And also John 10:18 says:
No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” (John 10:18, CSB)
And that’s where this passage ends. But if you’re Jewish, I want you to tremble at this next line. Jesus has just established that He is YHWH. But what does verse 59 say? He left the temple.
YHWH has departed the temple of the Jewish people. That should make you tremble if you’re Jewish. Because it should remind you that the God who loves you, who instructed you to build that temple, has just left the place He promised that He would dwell and be with His people.
If you want to return to the temple of YHWH, turn to Jesus because that is the only way that you can be near Him.
So if you’re Jewish, I implore you to accept Christ as Savior and Lord.
Closing Prayer
Father, I thank You so much for my favorite passage, probably in all the world. I thank You for this sweet opportunity to lay it out there. I pray, Father, that our people would be encouraged and moved. I know this was a longer sermon. But Father, it could not be skipped or mangled. You deserve the honor, the glory, and the praise.
And I thank You for fixing my lungs and my vocal cords to proclaim Your excellencies. You are the God of Mount Sinai. You are a Healer. And I do not deserve You. I don’t deserve salvation. None of us does.
But will You please equip us to serve You as You deserve? Please be with Your people here at Wake Union and help us to transform the world through the power of the Spirit for Your glory.
In Jesus’ name, amen.