Jesus Through John's Eyes (2 of 5)

John chapter 18, verse 1. knowing all that would happen to him came forward and said to them whom do you seek they answered him Jesus of Nazareth Jesus said to them I am he Judas who betrayed him was standing with them when Jesus said to them I am he they drew back and fell to the ground so he asked them again whom do you seek and they said Jesus of Nazareth Jesus answered I told you that I am he so if you seek me, let these men go. This is to fulfill the word that had been spoken. Of those whom you gave me, I have lost not one.

Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup that the father has given me? Verse 28. then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor's headquarters it was early morning they themselves did not enter the governor's headquarters so that they would not be defiled but could eat the Passover so Pilate went outside to them and said what accusation do you bring against this man they answered him if this man were not doing evil we would not have delivered him over to you?

Pilate said to them, take him yourselves and judge him by your own law. The Jews said to him, it is not lawful for us to put anyone to death. This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, are you the king of the Jews? Jesus answered, do you say this of your own accord or did others say it to you about me?

Pilate answered, Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered My kingdom is not of this world If my kingdom were of this world my servants would have been fighting that I might not be delivered over to the Jews But my kingdom is not from the world Then Pilate said to him So you are a king Jesus answered, You say that I am a king.

For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Pilate said to him, What is truth? After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, I find no guilt in him, but you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover.

So do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews? They cried out again, Not this man, but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber. Well, now we come to the last night of our Bible conference. rather I would say in the history of our Bible conference probably the most unusual nevertheless I think a fitting conclusion to the Bible conference that we've had and what a delight it's been to celebrate the marriage of Dana and Lisa who now become part of their lives and as a church walk with them and help them and continue to minister the gospel to them as we minister the gospel to one another and I think this last week has been exceptionally good because we have heard the gospel over and over again and we need to hear it all the time and it's been good to have brother Paul come and and preach Jesus to us and and have us once more come to grips with who someone that we take for granted and to come at it again some of you remember this it wasn't too long ago for you some of you it's been a while to look at Jesus from an outsider's perspective and to hear his claims again and to hear what what the apostle John has said about him and so this has just been a really good time of of Paul just ministering Jesus to us and I've just really appreciated it and if I well I'll get a chance to tell you tomorrow but in front of you folks I just want to thank him for his ministry to us and and just just pray that tonight we would finish well as we hear about Jesus.

So Paul, come and minister the word. Thank you. This afternoon I was trying to put these talks together. I've given probably 25 talks on the Gospel of John. I brought them all with me. And then as the week went on, I just tried to scramble around and get the right pieces to fit because I can't do seven chapters tonight.

And I thought about how a number of you all got up early this morning and I didn't. Worked hard, especially in regards to the snow and then also worked hard in terms of the wedding. And then you come here and there's kind of a relief, you know, the wedding, they actually got married, you know. And then you go and have a great meal and then you come sit in this nice warm building here.

And so under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit led me to open with these verses. You don't need to turn to it, it's from Acts chapter 20. When we were gathered together, Paul talked with them, intending to depart the next day, which is what I intend to do. He prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where they were gathered, and a young man sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer and longer. and being overcome by sleep he fell down from the third story and was taken up as dead so i'm just trusting that under the inspiration of the holy spirit those will be meaning versus meaningful verses to you tonight as they were as i did some preparation let's uh let's pray as we enter into this holy ground of john chapter 18 and then briefly look at 19 and 20.

Lord, we come to this place we just want to say out loud so much more is happening here than if we had a lifetime to examine, we wouldn't see it all. So much of it is to our benefit to your glory and so as much as you could pour out as much as we could receive would you help us open our mouths wide as the word says and would you fill it up with your truth In Jesus' name, amen. We don't have a lot of snow in Wilmington, but we do have hurricanes, and so we're very aware of who Jim Cantore is from the Weather Channel.

I don't know if you know Jim Cantore, but any time there's a tropical raindrop coming off the coast of Africa, Jim runs into the east coast of the United States and stands there and looks at the wind and the waves and predicts what's going to happen. And so we're aware of that in Wilmington. We've been hit by a number of hurricanes. And you may or may not know that there are two types of winds associated with a hurricane.

One is the circular winds. That's the surface winds. That's the wind that you would experience if you were going through a hurricane. And, of course, those winds have wind speeds, and depending on how fast the wind speed is, then the hurricane falls into a category. It's a tropical depression, or it's a Hurricane One, or if it exceeds 155 miles an hour, it's a Category 5 hurricane.

But it's not the surface winds that control the direction of the hurricane. The hurricane is controlled by what are called prevailing winds. And the prevailing winds ultimately determine the hurricane's path. And so when we get to John chapter 18 this evening, it would be accurate to say that a category 5 storm is hitting this little place in Jerusalem. the Kidron Valley.

And enormous forces are circling Jerusalem and the Kidron Valley. Some of the forces are seen, obviously. Many of the forces are unseen. You see in the beginning of the chapter, 18, verse 1, Jesus has spoken these things in the upper room and he goes out with his disciples and he traces across the city of Jerusalem and he exits the east gate and he crosses a valley called the Kidra.

Valley. It's where a lot of people would be camping during the Passover and he goes to a particular garden that we know as the Garden of Gethsemane. It's a place that he and his disciples had visited many times. And at the same time, Judas is exiting the city with a band of soldiers and they're converging on this same location. That's what we can see. It would be difficult to calculate the spiritual forces that are coming to bear at this particular point.

We can't see them, but we know that Satan is marshalling his forces, and we know that from at least a couple of reasons. We know because the pressure, the low pressure as it would, had gotten so intense on Jesus that he's beginning to sweat drops of blood. And so even though we can't see the forces, we can see the result of the forces that are pushing down on Jesus.

And it's so great that even an angel has to be sent from heaven to try to prop Jesus up, to try to encourage him through this particular category five. And so the circular winds are at full tilt, but the real question here for us tonight is who will prevail? Who's controlling the ultimate outcome in this event? The garden is ground zero for the most powerful storm that is ever to hit the planet.

And what we want to try to ask ourselves and try to answer and to consider for our own lives is who's in control of this chaotic situation? Who's in control of all these seen and unseen forces? and what difference does it make if we can find out that answer? And one of the striking features as you would read through this particular chapter is that each character is trying to act like God.

Every person in the narrative here in this chapter is trying to act like God and they're trying to act like God by using these two character traits. They're trying to exercise the divine character trait of foreknowledge. They're trying to say, hey, I can see the future. I can see which direction it's going. They're trying to say, I can see into the future and I know what's going to happen.

And then the second characteristic comes in behind that is because they can see or they think they can see then they try to control They try to exercise their sovereignty over the situation They try to take the circumstances that they seemingly can see and they try to bend them so it works best in their particular character. Pilate, the first one, the Roman ruler, paranoid. always concerned that somebody's going to come in and turn him and his government upside down and you see in verse 33 through 38 pilot has this uncomfortable conversation with jesus about you know who's the real king in the room and pilot looks into the future he looks at jesus he can he can see he can have some sense that jesus this person he's claiming to be a king and it becomes a threat to Pilate. He realized that maybe Jesus could overturn Pilate.

Maybe Jesus could overturn the government, and Pilate doesn't want that. He sees that's a possibility. He's exercising his foreknowledge, so he decides to exercise sovereignty, to exercise control and say, well, okay, Jesus has to be executed. The chief priest and the leaders that you see in this place, particularly in verses 12 through 14 with Caiaphas.

In John 12, one of the Pharisees had concluded this about Jesus. The whole world is going after Jesus. It's another way of saying they're no longer coming after us. And we liked it when they were coming for us, but it looks like people are going towards him and we're frustrated. We think that this person could come in and turn us upside down. And so they exercise their special foreknowledge that they're afraid of what's going to happen in the future.

And they see Jesus' widening influence on the culture. And they think that Jesus is going to try to turn the whole religious structure upside down, which indeed he is because he comes to the temple and says, you can just tear this down, it's not necessary anymore. And so they exercise their divine, or what they think is their sovereignty, their control, and they say well let have him executed The fourth character in this passage is Peter You know poor Peter You know, he means well, but he's the one who's got the three-year degree.

He's the one who's been with Jesus. He's the right-hand man. He's the one who's been there at every meaningful event and and he's got his master's degree in what Jesus has been teaching and how Jesus lives and he's constantly heard Jesus say things like I haven't come to serve but to be served and yet at this critical moment Peter exercises his foreknowledge he's looking at the band of soldiers he can see that it it looks like it's not going to go well and so when he looks and says hey this doesn't appear as if it's going to go well, he exercises his control, and he pulls out his sword as if this sword is going to take them all down.

And as much as you appreciate Peter's idea, you can see that things just weren't going according to Peter's plan. Isn't it interesting, in this entire scene, nobody has any idea what God is doing. the ruler has no idea what God is doing. The religious conservative crowd, no idea what God is doing. The PhD, the three-year MDiv graduate, no idea what God is doing.

In this chaos, they all think they know what God is doing, but God is doing something completely different and very possible in your life. You can get chaotic situations. and you can say, I think God's doing, I would just want you to at least hesitate and emphasize, I think. Because you may not have any idea what God is up to in the middle of chaos. No one in this situation did.

Each character is caught up, they're blown around in the surface winds except Jesus. And although Jesus is greatly affected by the surface winds, he's not directed by the surface winds. He is greatly affected by the surface winds but he is not being directed by the surface winds And what John wants us to see about Jesus in this chapter is that Jesus has supreme confidence in the prevailing winds of God will Even in the midst of chaos, Jesus is able to stand still.

He's the only one who's standing still. He's the only one standing firm because he's absolutely certain about God's sovereignty, God's goodness, God's control, and he submitted himself to that no matter what kind of chaos may be going on around him. And so everyone here this evening is affected by the circular winds in your life. So shame in that. That's understandable.

Everybody has circular winds going around in their lives. Maybe it's relatively calm right now in your life. Maybe you feel like in your life you're at a Category 5 or Category 3. That's okay. Everybody is in some kind of situation. But my question is, are you directed by those winds?

Do those winds direct your life? Or is there some prevailing wind in your life that's saying, even though this chaos is happening in my life, there is a prevailing unseen wind that is directing my course. Maybe an illustration would be, is your life like a balloon or an airplane? And when you blow up a balloon and if you went out here tonight and threw the balloon up in the air, which way is it going to go?

Whichever the wind is blowing, right? And it doesn't actually take much wind to get a balloon going in a particular direction. You can blow on a balloon and you can get it to go in a different direction. The balloon is always going to be directed by the circular winds. But tomorrow at 1230 when I'm in Columbus and I'm in the airport and I get on my Delta flight and I'm going from Columbus to Atlanta and then back to Wilmington, it may be that the winds are coming from the east to the west. but I'm trusting when the plane gets up in the air it doesn't go whoa I was planning to go east but darn those winds they're taking me west I'm hoping there's something more powerful that's going to overcome the headwinds and that when I get out of the plane I'm not going to be in Oregon I'm actually going to be in Atlanta because there was something more powerful than the circular wind That's the prevailing winds of the jet engine.

And my question to you is, is there that prevailing wind in your life? Or is your life more like a balloon? You wake up every day and just whatever the wind's doing, that's what controls your life. Maybe another way to say it is, are you supremely confident in God's foreknowledge and His sovereign control? or do you spend, maybe I should say it this way, how much time do you spend regularly feeling the need to exercise divine foreknowledge and sovereignty?

How much time do you say, well, I can see the events, and therefore I'm bending these events to fit the things that I want? Well, we have one last character in the narrative, Jesus. And we see his absolute confidence in the middle of this intense storm. And throughout John's letter, we've been seeing Jesus telegraph the fact that these things would take place.

John chapter 7, verse 6, the right time for me has not yet come. And then in John chapter 17, when he's in the upper room, he says, Father, the time has come. So Jesus is in control of all things, all timing. John chapter 10. We took a look at this last night. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay my life down only to take it up again.

Nobody takes it from me. I lay it down on my accord and I have authority to take it up again. Jesus has authority over his own life, his own death, and his own resurrection. John chapter 14, verses 1 through 3. Do not let your hearts be troubled. You're familiar with this passage.

He's leaving his disciples. He can sense the panic. Trust in God. Trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you.

I'm going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare the place, I will come back and I will take you to be with me. That you may be where I am. Jesus is in absolute control of all future events. Now here in John 18 verses 3 and 4 band of soldiers a military term here representing maybe two to six hundred well armed men come looking for Jesus And then just notice this little phrase, it's important to see this, in verse 4.

So they come with these lanterns and torches and weapons, the end of verse 3. Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward. I mean, is that what you would have done? I know everything that's going to happen, and I come forward. I'm just about to receive a crown of thorns I'm just about ready to receive crucifixion and I know what's going to happen and that's not even the worst of it and I step forward what seems very remarkable about that little phrase is back, remember in John chapter 6 he feeds the 5,000 remember that? feeds the 5,000 and then after the people are fed, what do those people want to do?

They want to make Jesus the king. So they want to give him a crown. And what does Jesus do? He steps backwards. Now, if it were me, and you knew everything, and they said, Paul, you can either get this kind of crown or that kind of crown, I'm raising my hand for the first crown. but Jesus is an absolute control he understands what the destination is and he understood that in John chapter 6 these were the circular winds and he could have gotten caught up in the circular winds and he's saying no there is a divine prevailing wind that is taking me to the cross and beyond and because I know it's taking me there and beyond I can step forward I can step forward in the most chaotic, difficult circumstances.

I can stand still in the most difficult places because I know there's another eternal crown that will never fade. And maybe some of you all need that kind of confidence today You in a category five It just doesn feel like it You sort of looking for any way out It understandable And maybe God just wants you to stay in it and just say, there's a prevailing wind. And you know, I actually don't know what God is doing right now.

It's okay. I don't know. But I know ultimately what he's doing. I'm going to let that prevailing wind take me home. We see Jesus in control, verse 6, because he asked them, well, who are you looking for? And you know this passage.

He says, I am. These soldiers who were looking for a peasant run into divinity. And you know it happens because when he says that, they all fall down. They all lose their footing. Everyone on the scene, I mean, if you were trying to put this in a major motion picture, everything would be very still. And then when Jesus says, I am, it'd be like a great earthquake and everybody would be losing their footing, except for one man.

He'd be standing still. That'd be Jesus in the middle of the eye of the storm. He's absolutely certain to be in control of this whole situation. And he's making sure that everyone on the scene knows he's the most powerful person on the stage. Not the Roman soldier, not Peter, not Judas. And he seems to be directing what's going on.

Verse 8, he says, soldiers, you know, you're going to let these men go. Okay, we're going to let these men go. Peter, you're going to put your sword away. Okay, I'm going to put my sword away. It's crucial to see that Jesus isn't limited or restricted by the evil intent of his enemies. Jesus isn't limited or restricted by the mistakes or the weaknesses of his followers.

Amen. Jesus is not limited by the weakness of the current preacher here tonight. He is not in any way restricted by my weakness or limitations. He has sovereign power to bend all circumstances according to his will. And after you read this whole account, is there any possibility that someone thinks that what happening here is accidental This is the darkest moment on the history of the planet This is the collision of some indescribable forces And Jesus enemies appear to be winning and his disciples are abandoning him And is it possible Jesus thought God just doesn't have control over this situation?

No way. No way. You know it's no way because in verse 11 he turns to Peter and says, I will drink the cup. What? What does it say? That the Father has given me.

I'm not going to drink the cup that Pilate's giving me. I'm not going to drink the cup that Judas has given me. I'm not going to drink the sorry cup of this world or whatever. The Father is handing me this cup, and my particular design is just to do everything the Father says and to trust in Him. So if He hands me this cup, even though I've said if there's any way this cup could pass, I'm going to take it if he hands it to me.

God will prevail. God will ultimately have the last word, not the bitter cup. And so some questions for us to think about. Do you think God foresaw you in your current circumstances? Do you think God foresaw you in your current circumstances? Do you think God knows your future and has complete control over it?

Do you think God has the power to take away your sin, your mistakes, even the pain you've endured, and to take those things that maybe are even evil actions by other people against you and to bend them according to His will? See, if you're a follower of Christ, you must fully embrace the truth that your mistakes, your circumstances, your misguided advice to your friends, the evil intent of other people, your own death, none of those have the last word. God gets the last word.

What keeps Jesus moving forward is not therapy. What keeps Jesus moving forward is not medication. What keeps Jesus moving forward is not a vacation. What keeps Jesus moving forward is not a friend. And I'm not saying that all of those things are bad, but those things are not the prevailing wind. The work of God and His Holy Spirit and the Word of God are the prevailing wind that we must rely on.

And if you're here and you're not a disciple of Jesus, then I would ask you, who's in control of your life? Or what's in control of your life? Maybe you're like Pilate or the religious leaders or Peter. You're thinking that you continue to wake up and you see the future events or you think you see the future events. And so you try to bend the circumstances that keep working out for you.

And that's just a hopeless exercise. Some reasons this is helpful and practical to us today is that, number one, it's a tremendous help in keeping our life in perspective. God is always bigger than your current circumstances. It's so helpful because it seems to me personally, and I don't know if anybody would say I feel that way too, when the trouble gets big, I make God look small.

When the trouble gets big, I race around and say, well, gosh, God, maybe He needs my help. and so when everything's going well i can have my quiet time but when it's going poorly i gotta race out there and get it all done in other words my foresight my knowledge is better than god's i pretend like i know what's going on and god's saying oh you don't have any idea what's going on but you you could have some some perspective if you'd spend time with me but it's at that very moment that you race out and you rely on your own knowledge or your own abilities or skill. And man, I've fallen into a lot of holes I wish I would have avoided. God's always bigger than your current circumstances.

Your current circumstances are not your conclusion. And so often when we get in painful situations, we think of our lives as a snapshot like i'm in a miserable place right now snap and i guess because i'm 49 and i might last another 40 years i gonna have a miserable another 40 years because i look at my life as a snapshot it not a snapshot It part of an epic story that God is using And right now you may be living in this snapshot that terrible but God is going to bend those circumstances for this epic story for his glory. And at the end, you're going to look back in the circumstances and say, praise God that I just stood still in the category five because I trusted in the prevailing wind not the circular wind passage offers a couple of great freedoms some of you need this maybe more than anything else you are now free not to know the future you do not have to know the future you're free to live without foreknowledge you're free to live in a culture that has endless speculation and largely in the church endless speculation about future events and you can live today for the Lord John 18 frees us up from the incessantly exercising foreknowledge something none of us have and instead exercising faith.

You remember the story when the disciples are going to the other side? They've been in Capernaum. They're getting on the boat. They go to the other side. When they get to the other side, they meet the man named Legion. Remember that?

Remember what happens in the middle of the story? A big storm. What's Jesus doing? Asleep. Totally peaceful with the sovereignty of God. The disciples, they tried everything they can, and when they get to the last and they're drowning, what do they say?

They wake Jesus up and they exercise foreknowledge. Because they say, we are going to die. Are they going to die? No, they're not. But they think they are. They look at the circular winds and say, it sure looks like we're going to die.

So we make a conclusion, a wrong conclusion. And what does Jesus do in response? Where is your faith? guys I'm not interested in your foreknowledge I'm interested in your faith I actually don't need your foreknowledge I got that all down but what I would like is to see your faith and especially in the middle of a category five that where I looking for Because I need you to enter into lives that are category five lives.

And when you enter into that life, you've got to stand still. You can't be shaken by the winds and the circular winds of the other people that you enter into. You've got to say, no, I know Jesus. I know there's a prevailing wind. And when you, exhibit that, man, the people who are in category five lives just run up alongside of you because they don't want to be in that kind of life anymore.

Nobody likes that. And they're looking for some way out. And you've got to exhibit that as a disciple. You're also free not to be sovereign. You're free that you don't have to work everything out. You don't have to fix everything.

You don't have to be the filter for absolutely every decision. You don't need to bring everything to perfection. You're not going to make every right decision. Man, what a freedom. You can trust that when you make mistakes or when others make mistakes, neither you or other people have the last word. The empty tomb tells us that God is bigger than the worst of our sins and he alone bends every situation to accomplish his will so if you're wrestling with god's will if you're like some people who think this way about god's will i i was born and it's a it's a very narrow path for 80 years and gosh i can't ever get off the path or i'm sunk for the rest of my life that's wrong that's bad thinking it's not true because god is bigger than your mistakes what you're saying is if i make one wrong mistake i'm stuck no god's not you're saying you're stuck god's not stuck he's bigger than your mistakes and he can bring you back to where he wants you to be if you're a preacher or just a friend taking someone through the gospel of god got john and you're you're charged to speak a a very important word in the life of somebody you need to remember that that you do speak an important word but you do not speak the last word God gets the last word if you're a parent I not removing the biblical responsibilities to train up your children but I see so many parents locked up with fear fear of your own failures as a parent fear of your lack of knowledge, and oh, if I'd just known that back then, I would have done something different, and now my child is so messed up. fear because maybe you're a single parent that somehow you live in this situation that the surface winds of your parenting situation you're going to doom your children.

Guess what? You speak a very important word into the life of your children but you do not by the grace of God speak the last word. God gets the last word. And that frees every parent not to go out and make mistakes but to understand God is bigger than your mistakes. And so you don't have to be captured by fear that, oh, I've messed up. No, maybe you have and repent and confess.

But God is bigger than that. And so it can free you from that. And if you're here and you've experienced some terrible violation, it's not something that you have done, but it's something that has been done to you. maybe by an enemy, maybe by somebody that you thought was a friend. And you live under this clouded event that really never got addressed.

And it seems to have permanently shaped your life. because of the cross and the resurrection Jesus assures us that he can take the most sickening injustice and bend it to accomplish his will no person, no evil, no injustice gets the final word in your life do not allow an injustice to have the final word, God gets the final word when we look at John chapter 18 I think one of the main things you're meant to see is that Jesus is in control and that you can trust him and then he shows you how it works in the next couple of chapters, and I just want to take just a minute or two to look at one little passage from each. So let's look at John chapter 19. Jesus is on the cross, very end of his time there, verse 28.

He's essentially given away his mother Mary to John in verse 26 and 27. So 28, after this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, he said, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on the hyssop branch, and they held it to his mouth, and when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished.

And he bowed his head, and he gave up his spirit. one of the reasons that crucifixion is so horrible is the dehydration. Jesus hangs on the cross. He can't get a breath. You die by suffocation. So fluid begins to fill up your lungs. You can't get a deep breath.

So what you have to do is you have to pull yourself up in order to get enough capacity to breathe. But, of course, that creates an enormous amount of pain. So when you take that deep breath, you slump back down until you just can't get enough breath again. And that's why all these statements on the cross are like these one breath statements. I thirst. That's all he could say because that's all the breath that he has.

And it's interesting that Jesus cries out, I thirst. I don't think it's just a physical thirst. It's a spiritual thirst. There's an exchange that's happening on the cross. Your sin coming to Him, His righteousness going to you. And when sin comes to Jesus for the very first time, it separates Him from God.

And that separation, the Old Testament always describes as a thirst. Psalm 42, as the deer pants for the streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God. I separated and I thirsty for the living God When can I go and meet with God Amos the days are coming declares the Sovereign Lord when I will send a famine through the land Not a famine for food or thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the Word of God, but they will not find it. In that day, the lovely young women and the strong men will faint because of thirst. they're separated and so it's created a thirst and when God's not at the center of your life it causes a spiritual dehydration and where did we see that? John chapter 4 a woman with no name man I'm thirsty and the man who said I can give you something that will make that thirst permanently go, what goes away now says, I'm thirsty.

Because he's now taking that sin from that woman. And she's getting the righteousness of Christ. And so he's thirsty because of her sins, because of my sin and yours. Second statement, final statement. You probably know this, I'm sure. Tim has talked to you about this many times.

It is finished. It's one word in the Greek, tetelestai. It's an accounting term. It means paid in full. You have a bill. Maybe you put something on layaway.

You know, it's $100. You come for 10 weeks, and each week you give $10. And at the very end, you pay the last $10. They give you the item that you've been trying to buy, and they give you a receipt. And at the very end, what do they stamp? Paid in full.

And so Jesus is taking his eternal divine stamp and he's saying to those who have believed in him, paid in full. It's finished. Not I'm finished, but it's finished. I'm going to have the last word. I'm going to say that it's finished. I'm stamping a document on the soul of every believer to say it's finished so you can trust that now when you live your life out for God, you're living it out for sanctification, not for salvation Such a big difference There a book that out that new and I love the title of it I not read it But the title is, Quit Asking Jesus Into Your Heart.

In other words, there's a whole group of people who spend their whole life just asking Jesus into their heart. No, it's finished. It got paid for. You don't pay anything. I don't pay anything. That's grace.

That's the good news. now that you've received that good news, it is finished. Now turn and walk towards Christ in sanctification. And yes, you will have to ask for forgiveness, but you don't need salvation again. He died once for all. So helpful to contrast this with Buddhism. Buddhism, maybe you know, is an eight-fold path to the end of suffering.

You do these certain things. Buddha's last word, his last words as he was dying, he said, strive without ceasing. You're a Buddhist, you're following this guy, and his very last words, strive without ceasing. Is that good news? See, that's very opposite of what Jesus said. What does he say?

Cease your striving. No more striving necessary. Because I carried it all, you can cease your striving. It's been fully paid. Last place I want to turn to, John chapter 20. Gosh, there's just so much here.

John chapter 20. Let's read these first eight verses. It says, now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early. While it was still dark, they saw the stone had been taken away from the tomb, and she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. That's John. And they're together, presumably awake, trying to wrestle through the things of the last 24 hours.

And she bursts in and says, they've taken the Lord out of the tomb. We don't know where they've laid him. So Peter went out with the other disciples, and they were going towards the tomb, both of them running together. But the other disciple, John, outran Peter and reached the tomb first. But he stopped he looked in he saw the linen clothes lying there but he didn go in Then Simon Peter he catches up and he runs into the tomb and he saw the linen cloths lying there The face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lined with the linen cloths, but folded up in a place by itself.

And then the other disciple, John, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, he saw and believed. Mary knows where to find Peter and John. Wouldn't you want to know what their conversation was like that morning? I mean, John's at the cross, maybe just the images are too graphic. Every moment he nods off some visual of the cross. He just can't fall asleep, can't stay awake, just tortured all night.

It's early in the morning. It's just about, the sun's just about ready to come up. What's happening when the sun is just about ready to come up in an agricultural setting? Roosters crowing. If you're Peter, what are you thinking about? Every time he nods off, he hears the rooster.

What does he think about? Man, I was at a campfire. A 12-year-old girl asked me if I knew Jesus, and I said, no, I've never seen him. Well, Mary bursts in, and you don't know for sure, but I get the feeling that they leave before she's finished. I was at the tomb, and I just couldn't, and they're just out. And they're running, and I don't know why, but it's kind of funny to me that John wanted to make sure for 2,000 years, everybody who read this passage, that he was faster than Peter.

I mean, why is that included? My conclusion is just a guy thing. I mean, that's what guys do. You've got to make sure they know. I want you to know who was faster for all time. Peter, maybe he's more bold because he goes in first, but John wins the foot race.

They desperately come to the tomb. they both see the same thing. They see the linen cloths. And my question is why the emphasis on the linen cloths? There's such detail here. They saw the cloths lying there, verse 5. We're lying there, verse 6, the face cloth in verse 7 is one place, the other linen cloths are folded up in another place, then the other disciple goes in, he sees those same things.

Why the emphasis on the grave clothes here in John chapter 20 at the empty tomb? It's to contrast the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. when Lazarus came forth what was he wearing he was wearing the linen cloths when Lazarus comes out his chapter 11 verse 44 his hands and feet are wrapped with the strips of linen and the cloth is around his face see you see Lazarus only came back from the death and poor Lazarus he had to die again but Jesus didn't come back from the death he conquered death. And John wants to make sure the reader understands this isn't the same thing.

Jesus didn't come back from the dead. He conquered death. And so when we die, we're not going to come back from the death. He's going to say, I'm going to conquer your death. It's a very different thing. Very different thing.

Unlike Lazarus, Jesus is never going back to the tomb. Everybody here will one day be put in a tomb. I had a job digging graves when I was in college. And a guy said, hey, we're going to put somebody in a crypt. You know what a crypt is? A vault.

It's usually a mausoleum on a cemetery site, two or three kind of tiered building. and usually a big marble slate. And if you took all the slate fronts off, it's like a honeycomb. And so you've got Mr. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips, or Mrs. Smith and Mr.

Smith. And they said, hey, Paul, you need to paint this crypt. Because when you look at it, it's just gray concrete. So you need to paint it white so it looks at least somewhat more appealing. Yeah, who died? Well, Mr.

Smith. Mrs Smith is in the room next door This is the kind of humor you get when you in a cemetery What do I need to do Well you need to lay down in the crypt and paint it white out Okay, so there I am laying in the crypt next to Mrs. Smith, and I'm painting, you know, on my way out. I'm terrified somebody's going to put the, you know, the granite back in front of like no no let me out one day everyone's going to lie in that place and i want you to know that jesus has conquered that place he didn't just come back from the dead he conquered the death and so we can be sure when we lie there even though we wouldn't know it at that point, Jesus is there to say to us, hey, let's go home.

I'm bigger than your biggest fear. John looks in the tomb. Just notice what he says. He perhaps was at Lazarus. He was at Lazarus' tomb, and perhaps he was one of the ones who unwrapped the linens from Lazarus. But he knows this is different.

And so what is the last word in that verse? It's different. It's not what I thought. So I believe. One commentary says that the word believe indicates a breakthrough of a new beginning. John's understanding is still lacking, and yet a new certainty has taken hold of the disciple.

You see, you don't need to know everything about Jesus. John didn't know everything about Jesus at that moment, but something had changed. He could see a light that had a gate, and he began to say, I'm going to go in that certain direction like Christian did. when he heard the words from the evangelist. And he knew just enough to say, you know what? I believe.

I know enough about my sinful self. I know enough about Jesus to say that I believe. I trusting in Jesus And what the point of John gospel in John chapter 20 30 and 31 I have written these things so that you might you might believe I haven been able to tell you everything in fact he says there's volumes I could have written and I want to say well why didn't you write them but he wrote enough so that you could see just enough light and say I believe and so maybe you have been here and you've seen enough to say hey I believe or maybe you know somebody and you just need to they don't need to know everything about Jesus I certainly doubt that the wonderful couple that stood up here knew everything about Jesus but they knew enough they had seen enough to say I know enough about myself I know enough about the Savior to say, I believe.

And so the biggest question we can ask and answer for ourselves is, do you believe? I really want to say thank you for the privilege of coming up here. You know, when you agree to these things, they're far enough out that you think it'll be no big deal. But then when you get close, you're like, why do I agree to this stuff? I mean, so tired, and I don't want to do five talks, and now I'm getting a horse throat, and man, it's cold.

It looks like snow in Columbus. Why don't I get an invitation to the church in the Bahamas? That's what I'm waiting for. And I think you know this, but there's something remarkable about this little place. I mean, I hope you know it. But I'm telling you from an outsider, it's true.

Not every church is anything close to what you're doing here. You all seem nice to me. And I guess if I stayed a few more weeks, I'd find out a few more warts. Of course, you'd be finding out mine too. So I'll just think the best of you and you think the best of me. How about that?

But you have a community that has a lot of circular wins, a lot of category fives. it probably is a community that has a lot of is exercising a lot of foreknowledge and sovereignty thinking gosh if we could get these things in or out of a system then maybe it could be better but you know better There only one thing that can stabilize a Category 5 life and that Christ And you have the chance. You've been divinely appointed for this moment. You may think, hey, I live in the middle of Ohio, I'm just kind of doing my job, I'm raising my family, what am I doing here?

You're doing something divinely appointed. I can't do it. I'm in Wilmington. I'm doing my little divine appointment. It doesn't look very special. If you come down to my church, you'd say, I thought it'd be a lot fancier than this.

Kind of a regular group of people. Yeah. I just have a divine appointment to be in Wilmington. And I go down the street, and we circle vans around, and we pick up a group of black and Hispanics, and we bring them to our church. And there's 20 kids that come, and some of them don't speak our language, and most of them don't know anything in the Bible. and you know what?

We don't have any idea what we're doing. We're just circling around a category five and trying to say we can show you the person who can stabilize your life. You're doing that. You're doing that for each other because somebody in here is in a category five themselves. Somebody got bad news about a spouse or about themselves or their finances. You have a great minister who tells you about the truth of the word of God. that lasts forever.

And I want you to know it was a ministry to me to be here. I hope you've been encouraged, but it's been a lot more encouraging for me. I know I put on 20 pounds. Every time I go somewhere, shoveling food, they're like, Paul, you need two seats on the way back, buddy. But I'll remember you fondly. I'll pray for you often because I'll see Calvin sits up in the front row of my church with my son and I'll think about the people back here at LaRue or LaRue.

Baptists, let me pray together for us. Lord, there's a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. And I know it's the spirit of the Lord. Lord, sweet expressions on every face. because these sinners have been saved by grace. We just want to say we don't know what's going on most of the time, but we want to be faithful. Pray for LaRue Baptist, that it would be like one of the churches around Ephesus that would be the one that was able to stand for the gospel, that they were like a light in the darkness.

They held out the light of life to the darkest places. They would never give up on the gospel. They would never let the prevailing winds determine their destination, but they would trust in the word, the work, the Holy Spirit, and the sovereignty of God. Bless Tim and his family, the finances, the leadership needs, the questions that come from the folks that are coming here that have no answers, but maybe just require somebody to stand alongside until an answer is found.

Bless this couple that came tonight. May they change the course of the whole direction of their family's lives so that in generations and generations to come, they would say, it was that pair that made a difference, and it was that church that stepped in to a category five. All glory and honor belongs to you. We pray in your great name. Amen.