Basic Sermon Recap: “How to Save the World” John 12:44-50

In John 12:44-50 Jesus claims that he has come to save the world. This invites several questions. What is this salvation and why do we need it? How is Jesus the key to us getting this salvation? What will happen if we don't get this salvation from Jesus? Let's consider these questions in turn.

What is this salvation and why do we need it? The answer to this question comes to us via a metaphor Jesus uses. He describes himself as being light that comes to help those who are in darkness come out of darkness (v.46). Jesus is saying then that people are in effect living their lives in darkness and they need him if they are to find their way out. This is a critical point, and one that's hard for many to realize about themselves. We are too ruled by our senses, by what we see or feel. Thus, it is hard for us to imagine anything different beyond what we've come to already experience. This is why we must pay careful attention to the words of Jesus and ask ourselves, "Could this be possible?"

Jesus tells us for instance in John 10 that he has come so that people might have life and have it abundantly. We should ask ourselves then, is it possible for us to have abundant life, that is, a life with everlasting meaning and purpose? The problem we have is that we've accepted lives with vague meaning and purpose. Indeed, the most basic and important question in the universe is "why am I here?" But for this most crucial question we are content to say, "I'm not sure," or even, "It doesn't matter, I'm just here." Here is evidence of our darkness! Nowhere else in life would we accept non answers like this. When it comes to things like figuring out what's wrong with our cars or figuring out why we're sick, we want answers and demand answers. Yet for the basic question about human existence we remain in darkness. Jesus however cries out to us that it doesn't have to be this way. He has come to give meaning and purpose to our lives. He has come into our darkness so we can be led out and live in the light.

What makes Jesus the key to this salvation? Jesus is the key because Jesus is God (v.44-45). Jesus was not some regular dude. Far too many people believe in a Jesus far short of the actual Jesus. They believe in a Jesus who is nice and good, but nothing more. He never confronts and is content to passively commune with us. He is the equivalent of an overly nice kindergarten teacher. Frankly, he is the kind of Jesus who couldn't save himself out of a parked convertible, much less save other people.

Clearly, this will not work. A people trapped in darkness need nobody less than a God to come in and free them out of that darkness. And this is who Jesus is and what he does – he is God himself acting to save us.

What will happen if we don't get this salvation? If we don't accept Jesus, we will be condemning ourselves to our darkness. At some point, the words of Jesus will come back on us and judge us (v.48). We will realize then that we were hearing not any man's words but God's words. And we rejected them. This means that we rejected God, which means that we will have judged ourselves. At the end, either we will have lives that have been firmly established on the message of Jesus, like a house on a rock, or will have lives established on other things, like a house on sand, with the message of Jesus serving merely as decorations in our lives rather than as the firm foundation of our lives. Lives that are like the house on the rock will last forever before God. Lives that are like the house on the sand will eventually crumble and be destroyed.

This is the future judgment. So if that is the judgment for then, the time to be saved is now. Now is the time to believe and be saved. And if you are saved, then now is also the time to celebrate and praise God because of Jesus. Jesus was who he said was, did what he said he would do, and now lives and rules from heaven because he was who he was and did what he did. That means you are saved now and will be saved then.

Being saved now means living within the light of Jesus. This means being able to see our world with ever growing understanding and being able to live your life with ever growing purpose and joy. You live a life now that will only grow in richness and meaning and depth, a life that will never end but will last forever.

This is the salvation we've been given. Let us take hold of it, cherish it, thank God for it, and celebrate Jesus because of it.

Check out these lyrics from a song called "Jesus is Alive" by shai linne (from the album called "The Atonement"). They are a great way to speak and affirm the truths of our salvation.  

Through faith in Christ, we've been saved from hell
Because He's risen, it means we'll be raised as well
In glorified bodies fit for the new earth
For now, we participate in the new birth
The universal reality of the true church
With resurrection power, watch the Spirit do work!
United with Christ, we reside in His light
Abide in His might, keep in stride as we fight
The pride in our life, the lies and the spite 
 
We strive to be wise as He guides through the night
He'll chide and He'll slice- recognize that He's right
His brightness inside lights our eyes and it's tight
(He) decided to die to wash white all our strife
His life was the price to delight in His wife
He told death "sike" just to rise like a kite
All eyes on the Christ- let's prize Him tonight  
 
For the full version of this sermon download the mp3 from our website.

Basic Recap of Sunday’s Sermon: “Roadblocks to Believing in Jesus” John 12:37-43

Why don't people believe in Jesus? There are two reasons given in John 12:37-43. First, people do not believe in Jesus because God's sovereign righteous judgment has come upon them (John 12:37-43). The rejection of Jesus comes in fulfillment of ancient prophecy (cf Isa 53:1). And this ancient prophecy speaks of God intentionally blinding the eyes and hardening the hearts of unbelievers. And that's exactly what is happening with Jesus here. One of the things God did through Jesus was to essentially seal people in their unbelief as part of his righteous and sovereign judgment upon them (note v.39, "Therefore they could not believe").

The fact that God does this troubles many people. There tend to be two major objections. The first is that it is unfair for God to this. However, to say it's unfair is to assume that God is doing this to innocent people. However, our passage notes that people still did not believe in Jesus even after he did signs before them (v.37). The people should have believed in Jesus even without signs. Being Jews they had over the course of their history a special relationship with God and been given many special revelations of him. Jesus was the high point of God's revelation to his people. But they rejected Jesus, and continued to reject him even with the extra grace of signs being given to them. Thus, God's judgment upon them was fair and just, in keeping with continued rebellion against him.

The second major objection is that God is violating people's free will. In answer to this we should ask why this should be God's concern? If God is a holy and righteous judge, then his judgments are holy and righteous. Asking, "what about free will" is the equivalent of a guy on death row eating his last meal and asking, "What about my dessert? It's not fair for me not to get a dessert!" The guy on death row has been judged and tried and now faces execution because of his crimes. What's fair isn't him getting a dessert, what's fair is him being executed, anything beyond that is grace. Thus, the real issue for us in this matter is whether or not those who reject Jesus can be held responsible for their rejection of Jesus. And the Bible's answer is yes – we can be held responsible. There is some mystery to this, but one example is helpful. Imagine your 5 year old daughter is sitting in her room. She's been rude and doesn't care that she has been rude. In her anger and stubbornness she sits in her room refusing to come out. However, as her parent you are punishing her and have locked her in her room in order to discipline her. This means that she couldn't leave the room even if she wanted. However, she does not, so your punishment coincides with her willful rejection.

This illustration is imperfect, but it is an attempt to get at a biblical truth, namely, that God is righteous and just because he sovereignly judges and condemns guilty sinners in accordance with their willing rejection of him. What we see in our passage is the ultimate culmination of his judgment. God is patient, but he is no pushover. He will judge, and when he judges there will be no escape. This should serve as a huge warning to us then. God will sovereignly judge those who continue to defy him by their sin and he will do so by allowing them to fall deeper and eventually permanently into their sin. Hardened, stubborn unbelief is part of God's perfectly righteous and fair judgment upon human beings. As the New Testament scholar Herman Ridderbos writes, "[God] abandons unbelieving people to themselves, thus confirming them in their evil."

This is the first reason people don't believe in Jesus according to our passage. But a second reason people don't believe, that comes as a kind of subcategory to the first reason, is because any belief that they do have is compromised by a stronger commitment to things other than Jesus (John 12:42-43). There are some who may appear to believe in Jesus. But it is not a deeply rooted belief. It is superficial belief, shown by how little impact their belief has upon their lives. It's a belief in Jesus, but only up to a point. This was the case with the religious authorities mentioned in our passage. They loved the glory of man – the comfort of being accepted by their peers in the synagogue – more than the glory that comes from God – the comfort of being accepted by God because of faith in Jesus. Their real commitment was to their social status rather than to their heavenly status

The very nature of who Jesus claims to be demands a total reorientation of your life. It means a change in habits and choices. It means sacrifice and loss so that you can gain something much greater. Unfortunately, for many people this is all a bit too much. As Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower, there are some for whom "the cares of the world" will eventually rise up and choke out the word of Christ within them.

These are all very stiff challenges to belief in Jesus. In view of these, we might ask then how can anyone believe and be saved? To answer that we look to Ephesians 2:8, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." God's grace to save us is a gift from him, along with the faith to take hold of that grace. The message of the cross is inherently foolish and silly. It is a ridiculous notion, one that we are naturally predisposed to dismiss. That's why we need God to give us this gift of grace and faith if we are to have any hope of understanding this message and believing in it. And fortunately, we have a God who likes to give this gift. We have a God who is patient in judging and abundant in loving and showing grace and mercy to sinners like us.

Practically speaking, this is what makes our prayers matter. No one prays for God to give people only enough insight into the gospel so that they can then decide for themselves if they want to believe. No, we pray that God would snatch people out of the fires of hell, jumpstart their hearts, breathe life into their souls, and plant them firmly in his kingdom! We are right to pray like this and we must pray like this if people are to be saved.

This also is what makes witnessing matter. We must tell people about this message, because we know that God has the power and the will to plant this message into people's hearts if we are willing to them this message.

This also is what makes us know that our faith is real. If our faith depended on our feelings, we would spend parts of every day worried that we have perhaps fallen out of God's kingdom. But our faith is not from ourselves, it is a gift given to us by God, which means it is not dependent on us but on God. And since God is strong and reliable, eternal and unchanging, we can trust that as long as we depend on him our faith will also stay strong, reliable, eternal and unchanging.

For the full version of this sermon download the mp3 from our website.