The Son of God

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Don’t forget this week, if you go vote, to take an ID with you, all right? So that they will know that you are who you say you are. And I think they’ve made it pretty easy.

You can use a driver’s license. You can even use a little voter ID card they send you. But make sure you take something to prove who you are.

Because a lot of times you have to prove, not just in voting, but in a lot of things, you have to prove who you are. Going to the bank, you have to prove who you are. I’ve told my wife, she’ll ask, why do we bank at such and such?

Why do we pay a little more for insurance by going with this company? And I’ve told her when it comes to anything financial, this is just me, but when it comes to anything financial, I like to deal with companies where I know somebody, especially if I have a relative that works there. Because if something goes wrong, if I get stranded in Albuquerque, and this is a true story, if I get stranded in Albuquerque and the fraud prevention people have cut off my debit card, I want to know who to call at 6 o’clock on a Friday afternoon.

and get it fixed. And that really did happen. But there was one day, a couple years ago, when Charla and I went to one of our banks that I don’t think I had a family member working at.

I say one of our banks. Don’t think we’re millionaires or anything. I just thought, it’s good not to put all your eggs in one basket.

But we needed to make some changes on an account, and so we stopped in at the bank. I think I was adding her to the account or something. And we had to bring all this ID to prove who we were.

And so I gave them my driver’s license. I said, okay, we need another form of ID. Okay, no problem.

Here’s my voter ID card. Okay, we need something else. That’s not enough.

No, that’s not enough. We need something else. Okay, here’s my concealed carry permit.

No, we still need something else. What is it you’re looking for? Well, we need your address.

All three of those things have my address on them. Oh, we need something else to verify your address. Oh, okay, here’s my tribal ID.

No, it’s got my address right on it. Okay. And if you’ve ever seen me around church, I mean, the people in the office and my wife can attest I’m pretty much the same person through the week that you see here, pretty calm and laid back until I get into an illogical situation.

I just don’t deal well with that. Okay. None of those things work?

No. Okay. You’re just wanting to verify my address?

Yes. driver’s license, voter card, gun permit, tribal ID, none of these things work. No.

But you can see they all have my address on them. Same address. Yeah.

But they won’t work. No. Okay.

I’m out. You tell me. What do you need?

Well, we need something that’s come to your house. We need an envelope with your name on it. Something that’s been sent to your house in your name, to your address in the last 30 days.

Okay. So do you have anything like that? Are you asking me if I carry junk mail around with me?

Who does that? Maybe some of you do, and I don’t mean to offend you, but I don’t do that. Well, you can bring it to us when you’re back this way.

This bank was up by the state capital, and we lived in Seminole. I don’t just come by here on the way to town. I had to go home and send them a flyer from Pizza Hut in a manila envelope.

I don’t even remember what I needed done, but to get that done. And I thought, this is incredible. This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Because here you’ve got ID, you’ve got evidence from the Department of Public Safety, the Oklahoma Election Board, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, the Choctaw Nation, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. And you don’t believe all that, but thank God Pizza Hut weighed in. Have you ever been in situations like that where you’re dealing with some kind of bureaucracy and you think they’re really not after evidence here?

Their goal is to just make it difficult. I left out of there thinking they don’t want me to prove who I am. They just want to keep me from making any changes to my account.

That’s the only, at that point, what evidence is there that’s going to convince you that I am who I say I am and that I live where I say I live. Oh, it was so frustrating. I’m getting a little frustrated again just thinking about it.

Pizza Hut. They want a junk mail from Pizza Hut. All right, I just, I can’t.

None of these things were sufficient to prove my identity. And I got to thinking nothing ever would. And if you’re wondering, where is he going with this?

This is the way the Pharisees were with Jesus. It seemed like Jesus did everything that he could to prove his identity. I mean, we have instances in Scripture where Jesus is baptized, and you literally hear the voice of God the Father speaking from heaven, and you see the Holy Spirit manifest himself as a dove, and come and land basically on Jesus while the Father says, here’s my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.

Sorry, we need a flyer from Pizza Hut. That idea is not enough. You look at the evidence that Jesus presented over and over and over about who He was, and it’s like the Pharisees were determined that no amount of evidence was ever going to be enough to convince them that He was who He said He was.

If you would today, as we continue through this series of studies on some of the I Am statements of Jesus, if you would turn with me to the book of John chapter 10. John chapter 10, and we’re going to look at this story. We’re going to look at one story in particular of a time where they were determined not to accept the evidence of Jesus’ identity and how we can avoid making the same mistake.

If you would, turn with me there and stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you’re able to. And we’re going to start in John chapter 10, verse 22, and read through verse 42 today. It says, Now it was the feast of dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter, and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.

Then the Jews surrounded him and said to him, How long do you keep us in doubt? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe.

The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me, but you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.

Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works I have shown you from my Father.

For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, You are gods?

If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and the scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father sanctified and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said I am the son of God. If I do not the works of my father, do not believe me. But if I do, though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and believe that the father is in me and I in him.

Therefore they sought again to seize him, but he escaped out of their hand and he went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed. Then many came to him and said, John performed no sign, but all the things that John spoke about this man were true, and many believed in him there. And you may be seated.

So essentially what takes place in this story is that the Pharisees were waiting for Jesus to show up in the temple, and when they did, they asked him, are you the Messiah? And he said, I’ve already told you and you don’t believe me. I’ve told you and I’ve shown you, but you don’t believe me.

And he talks about being one with the Father. He talks about his sheep belonging to the Father and his people being held secure in his hand within the Father’s hand and being that nothing can pluck them out of his hand. And I would love to spend some time on that, but I really want to focus in on this idea of who Jesus is and the evidence.

But he explains this and the Pharisees are ready to stone him to death. And he says, well, why are you ready to stone me? You know, I’ve done good works.

I’ve shown you the evidence. Which of the good things that I’ve done deserve a stoning? And they say, oh, it’s not the good works you’ve done.

It’s the blasphemy because you’ve made yourself out to be God. And so he takes them back to the book of Psalms and gives this statement that I’ll explain again, I’ll explain in a moment about a statement in the book of Psalms where God says, ye are gods, to some of the magistrates in Israel. And he says, if God’s word can say that and God’s word can never be broken, how is it blasphemy for me to say, I’m the son of God when God sent me?

And then they picked up the rocks again. So what we have here is a group of skeptics that disputed Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah. And actually, it’s probably not fair to use the word skeptic, because I think I’m a skeptic.

I think I’m fairly, you know, I want to see the evidence. I want to see the data. I’m not going to get worked up about something until I’ve seen the numbers, that sort of thing.

Skeptics look at evidence. These were not skeptics. I might say these were cynics because they weren’t interested in the evidence.

No matter what evidence he presented, they were going to reject it. Skeptics have open minds. They had closed their minds before he ever came to them with the evidence.

And before this, Jesus and the Pharisees had had a series of discussions about who He was. You look back at just the previous couple chapters, some of the things we’ve looked at. In John 8, He claimed the power to forgive sins when that woman was caught in adultery.

In John 8, He called Himself the light of the world. In John 8, He looked at the Pharisees and said He had the authority to judge them. In John 8, He claimed to be sent by God.

In John 8, He called Himself the Son of Man. That doesn’t just point to His humanity. He’s co-opting a term from the Old Testament for the Messiah.

So he’s claiming there to be the Messiah. In John chapter 8, he claimed to set them free. And he claimed to be the source of Abraham’s hope thousands of years before.

He claimed to be eternal. Something that only God can be. He claimed in John chapter 9 to be the Son of God. He claimed in John chapter 10 to be the good shepherd of God’s sheep.

So he’d made all these claims and more than those. Those are the ones that jumped out at me. He’s made these claims about who He was.

He’s told them very clearly who He was. But when He showed up at the temple for the Hanukkah celebration, they pounced and said, tell us who you really are. But He’s already told them.

No, no, we want to hear it in our words. And we hear this sometimes in the media. Well, what do you think about this?

They’ll ask a candidate. They’ll ask a celebrity. What do you think about this?

Especially if it’s somebody they disagree with. I’ve already said what I think about that. Well, you haven’t said it in the last two seconds.

So tell us now what you think about this. This is what the Pharisees were doing with Jesus. No, no, tell us in the words we want to hear.

Explain it the way we want you to explain it. Who are you? They asked how long he was going to keep them in suspense.

How dishonest could they be? He had already told them. Anybody paying a sliver of attention knew that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God and the Messiah.

And the evidence pointed not only to him being the Messiah, but the Son of God. He didn’t just claim it, he backed it up. He had told them, but they refused to believe.

He said that in verse 25. I told you, and you do not believe. So why would I go through the song and dance?

Why would I tap dance to your little tune, giving you the explanation all over again, when I’ve already made it clear as day, and you just don’t want to hear what I’m saying. So all the claims he’d made, he says, I told you. He told them, and they refused to believe.

He showed them and they refused to believe. See, anybody can tell you anything about themselves. I can tell you I’m a flying purple people eater from Mars, right?

But you’re going to want to see some evidence. You’re going to want me to show that. He showed.

He didn’t just tell who He was. He showed them who He was and they refused to believe. He had done all these good works.

And He says that in verse 25 and verse 31. I’ve done these good works. Here’s evidence.

Look at the things I’ve done. And by the way, that doesn’t just mean we think of good works as living righteously. It doesn’t mean just living righteously, although he had shown himself to be sinless.

They couldn’t come up with any accusation against him. They had to make stuff up. He had shown himself to be righteous through his works, but that idea of good works also means miracles, demonstrating his power.

And I sat down and did some counting. And my numbers, you know, I may not have gotten everything. But I looked at what had happened up to this point in Jesus’ ministry the other day.

And understand this, when he says, I’ve done these things in front of you, Here’s what he’s talking about. Up to this point in his ministry, Jesus had publicly healed at least 14 people that we know of that are recorded in Scripture. He had cast demons out of five people, at least. Again, this is assuming I didn’t miss one.

He had exerted control over nature, for example, telling the winds and waves to stop it, and it did. He had exerted control over nature four times. He had made food or drink available miraculously three times.

Those are pretty good miracles. He’d read people’s minds. He’d known things that nobody could have known that were going on inside of them or in their past that people couldn’t have known unless they were God.

He’d shown that twice. And the kicker, he had raised two people from the dead. By this point in his ministry, he’d already raised two people from the dead.

And that was not enough for them. I mean, what do you have to do to convince somebody that you’re the son of God around here? That wasn’t enough.

They were unwilling to accept the truth that was right in front of them. And he told them if they belonged to him, they would see him for who he was. If they belonged to him, they would understand.

But they didn’t, and so they had closed their minds. They had determined ahead of time to reject him and to reject the evidence no matter what he showed them because they were determined they didn’t want to be his sheep. And they said since he was clearly claiming to be God, oh, so suddenly they get what he’s saying.

Their understanding grows and shrinks as it’s convenient for them in their agenda. But as they said, since he was clearly claiming to be God, and they rejected that idea, they said it was blasphemy, they planned to stone him. And this is where Jesus pulls out the verse from the book of Psalms, Psalm 82, verse 6, where God had said to this group of judges in Old Testament Israel, you are gods.

Now, in Hebrew, the word is Elohim, which is a word that’s applied to God. It’s also used for the little g-gods that they talked about that the other countries worshipped. In English, it’s translated gods with a small g.

I want to be very clear on what this is saying, because I think the Scriptures are very clear about some things, that there’s only one God, right? There is only one true and living God. God says, there’s no other beside me.

You say, well, what about Baal? What about Asherah? What about all these others that were being worshipped and referred to as gods?

There are no other gods exist outside of the human imagination. That’s the only place there’s any other god is in the human imagination other than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the father of Jesus Christ. I should say the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Outside of the God of Israel, there is no God that truly exists outside of the human imagination.

They’re all something somebody dreamed up. When Psalms uses that term and says, you are gods, it’s not saying that these judges in ancient Israel were little deities running around. People have misinterpreted and misapplied that verse and all sorts of crazy ideas have been dreamt up as a result.

You’re not saying, oh, you’ve become little gods, little deities, you have powers. And it was a way of identifying them as being representatives of God. They were there on God’s behalf, supposed to be there on God’s behalf, doing the things God sent them to do, and judging the nation of Israel in his stead.

It’s not saying they are actual gods, it’s saying they are functioning with responsibility given to them by God. And Jesus said here, if God’s word, by the way, Jesus affirmed the Old Testament as God’s word, isn’t that interesting? But he said, if God’s word says to these judges, you are God’s, and he says, and if God’s word can’t be broken, which it can’t.

If it was not blasphemy to call those judges gods in the sense that they were representing God or supposed to be representing God, how is it blasphemy when God has sent me, when God has sent me and when God has equipped me, how is it blasphemy for me to claim to be the son of God? Do you see what he’s saying here? Do you understand what he’s saying here?

If it’s not blasphemy to refer to these people as gods in that sense, and by the way, that’s not a term that I would necessarily be comfortable walking around with. But if it’s not blasphemy to use that term, to say Elohim, when they’re representing God here, why is it blasphemy for me to use the term Elohim or son of Elohim when I’m representing God now? And I think there, once again, Jesus has beaten them at their own game.

They were masters at twisting scripture. I’m not saying Jesus twisted the scripture, but Jesus was the master of pulling the true meaning out of scripture because he was author. He’s the God who inspired it.

So if he’s representing God, it’s no more blasphemy. It’s no more blasphemous than what you find in Psalm chapter 82. And so he made it clear again that he was claiming to be the son of God.

But he didn’t just demand that they take his word for it. He pointed them to the evidence. I’ve had people ask me sometimes, why are you so hung up on presenting evidence?

Just tell people how it’s supposed to be and they’ll either believe or not. Jesus presented a lot of evidence. Paul presented a lot of evidence.

There’s a lot of evidence in the Bible. God expects us to have faith, but you can put a lot of faith in a lot of things and be wrong. I don’t think the Bible expects blind faith, meaning it doesn’t expect faith in spite of the evidence.

God’s given us plenty of evidence if we have eyes to see it. He told them in verse 38, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him. He said, I’ve already told you and you’ve decided you don’t believe, that’s fine.

You don’t believe me, believe what I do. Look at what I’ve done. Look at the evidence that’s right in front of you and see that I am who I say I am.

He was pointing them to the evidence. And the evidence is incredibly important there. The things that I listed, the healings, the casting out of devils, the controlling of nature, the raising people from the dead, all of those things are important as evidence because if Jesus is what he claimed to be, then he’s our only hope.

If Jesus is what he claimed to be, then there’s no other hope that you and I have, either in this life or in eternity. The evidence matters because the claims matter. And he told them in verse 27 how he came to be the shepherd of God’s people.

Israel needed a shepherd. God’s people needed somebody to lead them back to him. Jesus came to be that if he’s everything he claimed to be.

In verse 28, he talks about giving eternal life. He says, and I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. He came to save us from sin and judgment and separation from God.

And He can only do that if He’s who He claimed to be. He came to hold us secure. He said, nobody will ever be able to pluck you out of my hand.

That’s incredibly meaningful and powerful if He’s who He claimed to be. And in verses 29 and 30, He describes how He came to reconcile us to the Father, to reconcile us to a God that we are separated from. Do you ever feel distant from God?

Anybody else ever feel distant from God? It’s because of a thing in our lives called sin. And you and I can’t do anything to fix that.

Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father, to bring us peace with Him. My Father has given them to me. He’s greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.

I and my Father are one. He came to reconcile people to God if He’s who He claimed to be. There’s nobody else who can do those things.

And by the way, just as a spoiler alert, I believe He is who He claimed to be. You look at the evidence that’s recorded. I know some people say, well, that’s the New Testament.

You can’t just believe what they say. Okay, great. Then we’re going to have to throw out everything we know about ancient history because that’s all we have are eyewitness accounts.

We have four independent accounts of the life of Jesus Christ that all point to the same pattern of the things that he did and in some cases cover the same events. We have what I think is the best attested fact in all of ancient history, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we’re willing to look at it with an open mind, there is more than enough evidence that Jesus Christ is all the things that he claimed to be. And if he is who he claimed to be, if he is the son of God, then he’s our only hope.

There’s nobody else that can do the things he said he was coming to do for us. And I asked you a minute ago, if you ever feel distant from God. And I think if we’re in a situation where we don’t have to raise our hands in front of a group of people, I think if we’re honest, we would all admit that we do at times.

And maybe this morning you feel distant from God. Maybe you’re here thinking, I really need to just, I need to be at peace with God. I know that things are not right here and I don’t know how to fix it.

I try to live as good as I can. I try to do all the right things and I just never feel like it’s enough. I never feel like God loves me or I’ve got God’s approval. Today, if you’re looking for peace with God, only Jesus can provide it, but only if he’s the son of God that he claimed to be.

And so you have to make up your mind for yourself. Look at the things that he did. Look at the things that the eyewitnesses record that he did.

Say, if he did all those things, if he healed those people, if he controlled nature and the physical world, if he controlled spirits casting demons out of people, if he controlled life and death raising people from the dead, if he did all those things, if he finished it up with rising from the dead three days after he was killed, could he be anything other than the Son of God? The conclusion I come to is no. He could not be anything but the Son of God. But that’s a decision you’ve got to make for yourself.

That’s something you’ve got to determine for yourself. He calls us to believe in him based on the evidence that he gave us. He said, believe the works that you may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him.

So today, if you’re looking for peace with God, I’d tell you to look at the life of Jesus. Look at everything that he did. Look at the power that he had over nature and had over spirits and our own human frailties and needs.

Look at the power that he had over life and death. Look at the power he had over everything he touched. And ask yourself if there’s anything that Jesus couldn’t do.

Do you believe that he’s the son of God who came to save you from your sins? And do you believe he was able to? That’s the question you’ve got to answer for yourself before you walk out of here today.

Well, technically, I guess you could still wrestle with it as you’re walking out of here. Maybe a better way to say that is that’s the question that confronts you today as we leave out of here. Is he or is he not the Son of God who came to save you from your sins?

Because he told us that he offers us eternal life. He promises in his word that he’ll forgive our sins. He promises to give us that eternal life, to bring us peace with God, to bring us salvation.

All these things that we desperately need and cannot provide for ourselves, Jesus came to provide every bit of it. Because where you and I deserve to die for our sins and be separated from God for eternity in a place called hell, Jesus came and was nailed to the cross and shed his blood and died in our place, bearing every bit of the punishment that we deserved, taking all of the penalty, paying all of the price so that we could be forgiven. And he offers that salvation, that forgiveness, that eternal life to us today, not because of anything we’ve done that’s good enough to deserve it or earn it, but simply if we’ll believe that he is the son of God.

If we’ll believe that he is exactly who he said he was and ask God to forgive us because of what Jesus did for us on the cross.