Knowing I AM: Gospel of John “Seeing and Doing” John 5:16...

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Knowing I AM: Gospel of John “Seeing and Doing” John 5:16-30 Kevin Haah

May 11, 2014

I. Introduction

[Slide 1] We are in the middle of a series on the Gospel of John called Knowing I

AM.

[Slide 2] The title of the sermon today is “Seeing and Doing.”

We are going to be talking about how we see God impacts what we do and why

we do it.

When I was young, I used to see God as a big judge who is ready to slam me the

moment I did something bad. I used to live in fear of God’s punishment in my life. So, I

lived in fear of hell, fear of condemnation. But, I also believed that God blessed us if we

were righteousness and abided by his laws. So, dutifully abided by his rules in order to

be blessed. It wasn’t much fun, but I did it. I only believed that God loved me because I

thought I was living according to his laws. But, when I didn’t, I doubted his love for me.

I was insecure. Maybe I sort of intellectually believed he loved me, but I didn’t believe

that practically because what I saw of God was a righteous God who demanded

obedience. Even though I was acting like a Christian, there was no joy in my life. I was

still chasing after the same things in life that I thought would provide me with satisfaction

and life. God was just someone to appease in the process just to make sure he doesn’t get

in my way.

I know some of you actually had the opposite problem. You saw God as a giver

of insurance policy for heaven. “Come to the alter and accept Jesus and you will go to

heaven.” So, you did it, but your life didn’t change much. You still continue to struggle

with your addictions, anger issues, and selfishness. Your life is still all about yourself.

You never took the step of really knowing who God is and having a relationship with

him.

Others of you really didn’t really even believe in God. But, even if you don’t,

you probably have a picture of God you don’t believe. In order to reject God, you draw a

picture of this God you reject. And by the way, if you tell me what this God you don’t

believe is like, I probably won’t believe it either. The point is that how you see God

determines how you live.

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Let’s go to the Scriptures to see what God really looks like and discuss the

implication of that for our lives.

Let me give you a little background before we read the passage for today.

Now Jesus had healed a man paralyzed for 38 years on a Sabbath day. Not only

that, he told the man to carry his mat on a Sabbath day.

Let’s read John 5:16-30:

[Slide 3] 16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish

leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is

always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they

tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was

even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

[This is pretty amazing. Jesus saying I see what my father is doing, and I do as he

does it. Now, he goes on explain this but, let’s just stop here. The religious

leaders were furious at Jesus because Jesus was calling God in own father,

making himself equal with God. Now, does Jesus say: wait a minute. You are

misunderstanding me. Or does he acknowledge who he is? And how is it that a

man can be the Son of God? What does the relationship with the father and the

son look like? Let’s go on. Now, I am going to read the passage in first person

because it is a little confusing to hear Jesus talking about himself in third person.]

[Slide 4] 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do

nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because

whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and

shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than

these, so that you will be amazed.

[In response to the allegation that he was claiming to be equal to God, he says:

Yes. My father and I are so tight, so intertwined that I see what he does and I do

what he does. I can’t do anything by myself. I can only do what my father does.

And you know what, you ain’t seen nothing yet. You are going to be blown

away. The father wants you to be blown away. Here’s what’s going to happen:]

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[Slide 5] 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the

Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.

[Father raises the dead and gives them life, I do the same] 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,

[In other words, I am going to judge the world]

23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not

honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

[You need to know that just as you honor the father, you need to honor me. If

you don’t honor me, you are not honoring the father. In other words, worship me

like you worship the father. It’s incredible what Jesus says.]

[Slide 6] 24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who

sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to

life.

[Your eternal destiny is determined by whether you believe what I say.]

25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will

hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

[The time is coming and has now come when even those who died will hear my

voice and those who listen will live. So, it’s not just people who are alive now

that’s at stake; it’s also those who are dead. In other words, the eternal destiny of

everyone is determined by whether you listen to and believe in Jesus.]

26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life

in himself.

[How can Jesus be so much at the center of everything? This verse says because

just like God, Jesus has life in himself. What does that mean? God is self-

existent. Human beings are created creatures. But, Jesus is not self-existent. He

is claiming that he is not created but self-existent. This is pretty amazing stuff!]

27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

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[Jesus is the Son of Man. This is a language we are not familiar with but the

listeners were very familiar with this language. It comes from the apocalyptic

vision of the Messiah in Daniel 7:13-14:

[Slide 7] 13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one

like a son of man, comingwith the clouds of heaven. He approached the

Ancient of Days and was led into his presence.14 He was given

authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every

language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that

will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

[And Jesus is saying: I am that Son of Man!]

[Slide 8] 28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in

their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is

good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be

condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my

judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

II. [Slide 9] Who he claimed to be.

It’s pretty amazing what he said about himself. There is no doubt that he claimed

to be God. Biblical scholars, even non-Christian biblical scholars, don’t dispute that fact

that in this passage, Jesus claimed to be God. We will see several more times in John in

which he claims to be God.

The stuff he said is utterly preposterous and blasphemous unless he is who he

claimed to be. Since Jesus claimed to be God, logically, it is either true or false. These

are the only two options. If it is false, there are only two options: he knew it was false

but he said it. We call such person a liar and a fraud. Or he didn’t know it was false. We

call such person insane. So, he is what he said he was or he was a liar or insane. You

can come to Jesus as just a good teacher to learn from. He didn’t leave that as an option

for us to believe about him.

Here is what CS Lewis said about this:

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[Slide 10] “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said

would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic, . . ., or else he

would be the Devil of Hell. You must make a choice. Either this man was, and

is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse . . . but let us not come

up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has

not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

We must make a choice about who Jesus is. What do we believe about who he is the

most important decision you will make. It determines your eternity. There is no greater

issue for us today. You can’t chicken out and say that you believe that he was a good

teacher. He is the Lord that deserves our worship or he is a liar or insane. And if he is

Lord, we need to see the implications of this reality in our lives. But, before we look at

the implications, let’s look at this passage a little more.

III. [Slide 11] This passage also tells us how he lived.

Although he is equal to God, he submits to God. He lowers himself to the father.

Do you see that embedded all over the passage? I see what my father is doing, and I do

what he does. I can’t do anything by myself. I can only do what my father is doing.

Father is leading, and he is submitting, following, and lowering himself to the father.

Here is how Paul puts in Philippians 2:5-11:

[Slide 12] 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as

Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing

by taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

[Slide 13] 8 And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

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by becoming obedient to death—

even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

[Slide 14] 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus was high up, but he down low in submission to the father. This passage today is

very similar to the Philippian passage: He is God, but he humbled himself and came

down, way down, and God lifted him up. In John passage, Jesus is claiming to God, but

also that he is in submission to the father, but at the same time, that he will be lifted up.

This movement is at the heart of the story of Jesus Christ.

IV. [Slide 15] Now, let’s look at the implications of all of these things.

A. [Slide 16] If you want to know what God looks like, look at Jesus. He is

the greatest revelation of God. Hebrews calls Jesus, the exact representation of God. In

the past, God sent prophets to explain himself to us. In Jesus, God has sent himself to us.

I know a lot of people are confused between God as revealed in the Old Testament and

Jesus as revealed in the New Testament. People say things like—OT God is the God of

violence and NT Jesus is the God of grace and peace. Some people say I don’t like the

father but I like the son. No. The Jesus is the fullest revelation of God. The revelation

of God through the OT is only partial. It is the shadow of the real revelation through

Jesus Christ.

If you take white light and put it through a prism [Slide 17], you would see all of

the colors of the rainbow. You finally see what white light is made out of. It is a

combination of lights that you didn’t know. You didn’t know that white light was made

out of all of the colors. Jesus is that prism that show us what God really looks like.

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This affects the way we think about who God is. Some of us are stuck with a

white color God, and we don’t see the beauty of the rainbow. We don’t see the fullness

of the beauty of God. We think of God as a mega-hammer. He is there to hammer us the

moment we do something wrong. But, Jesus is here to reveal to us how much he loves

us. God loves us so much that he sent his only son to died for us so that we will not

perish but have eternal life, which is a relationship with him. He is God who humbles

himself. He is God who is willing to be humiliated for us. He is God who is willing to

die for us on the cross. He is God who is willing to take upon himself the punishment

that you and I deserve. He is a God who gives of himself self-sacrificially for us. Why

because he loves us.

This is so important. The picture you have of God (how you SEE God) in your

mind determines your relationship with God, and your relationship with God determines

how you live, and ultimately, your eternal destiny. And Jesus is here to show you what

God looks like. He is the father who loves you so much that he comes down to us where

we are.

We often have the wrong picture of God. Sometimes, it comes from the fact that

our earthly father was not like that. They were performance oriented. They had anger

issues. They ruled with an iron fist and fear of punishment. They were absent. They

didn’t express their love for us. Or maybe, they might even have hurt us or abandoned

us.

We need to see Jesus to see what God looks like. Even though we can start our

relationship with God with one decision, we need to practice and train ourselves see God

in his full reality. That’s why we need to spend time reading and memorizing the

Scriptures. That’s why we need to pray and meditate and learn to listen to the

promptings of the Spirit.

We need to learn to see God as revealed through Jesus Christ and not as our

minds imagined it, or not as our own father taught us. This takes training. This takes

work. This takes diligence. This take discernment.

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What is your picture of God? You need to get to know Jesus and allow the prism

to completely change the way you see God.

B. [Slide 18] Second implication: when you see God, you know what to do.

When you have an accurate picture of God, you know what to do. When you see

what he is doing, you know what to do. Isn’t that what Jesus was doing? As he

submitted himself to God, he just copied what God did.

He saw that God was compassionate towards the paralytic by the pool, and he

healed the man even though it was the Sabbath. He saw what God was doing, and he did

it.

When we get to know God, and we get to know his love, his compassion, his

grace, his holiness, his mission-- what he is doing, we know what we are supposed to be

like. If you see God, you know what to do and you do it.

Listen carefully. This is so important. If you want to know what you are

supposed to do, see Jesus. That was Paul point in Philippians 2. “In your relationships

with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” and Paul explains the humility

of Jesus. When you soak yourself in who God is as revealed in Jesus, you know how to

act. You know it is not about raising yourself up. It’s not about showing yourself up.

It’s not about success in the way that this world defines it—more money, bigger things,

more respect, more fame. That’s not what this about. It’s upside down. What seemed

like the greatest disaster when Jesus was tortured and crucified in weakness became the

greatest triumph and the greatest demonstration of power, the power of self-sacrificial

love. Do you see? If you see Jesus, you will begin to understand how everything works

now. The way to blessing is to take the curse. The way to riches is to give everything

away. The way to get honor is not to seek your own honor, but to honor God and others.

The way to happiness is not to seek your own happiness but the happiness of others. The

way to greatness is to give up your greatness. The way to heal brokenness is not to avoid

brokenness, but to plunge in. Do you see? The way up is down. When you see Jesus,

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you know what to do. And it is radically different than what our culture says. We

become rebels against our culture.

There is something more. When we see Jesus, we know what we are supposed to

do in terms of directions in our lives. Many of us have sought God’s direction in our

lives. Generally, what we do is this. We look at ourselves and see what we want to do or

what we think we are capable of doing, and ask God to bless it. Isn’t that what we do?

Essentially, we often ask God to bless what we are doing. But, what was Jesus doing?

He was seeing what God was doing, and he joining in the work that God is doing. Do

you want to find God’s will for your life? See what God is doing and join him. See

Jesus and do. What is God doing around you?

At a big picture, God is reconciling broken people to a relationship with himself

and building a community of people he calls the church, or his bride, to love one another

as he has loved us, and to love the world as he has loved the world. That’s the mission of

God. That’s what New City is all about. So, if that’s what God is doing, that’s what we

need to do. That’s what honoring God is all about. That’s what worship is all about.

That’s what obedience is all about. That’s what our life is all about. Seeing what he is

doing, and doing it.

When we were developing the core team to plant New City, I struggled with the

idea of planting multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic church. It was difficult enough to be

multi-ethnic, but to create a community of people from Skid Row and from the lofts

seemed impossible. There was a school of thought that taught that homogenous churches

are more successful. I was worried that our vision was a pipe dream, completely

unrealistic. Grace and I were constantly talking about whether this would really work.

One day, Grace and I were having a date breakfast at Starbucks (because I am a fancy

guy), and I shared with her about a CD I had listened to from a church planting seminar.

The speaker said something that struck me: The definition of success is not what

happens, not the result—that is God’s issue. Instead, the definition of success is figuring

out what God wants us to do and doing it. I shared with Grace that maybe we shouldn’t

be overly concerned about whether the multi-socioeconomic model was going to work.

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That was God’s problem. What we had to do was to discern whether it was God’s call to

be multi-socioeconomic. And given the demographic data and the vision that God had

given us, it was very clear that He was calling us to plant a church that was not only

multi-ethnic, but also multi-socioeconomic. And so, I said, maybe our posture was just to

obey and leave the results to God.

Grace then said something really interesting. She said that the previous night, she

had been wondering how Dr. Ralph Winters, whom she had worked under at William

Carey Library, was doing. He was one of the most influential missiologists of our time.

So, she Googled him and ran across his autobiography. Something in his autobiography

struck her, and she wanted to share it with me. So, we went online and read that portion

together. This is what it said:

[A]fter we made the decision to leave Fuller we did not at any point in the next

thirteen years, during which we paid off the campus, feel that God had promised

us success. We only felt that the value of the goal was sufficient justification to

go all out, sink or swim. I coined the phrase, “You do not evaluate a risk by the

probability of success but by the worthiness of the goal.” We were willing to fail

because the goal we sensed was so urgent and strategic.

The statement, “'You do not evaluate a risk by the probability of success but by the

worthiness of the goal,'” struck us, just like the definition of success being not the result,

but the doing of God's will. Grace and I felt like God was speaking the same message to

each of us. When we came to that realization, we both cried and prayed together and

submitted the vision to God.

Here is my point: we need to see the heart of God; we need to see if this is

something that is important to God; we need to see if this is something that God is doing,

and if we see that he is doing it, we need to submit and do it.

You see, God is not just calling us to be saved so that we can go to heaven when

we die; God is calling us to a reconciling community that brings the Kingdom of God

down to earth right now. God was calling Jews and Gentiles together into community.

God is busting walls of separation between different kinds of people. God wants us to

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experience the New Jerusalem that is to come right now. The picture of the New City is

beautiful. It is a picture of all kinds of people coming together and worshipping the

Lamb of God, Jesus, together. I came to see that the church is supposed to like this; so, if

we are to build a church of followers of Jesus that does not bust walls of separation, there

is something wrong with the picture.

We started to see Jesus and what he came to do, and we submitted and obeyed.

At a more personal level, seeing what God is doing also helps us discern God’s

will for our lives. God is at work everywhere. Open your eyes and see God at work, and

participate in what he is doing. When missionaries move into a country or a

neighborhood, they need to take time to see what God has been doing before they start

doing things. Maybe there is an organization that has been work to reduce suffering, and

our call is join them. Maybe there is a need that cries out of our involved with love.

Maybe God was preparing people for harvest.

Knowing I AM: Gospel of John “Seeing and Doing” John 5:16...

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