Honour the Father through th..

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com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. John chapter 5 from verses 18 through to 30. This is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

So Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing. But whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. But the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing. and greater works than these will he show him so that you may marvel. As the father raises the dead and gives life, so also the son gives life to whom he will.

The father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the son, 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. 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come out. Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, those who have done evil to the resurrection judgment.

I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Amen. This is the word of the Lord. So as we're all aware by now that we've been working our way through through chapter 5.

And I've said this before, and I'll say it again, that this chapter, chapter 5 in the Gospel according to John, would be one of the clearest chapters that speaks to the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever you point into this chapter, it almost bursts with, Jesus is God. Jesus is divine, but much more than Jesus being divine. The section that we're reading before us here this evening also speaks not only to His divinity, but also to His unity, the unity that the Son has with the Father. And a proper understanding of this chapter will give you and I a Christological insight necessary in order to be able to understand the profound yet much misunderstood truth of our Lord in John chapter 10, when He says, I and the Father are one.

See, in these verses that we have before us is a delicate balance of the incarnate Son of God in His subordination to the Father, And the twin truth on the other side is His eternal, sovereign authority that is inherent to the Son of God. Now for us, we know that this chapter all started with the healing at the Pool of Bethesda. We looked into this, we considered this section a few weeks ago now, and this sparked the controversy that brought about the teaching of our Lord and our Savior throughout the rest of the chapter. They, the Jews, the Jewish establishment, were ones who were accusing our Lord of breaking the Sabbath. breaking the law of God.

Now, of course, Jesus did not break the law of God in his life. Of course, that's not the case. However, he did break their interpretation of what they saw to be the law. And Jesus was not concerned with human fabrications. That was not his concern.

And although he could exonerate himself on that level, he does not. He doesn't exonerate himself to prove that he didn't break the Sabbaths, but rather he takes upon himself a defense that places himself as God. But when he says to the Jews these words, the hatred, the antagonism of this Jewish people is heightened to an all-time high because Jesus says in verse 70, my father is working and I am working. It's only fueled their anger, because without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus was claiming unique sonship with the Father. He wasn't using the term generically, but rather he's saying that the Father, God, I am his son, and therefore he's saying in those words that he is of the same nature as the Father, and to be the same nature of the divine would make him divine.

and this, although Christ knew that this would it didn't bother him. It's a fight he was prepared to battle. And even so, we know that he, just to make sure that the Jews understand that Jesus means what he said, and there was no misinterpretation, in the next 10 verses from 19 up to about 29, Jesus himself uses of himself the designation Son no less than nine times. You see, this is a fight that Jesus is prepared to pick, because unless one acknowledges and believes the truths of who he is and who he claims to be, there can be no salvation, only judgment. So you can imagine, you can imagine the indignation of the Jews at this point.

I said a few weeks ago this is not a case of mistaken identity, this is not a misinterpretation by the Jews of Jesus' words, not at all. You see, Jesus is only deepening the claim to his deity with every word that comes out of his mouth. His claim is only getting clearer and clearer as we progress through chapter 5. And by the time we've, by God's grace, we've meditated upon the rest of this chapter, we will come to know that there are only two responses that one can make towards this Jesus. Either you believe the high and lofty truths that He declares of Himself, to be equal with Father, to be united with the Father, to be divine Himself, or one can deny His claims, but one cannot have the option to claim that Jesus Himself did not speak of Himself as being divine.

That's not an option on the table. The Jews, you see, they were monotheists. They believed that God is one, and this is a fundamental axiom in Judaism. It's an absolute, undeniable truth. The Shema is recited daily, even twice a day.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. So how is it that this man, this man who's not even 50 according to their own words in John chapter eight, how can he claim to be God? The Jews knew the scripture, they knew the words of Yahweh to the great prophet Moses in Exodus 33. He said there, you cannot see my face to Moses, a man shall not see me and live. Yet this man they call Jesus, who stands before us, claims of himself to be of the same nature as God.

He claims in the words that he's spoken to be God. Well, this was scandalous in the Jewish eyes. As far as they're concerned, they were enraged, they were angered. But beloved, they didn't have the doctrine of the Trinity. You see, it's very possible in their minds at least, that they thought our Lord was claiming to be a competing deity.

That in some sense, Jesus is saying, I'm another God. You see, when their thinking is that the Lord God, the Lord is one, and then they have a man who claims to be God, and they know God is one, and they don't understand that God is one in essence, and one in being, yet three in persons, then what are they to think? Now, this is not an uncommon thing to think, because in this day, Hellenistics, or the Greek influence on the Gentiles, the pagan Gentiles, was quite strong in this day, and they were very much polytheistic. They believed in a flurry, many, many gods, and that had influenced many of the pagans and the Gentiles around them. And that was steep in this day.

In this day, in the first century, the Roman Empire was steeped in this sort of thinking. But that was completely foreign to Jewish thought. And Jesus, well, Jesus was a home-grown Galilean Jew. So in saying that, if he was even implying this, then he would be guilty of the worst form of blasphemy. Actually, he'd be worthy of death.

But our Lord is not saying that at all. And if that is the thinking that was in the minds of those around him, in the words of our Lord in the next verse, verse 19, quickly dispels any of this thinking, because there he says, "...truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise." Jesus is not claiming to be a competing deity with the Father.

He's claiming to be in complete unity with the Father. Now everything Jesus says is worthy of great reverence, but when we hear him say these words, truly, truly, I say unto you, or in the older versions of King James, for example, verily, verily, I say unto you, we must stand back and pay very special attention because it's an emphatic statement on the lips of our Lord to say that this is of pivotal importance to understand the context and what He's about to say. And if we've been observant in reading the passage that we read this evening, the 10 or 11 verses that we read this evening, then we would know that He says, verily, verily, or truly, truly, I say unto you, on three occasions. And this evening, by God's grace, we'll address the first one, the one that goes from verse 19 through to 23. And if you pay very careful attention, I believe that we will see and better understand the equality and the unity of the Son of God with the Father.

The divine Father-Son relationship will be a little bit clearer, I hope, in our eyes. This is so important. It is so important that we understand the relationship between the members of the Godhead, and in particular, in this section, the Father and the Son, and the relationship they have with one another. We know that they're united in being and in essence, but they are separate in personhood. We must understand these things and have an understanding, because in history, too many have got this wrong.

Too many have got that fact and that relationship wrong, and it ends in nothing more than deep heresy, and it derails God. It brings dishonor to Him. But I believe, by God's grace, that in this section of Scripture, it is clear and properly understood. I believe these truths are indeed glorious. Verse 19, truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the father doing.

For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. As I said earlier, this is no competing deity. He's no rival to the father. That's not what he's saying. It's the opposite.

He's declaring that he acts in complete unity with the father's will. The son can do nothing on his own, he says. Now, that's not to say that he's limited in some sense to what he can and can't do, but rather to say that he never acts independently of the father. Jesus has no other agenda. The Father's will and His will, the Father's will is His will, and He only does that which is in perfect harmony with that will.

It's not a competition. It's the Son working in perfect harmony, in concert, if you will, to accomplish the will of the Father. And then 19b brings even more clarity. For whatever the father does, that the son does likewise. This is a momentous statement that Jesus is making.

Okay, surely if the opposing Jews had any inclination that he was competing or claiming of himself to be a rival, that thought is definitely out of their mind. But he hasn't really softened the blow in these words. There is no contradiction, there is no rivalry that Jesus has with Him and the Father, but what mere man can say these words? What mere man can say, hear this, whatever, whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Brothers and sisters, it's one thing to hear two people speak in that sense.

But when you have two human beings speaking, and we've all heard of the chest inflating egotistic comments where one person challenges another and he says, whatever you can do, I can do. And you know, although we should never allow our pride to dictate what we do, that's always a bad idea, it's nonetheless plausible that that person is able to come and meet that challenge, because the reality is, there's not much that separates one man and the other in ability, in strength, in stamina, whatever it is. However, that's not what's spoken of here. That's not what's happening here in verse 19. A man, flesh and blood, born of a woman, stands before the religious elites and he says, whatever the creator and the sustainer of the universe does in all his work, I do likewise.

Can you imagine the rage of those listening? Hearing Jesus's claim, not only is his desire to do what the Father does, now that's a noble thing, but he claims to have the ability to do so. Who can say these words? Who can say, I can do whatever the Father does? Beloved, only one who is as great, one who is as powerful, one who is as eternal, one who is as divine as the Father himself.

And these are our Lord's claims. The Father's work is my work." You see, this is a massive indictment to the Jews, because in a very clear and direct way, Jesus is saying that any opposition any opposition to what he does, like the fierce opposition of the healing on the Sabbath that we read about only a few weeks earlier in the beginning of chapter 5, or any opposition to what he says, such as what was experienced in verse 17, when Jesus says, My Father is working until now, and I am working, is opposition to Yahweh. You don't simply oppose me, Jesus says. You oppose the Father because all you see me do is the Father's work.

Every last iota of work that Jesus is doing is the work that the Father has given him to do. I have come to do His will. It's as simple as that. Either you are for Christ, either you are with Christ, or you are declared an enemy of God. These are heavy words.

Whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. And now in verse 20, Christ explains how it is that He's able to do whatever the Father does. for he says for or because the father loves the son and shows him all that he himself is doing the father son relationship is a relationship predicated upon perfect love. In that love relationship, there are no secrets. It's full transparency, a full continuous disclosure of what the father does is shown to the son, who is perfect in sonship.

And that means he perfectly obeys the father, perfectly. This is how we can say that God is love, because love doesn't exist in the abstract. There needs to be a love-giver and a love-receiver. And what we have in the Godhead, what we have in God, in the Trinity, is one God and three Persons. And these three Persons have eternally loved one another.

and they're an expression of that love. And therefore, this is why the Bible speaks and says that God is love. And more specifically, more specifically than the Trinity, what we have in our passage here is the relationship that we have between the Father and the Son. And it's a relationship we know that has existed in love from eternity past. And because the Father loves the Son, As we're told in John chapter 3 verse 35, the Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hands.

All, brothers and sisters, all. That's full transparency of his will shown to the Son. And that love, beloved, is reciprocated from son to father in perfect obedience. The father shows the son all the things that he has done, full transparency, continuous, and the son shows his love to the father in perfect obedience in the incarnation. And this is what brings perfect satisfaction to his heart.

As Jesus said, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is what brings him satisfaction. to display His perfect love and perfect obedience to the Father's will, to do the very things that the Father has shown Him. Now you remember back in chapter 4 when Christ was in Samaria at the well and the disciples had gone into the city or the town of Sychar to get food and Jesus was hungry and weary. And when they came back, when they came back with food and offered it to Christ, Christ knew at that point that the woman had departed, gone back to Sychar.

And when she did depart, she declared to the town and she testified that it is very possible that the Messiah is at the well. And Jesus knew that slowly these people were trickling outside the town, out the town towards the well, towards our Lord. And when the disciples came and offered the food for our Saviour, our Saviour, He declined. You remember His words? You remember what He said?

He said, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work. My food, my satisfaction, my joy is to accomplish His work, to accomplish what He has shown me. The Father's plan of redemption is being worked out, and my will is to perfectly obey His will. Obey even unto death, even death on the cross. And this point is so clear in the book of Philippians where the Apostle Paul in chapter 2 verse 9 through 11, he says these words.

My apologies. A different text. It's clear in John chapter 14 where he says, this is Jesus speaking to the disciples, I will no longer talk much with you. Speaking of the hour of his crucifixion. For the ruler of this world is coming.

This is in the Upper Room Discourse. He has no claim on me, Jesus says, but I do as the Father commanded, so that the world may know that I love the Father. This is no competing deity. This is an incredible love relationship between father and son, son and father that has spanned through all eternity. And it is on display through the perfect obedience of the incarnate son of God.

perfect obedience and perfect unity with the Father. And I want you to realize something about verse 20. It says, for the Father loves the Son, and don't miss this, and shows Him all that He Himself is doing. This means that because the Son's obedience is so complete and so perfect, And because he covers every facet of what the Father does, one can only conclude that Jesus is also the perfect revelation of God. That in Christ, the Father is revealed.

And this is the point of John 1. John 1 verse 18, you remember, he says, no one, this is the apostle speaking, no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at his father's side. That's Christ. He has exegeted him. He has made him known.

He has revealed him. The revelation of God is found in the perfect obedience of the Son of God. No one has seen God, but his nature, his character, his will, and his work is on display in the Son. This is why in chapter 14, Jesus can say to Philip, or can answer Philip's question, Lord, show us the Father, Philip says, and it is enough. What does Jesus say?

Have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? And these are the beautiful words here. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Who can say these words? And not because he's the same person, but because he's so united with the Father's will and all that the Father does that is able to say, whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

And here's the crux of the matter for you and I. In the most simplest terms, it means this. None of us, none of us can know God apart from the Son of God. None of us can know God apart from the Son of God. How serious should we take the words of our Lord and our Savior when He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life?

No one, no exceptions, no one, no one comes to the Father except through me. Someone may say, but I know God, I worship God, but I don't believe in this Jesus. And Jesus would say, whoever it is that you worship is not God, because apart from me, you cannot know God. There are millions of doors that lead to millions of places, but there is only one door that leads to God, and that is through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. For the honest Jew in this moment, And there were some, and there were some, although Jesus's claims were pretty outlandish to them, there's no denying that in their hearts, in their minds, they were probably thinking, to some degree, our Lord is backing what he says with his actions.

You see, they witnessed, or at least second-hand witnessed, the healing of the invalid, the man who'd been invalid or crippled for some four decades. And they knew that that healing must have taken place only at the hand of God. They knew only God was able to perform such healing. I mean, even Nicodemus, in his first words to Christ, what were they? Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher from God.

How do we know this? For no one who can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. But in their mind, I think, It's one thing to be an instrument in the hands of God, but it's another altogether to claim to be God. It's a whole different category to say that I am God. Okay, you see, the prophets of old were also able to, by the power of God, perform many signs and wonders.

You know, we think of Moses we heard of, and we've been going through the book of Exodus. We think of Elijah in the Elisha, just to name a few. but that doesn't make them deity. So why would the healing at the pool of Bethesda be any different? Now, upon examination of the text, as we did a few weeks ago, we can confidently affirm that the sign that Jesus performed that day was definitely a sign that spoke of his deity.

But for the Jew who had heard about this, there may have been some reservation in their minds. You see, back when we read verse 20b, Jesus tells them, he tells them that there are still greater works to come. And the works that are yet to come are works that will cause them to marvel. Not to marvel as one marvels just at a spectacle, as though Jesus is just a miracle worker putting on a show, but in hearing his words and seeing his great works, one should be captivated by his greatness and come to believe in who he is and what he claims to be. That's the purpose of the sign.

That's the purpose of the miracle. It's not simply to amaze. And so in verse 21, Jesus tells what these greater works are. For as the father raises the dead and gives life, verse 21, so also the son gives life to whom he will. Clearly the raising of the dead in scripture, and the Jews knew this, belonged to God.

It was God's prerogative to raise the dead. It's God's prerogative to issue life. And you may remember the story in 2 Kings. Remember the story of Naaman, the general of the Syrian army, a man who was plagued with leprosy and desperate to be healed. And he had heard that in Israel, that there are prophets in Israel, or a prophet in Israel, who would be able to heal him, possibly.

So the king of Syria writes a letter, sends Naaman into Israel, and to confront, or to sit with the king of Israel, and give him the tribute, the gold and the silver, and match clothing in hope that he would be able to assist in the healing. And when the king of Israel reads the letter of the king of Syria, do you remember his reaction? These are his words. He says, he tears his clothes, and then he says, am I God to kill and to make alive? Am I God that I can bring life to the dead?

Only God can raise the dead. That's His prerogative. Jesus is saying in these words, and this is making probably the Jews go crazy out of their minds, I would think, so as the Son gives life, so as the Father brings the dead, He raises the dead and gives life, so the Son gives life to whom He wills. You see, the two clauses that we have are actually parallel. So when we look at the clause on top that speaks of the father raising the dead and giving life, and then the son giving life to whom it will, they're parallel.

So the giving of life of the son really is synonymous to raising the dead and giving life. Make no mistake, Jesus is claiming not only to have the authority over life and death, as the Father has the authority over life and death, but he's also claiming sovereignty. See, unlike the prophets of old who were instruments in God's hands, Jesus is not merely an instrument. But inherent to him is the authority to give life and sovereignty to choose to whom he gives it. Because he says, I, also the Son, gives life to whom he will.

It's his prerogative. He decides who lives. and who dies. And a glimpse of that was given when he walked into the pool of Bethesda. The Bible tells us there was a multitude of sick and lame and crippled.

And Jesus walks to one man and heals one man. He heals no one else. And who are we to say why, O Lord? As his healing was purposed for one man, so too he gives life to whom he pleases. But this text is speaking of life.

It speaks of life both in the physical sense as well as the spiritual sense. You see, verse 21 has the final resurrection in mind. This is clear and further elaborated, the resurrection of the dead that is. It's elaborated in verses 25 through 29. But also in view is the spiritual life, and that's the main point of verse 24.

Now, having said that, this evening we're only going to 23, so we'll address those verses next week, by the grace of God. But surely I want us to see that in verse 21 there must have been immediately relevant to the listeners in that day. It must have been immediately relevant to the Jews, because this is what Jesus says. He says that he does these things, great things, he'll show them, so that you may marvel speaking to them. The Jews present at the sound of Jesus's voice will come to marvel.

You see, this is not quite the midway point of Jesus's ministry. He's still to do some very amazing signs to authenticate his claims to deity. And among them, he'll demonstrate just as the father, that he too has power over life and death. And immediately that comes to mind is Lazarus. In John 11 verse 41 through 46, listen to the narrative.

Jesus standing at the tomb, the tomb of Lazarus, a man who'd been dead for four days. Jesus lifts up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may hear this, believe that you sent me." Remember that, that they may believe. That's the purpose, that belief, not just to enjoy the spectacle.

43, when he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. The man who had died came out, his hands and his feet bound with linen strips and his face wrapped with cloth. Jesus said to them, unbind him and let him go. 45, hear this. Many of the Jews, therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed.

believed in him. But some, this is the sad bit, but some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. What does that remind you of? The invalid man who went straight to the Pharisees, straight to the religious leaders, the Jews, the religious establishment, and said, I know who healed me now. It's Jesus.

See for some, it was far more than just a spectacle. They witnessed the authority of our Lord over life and death, and they believed. You see, at the sound of the voice of our Lord, He is able to raise the physically dead. to physical life, then what he says about the spiritual life is also true, in that in the sound of his voice, when he says, come out Lazarus, and he does, when Jesus says live, then that spiritually dead person will come to life also. He will obey.

He has authority over the physical, and he has authority over the spiritual. And the question here is this, do we believe this? You see, some in this day, as we saw, some believed. Some believed and had that true saving faith that our brother was speaking to us about earlier this morning in the Israelites. Some who believed and obeyed.

There were many who did not believe. They saw the sights, they saw the spectacle, they saw the wonder and the miracle, yet they did not place their trust in Jesus Christ. And although the incarnate Son of God, His primary purpose to enter into this world was to save, was to seek and save that which was lost, Those who reject him will face him in the final judgment. And that's the point of verse 22. Because verse 22 tells us, For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son.

This is so profound. Up until now, all the activities of the father and son have been done in concert, in simultaneous harmony. The son, what the son does, the father does. My father is working, I am working. My father raises the dead and gives life.

I do the same, I raise the dead, and I can give life at my will as he does with his will. But here we see that all judgment has been given to the son, and he's specific by saying the father does not judge. This is incredible. The reciprocating love and trust between father and son is so complete that judgment has been completely given over, given over and entrusted to the Son of God. You see, this truth is reiterated in Acts chapter 17.

And if you remember, this is Paul at Mars Hill speaking to the Athenians, a pagan society of people. And there he says, the times of ignorance God overlooked. But now he commands all people everywhere to repent, hear this, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man who he has appointed." I do believe this passage is meant to marvel us. It's meant for us to stand back and say, wow, that God has appointed a man.

This is what Paul says, that he's appointed a man to judge the living and the dead. And Jesus is a man. But this could not be said of a mere man or someone who is only a man. Think about it for a moment. How can any man justly and righteously sit on the seat of judgment and judge every deed and every thought of every individual that has ever existed if this man is not omniscient?

Beloved, what's this saying about our Lord? It's saying that He knows all things. He is all-knowing. There is nothing hidden before Him. We've all heard the horror stories.

We've all heard the stories of the human law courts, where a verdict has been given, a sentence has been issued, and someone sent to death, or even worse, sent to prison, or even worse, sent to death. And decades sometimes later, we hear that new evidence surfaces And then it's found that the decision that was made years earlier was the wrong one. It was unjust. Someone was sent to prison or even death and they were guilty of the crime. Beloved, that never happens here.

the omniscient eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ, in His judgment is He sees all things, and the judge of all the earth will always do what is right. His judgments are righteous. His judgments are just, because He sees all. He knows all. He sees the secrets of the hearts, the thoughts of the minds, the things that we think we've hidden.

He knows them all. and they'll be revealed before the eyes, the all-seeing eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ, and beloved, when he makes that judgment. A million years, ten million, a hundred million years from that time, when he puts his gavel down and looks forward to a hundred million years time, the decision he made then is just as just and righteous as it would be in a hundred million years time. Because there's no new evidence that will come up. Because he sees all.

He knows all. His eyes are all-knowing, all-seeing. This is a declaration to the omniscience of our Lord Jesus Christ. But how can anyone read this text and walk away thinking that Jesus is anything less than divine? How can anyone walk away thinking that Jesus is worthy of anything less than our worship, than our praise, than our honour?

That's what 23 is about. Because verse 23 tells us that the Father has entrusted the Son for that reason. Listen to what he says, Jesus still speaking, 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. So many in history that have manipulated the words of this chapter.

So many have come up with these erroneous interpretations of this wonderful fifth chapter of the gospel according to John to say something other than what the text says. And again, they say, see, I told you, this is not Jesus claiming to be God. Jesus is not God. So many have done this. They've suppressed the truth in unrighteousness.

So many have done this. They deny Him to be the same nature as the Father. They deny Him to have the same authority as the Father, the work of the Father, the power, the sovereignty, and the omniscience of the Father. They deny all these things. They misinterpret all of them.

But I ask you, how can one misinterpret verse 23? How can you even misinterpret the words of our Savior here? That the Father's will is that the Son receive the same honor he himself is Jew. This is a huge statement. This is a massive statement for the Jews listening, and they knew exactly what Jesus meant.

You see, honor is to esteem, it's to praise, it's to worship, it's to reverence, it's to honor, it's to give glory, where glory is Jew, and every Jew, even very well that it was Yahweh who has warned that he alone is to be honored as God, that he alone is to be worshipped, that he alone is to receive glory. Now in Exodus the people are still in the wilderness. They will enter into the land flowing with milk and honey, but then they will find themselves exiled. The north first and then the south. Why?

It's because they gave themselves over to idolatry. gave to other beings and to carved idols and stone. They gave what belonged to God, worship, honor, and praise. These Jews here know this. They know the consequence of someone giving glory and honor to that which is not God.

They understood this really, really well. And as Jesus was saying these words, I'm sure multiple texts were running, were ringing through their ears and their minds, such as Isaiah 42, verse 8, which reads, I am the Lord, that is my name, my glory I give to no other. And now, their only response, because this, in verse 23, what Jesus is saying, beloved, really cannot be misinterpreted. You cannot read it any other way than Jesus saying, the Father wills that I receive the same honor, the same worship, the same praise, the same esteem that you give to Yahweh. The only response I can think of that the Jews were experiencing right here, right now in this section, would be shock and horror.

Horror. But this is exactly what Jesus is saying. That the Son of God is no mere ambassador of God. He's beyond that. He is God in flesh.

And therefore the honor that is fitting for God. The honor that is fitting for the Father is due the Son. And this is the beautiful thing about this and how Jesus speaks these things. The beauty is that by honoring the Son, as you would honor the Father, nothing is taken away from the Father. Nothing.

It's actually the opposite. The unity of the Father and Son is so close and so intense. That the glorification of the Son is precisely what glorifies the Father. I want to say that again. The glorification of the Son is precisely what glorifies the Father.

Philippians 2 verse 9 through 11. Listen to what the Apostle says. This is the section called the Common Christi. Listen to what the Apostle says about Jesus Christ. He says, God has exalted him, that's Christ, and bestowed on him the same, the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

This is complete worship by every single being. To the glory of God the Father. By giving the glory, by giving the honour, by giving worship and praise and esteeming and exalting our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Father is honoured and the Father is glorified. and it's even deepened this truth is deepened even more when we look at the latter part of verse 23 whoever does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him what a statement This would have infuriated the listeners. These claims that Jesus is making, he's now confronting these Jews with the greatest insult to them.

Because in black and white terms, Jesus is not only saying that the one they mock The one they scorn, the one they treat with contempt and derail, is worthy of the same honor as the father, which is scandalous in their eyes. But also he's saying that by them withholding the honor that he is due, they dishonor Yahweh. They bring disrepute and disgrace amazing. One may think he or she honors God, but if Christ is not at front and center, if Christ is not esteemed, if Christ is not exalted for who he is, then one is deluding himself and derailing God. This is what Jesus is saying here, because we honor the Father by honoring the Son.

How do we honour the Son? By acknowledging and obeying His words. Because His words are the words of God. By trusting His work, because His work is the very work, Father. By believing His person, because He is God in flesh.

The unity of the Father and the Son goes beyond the work they do, and it goes to the honor that they receive. And they are united in the honor they receive, as they are reunited in all things. This is just an incredible reality, an incredible truth, that we honor the Father by honoring the Son, because there is no rivalry in the Godhead. There's no jealousy in the Godhead, there is no conflict in the Godhead, just perfect harmony in every way. And this is why the Apostle John is able to say in 1 John, no one who denies the Son has the Father, and whoever confesses the Son has the Father.

also. Or in deeper, more stronger words from the mouth of our Savior in John chapter 15, listen to these words, whoever hates me hates my Father also. Honor the Son, honor the Father. Hate the son, hate the father. This is perfect unity in the Godhead.

The father-son relationship, a relationship predicated on love from all eternity, is so united, beloved, that it blows our minds. But the scripture says they are united in essence and in being, but they are separate, distinct, in personhood. We believe how that all works is difficult for our minds. But we acknowledge what the scripture says, and we believe upon that. But there is such an incredible unity here that we cannot avoid.

And these are the claims of our Lord. They are high, yes, and they are lofty. But here's the thing. And I want you to hear this. They're non-negotiable.

They're not up for compromise. No man stands in judgment over these truths. Truth is truth, despite what man thinks. God's word is true. Let God be true in all men's lives.

So here's the decision that all men need to make. Either one believes upon this Jesus, this Jesus of John chapter 5, this Jesus of the Bible, and believes upon all that he is and all that he claims to be with no exceptions. and in turn bend the knee in worship, in praise, in honour, in obedience to Him as Lord, as God, as Saviour, as Redeemer, as the One who is the Son of God, God Himself. Or one can, at his own peril, reject this Jesus, and the promise is that that person will stand in judgment one day, and his judgment will be just. Let's pray.