April 9, 2017

John 5:31-47: Shipwrecked on God and Stranded on Omnipotence

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Series: The Gospel of John: That You May Believe Scripture: John 5:31–47

John 5:31-47: Shipwrecked on God and Stranded on Omnipotence

Please take your Bible and open it to John 5. If you’re using the Story Bibles we provide, that’s on page 738. For those of you who are visiting with us this morning, we’ve been systematically working our way through the Gospel of John passage by passage. And this morning, the text we come to is John 5:31-47. Jesus is speaking to a crowd of Jewish religious leaders who are quite hostile to his ministry and his teachings. And this is what he says to them. Beginning in verse 31: If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” 

Have you ever made a decision that, looking back, you can see that was a not a rational decision to make? So often, we make decisions not because we’ve thought it through by weighing the pros and cons and then used logic to arrive at a decision. Sometimes we do that, but many times we’re not nearly that rational. I remember when I worked at Sears while I was in college, my manager made a decision that definitely wasn’t a rational decision at all. Now, this wasn’t the manager I told you all about a few weeks ago who got fired for sleeping in on Black Friday; this was someone different. This manager had worked for Sears for thirty years. Thirty years of coming to work, putting in her time, and building up a pension. But something happened between her and her superiors. I’m not quite sure what it was, but it was some kind of conflict that really aggravated her. She was livid. And she was so livid, in fact, that she just quit. Notice I didn’t say “retire,” I said “quit.” She walked away from her job and left behind everything, including her pension. Now I don’t know if she was later able to sue the company to get her pension back, but I do know that her decision to suddenly walk away like that meant, as far as anyone knew at the time, that she was kissing her pension goodbye. That was definitely not a rational decision. 

But here’s the thing: you and I make those kinds of decisions more frequently than we would care to admit. So often, we make decisions not on the basis of reasoning or logic but on the basis of emotions and desires. Emotions and desires drive us to make many of the decisions we make. And one of those decisions is the decision many people make to not believe in Jesus. Those who don’t believe in Jesus aren’t ultimately making that decision based on pure reason or logic, even if they think they are. They’re making it because of the desires driving their hearts. If you’re a Christian, I’m sure you have a family member or friend that you’ve been trying to reach out to for years and years. Maybe it’s a parent or a spouse or a child—whoever.  And even though you’ve been sharing the gospel with them and praying for them and doing everything you can to reach out to them for all these years, they still refuse to believe. Well this morning, we’re going to see what’s at the root of that unbelief. We’re going to see that unbelief is always a moral issue, not just an intellectual issue. That’s the main takeaway from Jesus’ address to these Jewish religious leaders. Unbelief is always a moral issue, not just an intellectual issue. And using what Jesus says, we’re going to look at the Jewish leaders under two categories. Number one, why they should believe. And number two, why they don’t believe. Why they should believe and why they don’t believe. 

Why They Should Believe 

First, why they should believe. When you think about why people should believe something, the first basis for belief that probably comes into your mind as a thinking person is evidence, right? We typically believe things on the basis of evidence. And as Christians, that’s what we often assume should be the case for non-Christians in their response to the gospel. Surely we can expect them to respond to evidence. I remember shortly after I graduated high school trying to dialogue with a skeptical friend of mine named JB. JB was a very deep thinker, so we had a lot of good conversations together. And I was kind of operating on this notion that the thing JB needed the most was powerful and persuasive arguments for the truth of Christianity. And I think that’s what a lot of Christians assume in approaching skeptical people. “If I were just smarter or if I could just articulate better arguments, then I might be able to persuade so-and-so to become a Christian.” But even though intellectual arguments and intellectual dialogue certainly have their place, I don’t think a lack of evidence is the root issue that leads to unbelief. Here’s why. Look at our text here in John 5.

Jesus makes it clear that the Jewish leaders have no shortage of testimonies that support his ministry. Beginning at verse 31: “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.” Who’s he talking about? Verse 33: “You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.” So John the Baptizer is the first witness Jesus calls to the stand. If you remember back to chapter one, John’s ministry was to prepare the way for Jesus. He exclaims in chapter 1 verse 29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Admittedly, it might seem kind of strange to us that Jesus appeals to the testimony of John the Baptizer.  After all, John is just a man. But you have to remember that many of the Jews regarded John as a prophet. They believed that he brought a reliable message from God. So that’s the first piece of evidence Jesus presents.

Then he continues in verse 36, “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works  [that is, the miracles] that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.” Already in John’s Gospel, Jesus has changed the water to wine, healed the royal official’s son from terminal sickness, and enabled a man who was paralyzed for 38 years to walk. In fact, that last incident was the very thing that led to this present confrontation with the Jews. And yet, in spite of all those miracles in which Jesus demonstrated supernatural power, the Jewish leaders refused to believe. 

Then Jesus summons another witness in verse 37: “And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.” So another witness who testifies about Jesus is the Father himself. The Bible records three occasions when God the Father actually speaks in an audible way from heaven to testify about Jesus. The Father speaks in Matthew 3 at Jesus’ baptism and also in Matthew 17 at Jesus’ transfiguration, but my favorite is actually in John 12. Right after Jesus closes his sermon with a brief prayer to the Father asking him “glorify your name,” verse 28 then records, “Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”  That response is the Father’s verbal affirmation of Jesus’ message and prayer. So it seems like that would be exactly what a skeptical person would want, right? “If God’s real, why doesn’t he just tell us he’s real?” Haven’t you heard a skeptical person say something like that? And yet, even when God does do that, these people don’t believe. In fact, you know what they said right after the Father spoke from heaven? They said, “It thundered.” That was their response in John 12:29. “Oh, did you hear something? That was just thunder.” It kind of reminds me of nowadays how some people say the Holocaust never happened. When someone asks them, “Well what about all the death camps we see and can even visit if we want to like Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen?” you know what they say? “Oh those? Those were just transportation camps.” Yeah, okay. Transportation camps with gas chambers and mass graves I guess. But that’s how resistant people can be even to overwhelming evidence that’s put right in front of their face. And these Jewish leaders back in Jesus’ day were the same way when it came to the Father’s direct testimony from heaven about Jesus.

And then the final witness Jesus calls to the stand is the Old Testament scriptures. Verse 39: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” Then he tells them again down in verse 45, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses [who wrote the most important portion of the Old Testament], on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” So as we see, even the Old Testament scriptures that these Jewish leaders supposedly treasured so much—even those scriptures testified about Jesus. And they did so in the form of countless prophecies about the coming Messiah—prophecies about his birth, his betrayal, his death, his resurrection—literally dozens of very specific prophecies about all these things. But the Jewish leaders wouldn’t listen. 

So clearly, as we look at this neatly compiled list Jesus gives us of all these different witnesses that testify in support of his ministry, we can see that there’s no shortage of testimonies. The Jewish leaders had plenty of evidence. They had John the Baptizer, Jesus’ own miracles, the Father himself, and the Old Testament scriptures. So clearly their problem wasn’t a lack of evidence. And likewise, that’s not the problem today either. Even today, there’s plenty of evidence for Christianity, at least for those with eyes to see it. We don’t have time to get into it all, but volumes and volumes have been written by very careful scholars detailing the evidence for things like God’s existence and Jesus’ resurrection and the reliability of the Bible. But all of that evidence often falls on deaf ears. 

Why They Don’t Believe

And there’s a reason for that. So let’s look at that reason, as we see it in the text. Having first examined why the Jewish leaders should believe, let’s now look at our second point: why they don’t believe. Look at verse 42, a key verse. Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, “But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.” That’s the reason. That’s the thing that kept them from believing all the testimonies Jesus listed off. “You do not have the love of God within you.” In other words, it’s a moral issue, not just an intellectual issue. It’s an issue of what you love, what you desire, what your heart runs after. Your problem, Jesus says to the Jewish leaders, is that you don’t love God. Instead, here’s what you love, verse 44: “glory from one another.” That’s what you Jewish leaders love. “Glory from one another.” In other words, their hearts weren’t set on God but on earthly glory. That’s what they loved. And the reason they rejected Jesus wasn’t really because of a lack of evidence or because he broke the Sabbath like they claimed but rather because he wouldn’t play along with their little game so they could continue getting glory for themselves in the eyes of the Jewish people. And because of that, these leaders made it their mission to oppose him—all because they were driven by a love for personal glory rather than a love for God. 

And don’t think for a second that people today are any different. Like the Jewish leaders, people today are driven to respond to Jesus not according to logic or rational thought but according to various desires, various “loves.” And unfortunately, because of humanity’s fall into sin, those “loves” constantly take us in the wrong direction. Several years ago, I knew a girl named Cynthia. Cynthia had a horrible early childhood that included physical abuse, sexual abuse, and some other very difficult things. Eventually, Cynthia was removed from her family and adopted into a Christian family who loved her and cared for her and really set her up for a good life. And this all happened in early childhood, so she was able to spend years and years with this loving family. But when Cynthia was nearing age 18, she started hanging out with this guy who, to be honest, was sort of a dirtbag. He was 10 years older than her and into some not-so-good things and clearly didn’t have her welfare in mind at all. But Cynthia was convinced that she loved him. In fact, she loved him so much that, as soon as she turned 18, she moved out of her adopted family’s house and into this guy’s apartment. And suffice it to say that things went downhill from there. He got her pregnant shortly after, and it was a very difficult time in her life. And I’m actually not sure how that situation turned out in the end. But here’s what we can see from that. Cynthia was so blinded by her infatuation with this guy that it clouded her judgment. Instead of thinking rationally and seeing how deeply her adoptive family loved her and how much they had sacrificed for her, she was blinded by what she thought was love and was subsequently led down a very difficult path. 

And in the same way, our hearts often function that way as well. They function like a broken compass, leading us opposite of the way we should go. Just like Cynthia had a loving adoptive family, we have a God who created us and loves us more than we can imagine. But just like Cynthia, our hearts so often lead us to chase after other “loves” and other little-g “gods” that fall tragically short of this one true God. Romans 1:22 talks about this when it describes humanity in this way: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” Then a few verses later, it says that “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” And we may not have actual idol statues that we bow down to and worship, but make no mistake about it: every generation has a tendency toward idolatry. One theologian has even called the human heart a “factory of idols.” And that is the reason so many people refuse to believe. That’s the reason the friends and family members we’ve been unsuccessfully trying to reach out to for years continue to reject the gospel. To put it bluntly, the root issue isn’t any intellectual difficulty they have with Christianity, although that may factor in somewhere. The root issue is that they love their idols, they love their sin—just like these Jewish religious leaders loved their sin. As John 3:19 says, “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” That’s what I mean when I say that unbelief is always a moral issue, not just an intellectual issue.

Where Does This Leave Us?

So as we begin to come to a close, I’d like to ask the question, “Where does that leave us?” The ultimate reason people reject Jesus is because they’re driven by other desires, other loves, and other gods. So where does that leave us? Where does it leave us when it comes to our own family and friends who continue to reject Jesus despite years and years of us trying to reach out to them? I’ll tell you where it leaves us. In the memorable words of Vance Havner, it leaves us “shipwrecked on God” and “stranded on omnipotence.” “Shipwrecked on God” and “stranded on omnipotence.” It’s true that the picture this text paints of people who stubbornly refuse Jesus is pretty bleak. At times, the stubbornness of an unbelieving heart can seem nearly insurmountable. But being “shipwrecked on God” and “stranded on omnipotence” isn’t a bad place to be. Because I believe in a God who’s in the business of taking hearts that are every bit as hard as that family member you’re thinking of and changing them so that Jesus becomes more attractive to them than their sin. I believe in a God who spoke this entire universe into existence and who can therefore easily create a desire for Jesus within someone’s heart without even breaking a sweat. And I believe in a God who raised Jesus from the dead and who clearly states it as his desire to also raise up those who are spiritually dead and make them spiritually alive. We’re living in the era when the Bible says we can expect God to be the most active in doing these things. In 2 Corinthians 6:2, Paul writes that “now is the day of salvation.” “Now”—this era, this time period between Christ’s ascension and his return—“now is the day of salvation.”

So as you approach your lost friend or family member who continues to reject Jesus even over a period of years and years, he’s what I’d recommend. Two things: never stop praying and never stop pursuing. Never stop praying because, as you probably know very well by now, if this person is ever going to be saved, it’s going to take a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. So never stop praying for the Holy Spirit to do that miraculous work. Remember what Jesus said in Luke 18 in the parable of the persistent widow, how this widow kept on going to a crooked judge day after day, saying, “Give me justice against my adversary.” And finally, simply because the judge was so tired of her nagging him all the time, he did give her the justice she sought. So, Jesus says, how much more will our righteous and loving God give us what we seek if we’re faithful in coming to him day after day? We have no reason to think he won’t and every reason to believe he will. I love the story about D. L. Moody, a famous evangelist from the late 1800’s. In the front cover of his Bible, D. L. Moody wrote a list of 100 people he would like to see saved. And he prayed for them regularly, day after day. By the time he died, 96 of those 100 people had come to know the Lord. Pretty amazing, right? But here’s the thing. Guess what happened at his funeral? You got it: at his funeral the other 4 people were converted so that all 100 had now come to know Jesus. Never give up praying. 

Also, never give up pursuing. And by that, I mean keep looking for opportunities to talk about the gospel. Obviously, you want to do that in a thoughtful and wise way so you don’t end up simply nagging the person and driving them farther away from Jesus. But at the same time, never stop looking for opportunities to share Jesus in natural and appropriate ways. Talk about the difference Jesus has made in your life, the hope and joy you have knowing that he’s saved you, and the inexpressible wonder of the grace of God that he would show such love to sinners like us. Talk about all the aspects of the gospel you can talk about. Because, as Romans 1:16 says, the gospel is “the power of God for salvation.

My wife told me a really neat story about her grandparents. Becky’s grandmother was a Christian and had been trying to reach out to her unsaved husband for years and years—actually decades and decades. I’m sure we probably wouldn’t even be able to count all of the prayers she prayed for him or the times she tried to share the gospel with him. But he just wouldn’t have it. Sometimes he would go to church just to get her off his back, but he was never really interested. Now, as both of them neared the end of their lives, Becky’s grandmother had severe dementia to the point where she often had to be actively comforted. And one of the things that comforted her the most was Scripture. So her unbelieving husband would ask family members, including Becky, to come over and read Scripture to her in order to comfort her. Now at first, he would always leave the room when they did that. But over time, he began to sit in the room right beside that room and listen. And eventually, he even began to stay in the room and join them. At that point, Becky decided it would be good to start intentionally reading scriptures that presented the gospel in a very explicit way. So she started reading through the book of Romans. And when she came to Romans 3, her grandfather felt an enormous weight of conviction over his sins and started asking questions about Jesus  and about how his sins could be forgiven. So Becky was able to explain to him how Jesus had actually taken the punishment for his sins by dying on the cross. And not very long after that, Becky’s grandfather put his trust in Jesus to save him. After all those years and all those prayers, he finally trusted Jesus. And then he died as well. But what a reminder to never give up praying and never give up pursuing. Like I said, being “shipwrecked on God” and “stranded on omnipotence” isn’t a bad place to be.

other sermons in this series