Thanks, Kurt. I appreciate it.
Kurt's actually the first pastor at Vito Springs that I met when
they moved to town here. He one of the, one of the people
that came and helped play at the church was a, a pharmacist at
CVS and one of my elders was the pharmacy manager for the area.
And we would play basketball on Sunday nights and Kurt came and
took it to me that night. So and then I didn't get to see
Kurt again for many, many months after that and got to meet meet
him and get to know him a little bit better.
But yeah, be careful with him on the basketball court, although
I'm really bad at basketball, so maybe you don't have that much
to worry about. And my my expectations are low,
but really, really excited to be here this morning.
We're going to be in John chapter 12.
I know Kurt said John 13, but actually going to be in John 12.
Hopefully that's correct because that's what I was assigned in
the e-mail that was given to me. If not, we're going to get a
text that you heard previously in a couple weeks.
So, and my church actually went through the Gospel of John about
two years ago, took us a little over a year to to work through
through all of it. And so I'm excited to be here
with you guys this morning and, and starting in in about, you
know, the second-half of verse 36.
If you're unfamiliar with John's Gospel, we've arrived at the
point where we are at the end of what is known as Jesus public
ministry in John's Gospel. And what what I mean by that is
the next time that Jesus is going to appear in the Gospel of
John in public, it will actually be at his beating and his
crucifixion. So we, we are at the end of most
of the, the ministry that Jesus came to do in John's Gospel.
There, there may be some other things that you would see that
are not in John's Gospel that would be in the other ones.
But in this Gospel we are now at the the final stages of his
public ministry. And at this point, Jesus has
spent three plus years working and teaching about who he is and
why he came to Israel. He said things like I am the
bread of life. If you work through John's
gospels, you've seen these various I am statements that
he's made throughout the gospel. And when he says he's the bread
of life, what he was saying to the Israelites is that he was
true food and sustenance for them.
He would have been harking on their memory of God's people in
the wilderness story of Exodus, where God provided man a daily
for them, saying that whereas God was your provision
physically in the wilderness, I am your provision spiritually.
He says I am the light of the world, claiming that He was
bringing light to a Dark World that did not know God fully.
He claimed that He was the door displaying to the Israelites
that He was the means by which people would have access to God
the Father. He called himself the Good
Shepherd where he was proclaiming to them that he was
portraying his love and care for them as his people.
And there's shades of Psalm 23 here where David says the Lord
is my shepherd. I shall not want that.
Jesus is saying I'm that shepherd.
I am the shepherd that David was referring to.
He calls himself the resurrection and the life,
proclaiming to the people of Israel that he holds power both
over death and life itself. And so Jesus's public ministry
has had one goal as he's been preaching and teaching over
these these three years. And that was to reveal to them
that he is not just some political Liberator or prophet
or good teacher or a mere man or leader, though He came to reveal
that he was God's only son in the flesh, sent to reveal God's
truth and to rescue us from ourselves.
And that is a loaded statement saying that that we need
rescuing from ourselves. But if you read the Scriptures
consistently, what we find going all the way back to Genesis
chapter 3, that mankind has a problem which probably everyone
in this room would agree with. And that problem is you, that
that problem is me. There's a, there's a famous
pastor that I, I've listened to his sermons for years and he has
this line that always sticks with me where he says, no one
robs you of more joy than yourself.
Does it mean that other people don't sin against us or that
things seem unfair at times, but that the ultimate enemy of our
own true joy and flourishing is our self, which is something
that Jesus teaches regularly throughout the Scripture.
And as we've studied John's, Jesus's ministry in the Gospel
of John and what you guys have likely seen from the other
pastors and preachers that have preached to you is John's
writing of this gospel is to really just unveil Jesus's
ministry to us, to truly unveil who he was.
Actually over in John chapter 20, Jesus, John actually shares
with us the whole reason why he wrote his gospel.
He says, now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of
the disciples which are not written in this book, but these
are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life
in his name. Mean that John wrote this gospel
so that we would know who Jesus is, believe in Jesus and in
believing in Jesus, have life in his name.
And that is both life for eternity, but it's also life for
now, the idea that we can flourish in this life.
If you've ever read the Gospel of Matthew and Jesus Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus spends 2 full chapters preaching and teaching
what true flourishing looks like in this life.
And we should understand that. If you've ever read through the
Sermon on the Mount, a lot of the things that Jesus says lead
to human flourishing are going to be the exact opposite of what
the world tells you. Flourishing is meaning that
there is a way in which Jesus and his Kingdom turns our
kingdoms upside down. And last week, as you guys were
working through John's gospel, you saw Jesus finish kind of
with this final appeal as he's preaching and teaching.
He said this while you have the light, believe in the light,
that you may become sons of the light.
And so our big idea heading into the text that we have this
morning is that there will be many who will hear of Jesus,
will hear of his teachings, will know of his life, will know of
his story, and yet they will still reject Jesus in unbelief.
But that does not change the reality that Jesus came as the
light to save the world and all who believe in him receive life,
both life for now, but also life for eternity.
And so John has kind of two things that I want to point out
to us as we work through verses 36 through 50 here in John
chapter 12. The first one is we're going to
see John's commentary on the unbelief of those who had spent
time around Jesus and his ministry and help us try to
understand why there is this struggle to believe that Jesus
is God's Son in the flesh. And then the second thing we're
going to see is Jesus's own heart and authority towards
unbelief itself. And so if you'll look at me
starting in in verse 36, I'm going to read kind of our first
couple verses for you, and then we'll spend some time unpacking
them. When Jesus had said these
things, He departed and hid Himself from them.
Though He had done so many signs before them, they still did not
believe in Him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah
might be fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what He
heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the
Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not
believe. For again, Isaiah said he has
blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with
their eyes and understand with their heart in turn.
And I would heal them. Now there's a lot going on there
and I'm going to try my best to to unpack what John is is saying
to us. But starting in the next chapter
from John 13 on, Jesus is going to devote himself specifically
to his disciples and preparing them for his crucifixion and
ultimately his resurrection. But as we finish up Jesus's
final kind of minutes in public ministry here in John chapter
12, according to John, Jesus makes a final plea to the crowds
that are around him. And as he's made this final
plea, the Jewish leaders, the religious leaders and, and, and
just your comment, everyday Israelite that is with him
responds with unbelief. Now you guys have been studying
John's gospel for months at this point.
And as you've read through the gospel, for those of you that
have been here consistently, it may seem outrageous to you that
that would be their response, especially considering the
number of signs Jesus had performed in front of them.
If you haven't been here, let me give you a quick, maybe 32nd
recap of what we've seen. In John chapter 2, Jesus is at a
wedding and he saves the wedding by turning water into wine.
In John chapter 4 he heals an official son simply by declaring
that it's done without ever visiting the official son.
In John chapter 5 he heals A paralytic man by the pool of
Bethesda. In John chapter 6, he feeds over
5000 and then wants to get away from the people and then later
that night walks across water. In John Chapter 9, Jesus heals a
man that had been born blind. Then in John Chapter 11, as if
what he had done up to this point in John's gospel has not
been enough to explain his power and who he is, he raises his
friend Lazarus from the dead. And after all of these signs,
after all of the teachings that Jesus has given throughout his
ministry, through the I AM statements, after all the
miracles, the response is that there are many who still do not
believe that Jesus is who he says he is.
You're that we get the sense that John is almost sharing with
us this sense of tragedy that he experienced as a disciple
himself. That the entire public ministry
of Jesus, all the good that he had done over his three plus
years moving through Israel, moving throughout Samaria, going
and healing and preaching the good news of who God really is
and why he had come could be summed up that despite
everything that Jesus did, still they did not believe.
And I think this isn't important for us, an important thing for
us to consider this morning, whether you are a follower of
Jesus here this morning or you are not often times as a, as a
pastor, I've heard people say to me, I'll, I'll share the gospel
with them. I'll study the scriptures with
them. I'll explain to them my own
testimony of transformation and what God has done in my life.
And what regularly happens is if someone still after all of that,
after having the truth of who Jesus is unveiled to them and
shared with them, they will, they'll say something along
these lines to me. Well, unless I see God perform a
miracle, I won't believe. And the first response to that
is, is one that Scripture gives us.
And I, I always say, well, that sign has already been given,
been given to you. He's alive right now.
He's risen from the dead. You, you need no other sign
than, as Jesus says himself, than the sign of Jonah being
given to an adulterous and evil generation.
But I think the more important thing and layer to peel back is
that these were people, men and women who walked with Jesus, saw
him perform these miracles, saw him do these things, and yet it
was not enough for them. And I've found over the years in
ministry that when someone says they need something like that,
there would never be a miracle that would be enough for them,
that in the stubbornness of their own heart, they refuse to
respond. And this is actually something
that John shares with us in this passage.
He explains to us why these men and women who have experienced
the love of Christ and experienced his ministry, yet
still refuse to accept Him as their Messiah.
It's helpful to remember too that these men and women in
Israel are no different than their fathers that have come
before them. If you go back to Deuteronomy
chapter 29, this is not the first time that the Israelites
have rejected God and his teaching and what He's given
them. Starting in verse 2 of
Deuteronomy chapter 29, this is this is Moses kind of reviewing.
If you've read the book of Deuteronomy, it's pretty much
Moses reviewing his entire time with them and trying to prepare
them as a nation for entering into the promised land.
And when you get to verse chapter 29, he says this in
verse 2. And Moses summoned all Israel
and said to them, You have seen all that the Lord did before
your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his
servants, and to all his land, the great trials that you saw,
the signs and those great wonders.
But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand,
or eyes to see or ears to hear, saying God.
Moses says to them, God has done so much in liberating you, and
yet you still don't understand how good he is and follow him.
You still do not have eyes to see or ears to hear.
And John says that what we see here in John chapter 12 is very
similar to the history of God's people throughout their entire
existence. And he actually quotes the
prophet Isaiah here when describing the unbelief of the
Israelites. He quotes from both Isaiah
chapter 53 and Isaiah chapter 6. And this is important for us to
understand because Isaiah was a prophet who looked forward to
God one day, sending a Messiah to rescue and redeem God's
people. That's what the the book of
Isaiah is about. And if you're unfamiliar with
that book, let me give you just a little bit of background of
understanding what what's going on.
So in the beginning of the book, God comes to Isaiah and Isaiah
repents of sin and then agrees to be a messenger for God,
something that he would have never done beforehand.
And and in that he's been commissioned by God to go and
preach to the the nation of Israel and basically tell them
it's over for you, right? Not not a fun job.
He says, Hey, you're going to be my prophet now and you're going
to go tell my people that I'm done with them as a nation and
that they're going to experience exile and destruction.
That's what's awaiting them. And by the way, you're going to
go preach to them and tell them to repent and return to me.
But just so you know, Isaiah, you're going to be ignored,
you're going to be scorned and you're going to be rejected
throughout your entire ministry. Could you imagine like you're,
you're at a job interview and you're really excited about the
job and the, the, the person interviews and they look at you
and they say, we think you're the perfect candidate to lead
this team. Just so you know, though, you're
not going to be paid. Your team is going to hate you
and they're not going to listen to you at all while you work.
How many of you guys would still sign up for that job, right?
Because you're not crazy. I was like, no way.
I'm not. I'm not doing that.
And yet Isaiah, because he's had this experience with God
himself, signs up for something that no normal human being would
sign up for, because he knows God is in it.
And he goes anyway. And as God sends him, exactly
what God promised would happen came to pass.
Isaiah goes, he preaches to them, he begs them to repent.
He says return to God. And the people's hearts are
hardened towards God and they refuse to listen.
And Jesus, like Isaiah, is sent to a people who will ignore him,
who will scorn him and reject him.
And yet he went anyway. See, Jesus is the better Isaiah.
Jesus didn't only come to warn God's people and tell them of
what their reality was in light of God.
No, Jesus came and then put himself in their place to die
for them, something Isaiah was incapable of doing.
And as Jesus shares his ministry and makes one final plea here,
John goes so far as to say that God knew this would happen all
along, that the Jewish people who longed for a Messiah who had
the scriptures. You know, I, I joke all the
time. My, my, my, my family is from
somewhere in Northern Europe and England.
We my family was worshipping bark like Thor.
They they were worshipping odd gods that we are unfamiliar
with. The people of God had the word,
they had the revelation given to them.
And yet when Jesus comes they do not respond.
And John goes so far as to say this happens not just because of
the hardness of Israel's heart, no, but because this actually
fulfills the Scripture of what God said his people would do all
along. And as Jesus reveals himself to
them, the more they are hardened to the truth of who he is.
Now, if you look at verse 39, right, that's a that's a
difficult verse to kind of wrestle with in this passage,
right? It says therefore they could not
believe, for again Isaiah said he has blinded their eyes and
hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and
understand with their heart and turn.
And I would heal them. And I want to thank Gordon for
giving me this passage, because how kind to give such a
difficult thing to have to preach through, especially to a
congregation that I don't regularly preach to.
But what are the things we need to see and understand, whether
you are a follower of Jesus in this room this morning or you
are not? Every one of us every day is
responding to to God and what He's done, whether it's through
natural revelation of creation or your own conscience that God
has given you that leaves you guilty before God without excuse
and knowing His existence or whether you actually have the
word. You've grown up knowing the
truth of who God is and what the Scriptures say.
All of us are responding to God every single day, either in
belief or hardening of heart towards Him and His truth, and
without a work of the Spirit by the grace of God.
What John is saying is that we as human beings all respond in
hardness, in our own natural condition and state.
That's what we do. And this does not mean that
God's sovereignty is pitted against man's responsibility.
Actually quite the opposite. Man is culpable here, as John
says. John doesn't say that God forces
men to be hardened or forces them to sin.
But what God does do, and we see this in the book of Romans, is
he turns us over to ourselves into our own sin.
God's hardening of his people is not manipulation here.
And this is important to understand.
It is judicial to put it another way, when God says that their
hearts are hardened, what he is saying is God is putting them to
a test to prove what is already true, right?
God didn't need to make Pharaoh believe that he was God and
king. God didn't need to use Moses to
make Pharaoh more angry against God and to believe that he
didn't need God. No, he simply gave him a a set
of tests and trials to reveal what was already true of
Pharaoh. He believed he was God.
And what John is saying here is that as Jesus has come and
preached the good news of who He is and who the Father is, as the
Israelites have rejected him, they are not being hardened in
the sense that God is actually hard to know.
Their hardness of heart is simply finally being shown to
everyone, including themselves, that they would not believe in
the truth of who Christ is. And God's sovereignty in
salvation and in proclaiming the good news is actually a cause
for celebration and hope because it means some of us, we'll have
our hearts softened in a way where we can actually understand
who this King of kings is. And it also humbles us out of
believing that I'm better than you because I believe and you
don't. But it is the mercy of God that
calls us. And so there's a call here in
these verses, call to pause and reflect on our own hearts and to
seek and understand God's Word, understand Jesus's words, and to
be healed by him. Because if we're not, we fall
into the same trap that the Jewish leaders were falling into
here where they refused to believe and therefore remain in
darkness. And, as John says, are dead now,
it would be easy from an outsider's perspective to look
at Jesus's ministry and then know what awaits him, and to
read this passage in John chapter 12 with the anticipation
of knowing he's soon going to be crucified for no crimes of his
own. And to think man, this guy's
ministry is an abject failure from from all earthly
perspectives. It is.
He spent three years trying to convince the people of God that
he is their long-awaited King and Messiah and many reject him.
And yet what we see John say next is that what awaits us is
nothing but the glory and hope that is found in Jesus, right?
Look at verse 41. Isaiah said these things,
referring to the rejection of Christ, because He saw His glory
and spoke of Him. Nevertheless, many even of the
authorities believed in Him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they
did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the
synagogue. For they love the glory that
comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
So, so there in verse 41, right, Isaiah, it says that Isaiah saw
these things and predicted them. Meaning when Isaiah was
predicting the future of this coming king, that he saw Jesus
himself and saw Jesus's ministry and saw the rejection that he
would receive at the hands of his own people.
And yet, if you pause and see what else John is saying, he
says he saw the glory of God in Jesus and his ministry years
before Jesus ever walked the earth.
And John is telling us that the glory Isaiah saw when he was in
the temple was not just some light, was not just some
experience, but it was actually the glory of Jesus coming to
earth. The one who would be rejected by
his own people is not just a teacher, but God himself in the
flesh. And as we read in Isaiah 53, He
would be rejected and despised, and yet He was bruised and
broken for our iniquities and sin, meaning that the very glory
He would carry and contain would be rejected by God's people.
And yet that rejection would be the very means by which God
would crucify the Savior for our sins, meaning God even uses our
hardness of heart and rejection to save us from ourselves.
So I always think like people are like praying and they're
like, I think God wants me to do this thing, but I'm not really
interested in doing it. It's like you don't understand
God is playing 3D chess and you're confused at the rules and
checkers. I would encourage you to submit
to him instead. But if you consider we just got
done celebrating the resurrection a couple weeks ago,
right? Imagine that Good Friday.
The world had thought it had won.
They had gotten rid of this guy who was creating trouble for
them. They had gotten rid of this
insurrectionist in Rome and Caesar could continue to rule
and reign without any problems. The religious leaders now had
control over the people again and didn't need to worry about
this guy pulling them in a different direction and telling
them not to listen to to to their teaching.
Satan was rejoicing because the one who had come to save his
people was now dead. And three days later, boom, game
over. Because God had a plan all
along. And what we see in the book of
Isaiah and what we see here in John is the full culmination of
the promises of what Isaiah saw coming to pass.
This king doesn't look the way that they want him to look, but
he's the exact king that God had promised them.
We even see, if we look closely enough here in John chapter 12
is if you consider the ministry of Isaiah, Isaiah wasn't just
motivated by preaching repentance to the Israelites.
He was motivated by knowing that Jesus was one day coming to save
him as well. And we see John say here that
even in the midst of all of this rejection, though some are
saved, some even of the religious leaders who are afraid
to say that they believe in Jesus because they love man's
glory over God's, which I think is maybe an important thing for
us to consider here this morning, especially if you are a
follower of Jesus here this morning is what glory are you
after? Because here these men, some of
them probably even members of the Sanhedrin who quietly sat by
while Jesus is convicted unjustly in the middle of the
night. I always love that scene, right?
The famous part of that scene we always think about is how Peter
denies Jesus. 3 * 1 of the most fascinating things about that
scene, the night of Jesus's arrest is that entire trial is a
sham. The religious leaders violate
their own laws that night to try Jesus before they send him to
the Romans. And there are probably some in
that room who John is talking about right here in John chapter
12 who believe and yet out of fear refuse to stand up and do
the right thing. And if you are a follower of
Jesus here this morning, you are given the opportunity daily to
seek the glory of man or to seek the glory of God.
And when you seek your own glory, you will rob yourself of
joy every time. And so we're given this picture
here in John chapter 12, that after all this time, after all
that Jesus has done, it is still not enough.
For some, it's still not enough. It's like that book, The Giving
Tree, that we all had to read as kids.
Anybody read that book as a kid? Yeah, like half of you guys.
Right. Like the tree just keeps giving
to the kid, and he wants more and more.
And as Jesus gives and gives and gives, the people demand more
and more and more because they want what He can provide.
They don't want Him. And when we see men respond the
way that they respond here, it would be easy for us to take a
moment and place ourselves in Christ's shoes and think, well,
how would I respond to that? And I've spent three years.
I was sent by the Father. I left my glory.
I left the glory of the throne room of heaven, right?
I put on human flesh, becoming a bond servant.
As as Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, I've preached and
I've taught. I've I've done miracles, I've
healed people, I've fed people, I've had sleepless nights.
I've been I've been experienced rejection even by my own family.
And yet still they do not believe.
And I think it'd be easy for many of us to find ourselves in
that scenario, in that situation, and say, well, I'm
done with you. There's nothing more I can do.
And yet when men seek their own glory rather than the glory of
God, look at how Jesus responds starting in verse 44.
And Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes
not in me, but in him who sent me.
And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
I have come into the world as light so that whoever believes
in me may not remain in darkness.
You know, John's gospel regularly uses imagery to help
us try to understand the things of God, and it uses the imagery
of light and darkness regularly. And light is meant to emote
understandings of goodness and safety and, and help and warmth
and, and darkness is meant to describe things that are bad,
confusion, scariness, fear, sin, thinking that we know better
than God, cheering on wickedness and idolatry while slowly dying.
And so the assumption that Jesus makes as he shares these verses
here in the midst of so many people rejecting him and his
ministry, the assumption he makes is these people are still
in darkness. I need to help them find a way
out. Even as he's being rejected
again, Jesus screams out. Come to me, come to the light.
And those that come into the light, if you read those verses,
experience a transformation that is not done through some self
help program or CrossFit or whatever thing you might be into
for your New Year's Eve. No, like New Year's resolution.
No, the things that Jesus does for those who come to the light
is a complete transformation from the inside out.
They're no longer in darkness. They can actually see and
experience life as God has created it for them.
They have an increased knowledge of who God is, and in that
increased knowledge are encouraged by the power and the
work of the Holy Spirit, who comes alongside us as a helper
to move in obedience towards God's Word so that we might
experience true joy and flourishing as He has designed
it. We experience increased fruit in
putting sin to death and loving others because God says that's
what brings true joy. These are both marks of a
Christian, but they're also promises of God to His people,
meaning Jesus is is is standing there at the end of his public
ministry being rejected once again.
And instead of wiping his hand clean and saying I'm done with
these people, he gives one final plea.
Please come to me, come to the light while I'm still around and
I will rescue you. But then he gives the second
part of that plea in verse 47, says if anyone hears my words
and does not keep them, I do not judge him.
For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.
The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a
judge. The word that I have spoken will
judge him on the last day, for I have not spoken on my own
authority, but the Father who sent me has given him give it
has me. Let's try that again.
But the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment
what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment
is eternal life. What I say, therefore I say, as
the Father has told me, Jesus is, is sharing with them the
future of what his ministry is going to look like.
He's saying, hey, the remainder of my time, my first coming, I'm
not coming to judge. I'm coming to save.
I'm coming. We're getting ready to celebrate
the Passover. I'm I'm the true Passover lamb.
But in my second coming, I'm not even going to need to declare
you guilty If you haven't come to me.
My words will have done that already.
The words I've already spoken judge you.
Either you obey God's word and you follow after me or you do
not. This is an important thing.
I think especially, you know, we're in the South and I know
you know, Florida's interesting. It's the Bible Belt, but it's
kind of like the bottom of the belt.
So like, you know, you kind of get like some, some like pieces
of like what the Bible Belt culture is here in Florida, but
then you're also kind of like where am I?
And, and, and in that, what that means is, is, is many of you in
this room probably grew up going to church and experiencing,
right, what it meant to be in a Christian family.
Or maybe you didn't have it in your family, but someone brought
you to church. Maybe it was a grandparent or
maybe you were connected to the church in some way and you got
bused to the church. There's so many different ways,
right, that you could have experienced this.
And what can often come from that is having this kind of back
in, in the back of your mind belief that there is a God and
he kind of cares about you when you only need to access him when
you really need him. And, and what I would say to
that is one that's not the God of the Bible, but there's a
famous sociologist years ago who said that the God that most
people in the United States believe in is the God of
therapeutic moralistic deism. He's a God that doesn't really
want to be that involved in your life unless you need him.
He doesn't really care that much about what's going on, but he's
got a few more rules that he would like you to follow, but he
won't actually hold you to him. And He's just there to help you
out. And if you want to believe in
that God, you are more than welcome to.
But I'm here to tell you that is not the God of the Bible and
that is not Jesus Christ. And what Jesus says here is that
there is no kind of following me, as he says in one of the
other gospels, that if you are lukewarm, He will spit you out.
That either you're completely sold out to following Him as
your God or you're not. It's very black and white.
There are many things in the Christian faith that like,
that's a Gray area. We've got to think through that.
But whether you follow Jesus or not is a very black and white
answer according to Jesus himself.
And what Jesus says here is consistent disobedience.
Consistent failure to believe and trust in who I've revealed
myself to be, and consistent disobedience to the things I've
commanded you to do in light of following me shows what your
heart really is. It's rejected and, and this is a
hard thing to hear. I understand that, right?
It's like, well, I go to, I go to church every week or whatever
else. And I, I was just talking to
somebody recently who, who is, is someone in my church and it's
good because they won't be here. So I can use this example.
And there was some strife going on relationally with this person
and some other people that they lived with.
And this person looks at me and says, well, I just treat people
the way that they've treated me. And I said, well, you're welcome
to do that, but that's not the way of Jesus.
And if you think that that honors God, it does not.
He's like, that's really hard though.
Yes, it's the whole point. It's why you need a savior.
But your own words to me. Are indicating to me that you've
decided you like your idea better than the commands of
Christ himself. And I'm not going to tell you
whether you're really a follower of Jesus or not, because that's
not my place. But the fruit of what you're
saying says something to me. And some of us will sit here and
think, OK, well then I've got to, I've got to obey everything.
I've got to do everything. So I want to turn over to John
chapter 6 just to make sure we understand the foundation of
what Jesus is saying here in verse 29.
He's just got done saying that he is the bread of life.
And they say to him in verse 28, well, what must we do then to be
doing the works of God? And look at Jesus response.
Jesus answered them, This is the work of God that you believe in
him who he said, meaning that we live our lives, we live them in
obedience unto Christ, but then we recognize daily we're going
to fail anyway and we throw ourselves at the mercy and the
finished work of Jesus. And that is the great conundrum
of the Christian life. It is one entirely filled up
every day, day by day, of repentance and faith.
Repentance of sin and faith that Christ is enough.
And that's over the course of time.
As you do that enough times, that repentance will take you to
a place of greater maturity, of more Christlikeness.
But you will not become Jesus. You become like him, but you do
not become him. And therefore you're all of the
Christian life from the moment you believed and prayed that
prayer in your Sunday school class or in your backyard with
your parents, or in college when a friend shared the gospel with
you, or later in life, no matter when it happened, when the
moment the light bulb clicked on, your life from then on out
will be marked by these two things, repentance and faith.
And what Jesus says in John chapter 6 is there is no
obedience apart from belief. It's impossible.
This is why Jesus calls the commandment back in verse 50 of
John chapter 12 eternal life, because you're walking towards
this experience of the daily trust in Jesus for the rest of
your life. Belief in Him is eternal life.
There is no other way. And that eternal life is both a
transformational experience in the life you live now, but
security and eternity with the Father.
Sometimes as, as Christians, we can be stuck in this place where
we think it's one or the other. You know, the faith that we have
isn't a God that gives life for now, but also life for eternity.
And as John shares Jesus's words here in John chapter 12, the
only alternative to that life is darkness.
That's what you're left with. You may be sitting here this
morning and you're not a Christian.
You're like, well I don't feel like I'm in darkness and you may
not some some days life would be much easier for me if I was not
a Christian. But ultimately you are in
darkness to your very core because you don't have the true
understanding of why you were even created and here to begin
with. Without the framework and
understanding of who your God is and why you exist, you live your
life blindfolded, throwing darts at a dartboard that you don't
even know where it sits. And so here's how I want to
encourage us this morning as we finish up looking at John's
recollection of Jesus's ministry.
I want to encourage you to consider how you've responded to
the crying out of Jesus here to unbelief.
If you're here this morning and you're not a Christian.
These words in verses 44 through 50 are for you.
They're an invitation from the God of the universe to come to
the light and to trust in Jesus. You are either walking in the
light or remaining in the darkness.
There is no middle ground. See the The good news of what
Christians believe about Jesus is that starting in Genesis
chapter 1, God created the heavens and the earth.
And in that creation, you read regularly after each day, God
said it was good. This was good, right?
It's in, in Eden, the the Hebrews have a word that they
use to describe what that was like and they use the word
Shalom. You're probably familiar with
that word. It means peace.
But in English, when we say peace, we we lose some of the
meaning of that word because in the Hebrew, that word doesn't
just mean the absence of conflict, it also means a full
understanding of who you are, full harmony with creation, full
harmony with those you are in relationship with.
And that when God had designed Adam and Eve to tend to and work
the garden as his image bearers that way back in the very
beginning, God's design is that we would be in perfect Shalom
with one another, with creation and with God himself.
That was God's original design and attention.
And yet it takes 1 chapter, Genesis 3, everything is
shattered, right? The serpent enters into the
garden. He speaks to Eve, he whispers to
her and he he places a lie for her to hold on to.
And the lie that Eve ultimately ends up believing is, is God
holding out on me? Is he really good?
Do I really need him to experience the Shalom and peace
that I've been experiencing with Adam here in Eden?
Does God really need to be a part of that?
And says she eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
and Adam does as well and sin enters the world for the first
time. And because of that, mankind
since then has been trying to find peace and Shalom, but apart
from God and it can't be found. This is the this is the story of
God and his people. And the only way that peace is
restored is through Jesus Christ and come into the light.
The story that we just celebrated a few weeks ago of
Jesus coming and and sharing that he was God's Son in the
flesh to reveal to us who God is and who we really are.
And, and in light of that dying on the cross in our place for
our sins so that the wrath of God could be satisfied and his
righteousness before the Father given to us, restoring that
Shalom that had been fractured back in Genesis three.
That is the story of the Bible. That is the good news of Jesus
Christ and who He is. That is what Christians for
thousands of years have thrown their hope upon in Jesus.
And if you are here this morning and you have not yet believed,
hear this call from Jesus himself.
Come into the light, walk in the light, trust in me and I will
restore that Shalom between you and the Father.
There is no other way. Now, if you're here this morning
and you're like Kevin, I've done that.
I've prayed the prayer. I'm in a community group at Vita
Springs. I serve in the kids ministry,
right? All, all the things that you can
do around here to walk the good Christian life.
What what is the call in these verses?
For me it's to walk in the light and to not stop walking in that
light because you are already in it.
It's too when you have the opportunity to share that good
news with other that you speak on His authority, witnessing and
sharing the good news of how God has transformed you and given
you that eternal life. It's growing in your faith as
you walk in the life being encouraged.
You know, if if you believe today, it's not because you are
smarter or better than anyone else, it's because God and His
grace has opened your eyes to the light itself.
Yeah, If you look at verses 49 through 50, again, I want to
read them really quickly to you. He says, for I have not spoken
on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has given,
has himself given me a commandment, what to say and
what to speak. And I know that his commandment
is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as
the Father has told me, You know, one of the things I love
about John's gospel is if you read it closely, you end up
seeing that Jesus is the most dependent human being that has
ever walked this earth. You know, we spend our whole
lives thinking like, what can I do to be more independent?
What can I do to be more independent?
How do I, how do I get independent?
I have two kids. My entire life is centered
around how do I get these kids out of my house and be
functional adults one day doesn't mean I'm trying to get
rid of them. I love my kids, but like my
entire existence feels like as a father in many ways is like, how
do I prepare these two knuckleheads to like function,
to do things like eat food that they made, to do things like
clean up messes that they made, to do things like work and have
a job, to treat others with kindness and respect and
dignity, to love them. This is my entire kind of goal
as a father is to launch my kids out to be independent.
And yet if I miss the most important key, which is if I do
not teach them that their independence is solely dependent
upon the one who created them, I'll have failed them.
Because if Jesus himself says that everything he says and does
is dependent upon his heavenly Father, then that is who example
we're following. So if you were here this morning
and you're a Libra, I want to encourage you don't try to
become more independent, try to become more dependent.
Try to become more dependent in your on your Heavenly Father.
And you're going to do that through things that Christians
have done for thousands of years by being in the word, by being
in community with other Christians, by being known and,
and walking in humility and walking in repentance and faith
and growing and gratitude and worship towards God to increase
that dependence upon him. And as you increase that
dependence upon him, you walk in obedience to love Jesus and obey
his commands. And one of the things that
excites me even today is there are some people in this church
today who are taking that step of obedience.
They're going to be baptized. You're one of the last things
that Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew is he tells us to go
therefore, into all nations, baptizing in the name of the
Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to deserve all
that that I've commanded you. And then he promises that he's
with us to the end of the age, right?
Meaning baptism is one of the early steps that a Christian
takes in obedience to the commands of Jesus.
John's gospel was written so that we would believe in Jesus
Christ and have eternal life in him.
And the people getting baptized this morning are going to share
that story of how they have found that in Jesus.
As we see in John 12, many saw and did not believe, but some
believed and received life. And so the question I leave you
with this morning is where do you stand?
If you've received that life, continue to walk in it.
The world has nothing better to offer, I promise you.
And if you were here this morning and you have not yet
received Jesus, come and receive him.
Do not leave this room today with having stepped into the
light. I'm going to invite Pastor Kurt
up. I'm going to pray for us as he
comes up, and then he's going to lead us through baptism.
Would I thank you for your word? I thank you for the ways in
which. It brings clarity to the chaos
of life. Lord, in a world marked by
suffering and and difficulty and challenge, it's easy to ask
questions of why, what is going on?
What do I need to do? What is my, what is my place
here? And yet your word tells us
exactly why all of this is and exactly what you've done about
it. And so, Lord, I pray this
morning two things. If there's anyone in here this
morning who has not yet surrendered to you in trust in
faith, Lord, will you reveal yourself to them now, Call them
to the light. And Lord, for those that are
walking with you who know you, have trusted in you, or will you
encourage them to walk in deeper dependence upon you and your
word, helping them to believe in the things not yet seen, to
believe in the things hoped for? And God, we ask that all of this
would be done to the glory and praise of your name, to make you
look glorious both here in Gainesville and to the ends of
the earth. And I ask this all in Jesus
name, Amen. Thanks, Kevin.
And for the record, that was the correct passage he was supposed
to preach. I misspoke.
Finished up John 12, but super thankful.
It was great. I get the privilege of talking a
little bit about baptism this morning.
And so before we introduce you to our baptizees, what is
baptism? Baptism is a symbol, might say
it's the outward symbol of the inner reality.
Baptism represents a cleansing from sin via repentance and
faith in Jesus, symbolizing that person's death, their burial,
and the resurrection to new life with Christ by faith.
Romans 6 verses 3 and 4 say it like this Apostle Paul writing.
He says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized
into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
We were buried, therefore with him by baptism into death in
order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, we too might walk in the newness of
life. Why would somebody get baptized?
Baptism does not save you. Jesus saves you.
It is by faith and then we get baptized.
You don't get baptized to become a better Christian.
This isn't a magical power, some superstition, and now you get to
be a better Christian because you've been baptized.
You might think of your baptism as like a covering or a sign of
entrance, if you will, into God's family, Something you'll
be able to look back on in faith and remember and think I am his.
And this marked me in that way. We also get baptized and Kevin
was mentioning this due to obedience to Jesus.
Jesus right in Matthew 28, Jesus says go and make disciples of
all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit. It's a public display of your
new life in Jesus. Who should be baptized?
Those who have truly repented of their sin.
They have placed their trust in Jesus as their Savior.
You do not need to know everything about the Bible and
Jesus. You don't need to be doubt free
or sin free. The the two people that are
getting baptized today have met with some of our pastors and
they can affirm their profession of faith.
As you can see, we have some children coming to join us
because it's just a wonderful thing.
We want them to be able to be a part of it and witness it this
morning. So hi kids.
Not sure who's he's talking to, but how can I didn't expect that
one note to self next baptism service, don't talk to the kids.
How can I be baptized at Vita Springs Church?
Sometimes as you watch other people be baptized, it stirs up
faith and desire for you to be baptized.
In fact, in a moment you'll hear Mari's story and that happened
to her at our last baptism service back in January.
So if something gets stirred up into you, talk to one of our
pastors today. If you're wondering, maybe that
is what is next for me. We would love to meet up with
you. You can fill out the welcome
card. So just scan that from your
program, fill out the welcome card, put baptism, interested in
baptism in there. Or just talk to myself or one of
our pastors, one of our leaders, talk to somebody and say, hey,
I'm interested. Point me in the right direction.
We would love to meet with you before we I've got a few more
things, but I want to have Mari come on up.
So Mari, why don't you come on up?
She's going to share briefly some of her story now, so.
Hi everyone, so my name is Maury and I was baptized as a baby in
the Lutheran Church but we would only go occasionally me and my
family. I always believed that God was
very distant and that I would never read and that I would
never read the Bible because I thought it was just an old book
that nobody read besides bastards.
Then after watching The Chosen, my mom began taking us to church
and even got his Bibles and devotional books, but nothing
inside me ever clicked. I wasn't willing to give up a
lot of things in the world, and he kept being like that for two
years. I came from Brazil to
Gainesville in 2024 to play volleyball at Santa Fe, and I
believed that my whole purpose coming here was to play
volleyball, do my best in school and go.
Do you want? And it was happening.
I got a 4.0 GPA and had an amazing freshman season.
But I wasn't happy. It wasn't enough.
I needed to do better, work harder, and only then I would be
happy. So I came back the next fall
ready to do even better. However, it didn't go as I
expected. The 2020 fall season was
definitely one of the worst times of my life.
Volleyball wasn't going well, my classes were harder, and I felt
so alone and empty all the time. I felt like I had no worth.
I hated myself and just felt so much anger, loneliness and
emptiness inside of me. I just wanted to pack my things
and go home. I was done.
But then in January of 2026, when I was deep inside that
hole, I came to a baptism service at Vida and it stirred
something in me. It made me want to get baptized,
but I felt like I was dirty. I believe that for me to get
baptized, I needed to be a perfect Christian and that I
needed to be clean enough because if not, God would never
accept me because I knew that the way I lived didn't please
Him. Then I decided to attend to the
membership series to become a member of the church.
And those four days of learning brought me to the biggest
decision of my life. I wanted to change and I wanted
to follow Jesus. I can say that that was the
period of my life that God opened my eyes and he changed
me. I'm a completely different
person from who I was. In January, God saved me.
He put his hand on my eyes and he opened them and I could hear
him calling me and saying, I love you and you don't need all
those things. You need me.
I created you. I know you're worth and you're
worth it for me, and I want you to be with people who see that
worth. God opened my eyes to things
that I was doing that weren't right, and in a matter of a
month He flipped my life over and opened my eyes to so many
things, but mainly to but mainly that this was my purpose in
Gainesville all along. Not school and volleyball, but
so that He could find me and never let me go again.
And I can say that now I'm no longer a lost sheep here I am
getting baptized today. And the reason for that is that
I want to show that I was saved by Jesus Christ, that I'm a new
person. Sorry.
And a new being and that everything that happened, all
the sin, sins that I committed in the past, there in the past,
and Jesus forgave me and saved me from all of them.
Jesus found me in my worst moment and brought me back to
him. I just want to say, I just want
to say that he's willing to save everyone, including you.
So I encourage you, if you feel this emptiness, if you feel
lost, trust me, it's Jesus who's missing.
He's letting that emptiness reach you because that's where
Jesus belongs. Give him a try.
Open your heart. He's perfect, He's merciful, and
you're never too dirty for him. You're never too horrible for
him. He created you, He loves you,
and he's willing to forgive. As long as you believe in Him
and follow His steps, He will save you and He'll fulfill you
in such a way and bring you such joy that you won't even remember
how it was to not feel this joy before.
He's the way, the truth and the life and all we got to do is
deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him.
Thank you Jesus. Worship.
He wants you good. Come on up.
It's been a joy to see Maher grow in the college group this
semester. And I helped her, whittled down
that story to be able to read to us today.
And just hearing out of her mouth is it's powerful.
Mari and Titus, why don't you stand up?
I want to read a list of confessions and commitments.
You guys can respond. I do.
Do you turn away from the sin that has separated you from God?
Do you believe and confess that Jesus Christ died to pay for
your sins? Do you confess that Jesus rose
from death to give you eternal life?
Do you trust Jesus as Lord and the only source of salvation and
choose to follow and obey Him in light of your confession of
faith and your desire to be baptized?
I, along with the elders of Edith Springs Church and our
church as a whole, we affirm that you have been made a new
creation through faith in Jesus. You have been forgiven of your
sin and made righteous through Jesus death on the cross.
You have been adopted into God's family and you will one day be
glorified with Jesus, inherit his Kingdom and reign with him
forever. I encourage you to seek Jesus
daily through Bible reading and prayer, worship and other
disciplines that might help you grow in your faith.
I encourage you to seek to be regularly filled and empowered
with the Holy Spirit that you might be effective in serving
Jesus. I encourage you to seek to grow
and loving God with all of your heart, your soul, your mind,
your strength. And I encourage you to seek to
give yourself in love and unity to God's church, the people.
I want to pray over you guys. Now, if we have our elders and
maybe have our old jaw, Frankie, you in here.
Come on up, Frank. Let's pray for these guys, and
then we're going to baptize them.
Jesus, thank you for the work you've done in Titus and Mari.
Thank you, Lord, for opening their eyes to see you and to
know you and to believe in you. Jesus, you are so good and kind
and merciful, and your timing and your plan is perfect.
We thank you for drawing these two to yourself, for saving
them, and now for leading them into obedience into baptism,
which is only just the beginning as they live out walking in the
light for the rest of their life.
Lord, we pray you would bless them, You would bless their
obedience, and you would protect and cover over them.
Jesus, we pray this all in your name.
Amen. Well, church, you can go ahead
and stand up with me. These two are going to be
baptized here in a moment. We're going to start singing
together because this is a celebration.
And so we get to celebrate and sing to God while we watch them
be baptized. Family and friends, you are
welcome to go ahead and come on up to the front and get a closer
view. Support them, take some
pictures. It's a celebration, church, so
let's make sure we celebrate this.
As the worship team begins to play, we'll sing together when
the worship. After a few songs, I'll come
back up. I'll lead us through a time of
prayer, but for now, let's sing and let's baptize.