Sermon Cloud

Scripture Reading; Psalm 41

Last time we were together we began to look at this important section of John's Gospel, chapters 13-18 noting that now we have covered three years of Jesus' life in 12 chapters and these five are one night.

• This is a very important time for us to get a hold of.

• Last time you may remember that Jesus washed the feet of His disciples and from that we learned that if we are washed (that is forgiven and given new life through trusting in Christ) we only need an occasional washing ( that is the confession of sin and the restoration to fellowship).

• And that as those who profess to know Christ that we should have the attitude of a servant.

• Jesus has in the process revealed that He will be betrayed and yet He teaches them about humility and service after washing their feet John 13:13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. ¹⁴“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵“For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. ¹⁶“Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. ¹⁷“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them

Picking up immediately after this He says....

John 13:18 “I do not speak concerning all of you.

• You are not all going to do these things and be blessed...

John 13:18b I know whom I have chosen; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.’ ¹⁹ Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am He. ²⁰ Most assuredly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”

• And so as Jesus teaches, He also warns and encourages His disciples.

• This encouragement is what I want to focus on today.

• Jesus says to them in verse 19, Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am He

• John 14:29 also says the same thing, And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.

• He is continually reminding them that whatever happens, He is in control!

• Jesus' main focus here is to assure the hearts of His disciples.

• His betrayal by Judas.

• His death

• His Going to the Father

• are all foretold in order to keep His disciples from fearing these events.

• This is all a part of the plan that Jesus has had with the Father from before the foundation of the earth.

• Jesus quotes the 41^st Psalm in verse 18, but that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.’

• So not only is Jesus telling them Himself of the near future events but He is pointing out that they were written about 1,000 years in advance by the pen of King David!

• How much more can we see that God is in control?

• As the culmination of events draws near Jesus assures His disciples again and again, by His own prophetic statements and those of the Old Testament.

• Looking back from our time was can be even more assured of these things.

• We can see that even more of these events that were foretold in the Old Testament have come to pass!

Jesus could have somehow “magically” caused His dsiciples to understand and believe what He was telling them, but He did not.

• He relied upon the written word of God that had been rooted in history and the lives of real men.

• Though the Spirit of God does persuade us to believe the Bible, it is not as some say that faith is, an irrational leap into darkness.

• Rather, the Spirit of God persuades us that on rational grounds we might trust in the one who is above all of history and has revealed Himself to us through a written word that demonstrates itself to be worthy of a transcendent yet immanent God.

• John Frame tells us in his book, Apologetics to the Glory of God, “Scripture does not merely give us the bare statement, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Rather, it presents Jesus in the context of a rich, complex historical drama. Jesus is the expectation of God’s people over a period of several thousand years before his birth.”

• Mr Frame then goes on to give us a brief outline of some of this rich and complex historical drama to prove his point.

After man’s fall in the Garden of Eden, God announces to the Serpent (Satan),

              I will put enmity
              between you and the woman,
              and between your offspring and hers;
              he will crush your head,
              and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15)
 And so God’s people began to look for a deliverer, one who would save them from the effects of the Fall. He would be human, an “offspring” of the woman (Eve). Yet his victory would be in the supernatural realm: he would crush the head of Satan. And in the process, Satan would wound the deliverer (“strike his heel”).

 The child of the promise is often threatened. Over and over again, circumstances arise that threaten to prevent his birth, but the woman’s offspring is maintained by God’s power. Wicked Cain kills righteous Abel (Genesis 4), the only one through whom the promise can be fulfilled. But God defeats Satan by giving to Eve a third son, Seth (Genesis 4:25), and in his time people first gather to worship the Lord (4:26).

 God himself endangers the “seed of promise” by demanding that Abraham sacrifice his son Isaac, the only son of Abraham through whom the promise can come. But as Abraham lifts the knife: The angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven,
            “Abraham! Abraham!”
             “Here I am,” he replied.
 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.” (Genesis 22:11—14)

Here God teaches his people

(1) that there is no higher test of covenant loyalty than to give up one’s beloved son for another;

2. that God will preserve the seed of the promise so that it will certainly be fulfilled;

3. that a substitutionary offering is nevertheless necessary (cf. v. 8); and

4. that God thus provides for his people in all their needs, their greatest being the forgiveness of sins.

 In Exodus 12—15, God delivers Israel, his people, from Egypt. In the process, he sends an “angel of death” to kill all the firstborn sons in the land. The families of Israel escape this curse by killing a lamb and placing some of its blood on the door frames of their homes. When the angel of death sees the blood, he passes over that house and spares it. Here we see that: 
(1) God again demands a sacrifice. 
(2) The firstborn son represents his family, taking their fate on himself. Once again the seed of the promise is endangered. 
(3) Apart from that sacrifice, everyone—even the chosen people of God—deserves death. 
(4) Only substitutionary blood can avert the wrath of God. 
(5) That blood must be displayed publicly.

 In Exodus 17, after God has delivered Israel from Egypt, the people complain that they have no water. They threaten to stone Moses, the leader, but the real object of their complaint is God himself. The Lord stands before the people (that is, he puts himself in the position of a defendant) by a rock, and at his command, Moses strikes the rock. The Lord symbolically receives the blow, and through the suffering of God, water comes from the rock to bless the people.

 It is not only the explicit prophecies of Christ, though there are a great many of them (e.g., Pss. 2; 110: 1ff.; Isa. 7:14; 9:6—8; 11:1—16; 35:5ff.; 53; Jer. 31:33ff.; Dan. 9:20—27; Mic. 5:2; Zech. 9:9—12; 12:10; Mal. 3:1—5), that are important.
 The biblical narratives [stories] also lead people to expect a deliverer who can be no one other than Jesus Christ. Narratives fashion the values of a people. 

• When they think of salvation, they think of a salvation which includes a perfect sacrifice. 

• They expect (if they understand rightly) that God will somehow sacrifice himself in that perfect sacrifice and through it provide blessing. Otherwise, how can the ultimate salvation be greater than that of Exodus 17? 

• And how can it be greater than that of Genesis 22, unless it exhibits a divine love, measured according to the giving of an only Son? 

• How can it be greater than the salvation of Genesis 4, unless it brings together a people to call on God’s name?

• And though the deliverer is human, how can his mission be anything less than the coming of God himself (Pss. 2:12; 45:6; 11O:l ff; Isa. 42:6ff.; 43:lff.; 59:15—20; Jonah 2:9)? 

• How can he be tempted less than Adam was? 

• How can his teaching ministry be any less authoritative and profound than that of Moses? 

• How can his healing ministry be anything less than that described in Isaiah 35:5ff.? 

• How can he provide for his people less abundantly than Moses and Elijah did? 

• And if God is to suffer for his people, how can that suffering be less than that described in Psalm 22? There the King of Israel suffers mocking, scorn, and physical pains—a description which amazingly anticipates aspects of crucifixion.

 So Israel learns from the Old Testament the nature of man’s plight, 

• the sort of sacrifice needed to deal with sin, 

• the sort of suffering that must be involved, 

• the remarkable combination of divinity and humanity required for the work of salvation, 

• the divine self-giving. 

One would have expected that when Jesus came on the scene, at least after his crucifixion and resurrection, a lot of “pennies would have, dropped.” Suddenly all the pieces of the puzzle came together in Jesus. Hundreds of prophecies and narratives were involved, all pointing in various ways, from various perspectives, in only one direction—to Jesus. Alas, even the disciples of Jesus were blind to these extraordinary relationships until Jesus instructed them after his resurrection. What instruction that must have been! Suddenly the Scriptures took on a whole new shape, a form both strange and familiar, for there was always the sense of “surely, at some level, we knew this all along.” They realized that that was the way the Scriptures ought to be interpreted.

•  The “argument from prophecy,” then, is actually an argument from the whole Old Testament (see Luke 24:27; John 1:45; 5:39) and is in reality an appeal to the extraordinarily rational structure of Scripture itself. 

• Here we have a wide variety of human authors, writing across many centuries, with very different interests, concerns, styles, and levels of intellectual sophistication, saying many different  things, and yet, at the same time, saying one thing: Jesus is coming, and this is what he will be and do. 

• Does this not indicate something of God’s sovereignty over history? 

• Does it not show that the Old Testament is more than an ordinary book? 

• Does it not show some remarkable things about Jesus? 

• Is this not a powerful witness to the Word of God? 
  

• If you hesitate to agree, then read it and see. And claim the promise of John 7:17, accepting the responsibility which comes with it: “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”

What an amazing piece of work! 

• Beginning here and proceeding to the cross Jesus reassures the disciples of these truths

John 14:21 When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.” ²² Then the disciples looked at one another, perplexed about whom He spoke.

²³ Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. ²⁴ Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask who it was of whom He spoke.

²⁵ Then, leaning back on Jesus’ breast, he said to Him, “Lord, who is it?”

²⁶ Jesus answered, “It is he to whom I shall give a piece of bread when I have dipped it.” And having dipped the bread, He gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. ²⁷ Now after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Then Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” ²⁸ But no one at the table knew for what reason He said this to him. ²⁹ For some thought, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus had said to him, “Buy those things we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor.

³⁰ Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately. And it was night.

• Here Jesus words are immediately fulfilled.

• Jesus did not fret ....

• The disciples seemed to miss Jesus' declaration of the betrayer.

• Remember that it is not until after the resurrection that everything comes to mind

³¹ So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. ³² If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.

• Then Jesus gives them the urgency of the situation.

• This is not something that might happen some day, the hour is upon them!

John 13:33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. ³⁴ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. ³⁵ By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

• In the midst of tragedy, Jesus is again encouraging His disciples.

• He tells them of suffering that will come and persecution in order to keep them from falling away because it is not going the way they might want it to. (John 16:1, 33)

• When this all comes together it will be the greatest impetus to change men's hearts and the world that has ever been!

• Do you believe what we have seen today?

• Unless you know what has happened already you will not be ready to receive what comes next.

• For a betrayal and a crucifixion are not incredible in themselves.

• But based upon the fact that they were foretold and came to pass exactly as it was said give us reason to expect that the rest would be fulfilled as well.

• The resurrection, the birth of the Church and many other wonderful truths are going to come from these that we have already seen.

• Are you ready for them?