GODFREY: I want to talk with you
about the necessity of Christ for us. In what way do we need Jesus? And
Jesus made clear that we need Him, didn't He? And so, I want to read
just a few verses from John 15, where Jesus is talking to His disciples. I
love the Gospel of John because I always feel, when I read the Gospel of John, that John has
read the other Gospels and has thought to himself, "These are great, but there are important
things they left out that I want to add." And so here, John is really taking us
behind the scenes in that preparation for Jesus to go to Gethsemane and to be
betrayed and arrested and tried and crucified. And John is saying, "You
know, He talked a lot to us in that time of preparation. He talked a
lot to us because we were such a mess." Jesus talked about that He was going, and
the disciples said, "Where are You going?" And even later in John 16, they say,
"What is He saying?" I don't think they were deaf. I'm saying, "What
does he say?" all the time now, but they weren't deaf, they just didn't get
it. "What is He saying? What does He mean?" And I think John knows that throughout history
there will be a lot of disciples that have trouble getting it. And so, he tries to make
it plain what Jesus was teaching, how Jesus was caring for them, comforting them, preparing
them, but also cautioning them. And that's what we find here in John 15, where
Jesus says to them, "I am the vine." "I am the true vine, and My Father is the
vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away. And every
branch that does bear fruit, He prunes that he may bear more fruit. Already, you are
clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot
bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the
vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much
fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing." "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." There's the
necessity of Jesus, isn't it? What are you apart from Jesus? Nothing! Nothing. This is another way
of saying what He said in John 14, one of the most famous verses in Scripture, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by Me." And here, Jesus is highlighting the
absolute centrality of His work, of His person for everyone who would be His disciple. And one
of the most controversial things about Jesus today is this claim of necessity,
this claim of exclusivity. You all are free to love Jesus and to like Jesus
and to talk about Jesus as long as you don't say, "He's the way, the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father but by Him." That's the offense of the gospel today, the exclusive claims
of Jesus. And the pressure that brings on us is to face the question, do we really believe that? Are
we really committed to that? Is that really true? I was distressed to read in the paper, and not
everything apparently that's in papers is true. I'm kind of shocked by that. So, it may not be
true, but the papers reported that the chief rabbi of Israel had complained to the Vatican that
the pope had said something that seemed to imply that Judaism was not a way to God. And the Vatican
bent over backwards to say, "No, no, no. That's not what we mean. Of course, Judaism is a way
to God for Jews." Is that not a basic betrayal of what Jesus is teaching here as He faces the
cross? If it is not true that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, that no one comes to the
Father but by Him, why did He go to the cross? If it's not true that apart from Him we
can do nothing, why did He go to the cross? If He could have just sent out apostles to
preach Judaism and brought people to God, why did He go to the cross? Do you see
the very essence of Christ and of His work is at stake on this question, "Is
He necessary? Is He indispensable?" And He's teaching His disciples and preparing
them to hold to that essential foundational truth. And He's not essential the
way electricity is essential. You know, if I plug in my
cell phone to recharge it, electricity is essential.
Without it, I can do nothing. But that's not what Jesus is saying.
He is not the wall plug of energy. He is not the sine qua non. If
you're going to speak for R.C., you have to throw in a little Latin. He is the
person, not just the power, who comes to His own to provide for His own what they need.
And that's what we want to look at a little bit. What is it we really need from the
necessary Christ? What does He bring to us? And I feel totally inadequate
because I only have four points. I will rely on my fellow teaching
elders to provide a fifth. What does the necessary Christ bring to us? And the first thing He brings is
redemption, doesn't He? He redeems us. We need Jesus to redeem us. That's so obvious,
it seems hardly necessary to say. But of course, we do need to say it. We need to say it over
and over again that Jesus is our Redeemer, that He comes to redeem us. And He comes to
redeem us, first of all, in accordance with God's will. He's not acting on His own. He's
acting in accordance with the divine will, with the counsels of eternity, as we Reformed
theologians say, "Where from eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in
counsel, wills the redemption of mankind." And while Jesus, in John 15, doesn't go into
every detail about it, He does make that clear. Verse 16 of John 15, Jesus said, "You
did not choose Me, but I chose you." Isn't it amazing how clear the Scriptures are? Could Jesus be any more clear about the matter of
choosing? "You did not choose Me; I chose you." Well, He doesn't really mean that, does He? That's really vague, it's ambiguous. There
are a variety of ways of taking that. "You did not choose Me; I chose you." Now we could
say, and it would be perfectly true, He means He chose them to be disciples.
He chose them to be apostles. He chose them to be the initial
preachers of the gospel. And that's part of what He means.
But the reality of divine selection, see, if you don't like the word
"election," there are alternatives. I taught with a wonderful fellow who used
to look at a crowd like this and say, "I can see for sure that you
are the se-lect of the elect." Behind the choice of those disciples
was the eternal choice of election. That's why He chose them to be His disciples,
because He had elected them to life and to the purpose of life that
He was going to give to them. And so, here we see revealed by Jesus
in the simplest and plainest of words, His will behind His actions. His
will, if you will, behind His work. He came to gather a people.
He gathers a redeemed people. And it's wonderful to know that He has a purpose
that He will fulfill. A purpose that we should be connected to the true vine as branches. A
will that we should be bearing fruit for Him. And it's a wonderful thing that we bear fruit
for Him, we are alive for Him, we live for Him. We live out of Him because He has willed,
from all eternity, that we should be His. And it's almost as if He is being a little ironic
in what He says because He says here in John 15, "Abide in Me," "remain in Me." "You can do
nothing apart from Me. You can't bear fruit unless you are connected to Me. Abide in Me." And
then, maybe with just a little smile, He says, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." Apart from Me, then, you can't abide in Me.
So, if you want to abide in Me, you need Me." And what He's stressing here, over and over
again, is there's nothing mechanical about this relationship. That's one of the great
temptations of various forms of Christianity is to turn the relationship with
God into something mechanical, "If I do 'A,' I get 'B.'" Jesus is
always talking in personal terms. "I want to be organically connected to You.
I want My life to flow into Your life." Not like electricity flows into a cell phone,
but as a person is connected to another person. I want You to know Me. I want You to love Me. I
want You to be connected to Me. And all of those realities of life that will come to you
flow from Me to you, because I've chosen you because I brought you to Myself. But because
you are a person, I talk to You personally, and I treat you as someone
responsible and alive and able to come to Me, to live for Me, as long as you
always remember, you've received all those things that life, that will, that desire, that faith as a
gift from Me. I chose you. You didn't choose Me." And what a wonderful, encouraging
picture that is for us that the Savior knows us before we know Him.
That the Savior loves us before we love Him. That the Savior has planned for
us before we know the way to go. And this is the promise that encourages us, and
Jesus reminds us flows out of His love for us. "As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you." Think about that for a minute. The greatness of
the Father's love for the Son, the splendor of it, the intensity of it, the intimacy of it.
And Jesus says, "I love you just that way." What comfort that must have been to the
disciples. Maybe not at that moment, because we see throughout this section of John 13
through 17 that they kept misunderstanding things, but Jesus provided for them so they'd
remember later. And we all need to be busy about the work of
remembering what God has done for us. So that's the foundation of Jesus redeeming us,
and that leads then from His will to His work. And John summarizes the work of Jesus for
us in a variety of very brief ways that are really helpful. He says to them, "You are already
clean," "You are already clean." That is the work that Jesus is doing for us, He's cleansing us from
the sin that besets us and separates us from the will of God. I think there's an allusion here
to Psalm 51, as all of you psalm singers know. Psalm 51 is a wonderful reflection by David,
isn't it, on although he had fallen into the grossest sorts of sins, God had cleansed Him, God
had forgiven him. And so, in Psalm 51 verse 2, we read, "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin." And it's as if Jesus is saying to His disciples,
"What David prayed for, I have given you." What David prayed for, I have given you." Or verse
7, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." Being
from California, I'd have put sand in there but, "whiter than snow," cleansed, cleansed completely
from sin. Or verse 10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within
me." Here's what the sinner prays, and that's what Jesus promises, that He will cleanse us,
and He will cleanse us by His atoning death. In John 12, He had said, "And I, when I am
lifted up, I will draw all men to myself." It's in His crucifixion that the whole world is
called to Him. It's in His crucifixion that all who look to Him will be saved. And Jesus here,
in John 15, talks about laying down His life for His friends. There again is the love of Christ,
the personal connection of Christ, the personal concern of Christ. Now, that's why Reformed
Christians have made a point about the limited atonement or the definite atonement. That the
point of that is not to restrict it, but to show the efficacy and the personal fulfillment that
Jesus makes. His death on the cross is not just a possibility and an abstraction. His death on the
cross is personal for each one of us who know Him. I really believe as He hung on the cross, He
had your name in mind and my name in mind. He wasn't just putting money in a bank account
that the lucky ones could withdraw at some point in history. He died for a very personal purpose,
to redeem His own. And that's what we see here so wonderfully. Forgiven in the cross, renewed
by the Spirit. That's the work of Christ for us, and that's the Redeemer that we need. And He cleanses us by His work and then He
cultivates us by His work. That's also taught here. He wants us not just to be forgiven, not
just to be regenerated, as absolutely necessary and foundational as those are, but then He wants
us to live for Him. He wants us to bear fruit for Him. And what is the fruit He wants us to bear?
Well, that's really made clear here as well. He wants us to bear the fruit of faith
and the fruit of love and the fruit of joy and the fruit of service. In other words,
He wants us to bear the fruit of life and show in our lives what
great things God has done. And it's striking, isn't it, in these
chapters of John, how over and over again Jesus returns to the theme of love. "I have loved
you," "You love Me," "You love one another," that's the calling to this greatest
kind of fruit that we bear. And it becomes a great testimony to Jesus,
doesn't it, if we are a loving people? That's why I'm so distressed to see so many
Christians in our time apparently characterized more by anger than by love. There is a time for
anger, there is a time for outrage, but that's not what we are called primarily to be.
That's not how we're called primarily to live. Particularly in a time when everyone
is outraged about something, when everybody is angry about something. How we will shine as lights in the
world if we are loving one another, if we're creating communities of love, if we're
showing the love of Christ by the way we live. And so, Jesus is working in us today, cultivating
us to bear fruit for Him because that fruit will testify to Him, to His essential character,
to His great love, and to His saving purpose. So, we need Jesus to redeem us, and
I think John is making the point, Jesus is making the point through John,
that we need Jesus to remain with us. Now, part of what Jesus is saying in these chapters
of John's Gospel is that He's about to go away. But Jesus is very much making the
point that although He's going away, their heart should not be troubled because,
in a profound sense, He will remain with them. And how does Jesus remain with us? Well,
first of all, He remains with us by His Word. That's why the Word of Scripture is so
important in the life of God's people. It's not just a book that tells
the truth, although it is that, it is the book through which Jesus remains
with us because it's His Word to us. And Jesus knows that we are not the
cleverest people. I know some of you. And Jesus knew we would need a living Word, a Word that wouldn't just
gather dust on the shelf but in which, through which, by which, He would
continue to be present with us and speak to us, through which He would assure us. "You
are clean through My word," He says. It's that Word that assures us
of our relationship with Him. It's His word that preserves
us in our connection with Him. It's that Word that guides us, doesn't
it, in the life that He calls us to lead? And that's why the Word of God is such a treasure
to us. That's why, in the history of the church, it is always when the Word is present, when
the Word is revered, when the Word is read, that there is the greatest life and power in
the church. And it's where the Word is set aside or marginalized or compromised or ignored that the
church begins to shrivel and to shrink and to die. This year marks the five-hundredth anniversary
of Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms. You know, where was the parade in Pittsburgh? That was the great public trial
of Martin Luther. He had been a reformer publicly for several years. He had
written some of his most powerful treatises. He'd gathered a following of thousands and
thousands in Germany. And the church was nervous, the cardinals were nervous, the bishops
were nervous, the pope was nervous. And the civil government was nervous, the emperor
was nervous, some of the princes were nervous. And they decided to put Martin Luther on
trial before the public governing authority, something like a parliament that was called
a "diet," meeting in the city of Worms, giving all of us who speak English a
chuckle to think about a diet of worms. That's one that hasn't yet
been tried, as far as I know. And so, in April of 1521, Luther
travels from Wittenberg to Worms, and he appears before the emperor. And
there's a table covered with books, and Luther thought he'd have a chance
to defend himself. Luther thought he'd have a chance to make his case, but the powers
around the emperor, a young man of extraordinary character and gentlemanliness, chivalry, because,
after all, he'd been raised in the Netherlands, the emperor had been warned,
"Don't let this guy talk. He's very convincing. He'll confuse you.
Don't let him talk. Just yes or no answers." So, they were ready for Luther. And he comes
in. It wasn't a big room, it wasn't anywhere near as big as this room, but there were
the powers of this world, the Church powers, the papal legate representing the pope, the
emperor himself, various princes, and bishops, cardinals. And there's a table
with Luther's writings on it. And the chancellor or the emperor says, "Will you
now recant of the heresies in these writings?" And Luther is sort of taken aback
because he thought he would be able to say more than "yes" or "no." So,
thinking quickly, he thought, "Well, maybe I can still engage them in conversation." He
said, "Well, what heresies do you have in mind?" Because he thought we can debate whether something
is a heresy or not. But they were ready for him, and they said, "You're a professor of theology,
you know what your heresies are. Will you recant?" And then, as I've said before,
Luther made his less famous speech. He said, "May I have twenty-four hours to think
it over?" And they gave them twenty-four hours. Suddenly, the weight of the moment had descended
on Luther because his critics kept saying to him, "You know, Luther, you're not only taking your
own soul to hell, but you're taking the soul of the thousands of people who are following you to
hell. Are you so sure that you alone are right?" Now, Luther was fundamentally a medieval man. He
believed in community, he believed in authority, he feared chaos. He was not a modern American. If he'd been a modern American, he'd have
said, "Well, of course, I alone am right. What could be more sensible that I'm the only one
that's right?" But this was a terrible burden for Luther to bear, "Am I alone right? Am I taking
others to hell with me by resisting the Church?" And so, he spent twenty-four hours in prayer
and in reflection and in talking to his friends. And what he came to was a clarity
that the issue was not Martin Luther, the issue was the Word of God and the
truth of Christ and the gospel of Christ. And so, the next day, he appeared before
the emperor and made the famous speech, "My conscience is captive to the Word of God. To
go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no
other. May God help me. Amen." And what he meant by that was, there is no other
Christ than the one that the Word of God teaches. And the Word of God teaches that Christ clearly.
And so, "It is not what I'm teaching," Luther says, "it is what the Word of God teaches, and it
is what the Word of God brings me to in knowing the Christ who is necessary for salvation and who
provides salvation in His death and resurrection entirely, so that nothing can be added to
it," and that was the gospel Luther preached. It's the gospel that Paul preached,
it's the gospel that Jesus taught, and it's the gospel that we need today because
Christ remains with us only by His Word and by His Spirit. And Jesus talks a lot about the Spirit here in
these chapters of John. "The Spirit will come to be your Helper," that difficult to translate
word in Greek, paraclete. "He will come to be Me with you," and I like to say if Jesus is God
with us, the Spirit is Jesus with us. And people who talk about the Spirit but never get around
to Jesus don't really know the Spirit of Jesus because the Spirit comes not to glorify
Himself; the Spirit comes to glorify Jesus and to, as Jesus Himself says, "To
bring to our remembrance all that Jesus taught." He doesn't come to bring to
our remembrance things Jesus never said. The Spirit does not lead us away from the Word;
the Spirit leads us, He leads us to the Word. And so, Jesus remains with us. He redeems us,
He remains with us, and He responds to us. You know, one of the amazing things in these
chapters is the frequency with which Jesus says, "Ask of Me, and I will give you." "Ask of Me, and
I will give you." "Whatever you ask in My name, I will give you." Now, this is one of the
great promises of Jesus often abused and misused in our time. I'm still waiting
for the Rolls-Royce. I'm shocked that people pray for Mercedes. You really need
to pray, and the chauffeur too. I mean, is that what Jesus was encouraging
His disciples to pray for? I think it would be a little better, instead of
translating it as, "Whatever you ask in My name," I think it's a little more accurate to translate,
"What you ask in My name, I will give you." And when Jesus says, "What you ask in
My name," what does He mean? He means, "What you ask according to My purpose," "What
you ask in My will," "What you ask as those longing to be My disciples," "What you ask as
those wanting to bear fruit, I will give you." So, if you find it hard to
love your fellow disciples, come on, let's be honest, it can be hard
sometimes. There are crazies in the group, there are stinkers in the group. "If you find it hard to love, ask Me.
Ask Me, and I will help you love." Jesus promised we'd be filled with joy.
Sometimes it's hard to be filled with joy. He says, "If you're finding joy difficult, ask
Me, ask Me." Jesus said, "Keep My commandments." Is that ever difficult? Yeah, ask Him. He
promises to hear and to help, to respond. Now, why is prayer so important? Because prayer
is talking to Jesus, and that's personal. He wants us to have that personal
connection with Him preserved. And so, He promises He'll respond.
We're not alone, we're not left alone. By His Word and Spirit He is with us, and
as we pray according to His Word and Spirit, He will hear us and respond and encourage us
and build us up and help us to bear fruit. He promised we'll do greater works
than He did, He says that in John 14. You know, I'm always amazed when people who don't
accept the authority of the Bible make a list of mistakes in the Bible, they're always talking
about tiny little things in the Old Testament. And if I were going to make a list of mistakes
in the Bible, which I don't do. But if I were, I would put a verse like that on there, "We're
going to do greater works than Jesus did? That's a mistake." But since it's
not a mistake, what does it mean? Well, it means, through us more people will
hear the gospel than heard it in Jesus' life. Through us, more people will see the love of God
manifested than saw it in Jesus' life. Through us, more people will come to peace and to
joy than came to it in Jesus' life. And He's promised to help us with that if we ask, if we ask. Abide in Him, ask Him
because we are His people and He is our God, and He desires for us to have that communion
with Him. That is the reality of prayer. He redeems, He remains, He responds,
and He promises He will return. Isn't that wonderful? He will return. You know, if we gave the
Congress of the United States all the money in the United States, we would
still not have a new heaven and a new earth. They would not be able to take away sin. They
might not even try, but anyway, we won't go there. They would not be able to take away sin, would
they? They would not be able to take away death. They would not be able to wipe away every tear. But Jesus can and will. And that's why He
says, "I go to prepare a place for you." Apparently, according to the
ESV, He's only preparing rooms. I'm sticking with the King James
version and having a mansion. But He says, "And where I go, I will come again
and take you to Myself." That's the promise. The great tragedy of our time is that
people think the only life is the life now. The only hope is the hope of something better now. It's fine to try to build something better
now, but however much better it is now, it's not going to last. I'm so tired
of stray dogs getting forever homes. This is absurd. Does anyone know
what the word "forever" means? There is no forever home here for anyone.
The only forever home is the one that Jesus provides, and we'll have it when
He returns in glory. And it's certain, and it's necessary. Jesus is the
necessary One to redeem, to remain, to respond, to return. What a blessed hope we
have. What a glorious promise we have. You know, one of the tragedies of our time
is there are so many people who seem to want the fruit of Jesus, but don't want Jesus. So, they want to believe they're going to heaven
after they die, but they don't see the need for Jesus as the way to heaven. And there are
people who want Christmas without Christ. They want God as Father without the Son. And
what the Scriptures say to us, what the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts, what our lives
ought to show is that's not the way it works. You only get the fruit of Jesus if you have Jesus, and
that's why He's necessary. Necessary not to loss, but to gain. To gain life, to gain
hope, to gain peace, to gain joy. That's what Jesus came to do. That's
who Jesus is for us. And the truth is, without Him, we can do nothing. Let's pray together. Father, we are so thankful for Jesus
and that it is Jesus alone who redeems, who sanctifies, who helps, and has promised glory
in His returning. Fill us with hope in believing. Cast down the voices that surround
us that would lead us away from Him, and fill us with confidence that He
is the way, the truth, and the life. And by knowing Him, we will receive everything.
Hear us, for we pray in His name. Amen.
