This is the Truth Network. Welcome to the broadcast ministry of Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews, where we seek to glorify God by making him known and guiding others towards their true purpose in life. No one is here by chance. God put us here for a reason. And the most important thing we can do is discover his plan for us and commit ourselves to it.
Keep listening as we learn from the Bible how to live wisely in God's world. which is the first step towards finding your purpose. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this night. Lord, thank you for this meant being here and.
Lord, we thank you for giving us your word. Lord, when we read your word, we see you, we hear you, we feel you. We know you're alive. We know you're real. You speak to us from your word.
You got us into truth. It increases our faith, Lord. And I pray that tonight our faith would increase. And I pray for the one man who might be listening, either here tonight or live stream, who doesn't know you, that they'll be drawn to you tonight, that they'll open their heart and invite you in. In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Okay, if you want to open your Bible to John chapter 5, due to time, I'm not going to cover the first 15 verses. We're going to begin with verse 16 tonight. And I've titled this The Great Trilemma. Lord Liar A lunatic. Kathleen Norris in the Forward to Mere Christianity writes that in 1942, just 24 years after the end of a brutal war that had destroyed an entire generation of its young men, Great Britain was at war again.
But this time, it was ordinary citizens who suffered as their small island nation was bombarded by 400 planes a night in the infamous Blitz. to change the face of war, turning civilians in their cities into the front lines. C.S. Lewis had served in that First World War, and he witnessed horrible things that can only be described as evil. Lewis, in case you don't know his history, had been an atheist at the time, but he gradually, through his intellect and through discussions that he had with godly friends, converted to Christianity.
So then from 1942 to 1944 during World War II, Lewis was tasked by the BBC. to give wartime broadcast on the Christian faith. And these broadcasts were later gathered into the book. which came to be known as what? Mere Christianity.
Have y'all who's read Meal Christianity? That's great. It's a great book. It's one that you can't just sit down and read through in a couple hours. You've got to think on every page.
Anyway, in Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis emphasizes the importance Of examining the claims of Jesus as well as the claims that others made about Jesus. And although Jesus never referred to himself simply as a teacher, This is how many people think about Jesus. They think of him as just a great teacher.
So Lewis responds to this by saying, I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him. I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher. But I don't accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing Lewis says we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.
He would need to be a lunatic on a level with the man who says he's a poached egg. Or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this was and is, the Son of God, or else a madman, or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, or you can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God.
But Lewis says, let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. And he did not intend to. What is the great trilemma?
Well, Lewis puts forth that Jesus is either lord, liar, or lunatic. A liar is someone who makes a false claim and knows that it's not true. A lunatic is someone who makes a false claim and actually believes that it is true.
So Jesus man is either liar or Lunatec Oh, he is exactly who you claim to be, the Son of God. In other words, God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. And this brings us to verses 16 through 18.
So read along with me.
So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, The Jews persecuted him. And Jesus said to them, My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. For this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, But he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. It's interesting that the Jews were angry with Jesus.
Because he healed the invalid. and told him to pick up his mat. And it happened to be on the Sabbath. Thus violating one of their man-made laws. By the way, There's nothing in the Bible, none of the laws that God gave to Moses, that tell you that you cannot pick up your mat and walk on the Sabbath.
So this this by the way, Jesus did this on purpose He's picking a fight with the Pharisees because eventually it's going to lead them to the place where he's headed. The cross. And we're going to see several more times throughout John that he performs miracles. on the Sabbath on purpose.
So, this Sabbath violation, this particular one, marks the beginning of the growing storm of opposition against Jesus by these religious leaders. that would one day lead to the cross.
Now, you've got to understand this is something very important here that I didn't know until I read a commentary. But it has to do with Jesus' answer to them. The word, when it says Jesus answered or Jesus replied, The Greek word that's used there, I don't even know what the Greek word is, but The the word answer in Greek that's used there. implies that he's given a legal defense. As if he's standing before a tribunal.
Look at what he says carefully. He answered. In other words, he replied legally. And he says, to their charge of doing this work on the Sabbath, he says, my father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working. In calling God his Father, He was in essence saying, I am equal to God.
This was his defense for healing on the Sabbath. Moreover, men, his simple statement has profound meaning. God created the universe in six days and then what? He rested from his labor. But I want you to understand this.
Yes, he did rest from his creative work.
However, he never rested from his active work of sustaining the universe and holding all things together, even on the Sabbath. Hebrews 1.3 makes this clear. The sun is the radiance of God's glory. And the exact representation of his being, is there a more powerful statement in the Bible about Jesus' deity? He is the radiance of God's glory.
And the exact representation of his being. And then about Jesus, it says, sustaining all things by his powerful what? Word. If the Lord did not continue his work of sustaining the universe, everything would collapse into non-existence. Deist believe that God is like a watchmaker who creates a watch, he winds it up, and he lets it run on its own, and he just stands back from a distance and watches.
But this is not the God of the Bible. The world that he created continually experiences his direct and imminent involvement. Imminent just implies that he's involved in his creation. What God creates, he sustains. The very word create in the first chapter of Genesis implies sustained action.
God is both transcendent He's so far above us that we can't understand him, but he's also imminent. He's personally involved with the With the advance of history throughout the world. He rules sovereignly of his creation.
Now I want to show you three ways that Jesus claims to be equal with God. And here's the first way: He claims equality with God by saying that what The father does. He does. Look at verses 19 and 20. Jesus gave them this answer.
I'll tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees his father doing. Because whatever the father does, the son also does. For the father loves the son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement, he will show him even greater things than these.
Now, look, when Jesus is speaking these words, the religious leaders are standing right there. And he's laying down the gauntlet. Look how many times he refers to God as his father. One, two, three. Three times right there in those couple of verses.
Now, we're delving into a mystery here because you've got the God the Father and God the Son. And so the concept of the Trinity is something that's really beyond our imagination. It's difficult for us to understand with finite minds. But the first truth. That we need to know about the Trinity is that God is one.
One. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is. One. R. C.
Sproll explains it like this. Listen carefully. In the Trinity, there are three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In terms of being or existence, the structure of the Trinity is a unity. On the one hand, on the other hand, so you've got a unity in terms of being, but then on the other hand, in terms of activity, when we speak of the Trinity, we're dealing with distinct roles of the three persons with regard to creation and redemption.
You got all that? You'll never understand it, but just listen, okay?
So they have different roles. One God who exists in three persons. The Father sends the Son into the world to save us. The Son pays the price for our redemption. And then the Holy Spirit does the work of our ongoing sanctification.
So you have the three persons of the Godhead working together as one being. The Father is God. The Son is God. in the spirit. is God.
The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not The Father. Does that make sense? But they're all God. One God who exists in three persons. We have one God who exists in three persons, and the three persons are distinguished in their activities to bring about the work of salvation.
You got all that? Good. I'm glad you do. Kent Hughes says. Identity of action with God the Father is the first great claim of Christ.
Some of the Jews shuddered at the thought. For Jesus was claiming equality with God. Equality is the inevitable result of identity of action. They're so closely related, Hughes writes, that one wonders how literate people can deny that Christ claimed to be equal with God the Father. But they do.
Did you know that? Particularly, a lot of liberal theologians say that Jesus never claimed to be God.
So, why did they pick up stones to stone him? You know, is what I would ask. Hughes goes on to say, Jesus is the king of, never lose sight of this. Jesus is the king of kings and the lord of lords, and he will assert this reality. For all time and eternity.
This colossal claim continually confronts all of mankind. All of mankind. That Jesus is God. It demands a verdict. What say ye?
So, first, we see that Jesus claims to do the very same things that God the Father is doing. Then, secondly, Jesus claims That he too gives life. Just like the father. Look at verses 21, and then we're going to jump down to verse 24. Uh For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.
And then he says this, I tell you the truth. Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He has crossed over from death to life. You've got to love that. Then he says a second time: I'll tell you the truth: a time is coming, and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
Now I want you to notice that twice Jesus says, I tell you the truth.
Some translations may have verily, verily, or truly, truly.
So, Jesus is using this double expression. And so, when he says, verily, verily, Or truly, truly, you're saying. This is really true. This is really true. It's really true.
It's really true. Believe it. And usually it has something to do with salvation or eternal life. And that's why when I read in Scripture, I tell you the truth, you should all lean forward in your seat. to hear what's coming next.
You see, the Jewish religious leaders knew that only God has the power to give life to anything or anyone, and yet, here, Jesus is claiming that he could do the same thing, that he possesses life and he can give it to whomever he chooses. I want you to notice that in these four verses, he uses the word life or live six times. And then throughout the Gospel of John, he uses life or live 62 times. Why is he why does he do it so often? Because it's so important.
This is what it's all about. Life. Live. By the way, the Greek word used here is zoe. Can y'all think of a word that we have in English?
Zoology. which is the study of life. In this case, Zoe means eternal life. In John 23, 31, which may have it wrong in your outline, and I think it says John 3:31, it's John 23, 31. This is why he wrote the Gospel of John.
And this is why he included these eight key miracles called signs. He says, but these are written. That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have what? Life in His name. Nikas, I'm getting to share with you two very important changes that take place regarding your status before God.
When you truly believe in Jesus. two incredible changes and they're both great. First, And this has to do with your legal status. You are no longer under what? Condemnation.
You don't have to worry about standing before an angry God. You will never have to stand before the great white throne judgment and face God's condemnation. You no longer live under God's wrath. Wah. Because Jesus set us free from all of that.
There's no more condemnation, man. When you sin, and you feel guilty. That's the Holy Spirit convicting you. But you're not under God will never condemn you. You're no longer under God's condemnation.
If you feel condemnation is coming from the evil one, Satan. He will condemn you all day long. Romans 8:1 says, Therefore, when you get to Romans 8, you will have read through Romans chapters 1 through 7, and that therefore is implying that you have walked through these first seven chapters and you are a believer. Therefore, there's now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. How important is that little word in?
To be in Christ, you have to have been born again. And that means that Jesus lives you in you by his Spirit. And you are in Him. You've been united with Him by faith.
So, you're no longer under condemnation. Secondly, The moment you truly believe, you have crossed over. from death. to life. Notice the verb used in verse 24.
It says, Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me, We'll get eternal life. Is that what it says, Jeff? It has eternal life. It has past tense, present tense, or future tense. It's present tense.
When you believe God, And the moment you think about the thief on the cross. The moment that he said, Will you remember me? What was he expressing in his heart? Faith. What did Jesus say?
Today you will be with me in paradise. Today you just crossed over from death to life. Today you're no longer under condemnation. Once saved, always saved. The sting of death has been removed forever.
You no longer have to fear death. That's what everybody fears, and nobody wants to talk about it. You begin to experience the blessings of eternal life in the here and now. You experience peace and joy and contentment that the world knows nothing about. You enter into God's rest.
Do you know what that means? It means that when you go to bed at night, You rest from guilt. You rest from shame. You rest from fear. You rest from anxiety.
That doesn't mean you won't have anxious moments. That's why the Bible comes, it says, do not fear. Do not be anxious about anything. But overall, you have a life that's characterized by peace and joy because you've entered into God's rest. And one day, we will enter.
Heaven is a place of rest. Do y'all walk around sometimes with stress? I have to go to a physical therapy because I get stressed up in my neck.
Well, I'm just coming. built that way. But we get to heaven, we rest. You no longer have to worry about whether you have been good enough to earn God's favor, because now you understand that you're saved not by works, but solely due to the grace of God. Ken Hughes writes: The new birth is a great mystery, but the process is simple.
All Jesus said was, Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. It's so simple. All you have to do is hear. In belief. That's why we study the Bible.
Romans 10:17 says, Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through what? The word of Christ, the Bible.
So, Jesus claimed equality with God in his actions. He claimed equality with God in his ability to give life. Jesus claimed equality with God, do you know why? Because he is God. And third, Jesus claims the authority to judge.
In fact, he claims that the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son. Look at. Verses 23 and then look at verse 27 through 30. Jesus speaking here before these religious leaders, he says, And he talking about God the Father has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
Now, when he says the Son of Man, They know what he's talking about. They know about the book of Daniel, chapter 7, when Daniel says, In the future you see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of glory. That's Jesus. Do not be amazed. He says, and he's given him, verse 27, he's given him authority to judge because he is the son of man.
Do not be amazed at this. For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself, I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me.
Did you know that one day Every person who's ever been born. will have to kneel before Jesus. and declare him Lord. When Jesus stood before Caiaphas, in the Sanhedrin. The high priest asked him, Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.
And Jesus replied, It is as you say. In the future, you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven, pointing him right back to Daniel chapter 7. And you know what the Caliphus did? He tore his clothes. His robe Because he had heard what he thought was blasphemy.
And right there, Jesus. New that what he said would bring a judgment. of crucify him. One die. And I have to say, this is my flesh making.
I want to be there. When Carthus will be forced to kneel before Jesus. I'm talking about physically nil. And say yes. You are the Son of Man.
You are Lord. Philippians 2, 9 through 11 says, Therefore God exalted him, Talmud His Son, to the highest place, and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
So, men, we have a choice. We could either bow our knee now before Jesus and surrender our lives to Him. Or, one day, like Caiaphas, we'll be forced to bow our knee. and confess Jesus is Lord. I don't say this pridefully, it's just what I do, and I do it because I need it.
And sometimes I don't do this. I did it this morning. I go to my office. And I kneel down, I lock the door and I kneel down on my couch, and I've got a prayer journal there, and I begin to pray. Why do I kneel down?
I do it because I want to, it's an act of surrender and submission. I mean, Jesus, when I first got saved, I thought of Jesus as my friend. What a friend we have in Jesus. I love that hymn. He was my friend, but he was, and I thought of him as my Savior.
I didn't really understand that he was also my Lord. My commander. He is my Lord. And it's a privilege to kneel before my Lord. You know why?
Because He loves me, He calls me His friend. And he shares wisdom with me. and shows me how to live my life. Because he lost me. Why he loves me, I have no idea.
Because I do not deserve it. Did you know that one day, perhaps very soon, a loud voice will be heard coming from heaven along with the blast of a trumpet? It would not be the voice of the Father. You will not be divorced from the Holy Spirit. It would be the voice of Jesus calling out to both believers and unbelievers to arise from their graves.
When Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus, he said, Lazarus. Come forth. And Lazarus did. One day he's going to say, everyone, Come forth. And everyone will.
Believers and nonbelievers. Did you realize that we're all immortal? C.S. Lewis even talks about how that we are immortal beings. We were created to last forever, and we're going to last forever in one place or the other.
Everyone who is dead will hear the voice of Jesus and the sound of the trumpet, I think, at the same moment. 1 Corinthians 15, which I think is primarily, I think it's actually talking about believers here, but it also applies to non-believers. Because Paul is describing the bodies that believers will get one day. Listen, I tell you a mystery. Surely, the Bible is full of mysteries, but he unveils these mysteries to his children.
We were not all sleep, Paul writes. That is, we were not all die, but we will all be changed. In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. You see, the Bible makes it clear that both believers and unbelievers will receive immortal bodies at the resurrection, bodies that will last forever in either heaven or hell.
And so this is what at stake, Ben. Where are you going to spend eternity? And by the way, Again, I don't say this pridefully, but the very reason that I left the financial industry and entered seminary. It's because I was tired of the financial industry. And I wanted to be prepared.
I'll tell you what really happened. Part of the reason I went to seminary is because I came out of a very liberal church at one point in my life. And I didn't re I I knew the Bible pretty good. I've been in BSF for 20 years. I knew the Bible pretty well.
But I needed to I wanted to learn theology.
so I could confront liberal false teaching. But beyond that, I wanted to give men, I wanted to really rescue men that are trapped in these bastions of false teaching. and give them a chance to hear the gospel.
So they can be saved from their church and saved to eternal life. Are y'all with me on that?
Okay, it's all There are so many churches around the country today that just teach stuff that's not even true. You'd be surprised how many ministers do not believe that Jesus is God in the flesh.
Now listen. Right here, when it says that those who have done good will rise to live, does not mean that you earn your way to heaven. There's only one good work that we can do. You know what that work is? To believe.
How do I know this? Because the Bible says so. In John 6:28 and 29, It says, then they asked him, I'm thinking this is the religious leaders. What must we do to do the works God requires? Can't you hear them answering that question?
But they can do a good work. And Jesus said, the work of God is this. to believe in the one he sent. Belief is the only requirement for salvation.
So Resurrection Day will be a joyous day for everyone who entered through the small gate and traveled down the narrow road to discover a brand new life, and it leads to eternal life. On the other hand, those who've done evil, and that evil he's talking about. is refusing to believe in the one he sent. They will be raised from the dead, given immortal bodies. They will stand before the great white throne of judgment, waiting to be condemned.
They're going to hell, it's just a matter of what degree of punishment God, the Lord Jesus, who's a judge, will render. For them, Resurrection Day will be a very sad day, a fearful day. Simply because they turned away from the narrow road. They rejected God's grace and mercy. Instead, they entered through the wide gate and traveled along the broad road, which only leads to destruction.
Man, when you look out there at our world today, just right around here in Wake County. You're seeing two types of people. You're seeing dead men walking. And they're headed towards the land of the eternally dying. And you're seeing living men walking.
And they're headed towards the land of the living. Which which man do you want to be? A dead man walking? Or the Laughman. Headed for the land of the living.
That's what's at stake here. Point of Grace is a female vocal group that emerged in the 1990s. One of their songs is entitled The Great Divide. You see, there's a great divide between God and man because of our sin.
So picture a canyon. Between a great gulf between heaven and earth. And we're all standing on one side of that canyon, and God's on the other side. And there appears to be no way to get across this great gulf. The bridge of religion can't reach the other side.
The bridge of good works can't get us across. The bridge of knowledge falls woefully short, so there appears to be nothing that can get us across. But God Did you know there are a lot of butt gods in the Bible? And it's actually a good phrase, but God. But God acted on our behalf 2,000 years ago.
on a hill in Jerusalem where there stood a cross. The Great Divide goes like this. There's a bridge to cross the Great Divide. A way was made to reach the other side. The mercy of the Father cost his Son.
His life. His love is deep. His love is wad. There's a cross to bridge. The Great Divide.
The cross of Christ, man, is the bridge. And Jesus is beckoning all of us to come to Him, and He will carry us across to the other side. Look at verse 25 again. Almost done. Jesus says, Here it is.
I tell you the truth. A time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. He's talking about spiritual resurrection here. Ephesians 2 tells us that one time we were dead in our sins and trespasses, but then God made us alive in Christ.
So let me ask you. Do you hear Jesus' voice beckoning you right now to come to him? You who are listening. Live stream, maybe someone here tonight. Jesus is calling someone to come and drink the living water.
The same water that he offered to the woman at the well.
So are you thirsty for this living water? Do you want to experience it flowing within you?
Well, all you have to do is drink. You drink this water when you hear God's word and believe in the one He sent. His name is what? Jesus. In John 7, 37 and 38, Jesus says, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
Who believes in me, as the Scripture said, streams of living water will flow from within him. Does that describe what's going on in your life, in your heart, in your inner being? This is the last night of our study. until January 2026.
So I want to end the way the Bible ends. In Revelation 22, verse 17. The Spirit and the bride say come. And let him who hears say come. who was thirsty.
Let him come. And whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. It's free. You can't Pay for it. It's costly to God, but it's free for us.
Have you drunk from the well of God? If you're thirsty, men, Why not drink this living water tonight? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your Son. To Give us a bridge across the great divide.
Thank you, Lord, that once we believe, we have crossed over from death to life. And once we have life, we can never lose it. That's why it's called eternal life. Once you've chosen us, we cannot be unchosen. Once we've been born again, we cannot be unborn.
Thank you, Jesus, for saving me. Thank you, Jesus, for saving, I hope, every man in this room. And I pray for the man right now who's contemplating what has been said tonight. Drink the living water. and be saved.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
You've been listening to Finding Purpose with Russ Andrews. This broadcast is made possible because of the prayers and financial gifts of listeners like you. If you want to learn more about our ministry or support us as we reach others with God-centered Bible teaching, please visit us at findingpurpose.net.
