Jesus, here, talks about his
relationship with his Father. But what do the authorities hear? How do they
understand Jesus’ words? To them it sounds like he is claiming to be equal to
God. This is a problem for them because they were quite sure that there is only
one God. So, they understand Jesus as placing himself in competition with the
one true God. After all, there can only be one. They were right, of course,
that there is but one God. But Jesus is not trying to be another God. Rather,
as he explains, he is equal to God because he is God’s Son. This section of
John gives us a little insight into God’s nature as Trinity: one God who is
three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ goal here is not
to explain the Trinity but to say something about his relationship with his Father.
And that is what we will spend a little time on in the first section of the
sermon.
Let’s start with this.
So Jesus said to
them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord,
but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the
Son does likewise.’
Jesus is using something from the
culture of that day to express his point. Back then kids didn’t go to college
or some trade school. The normal thing was for a son to learn a skill from his
father. He would watch how dad did it and then imitate him. In this way, boys
learned their fathers’ trades. Jesus learned how to be a carpenter by watching
Joseph. This was the normal way things worked back then. Jesus uses this aspect
of his culture to describe something of his relationship with God, his Father.
The Father takes the lead and Jesus, his Son, follows that lead. He watches
what the Father is doing and then he does the same.
Jesus fills this out a bit.
First, there’s this.
For the Father
loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works
than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.
The Father loves the Son. So, he
hides nothing that he is doing from him. Whatever the Father is doing, he shows
Jesus, his Son. In fact, the Father assigns certain tasks to Jesus, tasks that
had been exclusively his own: the raising of the dead, all judgment. This is
the same sort of thing that a human father does as he teaches his son a trade. He
hands off certain tasks for the son to do as he develops his skill.
Jesus’ Father has a particular
goal in this.
The Father
judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever
does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.
The Father loves his Son. He
gives this task, evaluating everyone, to his Son. And there is a reason why he gives
this task to him. The Father wants Jesus to be recognized for what he does, to
be honored by all.
In response, the Son loves his Father.
And this shows as he gives himself to the Father’s will.
I can do nothing
on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my
own will but the will of him who sent me.
Because of his love for his
Father, the Son submits to the Father who sent him. What I find so very
interesting here is that even though the Father and the Son are equally God,
the Son submits to the Father. This dynamic of ‘equal yet submissive’ is
something that I hope to come back to in another sermon.
What we have here is a
relationship of love. The Father loves the Son and the Son responds with his
own love for his Father.
In this conversation that he is
having with the Jewish leaders, Jesus is explaining something of who God is and
what he is like. He is a God of love. I must admit that I have usually thought
of that kind of phrase, the God of love, in terms of God’s love for his
creation, for us. But I am seeing that it is much more profound than that. It
is, first of all, about God’s love for himself. The love of God is about the
love that each person of the Trinity - the Father, the Son and the Spirit - has
for the other persons of the Trinity. This kind of love is something that is as
old as God himself. If there never had been a creation there would still be
love. This really is a big deal. This redefines love. It is much bigger, much
grander than what I have thought.
Seeing love in this way, as first
of all this attitude of the persons of the Trinity to each other, clarifies
what love is about. This makes it clear that love is not about responding to
someone’s need. Love is not about doing something good to a person in need of
that. It can’t be that if the original of love is the love among the persons of
the Trinity. There is no need that the Son has that the Father has discovered
and is meeting. The persons of the Trinity have no needs. This love is
different. This love is about the affection that the one has for the other. And
it is that affection that is eternal. Love as meeting some need is actually
something new, a new application of the eternal principle of love. This new
application came into existence when there were humans who did have needs. But
the eternal love of God is deeper than meeting needs. It’s about affection.
Now, why does Jesus take the time
to explain this love relationship that he has with the Father? As usual, he has
several purposes, but here’s one that I would like you to ponder a bit. It
explains the Gospel. Jesus did not come so that we might end up in heaven. The
Gospel is about much more than that. The Gospel is about you getting to enjoy
the kind of love relationship with the Father that Jesus already enjoys. The
Gospel is about you enjoying the deep affection of the Father. If you get
nothing else from this sermon, please get that last sentence.
So, consider some things from
John’s Gospel. First, this.
He came to his
own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him,
who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Then, there is this. It’s from
after the resurrection.
Jesus said to
her, ‘… go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”’
We are the children of God. That
means that God is our Father just as he is Jesus’ Father. This happened when we
received Jesus, when we believed in his name. We were, at that point, adopted
as God’s children. He is our Father, and we are his sons and daughters. And
that means that we are loved by the Father. We, children of God, are loved with
the same love that the Father has for his eternal Child, Jesus. And remember
what this love is about. The love of the Father for us is not about finding and
meeting needs. It certainly does meet needs. But it is about something much greater
than that. It’s first about affection. The Father loves us with deep affection.
Let me read you what I think is a
great description of this love.
The Lord your God is in your midst; he
is a warrior who can deliver. He takes great delight in you; he
renews you by his love; he shouts for joy over you.
What a picture of the affection
that the Father has for you. He does meet needs, like the need of deliverance
from sin. But there is so much more than just meeting some need. He delights in
you. He shouts for joy over you. He loves you just like he loves Jesus. And
this love, this affection, changes things. It renews you. So here’s another
basic Gospel fact: you are loved.
As soon as I say that, though,
there is a problem. It is clear that there are lots of Christians who are loved
by the Father in this extraordinary way but who do not feel loved, not like
this. Saying that the Father loves them in the same way that he loves Jesus
just doesn’t ring true to them. And it is obvious that they don’t feel loved.
If they were convinced that the Father loves them in this way, it would show.
So, for example, they would enjoy perfect peace. What could disturb someone’s
sense of peace if he knew for certain that he is loved in this way? People
convinced of the Father’s love would also be fearless in the face of any
threat. What is there to be afraid of if you’re convinced of the love of the
Father for you? Or to say all of that differently, people convinced of the
Father’s love would be just like Jesus. But that’s not what we are seeing.
There are plenty of Christians who do not feel loved like this. Why?
One response might be, ‘Well, I’m
only human, you know.’ Without being too pointed, let me just say that that is
an excuse, and a lame one at that. Do you think it would have worked for Adam
when God came calling in the Garden? Another response might go something like
this: ‘Yes, it’s true. I don’t feel this love of the Father for me. It’s
because of my sin.’ That sounds better. It has the advantage of being
theologically accurate - but all too often it’s just another excuse. I say that
because the unstated part of that response goes like this: ‘It’s because of my
sin … but what are you going to do?’ And we’re back to, ‘Well, I’m only human,
you know.’ There is, of course, the option of blaming God. ‘It’s not my fault I
don’t feel this love. The Father hasn’t done enough to reveal his deep
affection for me.’ Really?
So, why are there Christians who
don’t feel loved by the Father? Here’s one very good way to answer the
question. It’s because of unbelief. I’m not saying that they actually aren’t
Christians. No, they are but, especially in certain situations, they just don’t
believe that the Father loves them, not with the same love that he has for
Jesus. And so, especially in those situations, they act as unloved orphans.
Now, I hope that it is clear that
unbelief is a very serious matter. It’s sin. But it’s not a very serious matter
because someone has broken a rule somewhere. It’s serious because the sin of
unbelief is calling God a liar. The Father says, ‘I love you.’ And this person
responds with, ‘No, you don’t.’ No one would ever say that, but that is what
their actions reveal. They do not believe the Father loves them. I can see someone
thinking that breaking rules is bad. But insulting the Father who loves him so
– how shall we describe that?
Is there hope for this problem,
for this insulting sin? Well, there is the Gospel, no? ‘Christ Jesus came into
the world to save sinners.’ And that includes Christians who don’t believe in
the love of the Father. Jesus came to get rid of your sin so that you might
enjoy a relationship of love, a relationship of deep affection, with the
Father. That’s the Gospel.
So, what do we do now? It makes
sense to go back to the familiar, ‘Repent and believe the Gospel’. I’ve
referred to this lots of times. But this time, I want to go a little deeper. I’ve
told you that repentance is admitting your sin to the Father. And it is that.
But included in admitting your sin is a desire not to sin in that way again.
And it is that desire for change that I want to spend some time on.
What I’m going to do is talk
about repentance in terms of a particular sin that I have been dealing with.
And that sin is my being driven, having this sense that I need to push and get
things done in a hurry. Closely related to this sin is its first cousin,
anxiety. ‘Anxiety’ isn’t a church word that hides truth. It’s a cultural word
that hides truth. So, let’s translate it. Fear. Anxiety is a polite word for
fear. This fear, related as it is to being driven, is all about what terrible
things might happen if I don’t get everything done - now! This drivenness, with
its fear, is one way that my unbelief in the Father’s love shows itself. After
all, the underlying assumption of this drivenness is that if I don’t get it all
done now, life will be so bad that not even God could rescue me. Or to tweak
that a bit, (and maybe get a little more honest) I would have failed so badly
that the Father would not rescue me. He would not love me.
So, in response to the Spirit’s
nudges, this is what I have done. First, I prayed about it. And I have asked
others to pray about this. At different points people have asked me what they
could pray about for me, so I told them. ‘I’m driven. That’s not good. Pray
that God changes that in me.’ Over time I began to notice that the Father was
answering that prayer for change. This is what he did. He began giving me a
growing sensitivity to the presence of my drivenness. I began to see my sin and
this temptation more clearly. I was becoming more aware of what was going on
soon after falling for this temptation. One result of this was that I could
repent of it more quickly. That encouraged my prayers. In response to those
prayers, the Father gave me the ability to see the temptation and my falling
into it sooner and sooner. In fact, that developed so that I began to be able
to see the temptation for what it was before I fell into it. Seeing, ahead of
time, the possibility of being tempted gave me the opportunity to pray about
that temptation. Those prayers boiled down to asking him for the ability to
trust his love for me in that situation. I needed him to act so that I would
not give in to my fear and try to deal with the issue by resorting to my habit
of being driven. And time and again, he acted.
I’m not going to tell you that I
am free from this temptation, that I’ve conquered this sin. But I can tell you
that there has been a great deal of progress. And I expect more to come.
However, I want you to understand some things about this. For one thing, I’ve
been working at this for several years. The change that the Gospel offers is
not a matter of saying a prayer once or twice. Change is hard work. Change is
about the hard work of repentance. That needs to become an obvious part of your
life. And let me tell you what has helped me in my working at this. The Father
has shown me the lie behind my drivenness. The whisper in my ear was, ‘If you
don’t drop everything else and get this
done right now, terrible things will
happen. Hurry it up! Who knows how bad it might be.’ But as I learned not to
give in to the temptation I found that ‘terrible things’ did not happen. No,
rather in those situations the Father’s love came through for me. Everything
got done. The lie was exposed. The serpent has no fangs. And that, then, helped
me deal with the next time I heard that whisper. So, one of my more common
prayers, along with ‘Help!’, has been, ‘Father, I’m sure that you’ll figure something
out so I can deal with this.’ And that’s the truth that defeats the lie. The
key behind all of this was (and is) my growing belief that even if I totally
mess up, the Father will still love me and somehow make my life work. And that
is so freeing.
It’s important that this next
point be clear. The basis of my working at repenting of this sin has been the
grace of the Gospel. My prayers basically boiled down to, ‘Father, there is no
way I can do this. But you are my God, the God of grace. Help me.’ And he did.
He has helped me and will continue to help me, because he loves me.
Now, you may not be enslaved by
the sin of drivenness and the fears that go with it. It may well be something
else. But the Gospel says that whatever it is that is besieging your heart, it
can be defeated. It can be defeated by the hard work of repentance and faith.
What will best fuel your efforts in this won’t be some demand that you meet
some standard. ‘This is what all good
Christians look like. What’s the matter with you? Why aren’t you like that?’
That is a whisper from Satan. More Christians have been crushed into
hopelessness because they believed that lie. The best motivation for the
pursuit of a holy life is the love that the Father already has for you. He
loves you - already, right now - with the same deep affection that he has for
Jesus. And as you learn to believe in that love more your life will change.