In the sermon titled 'Who is Jesus?' by Jason Dohm, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding Jesus' identity and his claims of divinity, highlighting the ongoing discourse between Jesus and the Pharisees. The sermon discusses Jesus as the 'light of the world' and addresses the Pharisees' rejection of Jesus' claims, depicting their trajectory of unbelief leading to destruction. The speaker underscores the crucial question, 'Who is Jesus?' which divides believers from unbelievers. The sermon explores biblical passages where Jesus identifies as the Son of Man and the Son of God, fulfilling messianic prophecies and establishing his role as the mouthpiece of God. The sermon further elaborates on Jesus' defining work on the cross, explaining its significance in salvation and the fulfillment of prophecies. It concludes with a call to believe in Jesus' claims and the gospel message, emphasizing the transformative power of understanding and accepting Jesus' true identity.

We're in the middle of an extended continuous discourse. In other words, it wouldn't be right to look at our text in isolation today. This is part of a larger dialogue between Jesus and those who are opposing him. So I want to try to keep it joined with what comes before and what goes after. It began in verse 12 with Jesus making this stunning claim, I am the light of the world.

Not a source of truth and purity, perfect righteousness, but the source of truth and perfect righteousness. Since verse 12, the Pharisees have been rejecting and waging war against Jesus' very exclusive claims. Last week, Jesus, seeing their trajectory of unbelief, When I say trajectory of unbelief, I mean that Jesus sees them on tracks that lead to destruction. Unless there is a turning and a reversal of the direction in which they are going, They are headed to destruction. So Jesus sees them on this trajectory of unbelief and three times in last week's text Jesus says, you will die in your sins.

Imagine that. Dying with your sins clinging to you. With no ability to get any separation between you and your sins. Having to own your sins and then standing before this holy God to be judged with this standard. Not good versus bad, but guilty versus innocent.

And to stand before a holy God with your sins clinging to you. He's driving them to consider that moment. And what it would be like to stand before this perfectly, utterly pure God with your sins clinging to you. Of course, it's not just the Pharisees that he's driving to think about that moment. He's driving us to think about a moment like that as well.

And to have the terror of that thought actually cause us to be wise to consider our latter end. This week the Pharisees challenged Jesus again. They say, who are you? So here's a hint about the sermon. This is not an honest question.

This is just another challenge. This is just another expression of their rejection and their waging war against his claims. And we get to hear Jesus respond to both their challenge and to the question that they have asked. So as we go to the text, let's go to the Lord and ask for His help. Father, please Let the true identity of your Son be clearly preached and understood from your word today.

We struggle to think of a more important thing in the whole world than a clear understanding of who Jesus of Nazareth is and what He's done. Thank you for giving us a text that sets it before us in such clarity and beauty. Don't let us hear and go away unchanged. Come and move us. Send your Spirit, Lord, we're pleading with you that you would send your Spirit to move us.

Don't Let us stand still, but let us be moved. Give us progress. Those who are unbelievers, give unbelievers progress in understanding the truths of the Gospel and in feeling their position. Give believers progress. Help us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

We pray in His name, Amen. So I will be, as usual, subdividing the text. I want to begin just by looking at verse 25. So hopefully your Bibles are still open to John chapter 8. Let's read together again.

Follow along as I read verse 25 and then try to explain it. Then they said to him, then they said to Jesus, Who are you? And Jesus said to them, Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. Just what I have been saying to you from the very start. In this verse we have the question of all questions.

So if you're taking notes on the handout and you're filling in blanks, it's questions. There are a lot of questions out there. This is the question of questions. This is the most important question. Who is Jesus of Nazareth?

Jesus has just said to these Pharisees, you will die in your sins three times over. Can you imagine hearing that repetition? It's such a stunning phrase, you will die in your sins, but then to hear it again, you will die in your sins, and then to hear it a third time, you will die in your sins. So Jesus has just done this, and not only that they will die in their sins, that they are from beneath, they are of the world. But that He Himself is from above, that Jesus is not of this world.

They are on two different planes. They are not reconciled to God. Now in response to that, the Pharisees ask this question, who are you? Now, who is Jesus? Jesus, who are you can be a perfectly good and innocent question, but in this context it is not a perfectly good and innocent question.

I'm thoroughly convinced of that. My paraphrase of this question would be, Who in the world do you think you are to talk to us like this? Not who are you, but do you know who we are? We are rigidly respectable and religious people. So I would read this question with an intonation something like this.

Who are you? Who are you, Jesus? Do you know who we are? Do you know how precise we are about our law keeping? Do you know how respectable we are among our friends and our family, our neighbors, our co-workers?

And yet you say we'll die in our sins. You say you're from above. You're not of this world, but we're from beneath. We are of this world. Who in the world do you think you are to speak to us like this?

However, they have stumbled on something. This really is the most important question in life. This really is the question that divides believers from unbelievers. It divides heaven and hell. It's interesting, if you look at Matthew chapter 22, Jesus is being cross-examined by the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Does that sound familiar? In Matthew 22, he asks them, what do you think of the Christ whose Son is he? He's getting at exactly this. The identity of the Christ. Who is the Christ?

Could I be the Christ? And he knows when he says, what do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he? He knows exactly how they answer. They are going to say Christ is the son of David because that was the expectation.

That is actually a correct answer. Jesus is the son of David, the heir in the line of kings who will have an eternal kingdom. So it is a good answer as far as it goes. But then he takes what he knows will be their answer. The Messiah is the son of David and he quotes to them Psalm 110 where David, the psalmist of Psalm 110 calls the Messiah Lord.

He says how can a son of David call, how can David call one of his sons who will come out of his line Lord? And he stumps them with that question. But the truth is, he's not trying to trick or trap them. They're always trying to trick or trap them, he is actually trying to lead them into truth. There is a great answer to that question.

How does David call one of his sons Lord? Because it is not just a son. He is a son of man, but he is a son of God. He is a son of David, but He is the Son of God at the same time. And so David foreseeing prophetically knows that it is right to call him Lord.

So Jesus actually wants, who are you Jesus to be considered? He is all for that being the question. Even though it is a question filled with scorn from them, he is happy to take up this topic. Our faith hinges on the true identity of Jesus Christ. It all rises or falls on the true identity of Jesus Christ.

Who did Jesus claim to be and is He who He claimed to be? In other words, if you are assigning things to Jesus that He never claimed, on what basis would you do that? That doesn't make any sense. If He didn't claim it for Himself, we shouldn't believe things of Jesus that he never claimed. So this is really important.

Jesus, who do you claim to be? Who do you say you are? And then we decide, do we believe your claims? And if he isn't what he claimed to be, then our faith falls apart. So who did he claim to be and do we believe that he is who he claimed to be?

That really is the question on the table in our text. Jesus responds not with saying, I am this, I am the fulfillment of this prophet. He responds by saying, just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have been silent on my identity. I have been saying the same thing from the start of my public ministry.

That's who I am. You want to know who I am? I am who I've been saying I am. In chapter 3, Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night. Nicodemus is a Pharisee.

Jesus is now talking to Pharisees. Nicodemus is a ruler of the Jews. Jesus here in our text is being challenged in the temple courts by Pharisees. They knew Nicodemus. Now we don't know how much of what Jesus said to Nicodemus has trickled out to these other Pharisees.

All we know is that Nicodemus is a man who travels in the same circles as the Pharisees that are speaking with Jesus now in the temple courts. In chapter 3 to Nicodemus, Jesus uses this term of Himself, Son of Man. Nicodemus is a Pharisee, he is a ruler of the Jews, he has memorized more scripture than we will ever memorize. When Jesus says, and lays claim to the title Son of Man, his mind would have instantly gone to Daniel chapter 7, when one like the Son of man comes before the Ancient of Days and he is given a never ending undefeatable kingdom. Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, I'm that.

I'm the one like the Son of Man who comes before the Ancient of Days and I get a kingdom from him that will never end. And he says a few verses later, that belief in himself was the difference between perishing and eternal life. What claims Jesus makes to Nicodemus the Pharisee and the ruler of the Jews in John chapter 3. In John chapter 5 Jesus is back in Jerusalem And this is a sure starting point with these Pharisees who are challenging him in the temple courts. We know for sure that they are aware of the discourse that we studied in John chapter 5, where Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath and they wanted to kill him and then Jesus explains him healing on the Sabbath.

He says, my father has been working until now and I am working until now. He makes himself equal with God and then they really really want to kill him. So they wanted to kill him just for healing on the Sabbath but they really want to kill him. That's exactly what the text says after he had explained himself. So the explanation didn't help.

Or it did help, depending on how you look at it. In John chapter 5, he makes himself out to be the Son of God. That was why their desire to kill him actually increased because he called God his Father, making himself equal with God. This is the drawing right the language from chapter 5. And then that was followed by an extended teaching by Jesus when he explains that he's been sent by his father, again calling himself the son of God and making himself equal with God.

He is just doubling down on what he said earlier in the chapter. He says, I was sent by my father, I act in perfect unity with my father. And then again he uses this term, son of man. They all would have understood what he was saying when he called himself the son of man. Daniel chapter 7.

One like the son of man coming before the ancient of days and receiving an everlasting kingdom. The point is this. Jesus had been clear and consistent about his claims over time. He didn't mumble it once a long time ago. Clear, consistent, over time.

He's been saying the same thing. I am the son of God. I am the son of man. So he has nothing new to claim about his identity. So he just points them back to his clear, consistent, long-time claims about himself.

They were messianic claims. They were claims that only the Messiah could make. And he's been doing messianic works. He's been doing the works that the Old Testament says you will know the Messiah when you see him. He will be doing these things.

Jesus is in the midst. John is a study, largely, overwhelmingly of what Jesus has been doing in Jerusalem. It's different from the other gospels in that way. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are predominantly based in Galilee, his home region, and his preaching and miracles there with a little bit in Jerusalem. John is exactly the opposite.

It's overwhelmingly about what Jesus does in the capital of Israel before all the leaders as public as it can get, his works and his teaching in Jerusalem. Now, let's move along to verses 26 and 27. Follow along as I read verses 26 and 27. Jesus continues, I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I heard from him." They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father. In these two verses we have Jesus, the mouthpiece of God.

If You are taking notes on the handout and you are filling in blanks. It is mouthpiece. Jesus is putting himself forward as the spokesman for God, looking back on it, knowing what we know with full revelation. He is the mouthpiece of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Jesus came to earth to speak on behalf of the Holy Trinity.

The point from these two verses is that Jesus was sent by his Father to speak pure truth to the world. So what is one of the reasons why Jesus was sent to earth? To speak from the Father pure truth to the world. What is it if you don't speak pure truth? Well, there's lying.

That's certainly not pure truth. But there's also, not when you're lying, but just when you don't know what you're talking about. That's not pure truth, when you don't know what you're talking about. Do you know that Jesus never once did that? Jesus is both the Son of Man, but also as the Son of God.

Of course he never lied, but he never spoke when he didn't know what he was talking about. That's not possible. Jesus in every word spoke pure truth. And these words that we have, these red words in our Bibles, are not just declarations for the Jewish people. And Jesus was always very aware of that.

The words that he had weren't even though he was a Jew and even though the Jews were the people of God, a special people, Jesus didn't come just for Jews, just for Israel. Jesus didn't speak pure truth just for Israel. He spoke pure truth for the whole world. Hey, maybe we should call him the Word. In the beginning was the Word.

Jesus has been sent by his father to speak pure truth, not just to one nation, but to all the nations, to every tribe and tongue and nation. And isn't that how it's worked out in the unfolding of history? Are you a Jew? Do you have words sent by the Father for the world to know? You can buy them for $3.

You can buy a Bible for $3. Here we are Gentiles in North America, and we have such free and easy access. We see what Jesus is saying here actually has worked itself out exactly the way He said in history. I have a Bible and so do you. I have a house full of Bibles.

And so does almost everyone who lives in America. Whether they read it or not is a different story. Access to the Word of God is not a problem here. And Jesus had much more to say to the Pharisees. Look at what he says there.

I have many things to say and judge concerning you. Jesus has much more to say to these Pharisees. Truths which would actually stand to accuse them. That's really clear from what he says. If I said everything now to you that I have to say to you, the pure truths that I speak would stand in judgment and condemnation of you because of who you are and what you are like, what you think, what you say, what you do.

But for now, he is forbearing, he is forgoing that to simply establish the source of all his revelation. What is the source of all his revelation? His father taught him, and so he is speaking. His father sent him to give us pure truth. To take on flesh and to speak as a man to men, but to be the mouthpiece of God for pure truth.

He never lied. He never spoke when he didn't know what he was talking about. Everything that we have, you can build your life on it, is completely, utterly trustworthy because he is saying only what his father has given him to say. Now, let's speculate. What were these truths?

Well, we don't have to speculate. What were these truths which would stand in judgment of these unbelieving Pharisees? We get a glimpse of that in Matthew chapter 23. I'm not going to ask you to turn to Matthew 23, but you'll recognize it as soon as I start talking about it. It's when Jesus pronounces the eight woes.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, and then he pronounces both a warning and a condemnation and a judgment against a certain part of their hypocritical conduct. Eight times over. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, and then he'll describe something that they're doing. And then woe to you scribes and Pharisees, and he'll describe something that they're doing. But it all has to do with their hypocrisy.

It all has to do with them having cultivated an outward shell, which is righteous, but actually being completely different and not reconciled to God at all. They didn't know God. Let me give you the eight woes. Number one, They shut up the Kingdom of Heaven. They don't go in themselves and they don't allow others to enter either.

They are holding people back from trusting in Jesus. Number two, they devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. In other words, they are making a religious show while at the same time they are exploiting the vulnerable. They are devouring widows' houses. Number three, they travel land and sea to win one convert and then they make that convert twice as Son of Hell as they are.

They'll go to the ends of the earth to convert someone to their sect and then they ruin them further. They don't save them by truth that is taught from God and by God. They actually corrupt their converts. Number four, they turn the taking of oaths into a mockery through a convoluted system where if you swore by this, you really had to keep it, But if you swore by this other thing, then you weren't really bound by it. They made a mockery of oath taking.

Number five, they tithe down to the garden spices, but they ignore justice, mercy, and faith. Oh, they're particular about their tithing. All their resources including, let's go out to the garden and look at the spices, like we need to take a tenth of these and also give it to the Lord. Something that is important, but secondary. Tithing is secondary compared to justice and mercy and faith.

So they'll trample on justice, mercy, and faith. They don't care about those things, which are primary things. In the religion of the Bible, you don't have anything without justice and mercy and faith. They ignore that, and they're tithing their garden spices. They're straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

It comes from Matthew 23. Number six, they cleanse the outside of the cup while the inside is full of filth. Look at the shiny cup, it's so clean on the outside. Oh, look over the rim of the cup, there's all this filth in there. All their religion is just a show to cover up the filth that is inside them.

Number seven, it's just another way to say the same thing. Jesus was really concerned about this, so he comes back with another word picture. He says they are like white washed tombs. They appear outwardly beautiful but inside they are full of all uncleanness. Inside they are full of death and corruption.

Even though a white washed tomb from the outside looks very beautiful. A beautiful outward appearance with corruption and death on the inside. And then number eight, they pay lip service to dead prophets while they persecute and kill the live one. If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would have honored those prophets and they decorate their tombs. They pay lip service to the dead prophets.

But God has sent them a live prophet. In fact, the prophet of all prophets, the Messiah, the Son of God, a member of the Trinity, and they persecute and kill him. They are liars. They would have treated the prophets that God sent their forefathers just like their forefathers treated them. The point to all that is that the truth of God stands in contrast and condemnation to the falsehood and hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

The Father has sent Jesus to speak pure truth, and just speaking pure truth, that wall of truth stands in contrast and condemnation to the falsehood and hypocrisy of the Pharisees. Truth stands in condemnation of hypocrisy. What does that mean? Just say that another way. If you're cultivating an exterior that's acceptable, but all you're doing is really covering up insides that are no match to the externals that you've cultivated, the truth of God stands in condemnation to that.

That's the whole point of what Jesus is saying. If you want to know why people hate the real Jesus, they love Jesus just not the real Jesus. They love the Jesus that they have invented that is comfortable with their sin, but they don't love Bible Jesus. They actually hate Bible Jesus. When you tell them the things that Jesus says, then they bow up and they can't believe that's really Jesus at all.

If you want to know why people hate the real Jesus, this is one big reason. Truth. Pure truth. Because it stands in condemnation to our hypocrisy. It comes at us when we are cultivating an external that is acceptable to everyone around us but inside there is death and corruption.

What did Jesus say to his brothers in John chapter 7 verse 7? He says, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. That explains exactly what we see in our text. The Pharisees hate Jesus because they are of the world. He is not of the world, but they are of the world so they hate Him because He testifies of them that their works are evil just by saying the pure truth of God that His Father has sent Him to declare.

Jesus is establishing the utter and complete truth of all that He has been saying by rooting it in being sent by His Father in Heaven. So He is essentially saying, I have been teaching and my teaching is utterly and completely true. There is nothing that I have been teaching that is in any sense false or not true. I claim that because I was sent by my Father in Heaven. Listen to Hebrews chapter 6 verse 18.

It is impossible for God to lie. Every Jew that is facing down Jesus in the temple courts in John chapter 8 in our text would concede that point. It is impossible for the God of Israel to lie and all the Pharisees say, Amen. So Jesus is establishing the truth of what he is saying by saying, I am only saying what I have been given to say by the God who you acknowledge cannot lie. I have been sent by him to say these things." Of course they said, well you are lying about that.

But he roots it in a God who cannot lie being the one to send him to declare to the whole world, not just to the nation of Israel but to the whole world, pure unadulterated truth. Finally the text says that the Pharisees did not understand that Jesus spoke to them of God the Father. This is sort of puzzling isn't it? I didn't understand he was speaking of God the Father. They sure understood it in chapter 5 when they wanted to kill him.

But now it sort of seems like a fog has descended on them. They really don't have the capacity to hear what He is saying. Listen, I quote this all the time, but it is so important to our understanding of the world and why we encounter what we encounter out in the world. 1 Corinthians chapter 2 Verse 14, Paul writes, But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Jesus is teaching spiritual truth.

These worldly Pharisees, in their unbelief, have no hope of understanding Jesus. Their hearts are bent against Him. They can't even receive the things from the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. They are natural men and Jesus is speaking about spiritual things. It just seems like a fog has descended upon them.

You are going to encounter that. If you share your faith, you are going to encounter that. You will be saying things as plainly and coming at it from as many different angles as you can, and they just don't seem to be able to get it. Why is that? Are they stupid?

No, they're natural men. You're speaking spiritual things. And the only thing that cures that is the Spirit of God coming to raise the dead. So you just keep doing your duty and proclaiming truth as pure a truth as you can. But just know this, Jesus taught perfect truth.

He never lied. He never talked about something he didn't know about, and people couldn't understand him either for the same reason. There was nothing wrong with how Jesus was communicating these things. He was not understood because he was speaking spiritual things to natural men, and the Holy Spirit is not present at this time to raise these men from the dead. Finally, verses 28-30.

Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father taught me, I speak these things. And He who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please him. As he spoke these words, many believed in him." Let me take care of two things right away.

First of all, I'm not going to say one word about verse 30. I'll probably maybe say something about it. There were many who were hearing him that actually believed the things that he was saying. So he did have an effect on his hearers. Some effect.

Second thing is, we have in here again Jesus saying, then you will know that I am He. If you've got one of those Bibles that italicizes words that the translators put in because they think it helps with the meaning, but there's not actually a Greek word behind it. You'll notice that he is in italic, so what Jesus really says is, then you will know that I am. And that's really significant. It has Old Testament implications, And again, like I did last week, I'm just setting that off to the side.

I'm not going to touch it anymore. When we get to verse 58, we'll talk a lot about it. In the meantime, even though it's tremendously significant, I'm going to ignore it and just treat it. Talk about it when we get to verse 58. So verses 28-30, we have Jesus' defining work.

If you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, it's defining. Jesus' defining work. What is it? It's the cross. There are two texts that make it crystal clear what Jesus meant by the lifting up of the Son of Man.

The first is what Jesus says to Nicodemus in chapter 3 verse 14. Listen, Jesus says to Nicodemus, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. So in chapter 3 verse 14 when he is speaking to Nicodemus He is also talking about the cross. But he points back to the book of Numbers when the people had been in rebellion against God and God's judgment was to send serpents among the people. The serpents were biting the people and they were dying from the venom.

And so Moses cried out for help and mercy from the Lord and God instructed him to make a bronze serpent, a sign of the thing that was killing them and to hold it up and to tell people who had been bitten by the serpents, if you look to it, you will be saved, you will live. And the ones who looked to the lifted up serpents lived. And Jesus said, just like that, that was symbolic of my core ministry on earth. The most important reason why I took on flesh was to be lifted up. And just as the bronze serpent was a symbol of the venom that courses through your veins and kills you, the cross will be a symbol that you'll look to and by faith you can be saved.

It's like that. So it's clear in 314 that when he's talking about the serpent being lifted up and looking to it and being saved, it's really clear that Jesus is talking about his work on the cross in hindsight. Now, I'll also consider chapter 12 verses 32 and 33. We're not there yet, but it's another instance where he uses this same language about the Son of man being lifted up. Listen to chapter 12 verses 32 and 33.

Jesus says, And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself. Now listen to this verse 33, This he said, this Jesus said, signifying by what death he would die. So the beauty of what is said in chapter 12 is John the Gospel writer just takes away any doubt. He actually gives us his comment on this saying when Jesus says if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all peoples to myself. John the Gospel writer says, he said this to signify by what death he would die, the death of the cross.

So it is Jesus going to the cross and the son of man is important. The son of man being lifted up is important because Jesus is dying as a substitute for sinful people. It has to be the Son of Man. It has to be a man who has lifted up to die, to have the wrath of God poured out upon a man because he is a substitute for man. Jesus is one of us in the sense that he took on flesh.

He couldn't have offered himself as a substitute if he hadn't taken on the form of a bond servant. If he hadn't come in the likeness of human flesh and taken on flesh and dwelt among us. Then Jesus is saying that it is in His death on the cross that he is known as the one who has not done or said these things on his own, but has only said what his Father taught him to say and only done what his Father has taught him to do." It is in his death on the cross that you know that he has done and said what his father gave him to do. In other words, the cross is Jesus' defining work. It tells the story.

The cross tells the story that God wanted to tell by sending his son into the world. The story of Isaiah 53, of a willing, suffering servant, who the Lord was pleased to crush to purchase pardon for sinners. That is the story of Jesus. The cross is ultimately the story of Jesus. It is the story of Isaiah 53 where the Father is pleased to crush His Son.

But no, because He didn't crush His Son, because He didn't love His Son. No, no, no. He loved his son, but he also loved you. And wanted to make a way to pardon you from your sins. And Jesus offered himself up as a willing, suffering servant.

No one made Jesus come and take your place. It was His pleasure to do His Father's will. He always did what pleased His Father. You say, but the Jews didn't know the truth about Jesus at His crucifixion. Their rejection of Him didn't end then.

Oh no? The cross didn't definitively testify of the truth of Jesus' claims. Let's look. Listen to Matthew 27. This is right at the point of Jesus' death.

Just listen to Matthew 27 verse 45. Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. When Jesus died there were three hours of unexplainable darkness over all the land. Now Listen to just a few verses down, 51-54. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of their graves after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many." So when the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, truly This was the Son of God.

That's a Roman centurion. Luke adds this in Luke 23 verse 48. Luke 23 verse 48, and the whole crowd, this is right after what I just read in Matthew, the earthquake, the darkness and the earthquake, Luke 23 verse 48, and the whole crowd who came together to that site, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned home. The death of Jesus Christ was anything but a quiet event. It was a public crucifixion and God was there sending darkness on the land for three hours.

And causing an earthquake, the rocks splitting. At Jesus' resurrection, dead people came out of their graves and went into the city. It must have been a buzz buzzing with all of these things. The crucifix, the death of Jesus was anything but a quiet event. What must these Pharisees have been thinking on that day?

Oh. Oh. When you have Roman centurions observing these things and saying, Surely this was the Son of God. What must these Pharisees have been thinking? These Pharisees that Jesus is talking to lived through that day and saw those things.

And by the way, many Jews were saved in the book of Acts. The early chapters of the book of Acts is filled with thousands of Jews conceding we killed the Messiah. Jesus did what He did completely united with His Father in every way. His Father never left Him alone. His Father was with Him.

Everything that Jesus said was in complete unity with His Father. Everything that Jesus did was in complete unity with his Father. Jesus says, the Father has not left me alone, for I always do those things that please him. Unfathomable. You can only be God and say that.

Think of your life. Have you ever had an hour of your life where you only did the things that pleased God? Let me answer the question for you. No, you have not. Not one hour of your life.

If you could have sinned to the heavens every other hour of your life, but if you just had one hour of your life where you did only what pleased the Father and that would get you into heaven, you could never get into heaven. If every thought had to meet the standard of this book, If every word had to meet the standard of this book, and if every action had to meet the standard of this book, for one hour you could never come up with a clean hour. But Jesus, his whole lifetime, always and only did those things which pleased his father. Do you remember what Jesus said to his disciples after his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well? He preaches the gospel to this Samaritan woman who had had five husbands and The one she was with now wasn't even her husband.

His disciples hadn't been there for the first part of the interaction because they had gone into the city to buy food. They come back and Jesus says this, My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work. In other words, as much as you and I crave food, need food, food is so essential to us, doing the will of His Father, Jesus craved doing the will of His Father like you crave food. Doing what pleased His Father, doing the will of His Father was essential to Jesus. He hungered to do the things that pleased his Father.

It was like food to him. And this is essential to his defining work, his death on the cross. It had to be a spotless lamb who would be sacrificed for sins. It had to be a lamb without blemish. This is all symbolic in the Old Testament.

You bring to offer to God, not crippled animals, they had to be spotless, They had to be without blemish. Because the point is, there's only an acceptable substitute if the substitute doesn't have the same problems that the one being sacrificed for has. You don't sacrifice a cripple for a sinner. You don't offer a blemished sacrifice because that thing will die for itself, not for you. This phrase, Jesus always did those things which pleased His Father, is absolutely essential to you and me and to the offering of this sacrifice, Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is John the Baptist in chapter 1. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world because he perfectly withheld himself from the things that were not pleasing to his Father. If there was anything that men throw themselves headlong into but God isn't pleased with, Jesus perfectly withheld himself from those things. And Jesus perfectly gave himself to those things which pleased God. That's love.

That's love. Jesus lived a life in perfect Love. Love is the fulfillment of the commandments. That's what Paul says. Jesus says, on these two commandments, the command to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. The law is summarized by one word, love. Jesus gave himself perfectly to love in his life. He always did those things that pleased His Father. And so you can live.

Jesus didn't always do the things that pleased His Father. If He had one sin, the sacrifice would not be acceptable to an utterly holy God, and you can't live, and I can't live. It made the sacrifice acceptable. Two applications. Simple and obvious.

Those are the best kind. Number one, do you believe who Jesus clearly and consistently claims to be? So much so that when the Pharisees say, Who are you? He says, go back and listen to the audio. I am who I've been claiming to be from the start.

Do you believe who Jesus clearly and consistently claimed to be? And have you entrusted yourself to Him and His defining work? There is no life for you outside of the cross of Jesus Christ. There is no life for you outside of His defining work. Was Jesus a perfect example?

Yes, he was a perfect example. Did he teach perfect truth? Yes, he taught perfect truth. Are these the most important things about him? Not in your life.

Very literally, not in your life. You're not going to have life. If Jesus comes and is just a perfect example, that just aggravates your sin. It just aggravates. It just accentuates and highlights how unlike that you are and I am.

If Jesus comes to be a perfect example. If Jesus comes to teach perfect truth, all that does is it stands in condemnation of our hypocrisy. But Jesus came above everything else to shed His blood. The Father was pleased to crush Him and accept Him as a sacrifice because He always did the things that pleased His Father. Do you believe those claims?

Jesus laid claim to all of that. Clearly, consistently, repeatedly, do you believe that? And have you entrusted yourself? Have you turned your back on every other hope to throw yourself upon Jesus Christ? If Jesus can't save you, you can't be saved.

That is the truth of Scripture. Number two, Jesus always does those things that please his Father. Jesus always does those things that please his Father. Now, with that as the backdrop, Jesus always and only doing the things that please God. Now listen to this verse, 2 Corinthians 5.21.

If you don't have 2 Corinthians 5.21 memorized, Do it now. I'm going to replace pronouns because it's easy to get lost in the pronouns. So, I want one pronoun, is he. I'm going to replace it with God because God is what's meant. God the Father is what's meant.

And then I'm going to replace a him with Jesus because that's what's meant. Otherwise, it's word for word. 2 Corinthians 521. For God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. For God the Father made Jesus the Son who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, in Jesus.

Tie that together with the phrase that Jesus always did and does, always and only does the things that please the Father. 2 Corinthians 521 means that God's disposition towards you is the disposition that He has towards His Son who always and only does the things that please Him. It should blow your mind. You have traded places with Jesus. Your sins put upon Him like they would transfer the sins to the scapegoat or to the sacrifice.

Your sins passing from you who committed those sins to Jesus who never committed one sin and Him dying that death and bearing that anger. But it's not just that. We believe in double imputation. That's a fancy theological word, meaning it's two directions. The sin goes in one direction to Jesus, but the righteousness comes in the other direction, from Jesus to you.

And you get the favor that Jesus deserves from living an entire life of grateful complete obedience, always and only doing the things that pleased His Father. God looks upon you that way. God treats you that way. This is just a glorious truth. It's too good to be true, only God said it, and he can't lie.

If it wasn't God, you would have to say, it's too good to be true. It's a fairy tale. People who are like me could never deserve to be treated like that. Let's pray. We're glad that we know that you can't lie Lord or otherwise we couldn't believe.

You would treat us as a son or as a daughter who had only ever done the things that pleased you. Your disposition towards us who have repented and believed the gospel is like that. Thank you Lord. Oh fill our hearts with joy. Fill our hearts with joy that your disposition towards us is not a frowning disposition.

You do not have a furrowed brow towards your children. But you think on us, love us, treat us as if we had only done the things that pleased you. We praise your name for the glory of the gospel. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.