JOHN 5:37-47 WHAT GOD EXPECTS FROM YOU2020 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: John 5:37-47 What God Expects From You

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2020. If you ever build a website for a company, one of the biggest challenges that you will face is getting a clear set of expectations.

When it comes to building websites, a lot of times there's like these vague ideas that people want. You know, they want their website to be nice. They want it to be cool. They want it to be modern. And usually after, you know, you've done some work and put together a page for them, you know, the feedback or the response will be it. It's pretty cool, but, you know, can you make it pop, you know? And there's these really vague ideas of, well,

Well, what is it that you're really looking for? And the clear expectations can be really hard to identify as you're working together with the company to build the website. And so one of the things that we will often do in this kind of industry is, well, let's look at some examples. Can you show me some examples of websites that you really like? You know, so when you say, I want it to pop, well, what does that look like? What other websites do you see that have that experience that you're looking for?

But on the other side of that, we also usually ask for examples of websites that you do not like. And that can be very helpful in clarifying the expectations of a customer, recognizing that this is what I don't want. And it really helps to identify those things. And here, as we look at John chapter five, it's kind of the approach that we're taking in this. And that is looking at the example of what the Lord does not like.

and what is not appropriate and not good. Here in this passage, we find Jesus interacting with the religious leaders, and he clearly identifies some issues that they have. And as he identifies those issues, it's instructive to us.

so that we can learn, so that we can understand what it is that God wants from us based on the things that he critiques about these religious leaders. And so I've titled the message this morning, What God Expects From You. What does God expect from you?

And you might have in your head some vague idea of expectations, but here as we look at this passage, we can find a lot of clarity and some specific things that the Lord would require and desire from us.

As we face the days that we face and the uncertainties around us, a lot of times we can wonder, what does God expect of me in these specific circumstances and in these situations? And of course, we're not going to cover every possibility, but we can see here the principles, the truths that the Lord wants us to operate by.

as we work our way looking at the example of these religious leaders and the things that the Lord highlights as issues in their approach to him. Now, overall, John chapter 5 is a powerful chapter. It's a really powerful passage. And Jesus, in this chapter, explains his ministry. He explains his role. He explains his authority with great clarity and to great extent truth.

It's here in this passage, it's one of those passages where it's clear that Jesus is equal to the Father.

Jesus goes out of his way to make sure that everybody knows that him and the Father are in full agreement. They're in complete sync in regard to everything that happens. They are equal to one another. They're in full agreement with each other. And Jesus has spent the previous verses up to our passage this morning explaining that the Father testifies about the Son.

And you might be able to tell from my introduction here, I really wanted to teach the whole chapter. But I'm not going to get into all of those details. But I do want to just say, if you haven't spent much time in John chapter 5 lately, make sure you come back and spend some time in it. There's some really important truths about the life and ministry of Jesus that are found in there.

Pastor Thomas Constable puts it this way. This is the most thorough statement of Jesus's unity with the Father, divine commission, authority, and proof of Messiahship in the Gospels. And so you find it all packed in there in John chapter 5 from verses 16 on through the rest of the chapter.

But as we begin to look at this this morning, again, not trying to cover the whole chapter, but jumping to the conclusion of those things as Jesus is interacting with these religious leaders, we find ourselves considering what is it that God expects us

And there's four things that God expects from you that we'll see identified through this passage. And so jumping into verses 37 through 40, we get the first point for this morning. And that is that God expects you to ask Jesus for life. Here's what God expects from you. He expects you to come to Jesus. Starting in verse 37, it says, And the Father himself who sent me has testified of me.

Here as Jesus addresses these religious leaders,

Again, he's going back to his authority as, well, a united member of the triune nature of God. And he speaks of the Father and he says, look, the Father himself has testified of me. The Father sent me. You should listen to me, Jesus is telling them, because I have been sent by the Father whom you say that you love, whom you say that you follow, whom you say that you believe in.

Now, Jesus points out, you have not seen his form. You haven't seen the Father. You haven't heard his voice audibly, but you do have the scriptures. And through that, the Lord has been, the Father has been testifying of me. Now, the verses leading up to verse 37, where we're starting, is a little bit more detail about the Father's testimony of Jesus. And he outlines it this way, the testimony of John the Baptist sent by the Father to prepare the way.

the testimony of the miracles that Jesus performs. And they authenticate the fact that Jesus is on the Father's mission, and he's united with the Father, and he is equal to the Father. And then the fulfillment of the scriptures, the scriptures foretold, and then Jesus fulfilled those things about the promised Savior. And so

Jesus makes the case here that the father testified, you haven't seen his form, you haven't heard his voice, yet there's plenty of reason for you to believe that I am who I claim to be. All that being so, Jesus says, still you do not have his word abiding in you. Even though there is all of this religion that you're participating in, there's all of this testimony that has been given to

He says, you do not have his word abiding in you in verse 38. And notice the issues. In verse 39, he says, you search the scriptures. But then in verse 38, he says, you do not have his word abiding in you. Think about that for a second. You can search the scriptures and the religious leaders for sure. They searched the scriptures. They knew the scriptures.

At the same time, it was true that they did not have his word abiding in them. And so this is the issue that Jesus presents here. You know the scriptures, you have the scriptures, you search the scriptures, but you don't have the word of the Father. These religious leaders were very religious. And at the same time, they did not know God. And what Jesus is declaring here is that they don't actually believe God.

They don't actually believe what God has said. They believe in a God. They believe, you know, in the idea of God, the concept of God, but they don't actually believe what God has said. And so the result is they don't have life. Again, verse 40, Jesus says, "'You are not willing to come to me that you may have life.'"

And so here you have this group of people that are very religious, very devoted, they're devout, they're meticulous in their keeping of their understanding of the scriptures, and yet they do not have life. Now, what does that mean that they don't have life? Because obviously they were breathing as Jesus was talking to them, right?

If you back up a few verses to verse 24, Jesus says this, I say to you, he who hears my word and believes in him who sent me has everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. And so Jesus here is talking about spiritual life. The one who believes in him has spiritual life right now. By believing in Jesus,

Going back to John chapter 3, you have the interaction with Nicodemus and the instruction of Jesus that you must be born again. And there's a new spiritual life that takes place when you or I believe in Jesus. And so as he talks about coming to him that we might have life, he's speaking about that spiritual life, but he's also speaking about eternal life. He says, "...and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death into life."

And so it's that spiritual life that we can experience right now, but it's also that life in eternity that is promised to his followers. And here Jesus tells these religious leaders, you don't have this life. You're religious, you're devout, you're very sincere in your beliefs, but you don't have life. Why not? Because they're not willing to come to Jesus. They refuse to come to Jesus. Pastor David Guzik says, we see Jesus.

that these reasons essentially have to do with the heart, not with the mind. People like this may hide behind intellectual excuses, but the bottom line is that they have a heart problem with Jesus, not a head problem. The issue here is not that they can't understand or not that there's not enough credible evidence for them to believe. The issue is the issue of a will. They choose not to. They refuse to

to believe. They would rather hold on to their concepts of God. They'd rather hold on to what they want to believe and their version of the story than what is actually declared by the Father and through Jesus Christ. And so Jesus here is highlighting this issue for us so that we can pay attention and make sure that we don't follow in that same example, in that same pattern.

So again, the point is God expects you to ask Jesus for life. Here's what God expects from you. Here's what the Father expects from you and I, that we would be willing to come to Jesus that we might have life. That we would be willing to come and ask Jesus for forgiveness, for a new spiritual life, not just that one-time conversion thing, but life.

The idea here and the wording, as he says, not willing to come to me, the idea is in the present tense, it means you're not willing to continue to keep coming to me to find your source of life in me. And we need to do the opposite of what these religious leaders were doing. God expects you to go to Jesus continually, repeatedly, ongoing, and ask him for life. You know, asking Jesus for life is...

Maybe as I was talking about the websites, right? It can be maybe in your head like a vague idea. Well, like what does that really mean and what does that really look like? And I would encourage you to consider that asking Jesus for life is not much different than asking anyone for something. Especially in this day that we live and even the technology that we're experiencing right now in the middle of this service is

You know, I'm talking to a camera. The only other person in this room is Jonathan, but I know you're on the other side of that lens. I know you're on the other side of that screen. And so I'm talking to you as if you were right here with me in the room. And we do that all the time. We talk to people by text message. We can't see them. We can't, you know, verify that they're there reading the message, but we communicate back and forth. We talk on the phone.

And we're trusting the technology to work and the signals to connect and we're connecting with people even if we can't see them, even if we don't have their form right in front of us, even if we can't see them in person, we're connected, we're conversating, we're talking.

And I would encourage you to take the same approach with Jesus and ask Jesus for life and talk to him just as you would talk to somebody on the phone. Talk to him as just as if you would, you know, text message somebody that it's that real, that it's that true, that it's happening. You can talk to Jesus as if he is a real person right there with you because you know what? Jesus is a real person and he's right there with you. Ask him for life.

Keep asking him for life. Ask him for help. Ask him for guidance. Ask him for the truth. Ask Jesus for life. Everlasting life now and everlasting life on into eternity. Keep asking Jesus for life, for life. That is, don't ask him one time for life, but for the rest of your life, keep asking Jesus for life.

Well, moving on to verses 41 and 42, we get the second point for this morning, and that is God expects you to love him. God expects you to love him. Verse 41 and 42 says this, Jesus says,

The wording here, this is the New King James version of the Bible, which is what I typically use, and the wording is a little bit awkward for us. As Jesus says, I do not receive honor from men, but I know you. What is he exactly saying? I think the New Living Translation puts it in a way that will help us understand it a bit better. The New Living Translation puts these verses this way. Your approval means nothing to me, because I know you,

You don't have God's love within you. Jesus is saying here, I'm not worried about getting honor or receiving honor from you. Your approval of me, it doesn't have any impact on me because I know that you don't have God's love within you. You don't really love God. Now, the religious leaders that Jesus is talking to, given the opportunity, they would strongly disagree with this statement.

And they would come back very fiercely and say, no, we do love God. In fact, we love God more than you do. And that's evident by all of these things. And they would have their list of reasons that would back up their claim of their profession to love God. And the religious leaders would make a distinction. I love God, but I don't believe you.

And they would try to separate the two. I love God, but I am not going to listen to you, Jesus. I'm not going to believe what you have to say. I'm not going to follow you. I don't think you're from God. I believe God. I love God, but I don't believe you, and I'm not going to follow you. Now, Jesus has been making the point throughout this passage that the Father and Son are in complete unison. Jump back a few verses to verse 19 here of John chapter 5.

Jesus makes it clear. The Father and the Son are in such unison. They're synced together in such a way. There is no separating them. And you cannot like dissect the triune nature of God. You cannot dissect the Father from the Son and say, I'm going to do this.

I love the Father. I believe the Father. I'll follow the Father. I'll listen to the Father, but not Jesus. You cannot separate the Father and the Son. Pastor Warren Wiersbe says, they claim to love God, but their attitude toward Jesus Christ proved that their love was counterfeit. They would very fiercely insist that they loved God, but it was

Only according to their definition of love and on their terms, according to what they thought, they didn't actually love God. It was fake. It was made up. It was a show that they put on. And so they would try to make a distinction. But Jesus says, no, I don't do anything apart from the Father. Me and the Father, we're in lockstep. What he does is what I do, and I do the things that he does. No matter which way you try to slice it,

The Father and the Son are united together in unison. And you cannot have one without the other. You cannot accept one and reject the other. You cannot pick or choose, no matter which way you try to slice it, the Father instead of Jesus or Jesus instead of the Father. Sometimes people refer to the God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. There is no separation. There is no distinction. There is no division between

of God in this way. It's the same God from beginning to end, from Genesis through Revelation. And you can't pick and choose which parts of God you like and which parts of God you don't like. You can't pick and choose and say, well, I love Jesus and I follow Jesus, but man, that God of the Old Testament, boy, that's a God of wrath and that's a God of judgment and I just can't handle that and I can't believe in that God.

Well, you can't go back to the Old Testament and say, all right, this is, you know, really what it's all about. I really love these laws and this diet and I got to follow these things and that's the way to really have life. But, you know, Jesus and Paul and those guys came along and yeah, no, I'm going to throw that aside. I'm not going to, I don't believe any of that. I'm just going to go back to the Old Testament and follow that. You can't, you can't do that. Jesus here is explaining that.

Me and the Father are one. We are united. We'll see this in a couple chapters in our reading. In John chapter 8, Jesus says, If God were your Father, you would love me. For I proceeded forth and came from God, nor have I come of myself, but he sent me. Jesus makes it clear in his ministry. You cannot separate the two. Jesus came because the Father sent him.

He didn't just come on his own. It's not, you know, the son's will versus the father's will. The father and the son are in complete unison. That's important to understand for a lot of reasons. Sometimes people feel like, you know, the father is out to get you, you know, father's out to smack you down and judge you for sin. And it's Jesus who intervenes. But again, I would remind you, it's the father who loved you so much that he sent his only begotten son.

There's not this competing agendas between the Father and the Son. And if you're comfortable with the idea that Jesus loves you and wants what's best for you, you should also know the Father does too. That they're in unison together in every aspect and every detail. You cannot separate the Father and the Son. I was trying to think of some examples of ways we might do this, and I only came up with some silly examples. So here they are.

You say, I love tacos, but I hate tortillas. And it's like, well, you could try to separate those two, but if you take out the tortilla, what do you have left? I mean, it doesn't make sense. I love tacos, but I hate tortillas. Or I love spaghetti, but I hate pasta.

Like you can't, no, no, no. If you love spaghetti, if you want spaghetti without the pasta, that's a different thing, right? That's not spaghetti any longer. In a similar way, we can't dissect and pull apart and try to pick and choose. I like this part of God. I don't like that part of God. I like the Father. I don't like the Son or, you know, Holy Spirit. You know, He's just weird. Just throw Him out. And you cannot, you know, pick and choose which parts, right?

Now again, here as Jesus is addressing these religious leaders, he says, look, I'm not worried about receiving honor from you because you don't love God. And they would disagree with that. But it's because they tried to follow their own version of God. And this is what happens when you pick and choose. And so here is the point is God expects you to love him. The point that we need to understand and to walk away with is that God expects you to love him completely, fully, completely.

All of him, not just pieces of him. And I would encourage you to consider, if you are one of those who are really wrestling with, you know, the God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament, there's no issue there between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Same God, same heart, same mind, not different at all. But your understanding of God is not quite complete. You need to get to know him, to have a better understanding so that you don't have that conflict within you

Because there is no conflict there. It's just your relationship and your understanding of who God is. God expects you to love him, to get to know him so that you can receive and love and walk with him in complete totality, not just in the pieces that you desire, not just in the parts that you prefer, not just in the things that you are able to grasp hold of and understand.

And this really isn't surprising to us. Jesus tells us this is the greatest commandment, right? Matthew chapter 22, as the scribes are trying to trap him and they ask him which is the greatest commandment, he refers back to the Old Testament. He says, here's the greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first commandment, the greatest commandment, the most important thing for each of our lives, to love God first.

with all that we are. To love Him. To give ourselves to Him. To have a passion for Him and to give Him the priority of our lives.

Now, if that's something that you're still kind of wrestling with and struggling with, I would encourage you to spend some time in the book, 1 John, also written by John the Apostle here that we're reading his gospel. But in his letter, 1 John, he talks a lot about how to know that you love God.

And so if you're wondering about that, if you're wrestling with that internally, there's some great insights that he has for you to help you walk through that and help you understand how to love God and what that looks like in your life. But moving along here in John chapter five, we get now to the third point in verses 43 and 44. And that is that God expects you to seek honor from him above all. Verse 43 says, I have come in my father's name

Here Jesus talks about the honor that these religious leaders are seeking. He says, first of all, I came in my Father's name. I'm identified with my Father, who you say that you follow, who you say that you believe, who you say that you love.

I'm sent by him. I'm coming in his name as his agent, but you don't receive me. And the irony is if somebody comes in their own name, well, that is a person that you will receive. And so here you have this big gap in logic that we believe the father, we love the father, but here comes one sent by the father in the name of the father, we reject him. But Jesus says later on, someone is gonna come in their own name.

And you're going to embrace that one. Now, this is most likely a reference to the final Antichrist who will come on the scene in those last days and during that tribulation period. At the same time, there are many Antichrists who have gone out. The Apostle John shares later on in his letters. And so it's not a unique thing that will only happen on that occasion sometime in the future.

This is actually a reality that continues to happen ongoing every day, even today, right now, as we consider these things. You have one who is sent by the highest authority, who is himself the highest authority, sent by the highest authority, and yet people easily lay aside what he has said, lay aside what he has proclaimed and what he has taught, and instead we grasp hold of someone who is infinitely lesser than Jesus.

And we believe this authority, this doctor, this PhD, this scientist, this uncle or aunt, or, you know, whatever. We grasp hold of these people who are infinitely lesser than the Lord. But here is Jesus, the highest authority, sent by the Father, the highest authority. And they won't receive. And we don't receive, but we easily grasp hold.

of someone else much lesser. Jesus continues that thought in verse 44 and he says, how can you believe? It's not a big surprise then. It's not a big shock that you don't believe because what you're seeking after is honor from one another. This word honor, it speaks about a favorable opinion. It can carry the sense of reputation or praise, rewards,

It's the idea, though, of this favorable opinion. Here's what Jesus is saying. How can you believe? It's not a big surprise that it's hard for you to believe the Father because what you really desire, what you're really craving is acceptance, honor, favorable opinions from people around you. You're trying to receive honor from one another. That's what you're all about. That's what you're after.

That's what you're seeking. And Jesus highlighted this several times in his interactions with the religious leaders. He talked about, you know, praying long prayers for people to see. Fasting in such a way that everybody could tell that you're fasting. And what they were after was not the object of fasting and the purpose of fasting. What they were after was not, you know, the purpose of prayer and seeking the Father in that, but they were looking for the public opinion, right?

the favor from the people around them that would come by behaving in that way. He says, look, you're seeking to receive honor from one another instead of seeking the honor that comes from the only God. It's not a surprise that you can't believe when you don't seek to honor God. And what you want most is the acceptance, the favorable opinions of people around you.

when that's what's most important to you, when the opinions of people around you are what's most important to you, you cannot believe God. Those things are opposite of each other. To seek people's favor is contrary to seeking to please God. Pastor Thomas Constable puts it this way. He says, Jesus' critics could not believe on him because they preferred the praise of men to the praise of God.

They consistently chose what was popular over what was true. In contrast, Jesus lived solely for God's glory and did not pander to the praise of people. I think there's some powerful truth in there. And I pray that it lands on those who need to hear it. I think as a general observation of our society, we are a people who consistently choose what is popular over what is true.

And whether that be a popular thing in glory or a popular thing in, you know, fear and, you know, stay away from. But we were easily swayed away from the truth by what's going on around us. What's popular? What are people saying? What are the ideas and the things being subscribed to and held on to? This is a very real danger for us.

This is not just an issue that the religious leaders in Jesus' day at that time, they dealt with, but boy, we're so much better off. We've overcome all those things. No, this is a real danger for us. There is lots of temptation in your life. And if you haven't thought about this, you need to think about it. There is lots of temptation in your life to please people. Peer pressure does not end after high school, right? The rest of your life, you still have the temptation and face the battles of,

of wanting to please people. And I'm not saying that we should seek to be offending people. You know, that's not the objective either. But where are we looking to receive honor from? From people at the expense of truth, at the expense of what God has said. Hey, there's lots of pressure to conform to popular thought. There is lots of pressure for us to get on board with the world's agenda, with the world's perspective, with what society around us is telling us.

And it would be really comfortable to give in to that pressure, to fall in line with those things because, well, then we could have the favorable opinions of people around us. We'd be in their good graces because we've agreed with them and we've sought to please them. Jesus says, how can you believe when you seek to receive honor from one another and you're not concerned about honor yourself?

from God. The Apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 1 verse 10 says, There was a lot of pressure for the Galatians to adopt a different gospel, to believe different truths, to get in line with what the others around them were saying.

And Paul was writing the letter to the Galatians saying, I can't believe you're just diving into this. You're just accepting this to fit in amongst the people and have this favor in these, the minds and the ideas of what the people around you are saying. Paul says, I'm holding fast to the gospel. And if I was seeking to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. I can't

Seek to please men and have that be the priority and at the same time seek to serve the Lord. Again, not saying that our objective is to offend or that when we offend people, you know, then we're really serving the Lord. But I am saying that there is a conflict that exists and when the priority of our heart is to have that favorable opinion from others around us, to receive honor from one another, then we're really serving the Lord.

it puts us in a place where we, it's no surprise we can't believe God because we're not as concerned about what he thinks and what pleases him. We're more concerned about what the people around us think. And that is not the place that any of us should be. God expects you to seek honor from him above all. He expects you to seek out his pleasure. What does he want? What is best according to what he says?

We should have a strong desire, a strong urge, a high priority in our hearts to hear the Lord say, well done, good and faithful servant, when we stand before him.

Is that your heart right now? I mean, sometimes we can fall into this status where, you know, we're just hoping to make it to heaven. Like, we just want to get there. We just want to be there. As long as we get there, that's all that matters. And whether or not we do a good job, that's not that important to us. And that's a dangerous heart to have. Because if we're not seeking honor from the Lord, well, we're seeking honor from somewhere else. We either are seeking to glorify ourselves, or we're seeking to be a part of the Lord.

Or we're seeking things and pursuing things that, well, will cause others around us to give us honor. Instead, we need to put the Lord first and to really endeavor to serve the Lord in a way that he would say, well done, good and faithful servant. Is that what you're working towards? Would it be your testimony this morning? Lord, I want to please you.

That's what God expects. God expects you to have the heart and the mindset that says, Lord, my desire is to please you. What you say matters most and what you want matters most. More than what mom or dad or uncle or aunt or society or neighbor, no matter what they say, my main desire, my primary desire is to please you. And if that's your heart, if that's your desire, please,

Well, the Lord tells us later on in John chapter 12, he says, if anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him, my father will honor. You want honor? Seek it from the father by serving Jesus. And if you're not seeking honor from the father, you're seeking honor from somewhere else, trying to generate it yourself, trying to get it from people around you. It puts you in opposition to believing Jesus

the Father, to believing God at his word and following him. Well, moving to our final point now, verses 45 through 47. Fourth point is, God expects you to believe the scriptures. Verse 45 says, do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words? Jesus says, look, I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to accuse you before the Father. Here's the irony. You claim to believe Moses. You claim to follow Moses. But it's Moses himself who will accuse you. Here what Jesus is saying is, look, you are accountable to the light that you have. You have the light of Moses in the scriptures that he recorded.

You have that light. You're accountable to that light. And it's that light that you have, that you claim to believe, that you claim to follow. It's that light that you have that you will be accountable to and accused by. Jesus says you claim to believe Moses, but you don't actually. If you actually did believe Moses, then you would believe me because Moses wrote about me. And that's something interesting to consider. Moses wrote about Jesus.

He was on the scene several thousand years earlier, but he wrote about Jesus. Now the books of Moses are the first five books of the Old Testament. And as you read through those books, you'll find many direct prophecies about the coming Savior. Beginning in Genesis chapter 3, all the way through the end of Genesis, there's promises of this Savior throughout. In Deuteronomy chapter 18, the Lord speaking through the prophet Moses in Deuteronomy 18, 18 says, I will raise up for them a prophet who

Like Moses from among their brethren, I'll put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And it shall be that whoever will not hear my words, which he speaks in my name, I will require it of him. Here we're seeing the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 18, verse 18 and 19. The father sent the son speaking on behalf of the father in the father's name. And those who will not receive, those who will not hear, he says, I'll require it of them.

Jesus says, Moses will be your accuser because he wrote about me. And again, there's these direct prophecies and I just threw out a couple. There's so much packed into the books of Moses. The pictures of Jesus in the tabernacle, the pictures of Jesus in the sacrifices. It's all about Jesus from beginning to end. Going back to verse 39 here of John chapter five. Again, Jesus said, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me.

The scriptures that you say you believe, they testify of me, Jesus says. They're all about me. Moses spoke about Jesus. Last week, we considered Luke chapter 24 and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And Jesus came alongside. He's walking with them. He's talking with them and hearing about, you know, the scene that happened in Jerusalem. And we saw this portion here in verse 25 and 27 that he begins to expound to them the scriptures saying, look,

This is what was prophesied. This is what was declared. Beginning with Moses, it says in verse 27, and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. This is exactly what the Lord said would go down in his word. It's recorded all throughout the scriptures, not just the New Testament. The Old Testament that the religious leaders had and believed, or at least claimed to believe. The Old Testament that they claimed to follow.

that they said was from the Father, they didn't actually believe it. But they searched the Scriptures, and it's really amazing to think about, and it's important to think about because it's a warning shot for us. These religious leaders read Scripture. And I don't know what your Bible reading is like, but I can pretty much guarantee your Bible reading is nothing like the Bible reading of these religious leaders. They were devout in their reading of the Scriptures.

And they learned the scriptures from a young age. They devoted their lives to it. They studied the scriptures. They memorized scriptures. They counted every detail, every letter, every word of the scriptures. They read books about scriptures, had conversations about scriptures continually. They quoted scriptures, talked about scriptures, and all the while, completely and totally deceived themselves to thinking that they had life.

Because of their engagement in the scriptures. And Jesus here is saying, but you don't have life. Because they were using the scriptures improperly. That's not what the scriptures were intended for. Yes, they should be read and studied and learned. But if it's limited to just that, if it's limited to just head knowledge, well, there's going to be some major issues.

That's not believing the scriptures. Knowing the scriptures, reciting the scriptures, memorizing the scriptures, that's not believing the scriptures. James tells us in James chapter one that we ought to be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving ourselves. You see, there's that danger of just being a hearer and learning, memorizing, reciting, talking about, reading books about, you know, all of those things. You could do all of those things and just be a hearer and deceive yourself. That's what these religious leaders had done.

They were not willing to do the word, to really believe the word. He challenges us to consider. If you're just a hearer of the word, it doesn't change your life. It doesn't impact you at all. But if you look into the perfect law of liberty and continue in it, if you base your life and build your life and live according, then you're not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word. He says, you will be blessed in what you do. Be a doer.

This is what it means to believe the scriptures. It includes the reading, the studying, the memorizing, the talking about it, and all of that, but it's not limited to that. Then we need to go forward and let the word of God instruct us how to believe, what to do, how to think, directions to go, decisions to make. Let God's word be the foundation and direction for us. I would maybe liken it to,

to a cookbook. You know, I can give you the best-selling cookbook of all time, and I don't know what that is. I tried to look it up, but there's no clear definitive answer. So I could give you the best cookbook that I could find, and if you just put it on your shelf, it doesn't help you. If you memorize every page of that cookbook and do nothing else, it doesn't actually help you. If you tear out the pages and begin to eat the pages of the cookbook, that's not what it's meant for. It's

If you ignore the cookbook and go to Jack in the Box, you'll have a good meal, but not as good as if you followed what was contained within the cookbook. Now, don't eat the cookbook. Don't ignore it. Don't just memorize it. Read it and then follow the recipes. Do what it says and put that meal together and experience something great. This is like the word of God for us. It's not just for reading. It's not just for memorizing. It's for

It's not meant for ignoring and following some other philosophy or belief. Get into the word of God. Believing the word of God is more than just knowing what it says. It's then applying that recipe, cooking up a great dish and experiencing what it is that God has prepared for you. And so here the Lord gives us some clear expectations. Again, as we look at the example of these religious leaders, it shows us this is what the Lord does not like.

And so it makes clear what he does like for us, that we can seek to live with him. And as you consider these things, God expects you to ask Jesus for life. Ask him. He's right there with you. You can talk to him, rely upon him, and trust him for life, for everlasting life, for direction in this life, for the guarantee of life beyond this life.

God expects you to love him, to put him first with all your heart and soul and mind and strength for him to be the passion, the priority of your life. He expects you to seek honor from him above all else, that your desire would be to please him, that as you enter into eternity, he would be able to say, well done, good and faithful servant. And God expects you to believe the scriptures, to take his word and to let it impact and change your life.

These are some clear expectations from God. And I think the final thing to notice in all of this, these things are all relationship-based. They're not works-based. You might think about expectations from God and in your mind have a list of, well, he wants you to do this and do that and do this and do that. Don't do that. There's this list of works that you might put together. That's what the religious leaders had done. And they lived their life

based on this list of works. And so they missed the real relationship with God. These are all relationship-based. Talk to Jesus. Ask him for life. Love him. Seek to walk with him and please him. Seek to apply what he says to your life and live out in obedience to him. It's all about your interaction with him. This is what God expects from you, to seek him first, to desire to know him and to walk with him in a way

that brings honor and glory to his name. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word and these clear expectations set forth from us. Lord, you don't set before us some vague thing that's hard to understand and make it a big mystery for what we would do to be pleasing to you. But Lord, you provide such clarity and show us, Lord, how you want us to relate to you. I pray that you would help us to do that, God.

May these truths continue to resonate in our hearts. And Lord, as we are tempted to behave like the religious leaders today, as we're tempted to operate as they did in our minds and in our hearts this week, Lord, I pray that you would recall these things to our minds, that we would recognize it, that we would turn from that and begin to seek you again in the way that you desire and in the way that's best for us. Lord, help us to be your servants to such a degree that we can be your servants to such a degree

that on that day that we stand before you, you would welcome us into your kingdom, saying, well done, good and faithful servant. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.