The scene must have puzzled Pilate. The man who had entered Jerusalem as the Messiah was now in custody and detained in his judgment hall. Even more puzzling, it was this Messiah’s own people who arrested Him and turned Him in.
The traditional understanding of Holy Week is that Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, so named because as He rode the donkey colt into Jerusalem, multitudes of people laid palm leaves in his path while cheering, “Hosanna, Hosanna, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord.”
This caught the attention of the chief priests and Pharisees, who wanted Jesus to tell the people to quieten down, saying, “Master, rebuke your disciples.” Such an event likely caught the attention of Pilate, whose job it was to keep the peace in Jerusalem, a task that was seemingly impossible.
With the people’s desire to overthrow Roman rule, and with a popular Messiah entering the city to the cheers of the crowd, Pilate was possibly bracing for the worst. Then, he awakens to find that the Pharisees had arrested that Messiah, and He was being held in the judgment hall.
When Pilate asked Jesus why He had been arrested, Jesus said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”
The Pharisees opposed Jesus because they wanted an earthly kingdom, and they wanted to rule that kingdom. Pilate lived in the flesh, and in the tangible aspects of this world. Even though he saw the truth of Who Christ was, and the words He spoke, Pilate was unable to repent and trust the Lord as His Savior.
And through this account in John 18, we find that the Kingdom of God is a Spiritual Kingdom. It being a Spiritual Kingdom, that means that our mission is a Spiritual mission, our priorities should be Spiritual priorities, and that the things of this world are mere distractions.
Check out the above video, where Pastor Leland Acker encourages us to live for the Spiritual things of God, not the temporary things of this earth.
As Jesus prayed the High Priestly Prayer in John 17, his time with the disciples was winding down. There in the upper room, Jesus and the disciples had just observed the Passover, and Christ had just instituted the Lord’s Supper. Both of those observances symbolized what He was about to do.
The Passover was a celebration of God leading the children of Israel out of Egypt by delivering them from the curse of the death angel and by leading them through the Red Sea. To commemorate this event, the Israelites were commanded by scripture to sacrifice a yearling lamb, without spot or blemish, to sweep all leaven out of the home, and to eat unleavened bread and drink wine (but not in a way to get drunk).
In scripture, Egypt is a symbol of the bondage of sin. The Lamb symbolizes a sacrifice made to God to atone for sin. The blood pays the penalty for sin. The Passover celebration pictured Christ, that sacrificial Lamb that took away the sins of the world, and by so doing, led His people out of the bondage of sin.
The unleavened bread given by the Lord as He instituted the Lord’s Supper symbolized His body, and the wine symbolized the blood that redeemed us from sin. This was about to be fulfilled by Christ as He went to the cross.
This truly was a powerful moment in the life of Christ, the lives of His disciples, and truly one of the most powerful moments for all human history. The symbols of our redemption intersecting with our moment of redemption, coupled with the imminent separation of Christ from His beloved disciples, drove our Lord to prayer, and thus we have recorded in the Gospel of John the High Priestly Prayer of Christ.
In John 17:17-19, Jesus prays for God to sanctify His disciples through truth, noting that God’s word is truth, and declares that He is sending the disciples into the world. From this, we learn about the sanctification of the disciples of Christ, the mission of the disciples of Christ, and the sanctification of Christ Himself.
In John 17:17, Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.”
The word “sanctify” was translated from the Greek hagiason, which in this case means to purify internally by the reformation of the soul.
In this prayer, Jesus was praying that God would transform the disciples from the inside out through His truth, which is written in His word, the Bible. Indeed, the Bible has transformative power, especially when one completely grasps the central message of the scriptures.
The Gospel, how Jesus died for our sins, according to the scriptures, was buried, and rose again the third day is the central theme of the Bible. Scripture fills out this message by introducing us to God through the creation in Genesis 1, demonstrating Him as the source of our lives in Genesis 2, depicting His formulation of our redemption in the immediate aftermath of our sin in Genesis 3:15, teaching that He demands sacrifice by faith and not empty works in Genesis 4, showing His gracious rescue of His people in Genesis 6-8, His ultimate sacrifice in the story of Abraham and Isaac, His redemption of His people from the bondage of sin in Exodus through Deuteronomy, and His provision for the faith-filled life in the book of Joshua.
Psalms declares His glory. Song of Solomon declares His passion. Isaiah declares His salvation. The four Gospels the events of the life of Christ that purchased our redemption, and Revelation foretells God’s final victory and our final deliverance.
These scriptures depict a God who gave us life so that we could have fellowship with Him, and Him companionship with us. Instead, we rejected Him and tried to overthrow His presence from our lives. Instead of accepting this rejection and allowing us to die the death that comes from cutting ourselves off from the source of life, He (through Christ) died that death on our behalf so we could be reconciled, endowed with eternal life, and reunited with Him in His Kingdom.
The deeper we understand this truth, the deeper we understand the Gospel, the more our souls are transformed into the people God intended on us being. The more fully we understand the Gospel, the more sanctified we are.
After praying for our sanctification, Christ then told why He wanted us sanctified.
Jesus told the Father that, as He was sent into the world, He was sending His disciples into the world.
In Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15 and Acts 1:8, we find that Christ sent His disciples into the world to preach and bear witness of the Gospel. Like His disciples, we are called to go into all the world preaching the Gospel to all who will listen, and baptizing those who believe, following up with good doctrinal teaching.
That is the reason we live as followers of Christ, and the reason our church exists.
Finally, Christ said that He sanctified Himself so that the disciples could be sanctified. In this sense, Christ was set apart, consecrated, and holy, as He prepared to go to the cross to redeem us.
These few verses in the larger High Priestly Prayer of Christ should remind us of the transformation God has worked in our lives, and motivate us to carry His Gospel to a lost and dying world.
As Jesus prayed in John 17:14, He made a profound statement. He said, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
This statement proclaims how Jesus Christ transformed His disciples by giving them God’s word. Because they were transformed, they were no longer of the world, meaning they no longer held the world’s mindset. Thus, the world hated them.
Now when Jesus said that He gave them God’s word, He didn’t mean that He gave them the scriptures. The disciples had known the scriptures from the time they were children. Starting at the age of five, they would have begun attending school, where they would spend several hours per day memorizing the Old Testament.
The Old Testament scriptures were so familiar to the disciples, that Jesus could say things like, “You have heard it said, (quotes Old Testament scripture),” and the disciples would know the scripture and where to find it. You find the same phenomenon with the Apostle Paul, who would write things like, “As it is written…” before quoting Old Testament scripture, with the expectation that the reader would know the verse.
However, just because one knows what the scripture says does not mean that they know the Word. Often it is that men know the scripture without knowing the heart of God. They know the verses without knowing the God Who inspired them. They know the words without knowing what they actually teach.
Scripture without the Lord is dead. Such was the case for the Pharisees and the Sadducees of Jesus’ day. They knew the entire Old Testament word for word, but they didn’t know God. They didn’t know the Gospel. They didn’t understand God’s master plan, which is our redemption and reconciliation to Him.
Thus, to the Pharisees and Sadducees, the Old Testament became an endless list of proclamations, rules, laws, ceremonies, commandments, and ordinances. Knowing these scriptures meant endless word studies, explorations of word definitions, and debating whether the words actually meant what they said.
This impacted the way the scriptures were taught as the disciples were growing up. So, when Jesus said, “I have given them thy word,” He was saying that He completed the word they knew by giving them the Living Word, Himself.
He accomplished this by speaking past the noise of doctrinal debates by going to the heart of what the scriptures addressed. While the Pharisees and Sadducees quoted the commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” before debating what the definition of “adultery” was, Jesus said, “If you look upon a woman to lust after her, you have committed adultery in your heart.”
In that teaching, Jesus pointed out that the sin in your heart is what separates you from God.
Many people parse words from the scriptures to delude themselves into thinking that they haven’t sinned. They redefine terms, they make excuses or find exceptions. However, when we apply the teachings of Christ to the words of the Law, we find not only are we all sinners, but we still have sin in our hearts.
It’s a sentiment the Apostle Paul knew all too well when He wrote, “But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
In Romans 7, Paul related how he struggled with sin, not doing the things he knew he should, while doing the things he knew he shouldn’t. It came to the point that even when he did the right things, he did those things with sin in his heart. It all came to the conclusion of Paul confessing his wretchedness and proclaiming his faith that Christ would redeem him from his brokenness.
Paul had this keen awareness of his broken condition because he not only knew the scriptures, but he knew the God behind the scriptures. Thus, in Galatians 3:24, he wrote that the “law is our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
As we continue to hold ourselves up to the light of the scriptures and the sinless perfection of Christ, we continually see our need for his grace and forgiveness. Thus, we find ourselves continually trusting in His forgiveness, and as we do that, we find ourselves being transformed by the scriptures to the point that we become more aligned with the values, character, and mission of Christ.
When that happens, we are no longer of the world, as Christ said. And when we are no longer of the world, we no longer have its values and mindset, it rejects us and we become its enemy.
We should not fear this, however, as Christ went on to pray that God would not take us out of the world, but that He would protect us from the evil one.
Christ wants us to be in the world so we can lead others to salvation. However, He wants us to be protected from being overcome by the world, absorbed by the world, or destroyed by the evil one. Knowing that this was Jesus’ prayer for us, and that the Father answers Jesus’ prayers, this should give us confidence.
So, spend time in the word, get to know the Lord through the word, and let that transform you. Then, boldly carry that word to others.
What if you knew, without doubt, that this was your last day to live. How would you spend your time? How would you live? How would you feel?
As Jesus prayed the High Priestly Prayer of John 17, He knew He was in His final hours. In a short amount of time, He and the disciples would retire to the garden on the Mount of Olives, and He would be arrested, stand trial, and be executed by crucifixion.
For our Lord, this death would actually accomplish His divine plan. Through His betrayal and death, Christ would bear the wrath of God for man’s sin, clear us of our guilt, and rise again, conquering death and winning us eternal life.
You see, God is the master conductor, who can make the symphony sound magnificent regardless of whether the members follow the sheet music. If the woodwinds get off tune, God can adjust the brass section to off-set their error and keep the symphony sounding amazing. If the brass lose time, God can adjust the percussion section.
Moreover, when man rebels against God, God not only corrects the sin and redeems man from the condemnation and destruction that follows, but He also has a way of using man’s misdeeds to further His cause. That’s one reason why Romans 8:28 says that “all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
So there Jesus is, in the upper room, with His disciples, having just observed the Passover and the first Communion, praying for them, as He prepared to go to the cross to redeem man from sin.
In His prayer, the Lord mentions that He will be leaving the world and going to the Father, so He prays that the Father will keep the disciples by His name, so that they will be one as Christ and the Father are one.
Jesus prayed that God would keep the disciples through His name. In this, we learn that we are not only saved by the authority of God, we are kept by the authority of God. Therefore, there is no danger of us losing our salvation.
Then, Christ prayed that we would be unified. That unity comes under God’s authority, and it comes from the Gospel. For a more in-depth look at John 17:11-13, see our pastor’s message posted above.
As creation and Christianity are debated between believers and skeptics, two questions often arise. The first is why God put the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden, and the second is why eating of that tree carried the death penalty.
In the below-posted video, Pastor Leland Acker makes the point that to fully give Adam and Eve life, they had to have the choice, the free-will to decide whether to follow God or reject Him.
When God formed man from the dust of the ground, and man became a living soul, man was gifted with the highest form of life. Far beyond existing, man was given self-awareness, consciousness, the ability to reason, to create, to problem-solve, to dream, and to cultivate. God, having created man in His image, bestowed upon man many of His own divine attributes.
Creating man to be a living soul, God wanted him to have the fulness of life. In order for man to be able to reason, create, solve and dream, man would also have to be given the choice of whether to trust and obey the Lord. God so wanted us to have the fulness of life, God gave us the choice.
So, to create the opportunity for that choice, God placed the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden of Eden. While one may wonder why knowledge would be a bad thing, keep in mind that this knowledge is an experiential knowledge. By eating the fruit, man would not be suddenly indwelt with endless information, rather he would come to learn good and evil by experiencing both. This knowledge would be gained apart from God, without His help and leadership.
Pursuing knowledge in this way would amount to a complete rejection of God.
So, man had a choice. Trust that God is good and live forever in His presence, or doubt God’s goodness, overthrow His presence in man’s life, and strike out on his own. The former carried with it the promise of eternal blessing. The latter carried a risk of death and eternal judgment.
The serpent (a.k.a. Satan) tempted Adam and Eve with just that. In his speech to Eve in Genesis 3, Satan said, “You will not die. For God knows that in the day that you eat thereof, you will be as gods, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:6 records the logic Adam and Eve used when deciding to eat the fruit. It says, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
The logic was, “It’s good to eat, it looks good, and it will make us wise (as gods.)” They ate so they could experience the pleasures of everything, take power over their own lives, and eject God from the life that He gave them.
This was not a simple mistake or a poor food choice. It was an all-out rebellion against God. They cut themselves off from God, Who gave them life.
And when you cut yourself off from the source of life, you die.
This would be a good time to pause and reflect. God said, “In the day that you eat of this fruit, you will surely die.”
Satan said, “In the day that you eat this fruit, you will be as gods.”
The question arises, “Where are Adam and Eve today?” Based on the answer to that question, who was telling the truth, God? Or Satan?
If you’ve ever attended a funeral, you know the answer to that question. There is good news, however. In the same chapter, God offered a way of redemption. By promising that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, while suffering a death-blow Himself, God promised a savior, a redeemer, who would come and save His people from the death that comes as a result of sin.
That Savior was Jesus Christ, who both defeated Satan and suffered death upon the cross, and obtained final victory through the resurrection. Belief in this brings salvation and eternal life, and wins God’s favor.
The result of that salvation is being welcomed into His eternal Kingdom, where God will have restored life to what He intended on it being in the Garden.
So, with all that in mind, trust that God is good. Trust in Him, and place your faith in the death Jesus died on the cross for your forgiveness of sin. Then leave that sinful lifestyle behind and follow Him.
Do we truly realize what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us?
Our Lord gave us life. Scripture teaches that Christ was the Word which was in the beginning with God, and was God. That all things (ourselves included) were created by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The Lord created man and gave him life, so that he became a living soul. Our consciousness, creativity, dreams, and problem-solving ability are all effects of this life that the Lord gave us.
And when man rebelled against God, not only through disobedience, but through an attempt to overthrow God’s power and authority through that disobedience, the Lord redeemed us from the death and condemnation that came as a result.
To do that, He became man, lived the life of a man, endured the same trials and tribulations we do on a daily basis, yet He did so without sin (Hebrews 4:15-16).
Scripture says He came into His own, and we didn’t receive Him, nor did we recognize Him. In fact, we rejected and betrayed Him, turned Him over to the Romans and had Him crucified.
That is the greatest sin ever perpetrated in the history of the world, the sin of rejecting Christ and nailing Him to the cross.
Yet, even in that, He endured the wrath of God on our behalf, so that we could be cleared of all guilt and could stand faultless before God. He even prayed, “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Having paid for our sins on the cross, the Lord resurrected on the third day, conquering death and the grave, and later ascended to the right hand of the throne of God where He ever lives to make intercession for us. He maintains our salvation by continually putting our cause before the Father in Heaven.
So, in John 17:9-10, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would clarify to the Father that He is praying for us. He said, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”
In that statement, Jesus said that He prays for us, that we are securely His, and that He finds glory in us.
Jesus prays for us. He earnestly pleads before the Father on our behalf, and He advocates for us. He stated that He prayed for “them,” and not the world. “Them” are His disciples, and not only His disciples, but all those who would believe based on their words. Therefore, since we have all become believers based on their words, then this prayer is for us as well.
And we know that Christ prays for us, because Hebrews 7:25 says that He “ever liveth to make intercession” for us. He intercedes, advocates for us. Advocacy… we don’t often associate that word with Christ, but it is truly what He does for us.
1 John 2:1-2 says “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”
John told us to sin not. That means to leave sin behind, to leave the sinful lifestyle behind, to leave “the life.”
However, if anyone sins, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He truly is our advocate.
His advocacy is one reason we are secure in our salvation, if we know Him as Savior.
Jesus said in John 17:9-10, “all mine are thine and thine are mine.” We belong to God, and in John 10, Jesus said, “no man is able to pluck them from my hand.” We have been passed from death to life, from condemnation to salvation, from guilt to innocence.
Then Jesus concludes this verse by saying, “and I am glorified in them.”
When Jesus said He was glorified in His disciples, it means His disciples bring him honor, renown, and cause Him to be well-known in a good day. This was something Jesus said had already happened. Simply by following Him, remaining faithful to Him even when all others walked away, and preaching His Kingdom, the disciples had already glorified Jesus.
When we remain faithful to the Lord, we glorify Him as well.
So, in light of this passage, knowing that Jesus prays for us, has secured our salvation, and is glorified in us, let us spend time in prayer, trusting in His forgiveness and redemption, and promoting His Gospel.
It’s not you, this world really is fallen, broken, and condemned.
The fallen nature of this world began when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. By doing so, they sought to expel God from the lives that He gave them. Thus, man not only began the process of dying, but the impact of sin entering the world affected everything. Suddenly, animals turned carnivorous and began hunting each other. Disease entered the world. The first murder happened, and Cain set out to establish a completely Godless society.
This sin led to brokenness, from Lamech marrying two wives in Genesis 4, to the world being full of violence in Genesis 6. Today, we see this brokenness in the form of a broken society, broken homes, and broken people. And this broken, fallen world stands condemned before God. Consider the words of Romans 3:10-19:
“As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. 13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: 14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood: 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways: 17 And the way of peace have they not known: 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. 19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”
The entire world has fallen, is guilty before God, and will be condemned, unless they find His salvation through Jesus Christ His Son. Romans 3:23-26 goes on to say:
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.”
Sure, the world may be fallen, broken and condemned, but it doesn’t have to be. Redemption, healing and salvation are found through faith in Jesus Christ.
So, in His prayer in John 17, when Jesus said, “I have manifested thy name to the men which thou gavest me out of the world,” He was indicating that He was not only the manifestation of God on this earth, but through His Gospel God’s people were rescued from this world. Check out the above-posted video of Pastor Leland Acker bringing a powerful message of redemption and grace.
The Greek language has a beautiful aspect to it… it puts the central thought of the message at the beginning of the sentence. So, when Jesus said in John 17:5, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” the central thought was “And now…” meaning “This moment.”
Christ was asking God to glorify Him in that moment, not the same way an impatient child wants their birthday present “right now,” or the way I wish my download would complete “right now,” but rather, Jesus was saying, “In this moment, glorify Me.”
The moment Jesus was talking about was the Gospel, His death, burial and resurrection for our sins, according to the scriptures. It is in the Gospel that Christ is truly glorified, because in the Gospel, His mission is completed. In the Gospel, His claims of Messiahship are validated. In the Gospel, He has His complete victory.
The Gospel is the culmination of all the promises God made in the Old Testament. It is the fulfillment of the Law, and it was the subject of the prophets. It was the inspiration of the Psalms. When Jesus Christ died for our sins, redeeming us from condemnation and shame, completing that redemption with the resurrection, the disciples saw their faith become tangible. From that moment, they could keep silent no more.
Because of the Gospel, Jesus Christ is the central figure in human history. Secular history can neither deny the existence of Christ, nor can it deny His impact on the world. While secular history ingores the divinity of Christ and His redemptive work through the Gospel, secular history records how the teachings of Jesus have influenced the greatest philosophers ever since. The teachings of Jesus have also influenced Western literature, and if we are to be honest, the ministry of Jesus is the foundation for Western civilization.
Without Jesus, there would be no Western civilization, at least not as we know it. Northern and Western European peoples were barbarians before the conquest of the Roman Empire. Secular history records that fact. Furthermore, the Roman Empire was heavily influenced by Christianity. With the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire (much of it in that first generation after Jesus rose to be at the right hand of the Father,) Roman culture was heavily influenced by the faith. And when Constantine had his conversion a couple hundred years later, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The conquered barbarians were now civilized, living by Christian values, even if those values were forced upon them. The influence of Christianity then gave rise to literature, architecture, education, the Sistine Chapel, art, and culture.
It was Christianity which motivated the pilgrims to seek a new life in the new world, and serious historians cannot deny the influence of Christianity on the American colonies and the new nations emerging in the Americas. They may deny or disagree with the faith, but they cannot deny its influence.
With this influence apparent, it becomes evident that without Jesus, there would have been no Western Civilization. What more glory could the Lord ask for than to be the bedrock of our culture’s history? I tell you, it is to be the foundation of our faith, which He is. Hebrews 12 says He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Christ was truly glorified in the Gospel, in the moment that He asked God for the glory. Next, Christ will be glorified when He returns. When Christ returns, there will be no debate about Who He is or What He is. There will only be the decision to surrender to Him, or to fight against Him. And many, unfortunately, will choose the latter.
So, with that, the glory of Christ is truly that He is the turning point of human history, the beginning of Western Civilization, but more importantly, the foundation of our faith, a faith which looks to God for forgiveness and righteousness, and trusts Him for redemption when He returns to this world and establishes His Kingdom on Earth. That truly is epic.
After instituting the Lord’s Supper, and preparing His disciples for His crucifixion, our Lord Jesus lifted up His eyes to our Heavenly Father and began to pray for us. In this prayer, often called the High Priestly Prayer of Christ, or the great intercessory prayer, our Lord prayed that we would be sanctified, protected, and that we would be able to carry our testimonies throughout the world.
True to the form He taught us in the Model Prayer, Christ praised God for all that He had done. In John 17:2, Jesus praised God for the power He gave, saying, “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.”
The power Christ referred to is the authority God gave Him. In fully realizing the beauty of His words, let’s take a closer look at the power God gave.
First, the power (authority) all belongs to God. Psalm 24:1-4 says, ” The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. 2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. 3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? 4 He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.”
God has all the power in the world because He created the world. He made it, He owns it, He makes the rules.
He spoke the world into existence. He formed man from the dust of the ground. He breathed into our nostrils the breath of life so that we became living souls. He is the source of our life, the source of our consciousness, the source of our creativity, dreams, hope and aspirations. These are all attributes of Him, and characteristics of the life that He has given us.
Therefore, it follows that we actually belong to Him, and that He is in control.
Man’s first act after being created was to rebel against God. Satan tempted Eve in the garden, saying that in the day she disobeyed God by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, she and Adam would be as gods. Adam and Eve’s sin of eating the fruit went beyond simple disobedience, it was an all-out rebellion against God’s authority in their lives.
They sought to dethrone God so that they could do as they please. It was a sin similar to Lucifer’s rebellion that led to His ejection from Heaven.
Yet, God, in His power and grace did not expel man the way He did Lucifer and the angels who rebelled. Instead, He gave His only begotten Son in order to redeem man, and create a way for man to ascend into His Holy Hill and stand in His Holy Place.
God’s power and wisdom are infinite, which is why God says His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9). That’s why, regardless of how hard it may be to understand what God is doing, it behooves us to trust Him and His plan.
It is that great power and authority that God gave to Jesus. Jesus prayed in John 17:2, “As thou hast given Him power over all flesh.” God has infinite authority over us all, and He gave that authority to Christ.
Jesus said in Matthew 28:18, “All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth.” That word power means authority. Jesus has all authority over all who live. It is He who will judge us, and He who will hold us accountable for whether we believed, and it is He who will decide whether we enter Heaven.
Jesus was crystal clear in His teachings. Those who believe will be saved, and those who believe will be welcomed into the Kingdom. On that note, we take a look at the power (authority) that He gave us.
In John 1:12, scripture says “But as many as received Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.”
To those who believe, that is, those who receive Him, Christ gave the power (authority) to become the sons of God. To those who believe, Christ gave the right to become the sons of God. This is an unalienable right endowed upon us by our creator, and our Lord.
Have you exercised this right? Have you realized this right? Do you know Christ as your Savior?
Furthermore, Christ gave us the authority to further the Kingdom on Earth. Jesus said in Matthew 28:18-20, ” All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
After proclaiming that God had given Christ all the power (authority) in Heaven and Earth, He commanded us by that authority to make disciples, to baptize the believers, and to teach the disciples all that He taught us. We are to spread His Gospel. Not only are we directed to go, we have been given the authority of the Lord to do so.
Given the power and authority of God, given to Christ and extended to us, where should we place our faith, and what should the focus of our days be?
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus states “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. (Matthew 5:17)”
This verse teaches us that righteousness matters, that obedience to God matters, and that what’s in our hearts matters. Jesus goes on to say, “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)”
That’s pretty intimidating, when you consider how religious the Pharisees really were.
If you’ve been around 21st Century Christianity any length of time, you know that Pharisees are often presented in scripture as the bad guys. They hated Jesus because He challenged their pride. They hated poor people because they felt the poor were inferior and not worth their time. They misused and abused people. And their religion was often a show.
The same criticisms, for what it’s worth, have been levelled toward modern churches and Christians. Whether such criticism is warranted or not is a discussion for another day. However, I think we can all agree that Christians have failed from time to time. However, Christianity has done a lot of good in the world.
The same can be said for the Pharisees. Their benevolence (alms) programs raised large amounts of money for the poor. They were very devout in their faith. They prayed constantly and spent their entire lives in the scriptures, and taught others the scriptures.
They desired to strongly adhere to the law of God and to honor Him with their lives. What could be wrong with that?
And it’s that brand of righteousness that Jesus said we must exceed if we want to see the Kingdom of God.
To understand what the Lord was calling us to, we must understand what righteousness is. Thayer’s Bible dictionary defines righteousness (and the Greek word it was translated from) as “the doctrine concerning the way in which man may attain a state approved of God.” In other words, righteousness is about gaining God’s approval.
The standard for righteousness, what it takes to earn God’s approval, is the law of God. The law of God is summarized in the 10 Commandments, 10 rules that God gave to Israel telling them what standard of righteousness they must hold in order to enter into His presence. For the sake of this study, we will examine the same two commandments that Jesus referenced in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.
That shalt not kill, and thou shalt not commit adultery. Basically, don’t take anyone’s life, and don’t take anyone’s wife. It seems pretty simple. If you haven’t killed anyone, and you haven’t cheated on your spouse, you are well on your way.
However, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pointed out that if you have committed these sins in your mind, then you are guilty of them in your heart. Jesus said if you are angry with your brother without cause, you are in danger of the judgment. And, if you have looked upon a woman with lust, you have committed adultery with her in your heart.
In speaking these words, Jesus taught us that righteousness is not just about what you do (or don’t do), but also about what’s in your heart. Therefore, you can do all the right things, but still have the sin in your heart, and still be found unrighteous.
This is a tough truth, because we all have sin in our hearts. That was a problem for the Pharisees too, whom Jesus said were like sepulchres, ornate on the outside, but full of death on the inside.
Romans 7:18 tells us that in our flesh dwells no good thing, and Jeremiah 17:9 says the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
By His teaching in Matthew 5, Jesus has held a spiritual mirror up to our souls to reveal to us our true condition in order to show us the way of salvation, which is through faith in Him.
Galatians 3:24 says the law is our schoolmaster to drive us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Romans 4 tells us that faith is counted as righteousness.
The Pharisees’ faith was in themselves, and their own version of obedience to God. Christ said for true righteousness, one must trust Him. And as Charles Spurgeon said, “Any faith that falls short of the cross will leave you short of Heaven.”
So the way to have the righteousness that surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees is to trust Jesus for your salvation and righteousness. He will grant you that righteousness if your faith is in Him.
The Point... 