Sermons - Cornerstone Christian Fellowship

What Shall I Do - Part Ten

Jan 15, 2023 by: John Herbert | Series: What Shall I Do...

Audio Study Notes PDF

Refresh
A Recap from the Sermon

Mt 16:13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

Today we will look at what men say compared to what God says.

The full text of this message can be found by clicking the PDF button.

Sunday January 15th 2023
What Shall I Do……..
Part 10

1). Jn 1:11 He came to His own [things], and His own [people] did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born [brought forth], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

As we look at the beginning of John’s Gospel, we see that Jesus came to His own people, the Jews, but the Jews as a nation, did not receive Him. He had come to an eternally saved people with the offer of the Kingdom of the heavens contingent upon their repentance with respect to their calling. There was nothing in His coming to His own people that had anything to do with issues surrounding eternity. The focus at His Advent was the Millennial Kingdom, the Seventh Day, the Day for which He had been brought forth – Heb 1:5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today [Lit. for this Day…] I have begotten You”?

And we will remember that the context of the opening Chapter of Hebrews is Christ and the Kingdom, presented through seven OT messianic quotations. With that seen in v5 coming from Psalm 2 – Ps 2:1 Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The LORD shall hold them in derision. 5 Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, And distress them in His deep displeasure: 6 “Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.” 7 “I will declare the decree: The LORD has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today [for this Day -the Seventh Day] I have begotten You. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give You The nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession.

The timing for the events described in these verses from Psalm 2 take us to the end of the tribulation and beyond. These are verses that deal with Messiah and His coming Kingdom, the Day in which He will receive the nations as His inheritance and the ends of the earth as His possession. The Day for which He was begotten, brought forth in the likeness of sinful flesh, born of a woman. The day in which the purpose for His incarnation would be fulfilled – Mt 1:21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

Lk 1:31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. 32 He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. 33 And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

These verses from Matthew and Luke begin with the bringing forth of a ‘Son’ and then immediately move to the purpose for which the ‘Son’ was brought forth, to ‘save His people from their sins’, to receive the throne of His father David’. And although this purpose could have been fulfilled at the Lord’s first Advent, we know that it wasn’t, making these verses look prophetically beyond the bringing forth of a ‘Son’ to a time that awaits a future fulfillment. And all of this deals exclusively with Israel, the nation to whom He was sent – Mt 15:24 But He answered and said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

And in what sense were the ‘sheep’ of the house of Israel lost, necessitating the sending of their Messiah? Jeremiah gives us the answer – Jer 50:6 “My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray; They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill; They have forgotten their resting place.

The Jewish people were ‘lost’, not with respect to eternal salvation but with respect to their purpose as God’s adopted firstborn son. And this was because ‘their shepherds’, their religious leaders had ‘led them astray’ from that purpose. And consequently, because of this, we see them in a downward trajectory ‘from mountain to hill’, from the Kingdom, both earthly and heavenly that should have been theirs, to an engagement with the kingdom of this world, just as we saw with Lot and the cities of the plain, causing them to forget ‘their resting place.’ To forget the Day of Rest given to them as a sign throughout their generations, the Sabbath Day, the Seventh Day – Heb 4: 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 5 and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience……..

And this downward trajectory for the nation of Israel, from mountain to hill, presents the same truth as the downward trajectory of the church in Ephesus – Re 2:5 Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works……

And how had Israel’s religious leaders led them astray? The Lord has described this in the Gospel of Matthew – Mt 15:7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

Mt 16:11 How is it you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread?—but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” 12 Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Mt 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.

The people then, had been led astray by their religious leaders through that which the religious leaders taught them, described in Matthew 15 as ‘the commandments of men.’ This was then the wisdom brought forth from below that was taught to the people as doctrine. And set over in contrast to this, was the wisdom brought forth from above, the Word that became flesh, the OT Scriptures from Genesis to Malachi – Acts 13:15 And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them, saying, “Men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on.”

This verse gives an account of Paul in the synagogue at Antioch. And what we want to note here from what took place in the synagogue, is that the Law and the Prophets, the OT Scriptures, were read on a weekly basis. The Scriptures were read on the Sabbath to the people every week in every synagogue, but it would appear that what was taught from them had nothing to do with what the Scriptures actually said. We might remember what Jesus had said to Nicodemus – Jn 3:10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things?

And if we return for a moment to the verses, we have just read from Matthew Chapter 16, v11-12, verses that deal with the leavened doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees, we will realize that what is recorded in them, that the disciples were to beware of the doctrine of the religious leaders, comes right before a familiar section of Scripture that we had looked at again last week – Mt 16:13 When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

Let’s put this together, Jesus had just warned His disciples about the leavened teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that which is the wisdom from below. And with this type of wisdom in view He then asked them the question, ‘Who do MEN say that I am?’ That which ‘men’ said could only come from the wisdom from below, it could only be framed within the context of the leavened teaching of the religious leaders – 
Mt 16:14 So they said, “Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

That which ‘men’ said about Jesus came from their own resources, based on what they thought about what they saw and the corrupted teaching of the Law and the Prophets that they received each week and was entirely speculative.
	a). We know what happened next – Mt 16:15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood [what men say] has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

Jesus’s true identity was brought forth from above, the wisdom that came from God, which is contained in the OT Scriptures, and this is the only way that this wisdom could have been received, and can only be received, by those who are mindful of the things of God and not the things of men – 
Mt 16:18 And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

As we have looked at these verses in the past, we have tended to concentrate on the revelation that Jesus is ‘the Christ, the Son of the living God’ as being the ‘rock’ upon which Jesus would build His Church. And without discounting this we must also add where this wisdom came from to the picture. It was brought forth from above, and it can only be upon that which is brought forth from above out of God that His Church can be built. His Church can never be built on the commandments of men. And ‘His Church’ in this context, is not a reference to all the eternally saved, but those from the eternally saved who will comprise ‘the church of the firstborn’, those who have submitted themselves to the child training of the Lord – Heb 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.

And the inevitable separation that must come between the eternally saved who are consistently brought forth from above and the eternally saved who are consistently brought forth from below, just as we saw with Abraham and Lot last week, is shown to us again in the verses from John Chapter 1 that we began with this morning. A separation between the eternally saved generation that did not receive Jesus and those individuals within the nation who did, who were given the right to be child trained – Jn 1:11 He came to His own [things], and His own [people] did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born [brought forth], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Those individuals who did receive Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, were brought forth out of God, just as we have seen with Peter’s revelation. And all of this is completely consistent with the conversation that Jesus had with Nicodemus that had we looked at in a previous part of this series – 
Jn 3:3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is brought forth from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is brought forth out of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

And as we have also seen in a previous part of this series, that which is brought forth from above, the wisdom of God, is the Scriptures. That which is God’s breath, His Spirit, which became flesh in the person of Son – 
Jn 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

2 Ti 3:16 All Scripture is God breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Apart from the Scriptures it is impossible to know Jesus with respect to His identity and purpose. And this is what we have seen today with the Pharisees and Sadducees. They had the Scriptures, the very words of which Jesus is the embodiment, and these they read to the people every week, but the spiritual content of the Scriptures, that revealed the Christ, the Son of God, which could have been brought forth from above, had been replaced with the doctrines of men, “who do MEN say that I am?’
	b). And this is a truth that is repeated after a slightly different fashion through the disciples on the day of the Lord’s resurrection – Lk 24:13 Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. 14 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. 15 So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.

As we look at v16, perhaps we should ask ourselves what it means that their eyes were restrained? And we may well think of this as a supernatural restraint, but is this really what is going on? Let’s look at a few more verses – Lk 24:21 But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.

The disciples were hoping that it was Jesus who was going to redeem Israel and they had made a connection with this and the Third Day. And this hope that they had was absolutely correct. Jesus is the One who will redeem Israel on the Third Day, but at the moment, recorded in Luke, they thought they had gotten that wrong. So, where had their hope concerning Him originated? It could only have originated from the time they had spent with Him, from seeing the signs He gave, from hearing His words. It was based upon their interpretation of what they had experienced.
	c). And we will remember what Jesus did to change their thinking –
Lk 24:25 Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” 27 And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

He took them to the Scriptures, to show them, from the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself. Simply put then, they knew Jesus within the context of what they saw, but they did not know Him in the Scriptures, and this had to be put right. As we have seen, their hope that He was the One who would redeem Israel, was correct. What they didn’t understand, by not knowing Christ in the Scriptures, was how the events of His death and resurrection are connected to Israel’s redemption. They didn’t understand the timeframe leading to the Third Day.
	d). Israel the nation had refused to repent and Israel the nation had rejected Christ as their King. Consequently, if the nation was to be redeemed, Jesus had to die as the nation’s Passover Lamb to provide that redemption for the future generation of Jews at the end of the tribulation within the unalterable framework of the Seven days established in Genesis. This is what the Scriptures teach and this is what the disciples at this point had not understood – Lk 24:44 Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” 45 And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. 46 Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 And you are witnesses of these things.

And in that future Day, those Jews coming alive out of the tribulation will have the same experience as the disciples on the road to Emmaus as they look on the One whom they pierced. The One, who is the Word, will open the Word to their understanding. And once their eyes are opened to the Christ of the Scriptures, redeemed Israel will preach repentance and remission of sins in His name, beginning at Jerusalem, to all nations – 
Isa 2:2 Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the LORD'S house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

And this same truth has been set out in another type through the experience of the Apostle Paul – Acts 9:8 Then Saul arose from the ground, and when his eyes were opened he saw no one. But they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank………… 17 And Ananias went his way and entered the house; and laying his hands on him he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once; and he arose and was baptized. 19 So when he had received food, he was strengthened. Then Saul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. 20 Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God.

2). And as we consider all of these things, it will surely strike us that there is a parallel with the circumstances that accompanied the Lord’s first Advent and what is to be found in the Church since the leaven was hidden in the three measures of meal, and most particularly in the circumstances that exist at the end of this dispensation in anticipation of the Lord’s second Advent.
	a). Christians are eternally saved and therefore have spiritual life, and in a greater way than ever before, they have access to the Scriptures. However, because of the work of the leaven, the deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, the religious leaders of the day have led the people astray from the Word of the Kingdom, being mindful of the things of men, just as we saw with Israel’s shepherds.
	b). The Scriptures that reveal the Christ and His Kingdom are read week by week but what is taught from them has been corrupted, so much so, that the Jesus of the Scriptures is no more recognized today among Christians as He was among the Jews at His first Advent. Consequently, those things surrounding His identity and His purpose within the time frame of the Seven days, are either ignored or rejected. However, there is another part to be seen in this parallel, 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born [brought forth], not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Re 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. 21 To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. 22 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

There are those Christians who have heard His voice and opened the door to see the Christ of the Scriptures brought forth from above. Those who have had their eyes opened to believe in all that the Prophets have spoken. Those who have rejected every wind of doctrine that teach the commandments of men and the religious traditions of men and have instead, like the Bereans, searched the Scriptures for themselves, beginning with Moses to find Jesus – Php 3:8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

And those who do so have submitted themselves to the child training of the Lord – Heb 12:5 And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening [child training] of the LORD, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; 6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” 7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? 8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. 11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

And inevitably, just as at the Lord’s first Advent, those receiving the child training, who are brought forth out of God, find themselves separated from those who don’t.
	d). This is all a part of the three days’ journey we are to make, from the land of our birth to the land of our calling.

We will continue with this next time, if we remain and the Lord is willing, and we have prayed.

What Shall I Do - Part Ten

Refresh A Recap from the Sermon

What Shall I Do - Part Ten

Jan 15, 2023

Speaker: John Herbert

Series: What Shall I Do...

Category: Sunday Morning

Refresh
A Recap from the Sermon