John 12:36b-43 “Will You Confess Him?”

1:05Every day for those 43 days, they refused. And at the end of that time period, they were marched to a beach and they were beheaded on live video. But just before they were executed, the believers could be heard saying over and over again, O Lord Jesus. O Lord Jesus. O Lord Jesus. Just like the first Christian martyr, Stephen. What a testimony. How is it that these Christian brothers were able to confess Christ under such terrible circumstances and through such persecution?

1:56It's a question that all of us need to wrestle with today. And here in John chapter 12, we're going to learn that we will confess Christ only if we love God's glory more than man's. Now, before we jump into the text today, I want to just remind you where we've been at in the Gospel of John. Jesus just rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and people there crowded around. The entire city packed around him in great anticipation of what he would do and say, because he was riding into Jerusalem on this donkey in fulfillment of the prophecies made by Zachariah.

2:36However, the crowd did not understand why Jesus was saying that the Son of Man had to be lifted up. That made no sense to them. That was not what they expected to hear. But instead of explaining to them things that they were not ready to understand, Jesus just pointed them back to himself, the light of the world, and told them to walk. In the light and to believe in the light while there was still time. In other words, what Jesus just did was he called these people to childlike faith.

3:12And we understand that kids trust their parents even though they don't fully understand everything that they're saying or their reasons for saying it. But they trust their parents and they do what they say because they have faith that they have their best interests in mind. And in the same way, if we believe that Jesus is trustworthy, we can follow him, we can believe and obey him, even when we don't understand everything about the Christian life. And so that brings us to the second half of verse 36, which probably in your Bible is the start of a new section.

3:48So let's take a look there, the second half of verse 36. When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Now that seems a little bit strange to me because Jesus just said that his hour had come. The hour had come. He had been saying his entire ministry, his entire public ministry, my hour is not yet, my hour has not come. But now in the previous section, he said, the hour has come. These Gentiles are now seeking him. It's not just Jews, it's not just Samaritans, it is all kinds of people from all over the world. They are seeking him now, and so he knows that his hour has come. So why does he hide from the crowd?

4:30Well, John doesn't tell us here, but in every other instance that Jesus hides from the crowd, it's either because the crowd is trying to kill him before his time, or because they are trying to forcibly make him king. And that is not why Jesus came. Jesus did not come the first time to be a conquering king. And so he wants to avoid even the appearance that he came to be this military and political leader that the crowd expected.

4:59Verse 37. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. Jesus had done so many signs before the people. And we've talked about this many times, but John records seven of these signs in his gospel to show us the true identity of Jesus as the Son of God. He shows us Jesus turning water into wine, him healing the official son and this paralyzed man, feeding 5,000 people and walking on water, healing a man born blind, and then finally raising Lazarus from the dead. He shows us all of these signs, and those seven signs, in and of themselves, are incredible and point to Jesus' true identity as the Son of God. But I want you to look at the last verse in the Gospel of John. Take a look at the screen.

6:00Now, there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Jesus had done so many signs. Day after day for three whole years, Jesus performed signs that pointed to his true identity as the Son of God. And he topped it all off by raising a dead man to life. Friends, these were not just miracles, just supernatural occurrences that couldn't be explained any other way, leaving observers to wonder what they meant.

6:42No, these were signs that pointed to and confirmed Jesus' identity as the promised Messiah who came to save his people. But again, here in verse 37, we see that though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. Though these people had seen and heard these signs, so many signs that the world couldn't contain the books if you wrote them all down, though he had done all of those signs, people still did not believe. And so, friends, what John is showing us here is that the root cause of unbelief is not a lack of evidence.

7:25The root cause of unbelief is not a lack of evidence. I want you to look at these. Scriptures on the screen. Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. Paul goes on in Romans chapter 1. Take a look. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

8:14And then listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter 2. For when Gentiles who do not have the law by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them. Between creation and our consciences, we have all of the evidence we need to conclude that God exists and that He is all-powerful, since He created everything from nothing, and that He is perfectly holy, since our own consciences bear. Witness that we know and understand the law that he has written on our hearts.

9:06Friends, unbelief in general isn't due to a lack of evidence. There is plenty of evidence in creation and our consciences that points to an all-powerful, all-holy creator. And unbelief in Jesus specifically cannot be traced back to a lack of evidence either. He claimed to be the Son of God, and he proved it by performing so many signs that the world couldn't contain the books if you wrote them all down. So, what's the deal? How could any rational person not believe that God exists and that Jesus is his Son?

9:50This is what John goes on to explain, starting in verse 38. Take a look there. So that the words spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The unbelief of the people was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. And this verse that John quotes comes from a section in Isaiah's prophecies where he is talking about the salvation of the Lord and how it is going to come through a particular Servant.

10:32And yet, Isaiah asks, who has believed what he has heard from us? The implication is that most people did not believe what Isaiah was saying, even though he was speaking the Lord's word to the Lord's people. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And then he goes on, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Now, friends, that phrase, the arm of the Lord, is crucial to understanding both Isaiah's prophecy and what John is telling us here in John chapter 12.

11:08God does not have a body, he is a spirit, so he does not have arms. So what does he mean when he says the arm of the Lord? That's the question. This phrase is used all throughout the Bible, but I want to bring just two passages to your attention: one from the book of Exodus and one from the passage that we read for our call to worship this morning. Take a look at Exodus chapter 6. Moreover, God says, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say, therefore, to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts. Of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

12:14Now, look at Psalm 77, which we heard earlier. You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might among the peoples. You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. So, friends, the arm of the Lord is how God personifies his saving work for his people all throughout history. He metaphorically reaches down with his strong arm and saves his people from their enemies. Most specifically, our greatest enemy, the one enemy that we all have in common, and that is sin.

12:57But you may have noticed in your own reading of the book of Isaiah that the phrase the arm of the Lord begins to take on a little bit more nuance and it gets more pointed as he prophesies. I want you to look on the screen at Isaiah 52:10. The Lord has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. Now, here's what he says just a few verses later. Take a look at this text. This is The John passage that he quotes in its full context in Isaiah: Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. He shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

14:14So, what do we learn here? We've seen that Israel understood that the arm of the Lord meant his, it was God's personification of his saving work on behalf of his people. And Isaiah here in chapter 52 says that God is going to bear his holy arm before the nations so that everybody is going to see the salvation of the Lord. The ends of the earth even are going to see it. And then Isaiah begins to describe a servant who is going to be high and lifted up, but not in the way that you would think when he says that. No, instead, his appearance is going to be so marred that he's not even going to be. Recognizable as a human being anymore.

15:04His blood is going to sprinkle many nations. So, what Isaiah tells us is that this conquering king is first coming to be a suffering servant. And after describing this suffering servant, Isaiah asks the questions: who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? And so, friends, it is at this time that no longer is the arm of the Lord just a personification of God's saving work. The arm of the Lord is seen to be an actual person, the suffering servant Himself, who is coming to rescue us, as foretold by Isaiah.

15:54The problem, though, is that very few people believed Isaiah, and very few people believed in Jesus. And that is not because of a lack of evidence, it's because why? It's because God had not revealed the truth to them. Look on the screen at 1 Corinthians chapter 2. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he is not able to understand them. Because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

16:47Do you remember back in John chapter 3 when Jesus had that interaction with Nicodemus? And he's instructing Nicodemus. And Jesus does not tell him that if he wants to be saved, he needs to try harder to be a better Jew. Nicodemus was already a great Jew, he was knowledgeable, he was devout. Jesus doesn't tell him, try harder to be a better Jew. No, he tells him, you must be born from above. You must be born again if you want to enter the kingdom of God. That's what has to happen to you. The Spirit of God has to cause you to be born again. He brings new life to people who are dead in sin. That's the only way to enter the kingdom. So the natural person, then, is one who has not been born again. It is one who has not been born from above. As Paul writes, the natural person does not accept the things of God, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

18:01And friends, Jesus himself affirms this truth in Matthew chapter 16. We actually looked at this passage last week. Jesus asked the disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they say that most people say that he is John the Baptist or one of the prophets that's been reincarnated, which again is just so strange. But that's what people were saying about Jesus. And then Jesus says, but who do you say that I am?

18:30And Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. I want you to look at how Jesus responds to Peter's statement. Blessed are you, Simon Barjonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. Jesus affirms that spiritual truth is revealed to us by God, that we cannot and will not see it or understand it on our own. It has to be revealed to us by God.

19:10And so we go back to John chapter 12 here in our text today, and we understand now why the crowd didn't believe in Jesus, despite the fact that he had done so many signs that all the books in the world could not contain them. They didn't believe what they heard from Isaiah. Or, what they heard and saw from Jesus, because God had not revealed the arm of the Lord to them. That was the problem. He did reveal Jesus to Peter and the disciples, and praise God, he has revealed Jesus to many of us in the room today and to untold millions around the world.

19:53But he had not yet revealed the arm of the Lord, Jesus the Son, to most of this crowd. And as a result, look at what John says in verse 39. Therefore, they could not believe. John already said they did not believe, but now he takes it a step further and he says they could not believe. Why is that? Look at the rest of verse 39. For again, Isaiah said, He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.

20:45Now, this is the kind of passage that makes most people start squirming in their seats. You read this passage and you're like, wait a minute, maybe I missed that. Go back and read it again, and the second time that you read it, it says the exact same thing. And so, a lot of people conclude: well, surely it can't mean that. And so, you dig into your Bible and you realize that actually there's lots and lots of places in the Bible that talk about God blinding eyes and hardening hearts.

21:26And the effect that that has on a lot of people is it confuses them, and many of them end up angry at God. And here's what I think is the problem: many people end up confused or angry at God when they read these kinds of passages about God blinding eyes and hardening hearts because they have a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of man. For most people, when they think of themselves, when they think of their friends and family, they're picturing innocent human beings, or at most, human beings who, yes, have sinned and made some poor choices along the way.

22:14And they imagine these people throwing themselves down before the Lord, begging for mercy, pleading to be saved, and God looking at them, angry with arms crossed. Saying absolutely not to hell with you. But, friends, that is not at all the situation. Adam and Eve threw away their innocence in the Garden of Eden when they succumbed to the temptation to be like God and they disobeyed his word. When they rebelled against him, they became guilty of sin. They died spiritually and they passed on their dead, rebellious nature to every one of their descendants, including you and me.

23:06And so when we are born, we are not born innocent with a clean slate capable either of continuing on in our innocence or becoming corrupted. No, friends, when we are born, we are born with a sinful nature that is corrupt from the start, which leads us to sin against God and others from infancy. We do not naturally worship, love, and obey God out of soft hearts. We naturally rebel against him out of hard hearts. Look at what Psalm 14 says.

23:46The fool says in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds. There is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside. Together, they have become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one. So, when Scripture says that God blinds eyes and hardens hearts, God is not blinding the eyes of people who already saw spiritual truth or who would have seen spiritual truth if they just had more time and they knew where to look.

24:45No, God is further blinding the eyes of people who are already spiritually blind. He is not hardening soft hearts, he is hardening hearts that are already hard towards him from birth. And friends, that is what makes salvation so amazing. It is only out of God's abundant goodness and mercy and grace and kindness that he chooses to save rebels like you and me, who were born guilty, who from infancy were rebelling against his commands, who from infancy were sinning against him and everyone else in our lives, including ourselves. It is only out of his abundant goodness and mercy that he opens our eyes to see. Spiritual truth, that he softens our hearts that are hard as concrete and reveals himself to us. Friends, that is amazing grace.

25:46I want you to think back for a moment to John chapter 9. And in John chapter 9, we saw Jesus come and heal this man who was blind from birth. And the Pharisees find this man, and they bring him to testify, and he tells them the truth about Jesus, and that he healed him, and that he could now see. And in response, they throw him out of the synagogue. And so take a look on the screen at what happens next.

26:16Jesus heard that they had cast him out. And having found him, he said, Do you believe in the Son of Man? He answered, Who is he, sir, that I may believe in him? Jesus said to him, You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you. He said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.

26:58Some of the Pharisees near him. Heard these things and said to him, Are we also blind? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no guilt. But now that you say, We see, your guilt remains. Friends, do you see that? Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. The Pharisees were guilty because they thought that they could see spiritual truth, but they were blind. They were blind to the reality of the fact that Jesus was and is the Son of God, the Savior that all of the prophets were pointing toward. They were guilty because they wouldn't and couldn't acknowledge Jesus and the truth about him.

27:55So, church, when we read this passage and we see both Isaiah and John reminding us that we cannot become discouraged and lose heart when we share the gospel with friends and family members and co-workers and classmates and they don't receive the truth about Jesus. We cannot grow discouraged and lose heart because every person is spiritually blind from birth. Every person is born with a hard heart that says there is no God. And your words, my words, all of our efforts and actions. We cannot open their eyes on our own. We cannot soften their hard hearts on our own. We are not able to make them see and believe spiritual truth.

28:42But the good news is that Jesus said that he came to open the eyes of the blind. That's why he came. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. And the way that Jesus opens the eyes of the blind is through your witness and mine. It is when we go to those in our lives and we share the truth about Jesus. God says that faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

29:11The way that he opens those eyes, the way that he softens those hearts, the way that he brings people to repentance and faith is through our witness and our testimony about Jesus, his life, his death, and his resurrection. So do not lose heart. I am so tempted to lose heart. I am this close to giving up on so many of my family members and friends because I've been telling them the truth for years and I've been pointing them to Christ for years and they know the radical changes that have taken place in my life and yet they don't see their hearts remain hard because I cannot open their eyes. I can't soften their hearts. Only God can do that.

30:04So let's encourage each other to not lose heart. Hearing comes through the word of Christ. Faith comes through hearing. Friends, Jesus is revealing himself to some of you this very morning. Up until this point, you've never seen Jesus for who he really is because you've been spiritually blind. But today, this morning, through the word, God is opening your eyes to see the truth about who Jesus really is. He is melting your hard heart. And if that's true for you, if God is removing those blinders, and just like this man in John chapter 9, you are seeing that spiritual truth for the first time, you need to believe in him. And more than just believing him, Paul says in Romans chapter 10 that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

31:08You must believe in your heart and you must confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Will you do that today? Will you confess him as Lord? Because not everyone does. Let's end in verse 42 and 43. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

31:53In general, the crowd did not believe in Jesus, and the religious leaders rejected him, but not all of them. We learn here that many, as in not a few, many even of the authorities believed in him. And if you go home and you read the book of Acts, one of the things that you will see is that early on, many priests and many Pharisees come to faith in Jesus Christ, and they are a part of the church.

32:26But friends, at this point, a lot of them did not confess Jesus as Lord because they were afraid. They were afraid of what the Pharisees were going to do to them. That was true of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. These two religious leaders went to Pontius Pilate after Jesus had died on the cross and they asked for his body so that they could bury it. But John notes at the end of his gospel that they came secretly for fear of the Jews.

33:00Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea believed in Jesus, but they didn't confess it. They wouldn't go public with their faith because they were scared. And friends, fear is one of our most powerful emotions. And every one of us deals with what the Bible calls the fear of man. I want you to look at this quote from Ed Welch, the author and counselor. He says, all experiences of the fear of man share at least one common feature. People are big.

33:36They have grown to idolatrous proportions in our lives. They controlled us. Since there is no room in our hearts to worship both God and people, whenever people are big, God is not. Jesus himself said, no one can serve two masters. He did not say, most everybody cannot serve two masters, but you are the exception. You actually can do it. You can worship God and money. You can care the most about what people think and about what God thinks. You can do it. You're the exception. He says, no one. No one can serve two masters. It cannot be done.

34:26So many of these religious leaders feared man more than they feared. God. Although they actually believed that Jesus was the Son of God, as he proclaimed to be, they would not confess it because they were too worried about what people were going to do to them. They were too worried about their reputations and their social standing and their jobs. It's because in their hearts they cared more about what people thought of them than about what God thought about them. They loved the glory that came from man.

35:01And it's easy to look at these people. And like an armchair quarterback, it is easy to look at them and think, you know, I wouldn't have hidden my faith. I would have confessed Jesus as Lord. But friends, when it's all theoretical, we know how this works. It's real easy sitting in the living room to see the open receiver, to see the running lane, to say, how hard could it be to throw the pass, to catch the pass, to not drop the football over and over and over again?

35:40I'm just saying theoretically. It's easy to say that. But we know that in front of our family and friends, in front of perfect strangers, it is hard to confess Jesus as Lord because we care. We do care what other people think. Look what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 10. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.

36:20If we expect Jesus to acknowledge us on the day of judgment, we must acknowledge him here and now before this watching world. Look at Mark chapter 8. For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Church, our own fear of man keeps us from sharing our faith in Christ.

37:00And beating ourselves up over that fact is not going to help anything. Guilt is a very powerful short-term motivator. But guilt is not a powerful long-term motivator. And more than that, it is not a biblical reason to share the good news of Jesus. I want to bring up this quote from Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves. Again, this book. God Shines Forth that I mentioned the other week. They write, happy mission presupposes happy Christians. There is a kind of mission that can be carried out by miserable Christians, and though it may be doctrinally correct and carefully organized, it will only reflect the emptiness in their own hearts. Christians who don't enjoy God can't and won't wholeheartedly commend him to others. I want to read that again. I need some amens. Christians who don't enjoy God can't and won't wholeheartedly commend him to others.

38:10If we fear that God's love for us is reluctant or that his approval rests on our performance, we won't feel any real affection for him. Our service will be grudging, and the world will likely see through us. Friends, it is no use pretending that we do not care what other people think about us. We do. For some of us, we care more, and some of us care less, but we all care. And so, pretending that we don't care is not the answer. The answer is to grow in the fear of the Lord as we see Him in Scripture in His perfect holiness and to grow in our love for the Lord as we grow to a deeper and deeper understanding of His Inexhaustible love for us shown most pointedly in Him sending His only begotten Son to live and die and rise again for you and me. Only as we grow in the fear of the Lord and our love for the Lord are we going to be motivated to confess Christ before this watching world. And so that is my hope for every believer here today.

39:26For others in the room, maybe like these religious leaders, you have come to the place where you believe the facts about Jesus. You do. You believe that Jesus is who he says that he is, that he's the Son of God who came to live that sinless life, who died in your place and rose again. Well, friends, if that's you, the next step is to confess your faith in Jesus. And biblically, the way you confess your faith is through baptism.

39:59Baptism was given to us as a symbol that is a picture of the fact that through faith we have died with Christ and been buried with him. And through faith, we've been raised to walk in new life, just as Jesus was physically raised from the dead to walk in new life. Baptism marks you as a follower of Jesus. And baptism marks you as a member of the family of God, the church. If you've got questions about baptism, we have a little book for you. It's called Why Should I Be Baptized? Pick one of these up after the service. If you've got questions about that, if you are thinking about baptism, if you are ready to confess your faith in Christ and follow through with that. But, friends, remember, in order to be baptized, you've got to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you've got to believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. And that confession may cost you relationships, money, career opportunities, and more.

41:06It may cost you, and it will cost you. And so, you have to decide if you believe that confessing Jesus as Lord, being baptized, and following him, is worth it. Because only if we believe that God's glory is greater than man's, are we going to confess Christ as Lord and Savior? Let's pray. Father, we wish that it was not the case that we cared so much about what people think of us. But the reality is, we do. We all wrestle with that.

42:22We are afraid of being made fun of and excluded. We're afraid of losing opportunities in our programs, in our careers. We are concerned and worried about losing family members and friends. And so, God, we pray that you would help us to love your glory more than we love the glory that comes from man. We pray that every person here would be willing to pick up the cross and to follow Jesus, even though he promised that it would cost us.

43:16Even though he promised that we would have to lose our lives in order to gain eternal life. So, we pray, God, I pray for every person that's on the fence this morning about Jesus. Would you open their eyes to see the truth? Would you grant them repentance and faith? Would you give them courage to confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior? And God, for all of us, may we fear you and love you so much that we consider it our glad privilege, our joyful privilege, to tell everyone in our lives the good news of Jesus Christ.

44:13If we don't enjoy you, we will not share you with others. And so we pray for your help. In Christ's name, we ask all of these things. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.