Grace Bible Church
Basic Training in Doctrine
Guest Speaker: Pastor Joe Sugrue
Tuesday,
May 11, 2010
Christ is the victor over death and He’s going to prove that in vs. 52-59.
“If [3rd class condition, maybe I will and maybe I won’t] I honour myself [I could, you know], my honour [glory] is nothing.” He is making a great point here. The whole key is in the phrase “glorify self.”
Prov 6:16-17
Here are six things God hates,
and one more that he loathes with a passion:
eyes that are arrogant, (Message Bible)
‘If I glorify self the glory that I produce is nothing.’
That is true of all of us. Self-glorification is outside of the plan of God.
God the Father is the author of the plan and the plan of God calls for the Father to glorify the Son and the Son’s royal family.
Whoever says they honor God must honor the Son of God – the Lord Jesus Christ. This erases the possibility of all religions being from the one true God.
The perfect tense of ginosko means that they never knew God. But Christ uses oida of Himself which is inherent knowledge – He knew the Father from eternity past.
Ps 56:4
In God, whose word I praise,
In God I have put my trust;
I shall not be afraid.
What can mere man do to me?
Abraham saw Christ through faith at spiritual maturity and rejoiced. The unbelieving religious folk are seeing Christ face to face and desire to murder Him.
To the Jews if you weren’t fifty you were still inexperienced. They had great respect for age. They were denouncing Christ for His youth.
“I am” – ego eimi, present tense: “I always existed.” He came right down to the issue, the point of doctrine: “I am the Great I am – God.”
The word hid doesn’t quite mean to hide. Krupto means He just faded out of that area. He just turned around and walked out of the temple and no one followed.
When God has a plan for your life the devil himself can’t kill you. And that means, like it did for Christ, no fear of death.
Outside of the lies, deception, antagonism, and overall wet blanket evil of religion, Christ’s truth breaks free and releases many from bondage, and no one can stop it.
Know this, nothing can stop the truth; so get it in your souls and become unstoppable.
“passed by” is parago – as a present active participle it means that Christ was in the process of walking past this man but He stopped because He recognized this man was responsive.
Christ is never going to bypass someone who is responsive to the gospel.
Jesus has just been heckled by the religious crowd but inside of this blind man He sees something that was non-existent in the religious crowd – positive volition at the age of accountability; he understands his need for a savior.
All humanity is as helpless and hopeless as this blind man. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Luke 1:78-79
Because of the tender mercy of our God, With which the Sunrise from on high shall visit us, To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”