John 5:15-30 (ESV)
June 6, 2021
preached by Pastor Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“Jesus produced mainly three effects: hatred, terror, adoration. There was no trace of people expressing mild approval.”

~ C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer and Christian apologist

“This thinking for one’s self independently of God and His revelation… is a sin of more than common darkness – it is so audacious, so contemptuous towards God. It places man on a level with God or at least sets Divine truth and human opinion on the same footing. It strips the former of all innate authority, while it gives to the latter an authority to which it has no claim!”

~ Horatius Bonar (1808-1889), Scottish poet and hymnodist

“Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us.”

~ Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Trappist monk, theologian, writer and social activist

“One of the appeals of idolatry is that with it, creating our own version of god means we can tame it. A created thing can only do what we allow it to do unlike the true God who isn’t manageable. He can’t be put on a shelf or told to hush. We want to worship what we can control.”

~ Jackie Hill Perry (1989-present), American poet, writer, and hip hop artist

“The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance, and that the secret of both is Jesus Christ.”

~ John Stott (1921-2011), English Anglican presbyter and theologian

“It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, ‘Let us make man’… which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, ‘Let us save man’”.

~ J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), English Anglican bishop

Sermon Passage

John 5:16-30 (ESV)

¹⁵ The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

¹⁸ This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

¹⁹ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. ²¹ For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. ²² For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵ “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

³⁰ “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.