Exalting the Name of Jesus

The theme of the sermon I have this morning fits very well with the theme of this morning’s worship, which has been to exalt Jesus at all times.

This morning I felt led by the Lord to lift Him up, and perhaps sometimes those movements, those currents of the Spirit—one day God wants something done, another day He wants something else done—and one flows in the prophetic revelation of the Lord, and sometimes things about Christ must be declared to the atmosphere, to demons and angels, and to humanity; there are poems that must be proclaimed about who He is, and sometimes He wants to be exalted. Who knows how many congregations right now, right now in this city, are doing the same thing? Because that is the theme He wants proclaimed on this day, and it is good to flow that way in the Spirit of the Lord.

This passage from John chapter 5, beginning with verse 19, speaks to us about the authority of Jesus, His Lordship, His divinity, His absolute Power, His sovereignty, His exemplary Person, worthy of all praise and all glory; so think about Jesus, imagine Him, picture Him, because that is what this meditation is about.

The Son speaks about Himself. John says: “Then Jesus answered and said to them: Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing by Himself except what He sees the Father do. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does, because the Father loves the Son and shows Him all the things that He does, and He will show Him greater works than these, so that you may marvel.”

“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so too the Son gives them life. For the Father judges no one, but has given all Judgment to the Son, so that everyone may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Me.”

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears My Word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come into condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Truly, truly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the Voice of the Son of God, and those who hear His Voice will live, because just as the Father has life in Himself, so He has also granted the Son to have life in Himself.”

“And He also gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, because the hour will come when all who are in the graves will hear His Voice, and those who did good will come forth to the resurrection of life, but those who did evil will come forth to the resurrection of condemnation.” May the Lord bless His Word. What glorious words, aren’t they? Do you feel the authority with which Jesus speaks? Do you feel the weight of His words as He speaks? That is what the message is about.

As I look over here, I see a body behind the column, and this sister who is here—I don’t know whether you ladies would like to move over here? Because I feel bad that you are looking at a column over there, but do as you wish. If you want to stay there, that’s fine, but goodness, I would rather you not be looking at that column during this time—not for any particular reason; perhaps the column looks better than I do, but—(laughter). All right, if anyone else cannot see clearly, there is room over here. Forgive the interruption.

But anyway, I want to speak about the authority of Jesus, and I believe that when one listens—at least for me, I always try to learn not only from Jesus’ specific words but also from His tone, from the balance He sometimes establishes between Grace and the law, from when He speaks forcefully, clearly, and directly, and also from when He speaks with mercy and gentleness.

I believe we must imitate that same balance in the personality of Jesus. I see that personality as tremendously sure of Himself, full of grace and truth, as the Word says—grace and truth beautifully balanced in His personality. Here I see the majesty with which He speaks. I believe that is how the Church must speak as well.

The Church of Jesus Christ must adopt that tone as well. Nowadays there is a fainthearted Church out there that I believe makes the Lord nauseous, filled with fear about the world and asking, “What is going to happen? Will they leave? Will they come back to Church? Is the Church in decline?” Christ has said that the gates of hell will not prevail against His Church. The attitude of God’s people must be an attitude of confidence, assurance, and authority when we speak to the world. We have the solution to the world’s problems, and we must speak confidently, brothers and sisters.

We must speak with that same blend of grace and truth with which the Lord speaks, and we see it expressed here in His Word. The Lord begins by saying—in fact, the passage itself begins by saying, “Then Jesus answered,” which means that this passage is evidently referring to something that had happened at that time; that is why it says, “Then Jesus answered.” Well, if you read the passage preceding this one, you discover that the Lord has just performed a spectacular miracle: He has just healed a paralytic, the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda.

The Lord heals this man who has been paralyzed for so many years, and through that miracle He manifests His Lordship. Incidentally, in that miracle the Lord performed for this paralyzed man, I always see the contrast between the Grace that Christ exemplifies and the law and its works, and between the effort required to live under the law and the rest that Christ offers through His Person, because this paralyzed man was trying, he was seeking healing through a situation in which he saw an angel stir the water, and whoever was more agile and faster would get into the water first and be healed, but this man had no one to put him in; he was paralyzed—how could he move?

But in other words, the salvation and healing of the people who were there depended on their ability and effort, and that is why this man, who was more helpless and weaker, could not be healed. But Christ comes and says to him, “Hey, would you like to be saved? You don’t have to pay Me anything, you don’t have to do calisthenics, you don’t have to do anything except simply believe in Me, and I will do it,” and Christ heals him. What work and effort could not accomplish, Christ accomplished in an instant.

Now there was a problem: He performs that great miracle that exemplifies His power over sickness, but He commits, in quotation marks, “an error,” and that is that He heals him—the Lord made the mistake of not checking the calendar and failing to realize that it was the Sabbath—and because the Pharisees and the scribes had problems with Jesus, because Jesus was everything they were not—Jesus was power, healing, life, vitality; they were rigid law, rules, and dead religion—and they hated Jesus and were always looking for reasons to hate and criticize Him. So because the Lord heals this man on the Sabbath, they criticize Him.

How horrible it is when the Church, when religion, does not have the life-giving power of Jesus that senses the heart of God and says, “Yes, there is a law, but you know what? Adjust it just a little, because this pleases Me and falls within the love and grace of God.” We have to be careful when we do that, but there is an instinct of the Spirit within us that helps us understand what God means many times by things that are sometimes not so clear in the Word of God itself.

So the Lord heals this man and brings upon Himself the wrath, annoyance, and accusations of these Pharisees, and He knows what is happening in their hearts. Then, as an antidote, in response to the unjust criticism of these false religious men, the Lord tells them who He is. That is why it says, “Then Jesus answered.” In other words, notice here that these words we have just read are given in the context of the Pharisees and scribes questioning Jesus’ authority, nature, legitimacy, and Ministry.

He is defending His Person. In other words, these declarations that the Lord Jesus Christ makes here are not neutral, they are not general; I could say that they are apologetic. They are affirmative; they are intended to contradict something and establish something against the current of the religion of His time. What He is saying is very strong, and we must pay attention to what He says here.

Incidentally, let me say something else: for me, the Gospel according to Saint John is the Gospel that most beautifully exalts the Person of Jesus. It is the Gospel that contains the most and the longest, most sustained, poetic, and vivid declarations about who Jesus Christ is, and it is no coincidence that this declaration about who Christ is and about His nature and His Ministry appears in the Gospel according to Saint John.

If you look, for example, at chapters 14 and 15 of John—read them when you can—they are marvelous passages that exalt the Person, the Ministry, and the divine nature of Jesus Christ. From time to time, the Church must take time to lift up the Son of Man, exalt Him, acknowledge His Presence, and acknowledge His greatness, and that is what we are doing today.

Remember that this year, as we have been speaking about Evangelism, I have said that one of the things we must do is lift up the Name of Jesus, lift up the Person of Jesus, because He is the essence, He is the source of everything we want to do; He is the center of the evangelistic mission, and that is why this type of message is so important.

The Lord begins here by speaking about something, and that is that He says He imitates the Father in everything He does. The Lord is emphasizing something here, and that is that He tells the Pharisees, “Look, what I do, I do not do on My own, not because I simply feel like doing this or doing that. I do it because I observe the Father, I listen to the Father, I am in continual intimacy with the Father. My instructions, My Ministry, My style of ministry, My Words, My teachings, and My miracles come because I keep My eyes fixed on the Father and My ears attentive to what the Father does and says.”

“And it is out of that intimacy and that fixed attention on the Father that I do the things I do. I do not do them on My own authority; no one can do anything on their own authority, but it comes from the authority of the Father.” So that is wonderful, isn’t it?

In His human nature, let us understand something, brothers and sisters, and remember that this is something that is sometimes difficult for us to understand: the mystery of the Incarnation. Christ is God and man at the same time, and that coexistence of deity and humanity within a single framework, in a single being, presents contradictions that human language and human reason cannot fully process. That is why we will never be able to explain fully what the Trinity is: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, because it is a mystery. It is something beyond human language; it is something beyond reason, because His nature is divine, eternal, and absolute.

Do not let anyone intimidate you because you cannot fully explain the Incarnation of Jesus Christ or the Trinity, because even scientists know that there are phenomena in nature and physics that reason and language cannot explain. Artists understand that the most sublime and profound experiences of the human being do not submit to language either and fall outside the confines of language.

That is why we Christians, people of the spirit, are specialists in mysteries, you know? And one of the greatest mysteries is the deity of Jesus Christ and, at the same time, His humanity. He is the Son of God, and at the same time God says that He is the Son of Man. And the Lord came into the world, and deity and humanity coexisted in His being. I believe they still coexist that way; I do not believe that the Lord took off His humanity and left it lying there like a suit discarded on the floor when He ascended to heaven. I believe that up there He is God and He is still man.

Perhaps I am getting into theological hot water, but I believe that is how it is. He still has the marks in His hands and in His side, and He ascended to heaven. That is the strangest and most beautiful thing at the same time; I am not even going to get very deeply into that. But why am I talking about this mystery? Because people say, “Well, if He is God, then why does He have to say that He always has to look to the Father, do what the Father does, submit to the Father, and that He does not know when the Father is coming because that lies solely within the Father’s authority? Then Jesus is not God.” And from there comes the false doctrine, for example, of Jehovah’s Witnesses. May the Lord bless them; I respect them greatly, I love them, they are serious and decent people, but they are mistaken regarding the deity of Jesus Christ.

Never let anyone question the equality of the Father and the Son, even if you do not understand it. Although many times, when the Son speaks on Earth, as we see here, in His humanity it may seem as though He is placing Himself beneath the Father, because in His humanity, yes, in His Incarnation, in that contradiction whereby He was God and man, sometimes He spoke as a man and sometimes He spoke as God, because language can run through only one channel; it cannot speak through both channels at the same time. It is AM or FM, but it cannot be both at the same time.

So here the Lord is speaking in His Incarnation, in His aspect as an incarnate man who is also God. He says that He does only what He sees the Father do, but remember that He does not lose His deity while saying that either, because later on we are going to see more about that, aren’t we?

But I just wanted to show you, and then you can study and read a little about it, because it is very important to understand the mystery that Jesus Christ was when He walked upon the Earth: perfect God, perfect man. But then it is also as though we have to wrestle with that using language that is like a tiny little boat that has to hold an immense elephant—it cannot. That is the contradiction and limitation of human language and human reason.

So, in His human nature, in the mystery of His incarnation, Jesus says that He does only what He sees the Father doing, and the legitimacy of His ministry and of the things He does comes from keeping His eyes fixed on the Father. The Lord Jesus tells them: Even though what I do may seem strange to you and may seem like a contradiction, I am continually looking to the Father.

You see that the Lord was always praying; He would go away to a secluded place to seek the Father because, once again, in His incarnation He needed to, and we have to do the same, you know? Do you want power in your life? Do you want effectiveness in ministry? Do you want your family to come to Jesus Christ? Do you want the Father’s authority to be manifested through your words when you speak? Do you want joy in trials? Do you want authority to pray for the sick and see them healed? Do you want to grow in the knowledge of the Word of God and have joy during the most difficult moments of your life? Cling to the Father; cling to the Word of God.

Become a spiritual athlete; give the Lord time. The Church has had enough of people who show up only on Sundays—forgive me, my brothers and sisters, but we have to move beyond that. Seek God; fill yourself with the Word of God. Do you know that at the end of the day I always have to plug in my cell phone? Because its battery runs down with use throughout the day, and if I do not plug it back in, it dies on me; by morning it is at zero, that little screen is black and utterly lifeless, and I have to plug it back into the source of power. That is what we are like.

Life wears us down: problems, conflicts, our own humanity, and life’s losses gradually drain human beings of their vitality. And we have to return and plug ourselves into the Father through prayer. My spiritual brothers and sisters, I beg you: do not depend solely on a moment on Sunday. Seek God in your home; seek the Lord. Set aside time to be in the Lord’s presence. Be an athlete; be militant in your faith. Ask the Father; speak to the Father. Let the Father speak to you so that you can then do the Father’s works in your life.

The world will try to steal our time; the world will not yield a single minute for prayer, and you have to wrest it away with an ax. You have to wrest it away from the dishes and the children and the husband who wants you to cook for him and the boss who demands and demands and demands. You have to find your time. You yourself have to be the one who acts; use your authority so that the Father can then speak to you and you can do the Father’s works.

Because that is what this is about. The Lord is not simply saying, “Ah, look, this is what I do, period.” No. I believe that in this passage we are being told: You do with the Son and with the Word the same thing the Son does with the Father. This passage implicitly suggests that we should do the same thing He—the Son—does. If we do what we see the Father and the Son doing through the Word God has left us, then we are on safe ground, even if it seems controversial according to human conventions.

Do you know that the person who lives in the Spirit will always step outside the box? That person will be unpredictable and will flow like the wind, whose origin and destination no one knows, because the Father is like that. The person who lives in the Spirit is unpredictable because God is always downloading to them, always downloading last-minute instructions. He’s always updating our app, so we stay close to Him.

The Church of Jesus Christ can and should do only what the Father does, as His Word describes it. These words of the Lord constitute a call to remain closely attached to what God the Father does and says; therein lies our sphere of power and authority. By remaining closely attached to His Word, we are secure and filled with power and authority.

What does the Lord Jesus Christ say? “Abide in Me, and I in you, and you will bear much fruit, because away from Me, apart from Me, you can do nothing.” To the extent that we remain intimately connected to Christ, because He is intimately connected to the Father, the Father’s power and energy are transferred through the Son and reach us. May the Lord grant that this Church always keep its ear pressed to the Father’s heart, that our hearts beat in sync with the hearts of the Father and the Son, and that our directives, our doctrines, our Word, our practices, and our ministry always flow in absolute harmony with the designs of the heavenly Father and the Word of the Lord.

That is our desire: that the Lord would always enable us as a Church to say, “Daddy, what are You saying? What are You doing today? How can we align ourselves with what You are doing in the world and flow in sync with the world?” Brothers and sisters, let us preach what the Word says and suggests, even if it is controversial, and the power and blessing of God will always be upon us.

As I was telling you yesterday, I officiated at a wedding, and always in this century, the twenty-first century—and also during part of the twentieth century, when we used to preach in that century—(laughter), listen, one definitely grows old; that is how it is, with one foot in one century and the other in the next. Oh my God, what can you do? The point is that when I preach in the context of a wedding, I always like to read a passage from Ephesians chapter 5, and I do it as an act of militancy, sometimes to force myself.

And yesterday’s wedding was very elegant. Our sister Sadel and her husband Daven are young professionals; they have many secular friends—African American, white, and Latino cultures, people of very high social standing—and it was a beautiful wedding in an almost wonderfully magical setting; the place was very beautiful. And so, in that context, among people of a certain social standing, one can feel inclined to hold back the weight of the Word a little, you know? Do not say anything that will make these secular people too uncomfortable.

So when I reach that point in Ephesians chapter 5, the Word always crucifies me, because there in that passage—you know it well—especially when it says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord,” I think of all those professional young women there reacting as though something comes over them: “Wives, submit.” I am going to tell you a secret; do not tell anyone—this is just between us here.

You know, I have yielded a little to my own discomfort, and I confess before God—because I am not sure whether I am doing the right thing or not—that I have changed the order. I have not changed the content, but I have changed the order to soften the weight of that passage a little for the women. So lately I came up with something brilliant, from the Holy Spirit: what I do is read what it says to the man first, and then I slip in what it says to the woman, and that way it is like adding a little sugar, right? It is a sandwich.

First I read what verse 2 says: “Submit to one another in the fear of God.” Ah, anyone can accept that; who does not like “submit to one another”? Beautiful. But then, to soften it, I go after the men first and read verse 25 to them: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her,” and the bride is smiling at that moment; she is happy (laughter), saying, “Yes, Pastor, give him more; give him more, Pastor.” And then, after I have given him the gentle little pill, I turn to her, you see? And to the women who are seated there, and then I say, “Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Ouch. You see the grimaces of horror and almost anger. I am exaggerating a little.

But the point is—and this is what we pastors often do—that, to avoid scandalizing people and going against the cultural current, we have... And I understand that there are different opinions about this, and I respect them. But brothers and sisters, personally, the more I seek, the more I believe that God has established an order and has established a harmony and a mechanism between the love of the man who loves his wife as Christ loved His Church, gives himself for her, and serves her in every way he can, and the woman who graciously accepts her husband’s leadership because it pleases God for her to do so.

So when the man moves in Christ’s servant leadership and the woman moves in her equality while submitting to the leadership of her loving and kind husband—wow, what arises from that is miraculous. Who would not like that, my sisters? Right? It is beautiful. Unfortunately, men often violate that law, and women also sometimes violate the law, but when the harmony of those two rules is present in a marriage, the blessing flows.

The world cannot understand this; it too is a mystery, and we cannot accommodate the Word to the world either. I wish I could do so. I wish my understanding of that text and of other texts in Scripture and of the overall flow of the Word would allow me to dispense with that, because the truth is that every time I preach it, I lose a couple of pounds—honestly—in this world. I do not preach it because, “Ah, the man is the macho man and the man of the house, and he must be obeyed.” I preach it against my own desire and will, but in obedience to the Word of the Lord.

I believe that when the Church obeys the Word, no matter what happens, and we preach it with intelligence, grace, and balance, there is blessing. And so I preach the Word according to what I understand. If the Lord does not give me the freedom to change the passage, I will not change it; I cannot change it. But I believe that is where the power lies, you see? That is what I am applying: therein lies the power of the children of God—in remaining anchored to the Word of the Lord. It does not matter what the world says; it does not matter what the cultural currents in which we find ourselves say. What does the Word say? And if the Word says it, I can take it to the bank. That is all.

That is why the Lord says in another passage: “Search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and they are the ones that testify of Me.” The Church has to say, “Father, we are going to bind ourselves to the Scriptures even if we get gangrene, but the stronger the contrary winds of culture become, the more tightly we will bind ourselves to the mast of Your Word. And we are going to preach Your Word even if we are left alone on Earth, but we will proclaim what You say; we will look to You.”

The Church’s problem is not that it preaches the Word too much; it is that it does not preach it enough with the proper balance and the proper nuance. But when you remain steadfast—when a church says, when a ministry says, “Lord, we are going to be faithful to Your Word. I am going to devote myself to searching out the nuances of Your Word, the secrets of Your Word, like gold nuggets in a mine, and when I find them, I will put them in my bag and live with them very close to me every day of my life”—that is the secret of the Church’s power and the secret of the endurance and prosperity of a congregation and a community like ours.

In our crucifixion, as we preach the Word against the current, the Lord is glorified in our lives because we are obeying Him; we are being faithful. And even if we make mistakes, do you know what? “Your heart is right; it is in the right place. Your desire to please Me and glorify Me honors Me, and I am going to bless you. And if I have to straighten out some little thing, I will straighten it out; do not worry.”

So with that, I think we could even finish. In His human manifestation, Jesus always emphasized His relationship of intimacy with and submission to the Father, and He said that His power came from there. Jesus declares that the Father instructs and trains Him and shows Him what He must do. In the second part of verse 19, He says, “For whatever the Father does, the Son also does in like manner.” It says, “For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all the things that He Himself does”—thank you—“and He will show Him greater works than these, so that you may marvel.”

Do you know what the most spectacular level of Jesus’ wondrous power is? Of all the miracles and healings Christ performed, which was the most spectacular of all—the resurrection of a dead person? No. The power to raise the dead. For example, the Lord raised Lazarus and Jairus’s daughter, among others, and here the Lord is engaging in a kind of interplay of concepts concerning the power He has to give life. On one occasion, the Lord said that the only one who has the power to give life in Himself is the Son. Now, that is because in His humanity He was connected to the Father’s power.

He says, “I have power to lay down My life and to take it up again,” and Jesus is a reservoir of life from which He can also give life to whomever He pleases. So He showed this in a lesser way when He raised Jairus’s daughter, when He raised Lazarus, and when He raised the son of the widow of Nain. The Lord showed that He had power over death, just as He showed that He had power over storms, over demons, over sickness, over nature, and over physical things by making coins appear in the mouth of a fish. He said, “I am Lord of everything that exists,” and He demonstrated His lordship over all things.

And here He is speaking of how great His closeness to the Father is, saying that He will show Him greater things than these, so that you will marvel. The Lord says: I am going to do more than simply heal the sick and even raise the dead, and you are going to marvel at it. Verse 21: "For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever He wishes."

Now He is getting into the heart of the matter here, because Christ not only gives physical life to people who later die, just as Lazarus died, and the son of the widow of Nain died after the Lord raised him, but He also says: I am going to give final life at some future time. "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." He is already moving here into an eschatological tone—with this I am now finishing—concerning the most splendid way in which the Lord is a source of power and life; such is His intimacy with the Father.

Here Jesus goes further and suggests that He will be the author of an even greater resurrection than the resurrection He performed in these people, when He raises the dead on the Day of Resurrection. Furthermore, it is in Jesus, in His death and resurrection, that we have the hope of personal resurrection and eternal life. This is Jesus’ greatest ministry and the greatest demonstration of His divinity and His Power.

What Jesus says in verse 22 is interesting: "For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son." The Father has placed all judgment in Jesus’ hands; He is the one with whom we have to deal. God has given Jesus all authority to judge the living and the dead. Anyone who does not deal with Jesus cannot have access to the Father, because the Father has made an administrative decision and has given Jesus the authority to make decisions in the Judgment Department at the end of time.

Do you know what the Father said? He said to humanity: from now on, I am removing Myself from the task of rendering judgment; I give it to My Son. If you want to deal with Me judicially, speak with Him; if you want to have access to Me, if you want to have rights on Judgment Day, speak with Him. He is the one in charge of all that.

That is why we have to preach Jesus Christ in a militant way. I do not know all the mysteries of that area, but I can tell you that the only calling we have is to tell humanity: if you want to be at peace on the day when you have to appear before the Throne of God, deal with Jesus and stay close to Him, because He is the one who runs the entire judicial department of the Kingdom of Heaven, right?

The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son—it is Christ. Christ will come to judge the living and the dead; that is one of the Church’s most important confessions. Christ says that we must honor the Son in the same way we honor the Father, because, having power of such magnitude, the Lord deserves the same worship and honor that the Father receives.

What does verse 23 say? "That all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him." This is serious. That is why we must not draw distinctions in our language of worship or in our level of reverence for Jesus as compared with the Father, because the Bible tells us that we are free to worship Him in the same way we worship God.

That is why, when Thomas puts his hand into Jesus’ side and confirms the wounds, he speaks those words. Thomas throws himself face down before Jesus and says: My Lord and my God. And do you know that the Lord does not correct him? The Lord does not say to him: Thomas, you went just a tiny bit too far; turn the volume down a little. The Lord receives Thomas’s worship. He receives the confession: My Lord and my God, because Jesus Christ is God.

Beware of supposedly Christian religions that draw a distinction between the Father and the Son. This is false doctrine, brothers and sisters; it may be religion, but it is not Christianity. Christ is the very image of the invisible God, Colossians tells us; whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father. That is the other side of the incarnation. So, my brothers and sisters, do not let anyone out there tell you: no, Jesus is a creature whom the Father made one day, on some date in prehistory or whenever it may have been. No. The Son is eternal; the Son has always existed. The Son is made of the same substance as the Father.

That is why the Pharisees were upset with Jesus and became angry, because they said: He says He is the Son of God, so He is making Himself equal with God. It is in the Bible, of course it is. If someone is born from you, isn’t that person of the same biological nature as you, yes or no? Because you do not give birth to a chicken or a hen or a lamb, no. You are human, and you give birth to a human being, unless nature made a terrible mistake and then a monstrosity, a fabrication of evil, or something came out of your body.

What is human gives life to what is human; what is animal gives life to what is animal; what is plant gives life to what is plant; what is divine gives birth to deity, divinity. The Father and the Son are one and the same. That is why the Church has always said that the Son and the Father are consubstantial. That means they have the same substance, and that is why we say: the Son is divine and the Father is divine, because they are made of the same substance. I do not know what that substance is, but I know it is divine.

That is why we have to worship the Son, we have to imitate the Son, we have to remain close to the Son, we have to worship the Son with the same passion and the same reverence with which we worship the Father, because the Son is the Father, He is an extension of the Father, and the Father has delegated all authority to the Son. We have to be fanatics for Jesus. If someone tells you: you are becoming too fanatical, say: that is true, because I am a fanatic for Jesus.

There are people who are fanatics for people who do not deserve such fanaticism. Why not be fanatics for Jesus? He is the intermediary between God and humanity. Whoever does not accept the Son does not accept the Father, and whoever does not accept the Son does not have eternal life, you know? That is the final part there for which we do not have time, but read it afterward, because here there is also an implicit doctrine concerning hell, speaking of judgment, speaking of how the one who accepts Him passes from death to life, and how it says that those who do not accept Him will pass into eternal condemnation. What is that eternal condemnation? What is that eternal condemnation if it is not hell?

Eternal condemnation does not simply mean that the person disappears, that they press the power button and the person is gone. It is a state, and no one wants to go there. The only way we can avoid going there is through the Son, who sets us apart for the Father, with the Father. May the Lord grant that all of us here clearly understand who Jesus is to us, and that we may be a Church that glories and rejoices in giving glory to the Name of Jesus. Amen? To Him we render all tribute, all honor, and all glory this morning.

That is why it is so beautiful that this morning we were able to exalt the Son as we did through our worship. From time to time we have to do that very openly, and always do it implicitly.