Truly Man, Truly God, and Truly Worthy of Worship (John 5:18-29)
Sermon Manuscript
This is one of my favorite things I have. It’s my grandmother’s original ticket to go to NASA and watch the launch of Apollo 11 that first took men to the moon on July 16, 1969. And, yes, I do believe that happened:) Maybe I get it from her, but ever since I was a kid, I have been interested in the space program. I watch every rocket launch I can. I vividly remember the challenger exploding as a kindergartner. Maybe the teachers crying helped it to be seared into my young brain. When we moved back to Orlando, I was excited to introduce my kids to rocket launches from our driveway. My son, James, was four at the time and, as we were walking back inside after his first launch, he looked at me and said, “Dad, thank you so much for moving us into a neighborhood with rockets.” Least I could do, buddy.
I was with our community group when Artemis II launched and we all walked outside to see it, as many of you did. A friend of mine texted me this week and asked me, “What do you think prompts the sense of awe people have with the Artemis mission?”
I said I think it reorients us. Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God.” It doesn’t say argue or prove. It says ‘declares.’ You don’t need a theology degree to feel it. You just look up and feel wonder, grandeur, and smallness at the same time. We are not just trying to understand the universe, we are trying to find ourselves in it. We are trying to rise above the limits and brokenness we experience here. It’s as if we have some intrinsic hope that if we can just get far enough away, far enough out there, we might find something better.
And here is what I think is underneath all of that. We are looking for something to worship. Not just something to admire from a distance, not just something to explore, but something to give our lives to. Something to make sense of the mess down here. Whales don’t do this. Dogs don’t do this. It is something uniquely human. We can’t help but do this. We were made to center our lives around something ultimate. The only question is not if we will worship, but what we will worship.
And that is exactly where John five meets us. Jesus stepped into a world full of people who are already worshipping…they’re just giving themselves to the wrong things. And the right thing is standing right in front of them. And here is where this gets really important for how we read John 5. Most people think Christianity is mainly about obedience. Do what Jesus says. Follow His teaching. Be a better person. But here’s the problem. You can obey someone without worshipping them. You can obey a boss. You can obey a coach. You can obey the law. But you don’t worship them. That’s how the religious leaders were relating to God in John 5.
And Jesus steps into that…and throws a grenade into it. He is not someone you can merely obey. He is someone you must worship. And what John 5 does is help us answer three really important questions about that.
I. Why does Jesus demand worship and not just obedience? 18-23
This part is going to be a little heady, but it’s so important so let’s dial in. Jesus tells us three hugely profound things here that answer this question. First, because He is equal with God. Verse 18, 18 This was why the Jews zwere seeking all the more to kill him, abecause not only was he bbreaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God chis own Father, dmaking himself equal with God. Jesus is God. Jesus is both fully God and fully man. Some prefer to say that Jesus is truly God and truly man. Jesus is truly God because He shares the same nature as the Father. Jesus is truly man because He is standing before them in the flesh, speaking, walking, eating, and feeling all the things we do.
The theological term for this is hypostatic union. Jesus is not half and half. He doesn’t switch back and forth. He isn’t one more than the other. He is one person with two natures. This is why He can say in verse 19, “Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” No prophet could say this. No teacher could say this. Only someone who is God in the flesh can say this.
And then Jesus says something really interesting in verse 20. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. That word marvel matters. Jesus is not just making a theological claim. He is intentionally provoking awe. In other words, the kind of awe we feel when we look up at the heavens…Jesus is saying, “You haven’t seen anything yet.”
Jesus is not only equal with God, but He also demands our worship because He acts with the authority of God. 22 nFor the Father judges no one, but ohas given all judgment to the Son. People tend to think that God the Father and God the Son operate with different postures or motives. God the Father is always angry, but God the Son comes to protect us from that anger. God the Father is always judgemental, but Jesus is always forgiving. Kind of like a good cop/bad cop. That’s not the case.
They are the same. According to his divine nature, Jesus has inherent authority. According to his numan nature, Jesus exercises that authority in human history. The doctrine of the hypostatic union isn’t just fun theological trivia. Jesus isn’t just some middleman. He is God Himself who has come near to us. And notice verse 20: the Father loves the Son. This isn’t just about authority, it’s about relationship. It means when we are called to worship Jesus, we are being invited into the very love that has existed within God forever.
And because this is true, Jesus Himself deserves the Worship of God the Father. That is, the worship that is owed to God the Father is also owed to Jesus. Verse 23 23 that all may honor the Son, just as they phonor the Father. What does that mean? Exactly what it says: just as. It means we give Jesus the same reverence, the same devotion, and the same worship as we give God the Father.
When Angela and I were newly married, we were figuring out our budgeting and she said, “Ok, I feel like you want to monitor every penny we have.” I was like, “Umm, yes?” The Pharisees are saying, “Jesus, it’s like you are saying you are God Himself!” And Jesus is saying, “Yes!” If Jesus were only man, worshiping Him would be idolatry. If He were only God, none of us could approach Him. But, because He is both, we can approach Him and we must worship Him.
There is something inside us that prefers obedience to worship because obedience lets us stay in control. Obedience can be measured. Worship, though, requires total surrender. Obedience says, “Tell me what to do.” Worship says, “You have my whole life.” That sounds like a lot to ask…unless the One asking actually has life to give.
II. How does worship lead to life? 24-26
Jesus says in verse 24, 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, rwhoever hears my word and sbelieves him who sent me has eternal life. How does that actually work? Not theoretically. How does worship lead to life? It works because worship is the act of entrusting yourself to the One who has life in Himself. And then Jesus says something really important in verse 25: “An hour is coming, and is now here…” Which means eternal life isn’t just a future promise, it’s a present reality breaking into your life right now.
It can sound weird in verse 19 when Jesus says, “the son can do nothing of His own accord.” But it’s not weird, it’s logical. It’s not weakness, it’s perfect unity. He is so aligned with the Father that everything He does is an exact expression of Him. And that is what worship begins to do in us. As we worship Jesus, as we give our whole selves to Him, we begin to experience life in a way that causes us to become more of an expression of the Father.
Jesus says…hear my word, believe him who sent me, and you have life. Then, He says in verse 26 26 yFor as the Father has life in himself, zso he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. That phrase, “life in Himself” is everything in this passage. Only God has life in Himself. Everything else is dependent. And this means that every other place we go for life…success, control, approval, comfort…we will be drawing from sources that don’t actually have life to give. They can stimulate us. They can distract us. They can temporarily energize us. But, they cannot give us life because they do not possess it.
So, when Jesus says ‘hear’ and ‘believe,’ He’s not describing religious activity. He’s describing relational surrender. To hear Him is to recognize His authority. To believe Him is to entrust yourself to Him. And that’s worship.
We tend to think life comes from managing our lives well. If I make good decisions, if I stay disciplined, if I obey the right principles, then I will build a life. But Jesus is saying, “You don’t build life, you receive it.” And you receive it not by taking more control over your life, but by surrendering it to Him. The deepest problem in us isn’t just that we make bad decisions, it’s that we keep going to sources that cannot give us what we are looking for. We are trying to extract life from things that don’t have it.
The human heart constantly takes good things and turns them into ultimate things. Success is a good thing…until it becomes the thing that tells you who you are. Relationships are a good thing…until you say, “If I don’t have this, I’m nothing.” Approval is a good thing…until it starts to control your decisions. And when this happens, those things stop being gifts and they become what we worship. And here’s how you know it’s happening.
When you build your identity on anything other than God, it creates both anxiety and fragility. Anxiety because you’re always afraid of losing it. And fragility because if you do lose it, you don’t just feel disappointed, you feel like you’re coming apart. Because, you’re asking it to give you something it was never designed to give: life.
This is what we were talking about with Artemis. We look to the heavens and feel like if we could just get far enough, maybe we can find something better. But the problem isn’t the distance, it’s the source. We’re still looking for life in places that don’t have it. But, Jesus does.
True worship leads to life because worship is how we reorient our trust toward the only One who actually has life. When we worship Jesus we stop trying to be our own source. When we worship Jesus we stop treating other things as ultimate. When we worship Jesus we entrust ourselves to Him. And the moment we do, Jesus doesn’t say we will eventually have life. He says, “You have it.” Not later, now.
True life, abundant life, eternal life isn’t the reward for obedience, it’s the result of worshipping Jesus because only Jesus has life to give. Jesus says, “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.” His voice doesn’t just give information, it gives life.
In Genesis, God speaks and life is created. Here, Jesus speaks and dead souls wake up. His voice doesn’t just inform, it creates life. And we can’t just kick the can down the road when it comes to our decision to worship.
III. Why is worship so urgent? 27-29
Jesus says, “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice…” There is a sense of urgency in Jesus’ words. Why is that? Because the One we choose to worship now is the One we will stand before later. Remember, Jesus says the Father has given Him authority to execute judgement. Now Jesus tells us why in verse 27: Because He is the Son of Man. That’s not just a title, it’s a claim. It points back to Daniel 7. The figure who has divine authority over all nations.
So the One speaking here is truly human which means He truly understands you. And He is truly divine which means He has authority over you. And if that is true, then our lives are already oriented toward Him whether we realize it or not.
Then, Jesus says something even more sobering in verse 28. All who are in the tombs will hear his voice. The same voice that calls us now will call us then. Right now, His voice invites us. One day, His voice will summon us. And in that moment, there will be no more delay, no more deflection, no more control. No one escapes that moment. Jesus will summon all humanity on that day, we will come out, and be divided into two groups. Verse 29, cthose who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
This doesn’t mean that humanity will be divided into ‘good people’ and ‘bad people.’ Those who did more than 50% good in this life and those who did not. It’s revealing something deeper: Your life reveals your worship. It reveals what we trust, what we center our lives on, what we ultimately live for. What we worship doesn’t stay hidden, it comes out in how we live. John Calvin said, “Works are not the basis of life, they are evidence of it.” James 2:14 says, 14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith obut does not have works? Can that faith save him? Again, it isn’t about obedience, it’s about worship. But, true worship brings natural obedience.
We tend to believe we can delay this decision. That we can stay neutral, stay undecided, keep our options open, and stay in control just a little bit longer. But Jesus is saying that neutrality is a myth. That we are already giving our lives to something. Already being shaped by something. Already moving toward something. And that something is not random. It is forming us into someone who honors Jesus with our lives or someone who does not.
So, worship is urgent because it is not something you start later. It is something you are already doing now. And one day, what is already true of you will be fully revealed. The voice you are learning to ignore now, will be the voice you cannot ignore then.
When people gaze at the expanse of the universe many of them will see how small we are and conclude that we don’t matter as much. But what this passage tells us is that when we gaze at the expanse of the universe, we can rightly conclude that the Author of all this has come near to us. This is exactly what Psalm 8 says, “When I consider your heavens…what is man that you are mindful of him?”
Do you see why we can’t reduce Christianity to ‘Just obey the rules’? And praise God for that because if life came through obedience, none of us would have it. We don’t obey our way into life. Jesus lived the life we couldn’t live, and now He offers that life to us.
He’s not just a teacher, He is God of all creation. And He is not just God, but God come near. And this logically reorients our hearts from obedience to worship. And the reason we can worship Him at all is because of who He is. As a man Jesus stood in our place on the cross. As God, His sacrifice was sufficient. Only the God-man could represent us and redeem us.
On the cross, the Judge was judged. The Author of life entered death. So now, we don’t have to obey to earn life. We worship because we have been given life. We don’t just obey Jesus from a distance, we worship Him as God come near, and we find life only in Him. In Christ alone.
Just take a moment and ask yourself, what am I really living for right now? What am I organizing my life around? Because whatever that is… that’s what you worship. And only Jesus is worthy of our worship and in Jesus will give our hearts what they long for.
