Appointed To Bear Fruit: A 90 Day JourneySample

Believe His Works

Jesus has made an outstanding claim: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” He has revealed plainly His deity. Jesus Christ is Lord. It’s often hard when someone hears that Jesus is God for the first time, because throughout their whole lives they have been told that Jesus is not God. Yet throughout His ministry, Jesus did only that which God can do: He raised the dead; knew people’s thoughts; and forgave sins. This was not done with magic, but simply by speaking a word. Looking at these works and understanding Jesus’ claim leaves each of us with a decision to make. Will you believe? No one can stay neutral in relationship to Christ. He is either God or He is not. Every person must decide what they believe.

Fortunately, God didn’t leave us to make our decision without any evidence. Jesus tells us that His proclamation of His deity didn’t originate from Himself, but from the Father. When Jesus performed miracles, taught, and forgave sins, He was not working alone but together with the Father. This is the secret of the Trinity. The Trinity is not three Gods, but one. The Trinity is a unity—one voice and one action working together to bring the maximum glory to God through fulfilling God’s plan of redemption. No one’s mind can grasp the secrets of God, but we can understand that the Trinity is a unity. The Trinity cannot be understood by our own logic. 

Jesus knew that the revelation of God’s being would be hard for us to understand so He directed us to examine the evidence: “Believe on account of the works themselves.” Jesus desires for us to look at all the works that the Father and the Son did together. The phrase “the works that I do” is also found in John 10:25. Jesus said, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me.” Any honest examination will lead to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is saying that we should let His works lead us to faith.

On one occasion, I was sharing the gospel with someone who had changed His religion several times, because he wanted to find a religion that was in accordance to what he thought was true. He didn’t accept that we were polluted by Adam’s sin, because He believed that Adam already paid the penalty for his own sin. This man also could not accept the Trinity. As I was sharing the gospel with him, I pointed him to the works that Jesus did. Ultimately, I pointed him to Jesus’ crowning work of dying on the cross and rising again. This is the work that proves that Jesus is Lord, because only God could redeem us. No one else would qualify as payment for our sins. The proof of the resurrection is great. Even history can’t dispute it. Paul wrote of the resurrection, stating that if you didn’t believe what he was saying, you could ask some of the 500 eyewitnesses, many of whom were still alive when Paul was writing (I Cor. 15:6).

Jesus didn’t say that we should believe because God fits with our assumptions and worldview. He said we should believe because He told us the truth and proved it with His works. His works testify to all people through all ages. Jesus Christ is Lord. 

Application:  What conclusion are you drawing from the works that Christ did?