So we're looking at John chapter 7 this morning, first 36 verses.
If you're a visitor here, you can see the outline of what I'm saying on the back of the sheet you get handed when you come in the door this morning.
Now, according to critics, timing is everything in politics and public life.
And we see that, don't we, all the time.
So we've had a charm offensive by Mr. Morrison, our new Prime Minister, immediately following his political assassination of our previous Prime Minister, Mr. Turnbull.
And we all know what that's about.
It's designed to quieten or avoid the hard questions that everybody wants to ask.
But of course it never works, does it?
Or rarely works.
And that's where it takes us into chapter 7 of John this morning, because it's the hard questions around Jesus that John wants us to wrestle with as he takes us into Jesus' public ministry, which is what he's doing.
And they are hard questions.
There were lots of things happening, lots of people watching and debating with Jesus,
and lots of conclusions about Jesus being formed by different individuals and groups within the crowd.
And John wants us to be, as it were, part of that.
The hard questions about Jesus won't go away.
The hard questions of Jesus today, we find, are actually the same hard questions that we need to face today about Jesus.
So, who is he?
Who is this Jesus that presents and makes these outlandish claims?
What's he about?
When you drill down into his message, what really is he about?
Is what he says to be trusted?
If we follow him, he says we'll have life, salvation, forgiveness.
Is he to be trusted?
And then on the other hand, all the negative things creep in.
Well, if as he said he was, he was God, then how come so many people reject him?
How come there's so much unbelief?
How come he allowed himself to be treated like he was treated?
How come he was rejected?
How come he was killed?
And then the ultimate question that John wants us to wrestle with is a personal question.
So, what conclusion will I form about Jesus?
2,000 years after this biography was written.
And they're hard questions, aren't they?
Hard because they're hard to understand.
But hard because of the implications of the conclusions we form.
And even if you're already a Christian this morning, you still need to drill down into that idea of you being a Christian.
You need to drill down into your own conclusions about Jesus.
You say, well, I'm a Christian, therefore I've already concluded that what Jesus says is true.
And I've committed myself to him.
But then the question arises, well, have you?
Have you really?
In other words, is your faith real?
Is your faith in line with what Jesus says it should be if you're going to be a believer in him?
Or is it possible even as you claim to be a believer, you're actually living under a form of self-deception?
So, for example, do you actually believe and trust on Jesus on his terms?
As he says, as he talks about himself and talks about salvation.
Or is it possible that you just believe in a form of Jesus?
That is, you've taken various bits and pieces of Jesus that you sit comfortably with.
And have actually rejected various bits and pieces of Jesus that are altogether too challenging.
Or that require you to give up too much or change too much.
See, as Christians we do that all the time, don't we?
And the problem with that is that Jesus said that too amounts to unbelief.
We'll see that coming out of these verses this morning.
As we move into chapter 7.
Context, as always, is critical to understanding.
So, the context is this.
People loved the miracles that Jesus was doing.
No doubt about that.
They flocked to him to see the miracles.
This was really special stuff.
Loved every moment of it.
But, increasingly rejected the conclusions Jesus pushed on them as a result of the miracles.
They were taking the miracles and saying,
Oh, this is what we'll believe about Jesus and the like of the miracles.
Jesus said, No.
If you look at the miracles, this is what you need to believe and respond to about me.
And that gap was opening up.
Into opposition.
And hatred.
And outright rejection.
Chapter 4 and 5.
We've seen it a few weeks ago.
Jesus had actually left Jerusalem and Judea.
Now, Judea was the southern part of Israel.
Why he had left there?
Because the Jewish religious authorities, none less than them,
the Jewish religious authorities had decided that Jesus was a blasphemous imposter.
And that they would kill him.
That was their conclusion.
Then chapter 6.
In time, it was a few months later.
Jesus had moved north to the northern part of Israel called Galilee.
And we find that only a few months later, history had repeated itself.
The crowds that flocked him in Galilee now, in chapter 6, have almost all abandoned him.
Why?
Well, they too, once they started to hear Jesus' teaching after the feeding of 5,000,
they too said, well, actually, this Jesus is talking about a spiritual salvation.
He wants to be a spiritual Messiah.
And quite frankly, when our biggest enemy is the Romans, we don't really have any need for a spiritual Messiah.
We don't even have any interest in a spiritual Messiah.
We don't like this nonsense of bread from heaven and internal changes and stuff like that.
And so they walked away from Jesus.
That was their conclusion.
He was irrelevant to their needs.
And chapter 7, we step into chapter 7, and there's another gap of a few months.
So from the start of chapter 7, it's about six months since the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.
And we're told in verse 1, Jesus had been going about in Galilee.
I think that word just means Jesus has been on the move.
He was flying under the radar, trying to keep a low profile,
because of the hostility that was rising against him.
In verse 2, we come up against a significant moment.
Decisions are going to have to be made.
It was the Feast of the Booth, or Feast of the Tabernacles.
And that was the most important and the most popular,
sorry, the most popular, not the most important,
the most popular of all the Jewish religious festivals.
And it was a time of happiness and excitement,
because it incorporated something that we would call a Thanksgiving, a harvest Thanksgiving.
It happened after the intake of the annual harvest.
The food was all stored for winter, so it was a time to celebrate.
But predominantly, it remembered God's provision for his people in the wilderness
after the exodus from Egypt and on their journey to the Promised Land.
And so, as I said, it was an exciting, happy time.
It was a week-long celebration.
And huge crowds went to Jerusalem for ten days or so of celebrating God's provision.
Ten days of enjoying the sense of being God's people together.
Ten days of looking to the future that the exodus had promised them,
which they'd never quite materialized for them.
And Jesus' disciples see an opportunity and think that they should go too,
because this is Jesus' moment.
This is his moment to showcase himself to the crowds.
And suddenly, in chapter 7, verse 2 again, the question, the hard question, surfaces, resurfaces.
Is it only a matter of time?
It's now six months or more since Jesus was last in Jerusalem,
and left because the crowds were going to kill him.
So, is it a case now, well, having had six months to think about Jesus
and get used to what he was saying and stuff like that,
will the crowds and will the Jewish religious authorities now warn to Jesus?
Will things be different?
Will they understand him better when he goes back to Jerusalem?
On the other side of that coin, will Jesus do things differently,
getting a second bite at the cherry, as it were?
Well, the answer as we move into chapter 7,
the answer John gives is a very loud no.
Nothing is going to be different.
Because the problem, as John has emphasized repeatedly,
is not a lack of time to consider what Jesus has been saying.
It's not a lack of time to ponder and troll over the evidence.
It's not in how Jesus has presented himself.
The real problem, John wants to see over and over and over again,
the real problem is in hearts that refuse to accept Jesus on his terms.
That's what it comes down to.
Hearts that refuse to accept Jesus on his terms as God's Messiah,
God's King and Savior.
And we'll see that playing out again in these verses
as we move into, first of all, the family response,
which is pragmatic enthusiasm covering general unbelief.
Now, we've got a sort of feel for Jesus at this point.
John has zoomed through chapter 6.
Massive crowds, incredible interest in Jesus.
Then at the end of chapter 6, we're left with not much more than just the 12 disciples.
Crowds are gone.
And now, we zoom in even further,
and the word here in chapter 3 is his brothers.
Now, it's a little bit ambiguous,
but I'm taking it to mean his actual literal biological brothers.
They have a turn now to express their conclusions about Jesus.
And they're no different from the crowd.
Not really.
They had no doubt.
It was just a matter of timing and packaging.
And so, they're saying the festival in Jerusalem,
that's the opportunity.
All right, Jesus, you need to go there.
You need to go there as soon as possible.
This is your moment.
If you farm this right, Jesus, you can turn things around.
You win the crowd back.
You can be popular.
You can be successful.
You need to get out there and sell your message.
Just like enthusiastic political campaign managers,
they think that success for Jesus lies in more exposure to the public.
Show yourself to be a patriot.
This is the time to go there and do a charm offensive,
being a patriot in Jerusalem.
Display your miracles.
Mount a popular grassroots campaign.
Give people things that will help them and benefit them,
and people will fall in line with you.
Make sure it's your face and your message
that appears every evening on the 6 o'clock Jerusalem news
for that 10 days of the festival.
But buried in that enthusiasm, verse 5,
was unbelief.
They weren't convinced by what they saw and heard from Jesus.
So part of urging Jesus to go back to Jerusalem
was to kind of convince themselves.
They had really no idea what Jesus was on about.
Even worse, from our vantage point as readers,
we can see that these brothers,
these biological brothers,
were pushing Jesus to his death,
and they just didn't even realize they were doing it.
How sad that must have been for Jesus
to hear his brothers speaking,
saying, go to Jerusalem.
We'll get you up there as quickly as we can.
And Jesus knew what the outcome of being in Jerusalem was going to be.
So we get Jesus' response then to his brothers.
And again, we see this stark contrast,
which John wants us to see,
as we engage with Jesus.
Because primarily, that's what we need to do through these verses,
is engage with Jesus.
And Jesus' response shows him to be purposeful,
faithful in his commitment to saving God's people.
Jesus pushes back at his brothers,
and he said, well, actually, guys,
you're telling me it's a question of timing,
and you're right and you're wrong.
It is a question of timing,
but it's a question of God's timing,
not your timing.
See, the brothers had no idea about God's agenda,
and how the next few months would play out for Jesus.
And it's only six or seven or eight months from this point
to Jesus actually killed on the cross.
But ironically,
given the nature of the feast and the festival
and what it was celebrating,
ironically, if they had actually understood what Jesus was teaching,
they would have realized that the festival they were keen to be part of
actually described Jesus' mission.
He was the greater than Moses,
the prophet who was to come.
He had come to mount another exodus,
to lead another exodus event,
to rescue his people from the world.
Everything that is opposed to God
and holds his people in bondage.
So in a sense,
what Jesus is in here,
in this festival,
is a real live drama
of working in parallel
with what he's going to endure,
what he's there for.
But of course,
nobody sees that except Jesus.
Jesus had come into the world
to expose evil and sin and death
and deliver his people into light and life.
Jesus is saying here in these verses,
all this will become clear in due course.
But in the meanwhile,
no amount of charm offensive
or populist politicking
will change anything.
Jesus will inevitably offend.
Look at verse 6.
My time has not yet come,
but your time is always here.
The world cannot hate you,
but it hates me.
Why?
Because I testify about it
that its works are evil.
There's an inevitable clash
of agendas,
a clash of worldviews,
a clash of wills,
a clash of thinking,
a clash of desires.
Jesus will inevitably offend people,
causing them to hate him
because he will expose
and deliver them
from the very things
that people want to keep hidden.
Rebellion
and unbelieving hearts and attitudes.
But Jesus is God's man,
driven by God's concern
for God's glory.
And that's what we need to see.
In spite of what he knows
he's ahead of,
Jesus doesn't turn
to the left or right.
He plows ahead
because he's God's man,
driven by concern
for God's glory.
Look at verse 10.
We're just going to skim over
some verses very quickly now.
Jesus does go to Jerusalem
in the end.
But the point here,
I think,
is that he goes to Jerusalem
on his terms.
And again,
immediately starts teaching,
pushing the crowd
to believe his claim
to be God's king and savior.
verses 16, 17, and 18.
They recognize his authority
as he teaches.
They admire his teaching
and his authority.
And Jesus tells them
his purpose,
his mission,
is not in any way
to showcase himself,
but his life
and his mission
and his very being
is driven
by the Father's purpose
in salvation.
He's here to implement
his Father's purpose
in salvation.
He speaks truth
from his Father.
And the fact
that they do not respond
to Jesus in belief
shows they have
lost touch with God.
And lost touch
with God's purpose
in salvation
as written
in their Jewish scriptures.
The divide opens again.
Verses 27, 28, and 29.
Same sort of thought.
Jesus says,
well look,
your response
tells me one thing.
You've only got
a very superficial understanding
of who I am.
You think you know
everything about me,
but you don't.
And so, says Jesus,
no surprise.
You do not see me
as God's Savior
because you're so focused
on running your own agenda.
Same problem.
We've seen chapter
after chapter
after chapter.
Verses 32 through 36.
Jesus will accomplish
his mission.
verse 33.
Jesus then said,
I will be with you
a little longer
and then I'm going
to him who sent me.
I'm here for a job.
I'll do the job.
And then I'm going
back home to my father.
That's the plan.
And the plan
will be perfected.
And hidden in there
is Jesus saying
to the Jewish
religious authorities
who remember
at that very moment
were planning to kill him.
He's really saying to them,
now look,
you guys,
you think you know
all about me.
You think you control
my destiny,
but I'm telling you
that you evil people
will never control
my life
and my destiny.
Regardless of what
it appears like,
regardless of what
they think,
Jesus,
he's on God's mission,
on God's timing
and will complete it.
And so,
the irony again is,
and there's lots of irony
in this passage,
the irony is
that the brothers
unknowingly said
to Jesus,
go up to Jerusalem
and show yourself
to the world.
Jesus is saying here,
yes,
he says,
I will be showing
myself to the world.
But when that moment
comes,
I'll be showing
myself in shame
of death
by execution
as a criminal.
It will be a
sacrificial death.
It will be a death
of apparent defeat.
It will be a special
death in the sense
that nobody else
can follow me
into this particular
death because it is
a sacrificial death
for the forgiveness
of sins.
But then,
says Jesus,
I'll return to heaven
with my Father.
And again,
something that sinful
people will be
excluded from.
I will show myself
to the world,
says Jesus.
But even then,
you're not going to
be able to understand
what it's about.
And then we have
the popular response,
commitment to
faithless unbelief
towards Jesus.
Now once again,
John gives us
a very wide range
of unbelieving
responses to Jesus.
And that's been
his pattern right
through.
And so,
in a sense,
there's a lot
of repetition,
but it's nuanced.
Verse 11.
There's nothing
very nuanced
about this.
The religious leaders
were planning
to kill Jesus.
Worse than that,
they were actually
openly promising
to kill Jesus.
And worse than that,
even,
verse 13,
they had
implemented a
fear campaign,
I think,
because it was not
just going to kill
Jesus,
but it was anybody
associated with Jesus.
Look at verse 13.
Yet for fear of the
Jews,
and when John uses
that term,
he's usually talking
about the Jewish
religious leader,
yet for fear of the
Jews,
no one spoke openly
of him.
Everybody had an
opinion about Jesus.
Everybody was talking,
but they were scared.
Scared of what?
Scared to associate
with Jesus,
because they knew
that Jewish religious
leaders were going
to kill Jesus,
and most likely,
if you're closely
associated with Jesus,
you might actually
get dragged into the
mess.
That's a pretty strong
response of unbelief.
Not just a decision
for themselves,
but a decision
they were imposing
on people around them,
the nation around them.
The people who were
supposed to instruct
and lead into truth.
Verse 12.
Everybody had an
opinion about Jesus,
and it seems very
modern, doesn't it?
So some people,
on the one hand,
were saying,
well actually,
he's a good man.
It's hard to find fault
with a guy.
After all,
look at all the good
things he's doing.
He's bringing benefit
into the community,
and he's not harming
anybody,
so let's just leave
well enough alone.
Yep.
He's a good bloke.
The other extreme,
again,
very familiar,
he's a deceiver.
He's leading people
astray.
He's not a good man.
He's a bad man.
He's leading people
to believe something
that's not true.
He's giving people
a hope of life
and salvation
that's not right
according to how
we understand the law.
Very familiar responses,
aren't they?
Verses 19 to 24,
Jesus takes up
the big issue
that the Jews
had with him.
The issue of
claiming that
Jesus was a lawbreaker
and a blasphemer.
Well,
Jesus really takes
the case to them
and rubbishes their claim.
He's really saying
to them here,
I think,
in these verses.
Look,
you're challenging
about me being a lawbreaker
because that's just
really petty.
Worse than that,
it's illogical.
Worse than that,
you're just using it
as an excuse,
another reason not to believe.
Here's how it worked.
So,
they say that Jesus
should be condemned
and put to death
because he breaks the law.
Remember,
he healed a guy,
the last time he was
in Jerusalem,
some six or seven
or eight months earlier,
he healed a guy
on the Sunday,
on the Sabbath.
Right?
And for that,
they say,
they were furious.
He needs to die.
He's got total disregard
for the law of Moses.
He breaks the law.
But Jesus,
I think,
is picking up here.
Well,
actually,
you guys forgot
that you're deliberately
plotting my murder
right at this very moment.
You blame me
for breaking the law,
but you also
fail to keep the law.
But then,
more immediately,
he's saying,
well,
look,
this whole thing
about breaking the law
in regard to the Sabbath
because I healed this guy,
he uses an argument
against him.
He says,
well,
actually,
you guys allow
the circumcision
of a child
on the Sabbath
if that circumcision
falls on the eighth day
to fulfill the law.
The law said
you have to circumcise
the child on the eighth day.
So,
Jesus was saying,
well,
okay,
you guys allow circumcision
in that event
even though technically
circumcision
is a breach of the law
because it's working.
So,
he said,
how can you logically
then say to me
because I healed
a guy on a Sabbath
which again
is technically
a breach
but doing something
really good.
How can you hold
that against me?
What he's saying is
you guys
are just illogical.
You're just
finding reasons
to
not believe.
And then buried in there,
others thought
he had a mental health issue,
wasn't thinking straight.
But Jesus pushes back again
suggesting
they're the ones
who are not thinking straight.
Do not judge
by appearances
but judge
with right judgment.
He's pleading
for fairness
and generosity.
Again,
he's saying,
look,
if only you would
actually give me a go,
you would see
and understand
and be drawn
into truth
and ultimately
drawn into life.
But instead,
all they were given
Jesus was
prejudice
and pettiness.
But among all those
responses,
verse 31,
John's always keen
to remind us,
yet many of the people
believed in him.
They said,
when the Christ appears,
will he do more signs
than this man has done?
In the midst of
massive belief
and confusion,
some are actually
moving towards
belief.
This doesn't
necessarily suggest
that people are actually
Christians at that point,
but they're moving
towards belief
because they're actually
being generous
and logical
and fair
in the way they're
viewing their evidence.
They're saying,
well, look,
okay,
can we imagine
anybody else
doing greater
and more miraculous
and wonderful things
than what Jesus
has been doing?
No, we can't.
The scriptures
told us that
when Messiah comes,
he would do great
and miraculous
and wonderful things.
Therefore,
this has to be
the Messiah.
We don't understand
everything there is
to understand about him,
but this has to be
the Messiah.
So they're moving
towards Jesus
and they're moving
into deeper
and deeper belief.
So what do we need
to learn
from this part
of the story?
There's lots more
details,
I just don't have time
to get into there.
But what do we need
to learn
from this part
of the story?
Well, I just want
to touch down
a couple of things
and they're fairly
arbitrary in lots of ways.
So you're free
to interact with them
and even reject them
if you don't think
they're right.
But the first one
is this.
Unbelief does not
always mean
rejecting Jesus outright.
Unbelief does not
always mean
rejecting Jesus outright.
But it is always
resisting the terms
and agenda
for salvation
offered by Jesus.
And it is always
about implementing
our own values
and judgments
as to what will
please God
and make us
acceptable to him.
So, we sometimes
don't help ourselves
by thinking
well, unbelief
equals walking
away from Jesus
completely.
It's not always
like that.
It's much more
nuanced.
It's possible
to stay in the
Christ
and to believe
but reject
the terms
that Jesus offers.
believers.
And it's not only
possible
but it's actually
likely
almost inevitably
because we're hardwired
to do that very thing.
We're hardwired
to reject
truth.
That's what it is
to be sinful people.
We're hardwired
to reject
anything
that challenges
our view of life
and our understanding
of life
and our practice
of life.
And we're hardwired
to do this
even in the face
of logic
and truth
and compelling
evidence.
Sometimes we
I think
when we read
these texts
we just read
from a reader's
perspective
and think
if these people
only could see
the big perspective
over 2,000 years
that we're seeing
then they would have
believed.
Well not so
says Jesus.
And in fact
the degree
to which we
oppose
or modify
or reject
Jesus
will be determined
by how much
we feel
threatened
by Jesus.
How much
we feel
Jesus challenges
our existing
values
and understanding
of truth.
So
jumping from the text
into our
application here
where did the
most deep
seated
hatred
and rejection
of Jesus
come from?
It came from
those who were
most religious.
religious.
It came from
people who knew
the Old Testament
scriptures
inside out
back to front.
It could
quote slabs
of it
whose very
life work
was teaching
these things.
Why did that
hatred come from?
Because they had
nowhere to hide.
Jesus was
totally dismantling
everything
that they
defined
themselves
by.
Everything
that they
had lived
their lives
by.
They thought
well if
only I do
religious actions
A, B, C and D
then God
will be pleased
with me
and God
will actually
be indebted
with me.
God will
accept me
because he
has to
accept me
because I
have honoured
him.
And Jesus
comes at them
and says
no you're
all wrong.
Yes you
believe that
sincerely
but you've
been sincerely
wrong.
That's not
how it
works.
they assumed
that they
had the
ability and
the desire
to come to
God and
did so quite
openly and
again that God
ought to be
beholden to
them.
Jesus says
well no
you're hard
wired to
reject God
and you'll
only come
to God
if God
actually
does a
work in
your heart
and brings
you to
himself.
Jesus was
taking control
of their
salvation
away from
them and
making them
see that
salvation
could only
be by
grace and
not by
the works
of the
flesh or
by their
own
efforts.
And they
didn't like
that.
That was
undoing them.
That was
showing them
to be
wrong.
Their
choices?
Well
Jesus has
got to
go.
Jesus
teaches that
salvation is
inside out.
These guys
were saying
it's
outside in.
They had
no place
for God's
spirit because
they didn't
need God's
spirit to
renew their
hearts and
their
attitudes.
And then
other responses
were much
more moderate,
much more
subtle.
But they
reinterpret
Jesus to
the point
where those
who hold
those views
believe in
Jesus because
he's become
comfortable to
them.
And he
fits in
comfortably with
their own
terms.
So it
comes like
this in
a modern
take on
it.
It goes
something like
this and
you've heard
people say
this.
There's
people in
our church
I think
who say
this.
Well I
want to
believe in
Jesus.
I really
like it that
he points me
back to
serious
spirituality
and he
points me
to really
connect to
God and
pursue the
good life
that God
wants me
to have.
I really
like that
about Jesus.
But I
find it
really,
really difficult
to accept
that he
would judge
me as a
sinner.
Or indeed
that he
would threaten
me with
hell.
What right
has he to
do that?
Or that he
would say
to me there's
actually only a
very, very
narrow pathway
to life and
it involves
relationship with
Jesus and
involves a
complete change
of life, a
complete orientation.
I'm sure that
God has many
different pathways
to heaven and
life.
So I really
like this about
Jesus but I'm
not going to go
down that
pathway.
Or we
say that
Jesus died
for our
sin.
This is
very, very
real for us
here.
Sin's a big
thing, isn't
it?
It's a big
word for us
in our
church.
We say that
Jesus died
for our
sin.
Why did he
die for our
sin?
Because sin's
really serious.
Why is sin
really serious?
Because it
keeps us
from God.
It keeps
us from
enjoying
relationship
with God.
So here's
the question.
Which of
your sins
are you
protecting
and determined
to keep
because you
actually like
it?
Yes, you'll
give up a
sin over
here or
over here
but this
one here,
no, I
actually rather
like it and
I'm not going
to allow
Jesus to
expose it.
You say,
well, I
believe God's
end point in
salvation is
the creation
of the
church.
And the
church is
his saved
people in
a community
that reflects
heaven.
And that's
what Jesus
teaches.
But then we
go on and
say, well,
actually, I'm
not going to
engage seriously
or thoroughly
with any
church family,
let alone this
church family.
The theory's
okay, I like
the concept
of church,
but the
practice is
just too
hard to be
bold with.
It's too
hard to
engage with
other people
who let
me down
all the
time.
It's too
hard to
reorganize my
lifestyle to
prioritize
fellowship with
believers.
I don't need
them.
I can exist
very well by
myself.
In fact, I
prefer to be
on my own.
You see the
problem?
it's great to
realize that
Jesus has
always been
purposefully and
faithfully committed
to save you
and me.
In response,
we need to be
sure that the
Jesus we say we
believe in is
actually the
Jesus of
Scripture.
that we
believe in
Jesus on
his terms,
not ours,
and all his
terms, not
just some.
Friends, it's
just too easy
to deceive
ourselves into
a cheap
substitute that
looks like true
belief, but
is actually
unbelief.
too easy
to
just
know
about
the
mission
to
believe in
Jesus
God
we
knew
he
He
to
the