Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] We're gonna be looking at John, chapter seven as we move on through our series, slowly but surely through the book of John.
[00:00:09] And I think I put Mark up there because I've been reading through Mark.
[00:00:14] Next slide. Did I do that? I did. It should be John chapter seven. So.
[00:00:21] Yes, but Mark's going to come up in one of these passages, too. So we will look at that. Let's go ahead and pray, and then we will get started. Father, you are such a wonderful God.
[00:00:32] And Lord, thank you for the opportunity that we've had to sing praises to your name because you are worthy.
[00:00:40] Father, thank you for your word that you have given us today that we can read it. And, Lord, you've given us your holy spirit that we can understand it. And, Father, please just help me to proclaim it in a way that we can just take it in. And through your spirit, Lord, whatever I may say, your word is true. And, Lord, the message of your gospel is here today. Father, we love you. We thank you. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:11] Opinions of Jesus don't matter, just the facts. As I wrote that down, it's kind of crazy how world affects you in the culture because today's world opinions are so important, aren't they?
[00:01:27] It's like opinions and preferences have almost become like fact and a person's identity. And this is what I believe and don't mess with what I believe because it's my opinion. I have a right to my opinion, and my opinion is right. And so therefore, don't argue with me.
[00:01:45] We have that mindset.
[00:01:47] And as I wrote this, like, gosh, am I going to offend somebody because I wrote, your opinions about Jesus don't matter. And I said, what? I don't care because they really don't matter unless it's the fact.
[00:01:59] And so we want to look at this. And this passage really deals with idea of opinions about Jesus, whether it be the people that we will see and we'll read it and kind of set in your mind, and then we will move forward with this, this little change of pace in John, John, chapter seven, not mark, verses one through 13.
[00:02:22] After this, Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews feast of the booths was at hand. So his brother said to him, leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.
[00:02:48] Good advice, right, brothers?
[00:02:50] For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast.
[00:03:06] I am not going up to the feast, for my time has not yet fully come. After saying this, he remained in Galilee, but after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, where is he?
[00:03:24] And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said he is a good man, others said, no, he is leading the people astray. Yet for the fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.
[00:03:39] Your views of Jesus, your opinions of Jesus, they do matter because it's based or what is at hand is your salvation if your view isn't wrong or is wrong.
[00:03:56] James Boyce asked people outside his church in Philadelphia back in the 1970s. This is a while ago on who Jesus was or is. One young woman responded, Jesus Christ was a man who thought he was God.
[00:04:10] Another young woman, a biology student, replied, Jesus Christ is pure essence of energy.
[00:04:16] God to me is energy, electric energy, because it's something that's not known.
[00:04:22] A man answered, I think that's something you have to decide for yourself. But he had some beautiful ideas.
[00:04:29] Others, he's an individual who lived 2000 years ago who was interested in the betterment of classes, of people. He was well liked, he meant well, he was a good man. But most people were just confused.
[00:04:42] Others answered, I have no idea. I don't know.
[00:04:47] More recently, Barna did a study or a survey. They asked a bunch of people, they always do about Jesus. And after all the study, they come to the conclusion that most believe that he was an historical figure. Here in the United States, the vast majority of Americans believe Jesus was a real person, which is, I guess, okay. But what's sad is the younger generations are increasingly less likely to believe Jesus was God. Actually, it's like less than 50% of the younger people in our country don't believe that Jesus Christ is God.
[00:05:23] And their opinion of Jesus matters because it affects their salvation.
[00:05:32] A pop culture figure said this when it comes to Jesus or this is brought it in, not him speaking, but this is his view of opinions. Opinions don't affect facts, but facts should affect opinions and do if you're rational.
[00:05:51] But what's bad is, and what's sad is sin makes us irrational, doesn't it? Sin makes us not think properly about things that we should think properly about. Sin causes us to distort things and personalize things when they shouldn't be.
[00:06:09] The question is also important, even for those who have already believed in Jesus, savior and lord, is why should we have a certain opinion about God?
[00:06:21] Why should we be set on the facts about Jesus Christ, not just today, not just the moment, but throughout our entire life and who he is specifically?
[00:06:36] Think about this.
[00:06:39] How many of you husbands think you perfectly know your wife?
[00:06:44] Smart men.
[00:06:48] How many wives believe your husband has lots of room to grow when it comes to knowing you, who you are?
[00:06:58] The husband. Yeah. All right.
[00:07:03] Just as in human relationships such as marriage, there's always room to grow to know the other person more deeply. Correct?
[00:07:12] So it is also in our relationship with Jesus Christ that we know him deeply, because the more we know him, there is less room for opinions and preferences, isn't there? The more we know about the facts of Jesus Christ and understand completely who Jesus is. There is no room for interpretation, is there?
[00:07:32] The Bible speaks clearly about who Jesus is.
[00:07:37] Even Paul a few years, about, actually about 25 years after his conversion, the apostle Paul said that his aim was still, still, that I may know him.
[00:07:52] Philippians 310, he wasn't done yet.
[00:07:56] We've never arrived at the point where we know Jesus completely.
[00:08:01] We will one day as we stand before him, not only just know him, but to see him personally, face to face.
[00:08:11] When we get to that point, as we grow, and we're talking about this in Bible study this morning, is that it's kind of like, not weird, but it's just, you see, as we looked at the life of Jacob, that he didn't arrive and he finally got it when he's about ready to die, understanding that all the turmoil and distress and anxiousness in his life, it was all God ordained and for his purpose, to carry out the promise that he made to his grandfather Abraham.
[00:08:40] He understood that.
[00:08:42] And what happens when we more deeply know Jesus? What is the result of that?
[00:08:48] When we know him more and more fully, that we are more and more as he works in our lives, that we are complete in him. But the combination of his work in our life and our understanding of who he is, it becomes a sweet spot in life.
[00:09:05] And when that happens, the easier it is to submit to him and to trust him with everything that we have and are.
[00:09:13] That's why we want to grow in Jesus Christ, because we're going to walk through life. And even Jacob, at the end of his life, he says, God was my shepherd.
[00:09:28] Even in the bad times, even in the dark valleys, he realized that God was always with him and he could trust God in every situation.
[00:09:41] And so this idea of opinions is we're going to look at three different people here who had opinions or views of Jesus and what they represent to both non believers and us as believers, how it affects us and our opinions.
[00:09:59] The context here, it's about six months after this feast that Jesus would be crucified. It's the feast of the booth. It's almost like, you know, we have three biggies here, right? We have, we have thanksgiving, we have Christmas, we have Easter. Israelites, same type of thing. They had the feast of the booths and then six months later, they would have the Passover. And it's a big event. People celebrated the feast of the booths. It was a time of thanksgiving, it was a time of praising God, and that was where he was going to be a part of it. Passover was basically the same time around John six, Jesus was talking about being the bread of life at the Passover time. So this is about six months later.
[00:10:41] And as John says, after this. So it's been about six months, he's still walking about. If you read the other gospels, you see what he's been doing those six months, doing his ministry in Galilee, healing people, another feast of 4000. The disciples still not getting it as they get in the boat and they say, jesus, where's the food gonna come from? And he's like, don't you get it yet?
[00:11:03] I'm the bread of life. I am your food. You need nothing else. And so we're about here.
[00:11:09] His village didn't like him. They didn't want him. They disregarded him. And so now we see his brothers giving their advice.
[00:11:21] Basically, don't do God's will, do your will.
[00:11:27] Worse yet, do what we want you to do. Jesus, we're your brothers.
[00:11:31] We know better. We know what you need to do.
[00:11:34] So there's three opinions that we need to look at here. And these opinions in our views, they shape the way people acted and responded to Jesus and the message that he was offering. And today, again, because of our own sinful desires and our own flesh, sometimes our view and our idea and understanding of Jesus gets a little muddled sometimes. And that affects the way we respond in life.
[00:12:02] And we look at a passage like this and we can sometimes point fingers and say and deflect, see what they did wrong or why couldn't they just get this? And yet we don't always look at ourselves and evaluate. Like Paul tells us in two corinthians 13. Our daily understanding and our view of Jesus Christ and our standing with him.
[00:12:25] Is he your savior, Lord and King daily?
[00:12:29] And that's kind of the question that we're going to look at and answer in this passage.
[00:12:36] The first group of people we're going to look at is the brothers of Jesus Christ, verses three through five. Again and again. It's like it's mind boggling that it just shows how blind they were to who was in their household.
[00:12:53] Jesus, the son of goddess.
[00:12:57] And yet they're here and they've been there. They watched him do all these miracles and they probably either were there as he fed the 5000 or not or they heard about it and yet they still are not understanding who Jesus is.
[00:13:13] So his brother said to him, leave here and go to Judea. That your disciples also may see the works you were doing. Like, go show yourself.
[00:13:25] For no one works in secret. If he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For not even his brothers believed him.
[00:13:36] I mean, you see that advice and it screams our present day culture.
[00:13:42] Go show yourself. Go advertise yourself. Go get a million followers on TikTok so you're famous and everyone knows what you're talking about. If you want to be a messenger and have a message, you have to have a platform so people can hear you.
[00:13:59] But Jesus is the platform.
[00:14:02] We don't need to add anything to him. And that's the point is that to them and what they just heard him say in John in the passage of what he said to everyone around him that he is the bread of life, he is sufficient. Nothing else is needed but Jesus.
[00:14:21] And they're saying, go do something different.
[00:14:26] Jesus wasn't enough.
[00:14:32] You gotta go brand yourself Jesus.
[00:14:38] Go get on social media and just make yourself well known.
[00:14:44] But his, he himself is enough.
[00:14:48] So what does this look like personally?
[00:14:52] So I read through this, I go, this has this, like, you get the interpretation of what he was doing that they were not a part of God's will. And God had a perfect timing for Jesus to show himself so he would be crucified. That was the total plan. But what is it showing about these brothers and for us personally and just some random things? Not random, but things came to mind. And as you're short and maybe this applies to you, sometimes it comes down to grace isn't enough.
[00:15:27] And we need to tack on a bunch of more works so that we can warrant the love of Jesus.
[00:15:34] Jesus said very clearly, I am life.
[00:15:39] You don't need anything else but me and what I offer you through the cross or the future of my death and resurrection. That is all you need.
[00:15:51] Or maybe we sometimes think for ourselves, our guilt is too great for the grace of God.
[00:15:57] But God's grace, Jesus wasn't enough. His sacrifice wasn't enough. For all the guilt that I have, and that is a lie.
[00:16:06] Jesus is enough.
[00:16:10] Or we swing the other way and we cheapen the grace, thinking I can keep walking in the same manner as before.
[00:16:18] That's my view of Jesus. That's my opinion. My life. Sometimes our lives will reflect what we truly think of our relationship with Jesus Christ.
[00:16:32] Somehow we sometimes think there is something I am missing out and that the pursuit of this is going to make my life more fulfilling.
[00:16:45] And we saw this in chapter six when literally thousands turned back. They turned away from Jesus because Jesus himself wasn't enough.
[00:16:57] They weren't exactly. He wasn't exactly what they were looking for.
[00:17:03] The whole dialogue, that whole teaching on him that he is the bread of life, that you feed on me if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, that hard teaching is that I am. I am it.
[00:17:17] There's nothing else you can add to your life to make it any better, because I am life, and I am all that you need.
[00:17:28] And they knew this. They knew the teachings, but they weren't being taught this. They weren't. It wasn't being passed down through the generations since God had just stopped talking 400 years earlier. But Isaiah said it clearly, as Pastor Duber read this morning, that this was the promise. This is. But now, o Jacob, listen to the Lord who. Who created you, o Israel, the one who formed you says, do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have bought you back.
[00:17:57] I have called you my name.
[00:18:00] You are mine.
[00:18:02] When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the holy one of Israel, your savior.
[00:18:22] That God, that person was standing in front of them. Those brothers were telling this God to go and do something different apart from his will and his plan.
[00:18:34] Here in this passage, we see the brothers of Jesus not fully understanding. Excuse me. And coming up with their own ways for people to follow Jesus.
[00:18:47] And sometimes when Jesus isn't enough, what do we do?
[00:18:52] It's the next point.
[00:18:55] We trust and depend on methods of this world.
[00:19:01] I don't know why they told them to go he wasn't welcomed in his own town. Maybe there was some shame or some rock throwing, or maybe they went by an egg their house because Jesus, I don't know, but Jesus wasn't welcome.
[00:19:17] Maybe there was this lull he fed. All these people turned away. Jesus wasn't as popular as he was because of this hard teaching that it's about him, that he is goddesse.
[00:19:31] Maybe they thought Jesus lost a little mojo, said, you need to go do some more Jesus.
[00:19:38] Go show yourself. Go do some more miracles. Draw some more people. Maybe they were kind of like living vicariously through him. As if you're popular, then we're popular.
[00:19:47] If you get rich, then we get rich because we're your brother. I don't know.
[00:19:52] But they had this worldly wisdom to go and do something that God didn't want. The father was not blessing this.
[00:20:01] Jesus knew exactly what the father intended and the timing of that.
[00:20:09] The question is that we have to answer ourselves each and every day.
[00:20:17] Is Jesus enough?
[00:20:22] Is he enough?
[00:20:24] Is his word enough?
[00:20:27] What can we add to Jesus that will make him any more attractive?
[00:20:34] And he goes away. Farther he goes, how can we market Jesus just a little bit better to make it a little more appealing to the person out there?
[00:20:49] How can we compromise or what can we do? How can we attract the people better? Because we just want them to come here.
[00:21:00] And when it comes down to it, and it's very convicting, I mean, this is, I'm going to say this, I'm going to like, gosh, this really hurts, or even in my own life.
[00:21:12] If the spirit is moving in our midst, people will know about your church.
[00:21:20] The movement of the spirit of God is all the advertising you need.
[00:21:25] People living and walking by the spirit of God is enough excitement and energy to draw people, people shaping their lives after the word of God and living by the word of God enough.
[00:21:42] Nobody has to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on advertising because our life is a walking billboard of the love of Jesus Christ.
[00:21:54] Jesus doesn't need Madison Avenue, does he?
[00:21:59] But Madison Avenue needs us, don't they?
[00:22:02] To make a whole lot of money off of us.
[00:22:06] Just the truth of who he is and why he came and what happens next in all creation. That's what really matters.
[00:22:15] If that isn't enough to get excited about, then I doubt we will find anything more appealing and energizing.
[00:22:23] People want to know what happens next.
[00:22:27] People are thinking about eternity. Why? Because God has placed eternity on every man's heart.
[00:22:37] If that's the case, people are always thinking, why did explorers always want to find the fountain of youth because they didn't want to die.
[00:22:48] They were worried about what happens next and they didn't want to think about that.
[00:22:54] Why is the cosmetic and the health industry making billions and billions of dollars a year? Because people want to prolong their life, because they don't want to die.
[00:23:04] Because they don't know about what happens next.
[00:23:09] The world tells them that you're just. You're going to oblivion, you turn to nothing.
[00:23:14] That's just hopeless, isn't it?
[00:23:18] And when your life doesn't matter much now it's like, gosh, that's just depressing.
[00:23:23] That we don't have a kingdom that is ours later, that we are co heirs with Jesus Christ. And that's what we have.
[00:23:35] Knowing that, living that out, proclaiming that.
[00:23:39] That Jesus is enough and who he is and how he completes us.
[00:23:50] Well, the next people, the jewish leaders we have kind of scattered out through this passage. Verse 111 and 13.
[00:23:58] After this, Jesus went about in Galilee, he would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
[00:24:07] The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, where is he?
[00:24:12] Yet? For fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.
[00:24:19] And when I, just as I read this, and knowing the Pharisees and the jewish leaders, who is kind of focused here and even others, is that they don't want to listen because humility is not in their vocabulary.
[00:24:35] Because if they listen to Jesus, they would have to deny themselves and say, it's you, Jesus, we're wrong.
[00:24:47] You are right.
[00:24:49] When we're teaching, we are leading people astray. I'm sorry, forgive me. They didn't want that. They were too proud, they were too greedy to do that. So their opinion of Jesus was basically, I'm better than you.
[00:25:07] Who are you?
[00:25:09] We're the sons of Moses.
[00:25:13] We're the sons of Abraham.
[00:25:16] What's your credentials besides being the son of God?
[00:25:22] They didn't get it.
[00:25:25] It was their religion, it was their traditions that were being threatened. And we all know what happens when you threaten somebody's traditions, don't we?
[00:25:35] You don't want to touch the sacred cow, because that's what we do all the time. This is how we worship all the time. This is how we fellowship all the time. This is how I live my life.
[00:25:48] How many times do we take ownership of something that in reality and in fact is not ours to begin with? Right?
[00:25:58] Aren't we just stewards of God's graciousness?
[00:26:02] It doesn't matter what it is your family is a gift from God.
[00:26:08] You waking up today is a gift from God.
[00:26:13] The meal that you eat today after church is a gift from God. The freedom we celebrate on Thursday is truly a gift from Goddess. We can't take ownership of anything, can we?
[00:26:29] But we do.
[00:26:32] This is my life.
[00:26:35] Don't test me. Don't step over the boundaries.
[00:26:40] Don't get in my face and tell me that I'm wrong. Don't show me the word of God that shows me that I'm wrong. Because you know what? Just kind of step back a little bit.
[00:26:51] And then today, like I mentioned earlier, it's scary how much this is becoming a part of our culture. Is that this is my opinion or I deserve this?
[00:27:05] When opinions become someone's facts, that's scary, because how many opinions are I hear today?
[00:27:14] There's a lot, so to speak. If those are all facts, then how do we live life? It's chaos, isn't it?
[00:27:23] This is my opinion. This is my ministry. We hold on to things.
[00:27:29] Don't tell me how to do my ministry.
[00:27:32] Don't step into my space, because this is mine.
[00:27:36] It's the way I do it. This way we always do it.
[00:27:41] But all these things, your thought, your ability to reason and have a thought about something, that's a gift from God. Your ministry is definitely a gift from God. That's not yours.
[00:27:55] You're just being a good steward of that.
[00:27:59] Your salary is not yours. Your salary is a gift from God.
[00:28:06] Your family, hard to think, is not yours. Your family is truly a gift from God.
[00:28:14] And you don't want to let these things go. When we take ownership, as the pharisees and the jewish leaders took ownership, and you say, this is mine, it really does puff you up, doesn't it?
[00:28:26] And it becomes very hard to be humble when we take ownership and not relinquish that to God, who it belongs to.
[00:28:35] It doesn't mean we don't be good stewards of all these things. We should, and we ought to, but not to the point where we say, this is mine.
[00:28:46] The multitude, well, they were a mess.
[00:28:50] They had Rome just really oppressing them. They had this fake peace going on. The Pharisees were making all these. It was so difficult to live. Then you have this guy named John the Baptist telling you to repent because the kingdom of heaven is at hand. All these messages.
[00:29:10] If only they had their own bibles to remind them of God's promise.
[00:29:16] I'm sorry.
[00:29:20] We have the word of God to remind us every day. Don't we that it's his plan, it's his will, it's his promise for us.
[00:29:30] All we're responsible for is what? Going back and reminding ourselves of the promise every single day.
[00:29:38] Looking at God's faithfulness.
[00:29:44] Isn't he batting a thousand in his faithfulness? Has he ever struck out?
[00:29:50] No. God is faithful all the time.
[00:29:56] And he's given us his word to remind us of how faithful he is. He gives us his word to remind us of the promise of Jesus Christ, that he is the reason that we are here today.
[00:30:09] He is the reason you have what you have today.
[00:30:14] He is the reason that we suffer sometimes because he is our hope. And we can suffer and have hope through those sufferings, and we can rejoice in those. Because why? Because we have Jesus Christ.
[00:30:28] He is the equation for everything, isn't he?
[00:30:33] If you have that right mindset that he is. All in all.
[00:30:41] So they were muttering verse twelve about him. There were lots of muttering. Some said, he is a good man. Others said, no, he's just leading people astray. So the point is, they really didn't get it. If they would have understood it, they wouldn't have walked away after John, chapter six.
[00:31:00] They would have stayed with him and said, jesus, you are it. We can't leave you.
[00:31:05] You are our source for everything.
[00:31:08] I can't add anything else to my life to make it any better. You are the one. You are the messiah. You are the son of God. You are the provision. And even through. You are my resurrection.
[00:31:22] The resurrection wasn't a new thing. They were talking about it all the way back in Genesis.
[00:31:29] You are the hope of a better life. After today and today's life. They didn't get that.
[00:31:37] Some thought he was just a good mandehead. I like this reasoning from John Stott, from basic Christianity, that if Jesus was not God in human flesh, his claims would have meant that he was not a good man, but a very self centered man.
[00:31:57] He was talking about himself and telling people that they should believe in him as the only way to have eternal life.
[00:32:04] He claimed that the Old Testament was written about him. Very narcissistic, right?
[00:32:09] God can be because he's God, right?
[00:32:12] He claimed to be the bread of life, who could satisfy the hunger of all who come to him. But he's not because he serves us so. I'm sorry. He serves us so well.
[00:32:22] It's all about him. But his love for us is so, so genuine.
[00:32:28] He claimed that whoever believes in him would have rivers of living water flowing from his innermost being. These are all from the book of John.
[00:32:36] He claimed to be the light of the world. He claimed that before Abraham was born, he existed. He is God.
[00:32:46] He summed it up and says, no good man who was not God in human flesh could say such things without being considered a deluded megalomaniac.
[00:32:58] Right.
[00:33:00] Only God could say. Only Jesus could say these things about himself.
[00:33:08] Others thought he was just there to lead people astray.
[00:33:13] If you think about it, they had 40 or 400 years of indoctrination by the pharisees to believe a certain way. And Jesus is doing what?
[00:33:22] He's basically ripping the rug out and saying, no, it's this way, that I am the way.
[00:33:28] So they were confused.
[00:33:35] What causes the wrong opinions of Jesus?
[00:33:39] It comes down to sins, when sins are confronted, and then we are accountable. We want to kind of avoid those things, don't we?
[00:33:49] No one likes to have their sins confronted and their wrongdoings.
[00:33:54] No one likes to be accountable for anything.
[00:33:58] And when we make up a reason that there's no God, then we don't have to be accountable.
[00:34:04] Jesus says in John seven, seven, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.
[00:34:14] He's confronting the people with their works, and they're not good.
[00:34:20] Their sins are being confronted. And they didn't want to be accountable for anything.
[00:34:26] They wanted full control or salvation. Let us do it my way. Let me. Let me earn. Let me do these things good enough to make it and to earn my way into heaven.
[00:34:41] They love themselves more than they love Jesus.
[00:34:46] They love their works more than they love Jesus.
[00:34:49] They love their lifestyle more than they love Jesus. They love the money more than they love Jesus.
[00:34:58] I wrote this down and I had to think about it. How can I explain this?
[00:35:05] Do we hate Jesus?
[00:35:10] It's kind of a trick question.
[00:35:14] What did Jesus say about hating our mothers and fathers? That if we don't hate them, that we can't follow him. But what was the point there? That if the love for Jesus is so much greater, so stay with me here. Let me explain my point here.
[00:35:33] Is our love so much greater for things in this world that it makes it look like hate for Jesus? Does that make sense, that we are so preoccupied with the world that we're chasing after the things of this world, whether it be our careers, our success, even our family, even our ministry, that we're so consumed with that that it makes it appear as we hate Jesus?
[00:36:01] That's our view, that we can distance ourselves so much from the simple things that Jesus commanded us to do.
[00:36:12] The first commandment was, what?
[00:36:16] Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Correct.
[00:36:20] Then out of that love comes what?
[00:36:25] A love for our neighborhood. But yet we pursue things, and we're so obsessed with things sometimes that it looks as though we don't have this relationship.
[00:36:44] John 320 earlier. For everyone who does, evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that its deeds will be exposed. And that's why they hated him, because they were being exposed.
[00:37:00] That's why sometimes when we're feeling guilty and shameful, what do we do? We tend to what? We tend to withdraw from people, right?
[00:37:08] Because we don't want the truth exposed about our life.
[00:37:13] That's why some people don't like small Bible studies or small groups, because someone might ask me a personal question like, oh, no, don't go there. Sorry.
[00:37:23] They don't want accountability.
[00:37:25] They don't want people to come alongside them and help them and realize that, you know, that we're not perfect. I do make mistakes, but we need to be able to love and correct people in a proper way.
[00:37:48] I was reading through, that's why I put Mark, and this is just a little side thing, and how we interact with people and how we look, how Jesus interact with people who were not quite where they needed to be. John or Mark, chapter ten. You can write this down. This again, this is just like bonus stuff, I guess, and the interaction with the man who thought he was all that and just the bag of chips. He was doing good, right? Look at the man. Jesus felt genuine. This is where he says, I did all these things, Jesus. I kept all these commandments.
[00:38:25] Am I good enough? Am I good enough for you? Now, looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him.
[00:38:35] Knowing that he had failed in one thing, knowing that he had to be corrected. Jesus had genuine love for him.
[00:38:45] Didn't say judgment, like, you failed miserably, dude. No, it was genuine love and compassion for him.
[00:38:54] There's still one thing you haven't done.
[00:38:57] And he told him, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.
[00:39:06] At this, the man's face fell and he went away. Sad, for he had many possessions.
[00:39:14] Jesus felt genuine love for that man.
[00:39:19] And how did the man, what was the man's opinion that his riches were more important than Jesus?
[00:39:28] It was the wrong opinion, and he would lose his life for that.
[00:39:40] They feared they were apathetic because they feared the leaders of the world and the world.
[00:39:49] Last verse 13. Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.
[00:39:55] Fear can be crippling.
[00:39:57] It can lead us to do things that we often later regret such as covering up and blending in with the world.
[00:40:05] I don't want to stick out.
[00:40:07] I don't want to look like a Christian. I don't want to do the right thing. I don't want to say, no, that's not the right thing because I'm going to look different.
[00:40:17] And to stick out and go against the Pharisees and the leaders and the teachers of the time, they would be kicked out of the synagogue. They would lose their access to everything.
[00:40:30] So they would hide. They would not speak out because of that fear. And that just leads to apathy.
[00:40:39] Sooner or later you're just going to give up and say, I just don't care anymore.
[00:40:44] So all this movement, all this excitement about Jesus as it came to this boiling point after the feast or the feeding of the 5000 and later the 4000 and this talking of Jesus teaching all it just died away because they chose themselves over Jesus.
[00:41:12] This fear will keep you from not truly believing in Jesus or not fully being obedient to our lord and savior.
[00:41:21] This fear will cause you to miss out on so many blessings of service to our lord.
[00:41:30] An exciting, fulfilling life of obedience.
[00:41:39] So that comes down to the only opinion. Cross that out. The only facts that matter, the only saving opinion is the fact that Jesus is the messiah and he should be our lord.
[00:41:59] Jesus is the messiah.
[00:42:02] Jesus could have come and did his own thing. He had the power. He was tempted. It's almost like the brothers are like where Satan in the desert say, just go jump off the temple and show yourself and they will see that God will save you and then you're going to be famous and have everything.
[00:42:21] Sometimes we got to be very discerning on who we listen to. And we got to make sure that what we listen to is exactly what the word of God is saying.
[00:42:30] There's so many messages in the world that want us to do something different.
[00:42:36] But the only true message we have, the only true way that we are to live and as Jesus said, is by his word, easily loving all the attention and power to become the king that the people wanted. Proudly riding in the direction he could have done. All this in the midst of political fervor. I am the king. I have come to save you. Come and follow me and just make me famous right now.
[00:43:04] But that wasn't God's plan, was it?
[00:43:09] He came a few days, few weeks later or a few days later to the feast, in quiet, because he knew what he had to do.
[00:43:21] This last, his last trip to Judea. He would die soon, in a couple months.
[00:43:27] And he knew this is exactly God's plan, the father's plan, so that you and I could be here today, that you could be redeemed and brought back into a relationship with God.
[00:43:40] That's all he wants. He wants nothing else from you but the relationship.
[00:43:46] He doesn't need your works.
[00:43:49] He doesn't need your perfect life to earn anything.
[00:43:53] He just wants you to love him with everything that you are.
[00:44:02] He was faithful to his father's will. He was operating on God's timetable, which only led to the masses hating him and rejecting him, which would ultimately lead to the cross.
[00:44:19] My time is not yet here.
[00:44:23] What did he do? He came to humbly die, that we may live.
[00:44:29] The other fact is, Jesus is Lord. One day every knee is going to bow, isn't there? Every knee doesn't matter who you are. Every knee is going to bow to King Jesus.
[00:44:43] But we're going to bow because he's our savior and our Lord, and we love him.
[00:44:51] Like Jesus, who humbly submitted to the will of the father, we too must humbly submit to Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[00:45:00] Jesus came as a light shining in the darkness, as stated in John eight, as we'll see later.
[00:45:09] He asks, which of you convicts me of sin? I and Peter reminds everyone that Jesus, you are the holy one of God.
[00:45:21] Jesus rightly could call on people to follow him with a promise that he could give them eternal life.
[00:45:30] And when we have that, the facts and understand the facts of who Jesus is, understand the facts that we all have fallen short of his perfection. Understand the fact that we need his blood and sacrifice for our forgiveness and the beauty of the resurrection that follows.
[00:45:50] That's the view of Jesus that we all need.
[00:45:55] And it's not an opinion, it's not a preference, it's a fact.
[00:46:00] And we live and hope in that one fact and that one truth, that he is the way, the truth and the life, that our only way to the Father, our only way to this perfect relationship forever is through Jesus Christ.
[00:46:14] Let's pray.
[00:46:20] Father, we thank you for showing yourself in your word.
[00:46:26] Thank you for the reminders of how we are. To understand who Jesus is, that he is the only truth there is, that he is fact.
[00:46:43] And, Father, when we trust in him, we know what we have in you.
[00:46:49] Lord, I pray as we close in this song today, that we can rejoice in the knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is that we can rejoice in knowing that we have been forgiven.
[00:47:02] We can rejoice in the knowledge of knowing that we have life eternal with you.
[00:47:08] And we thank you. And, Lord, we just want to praise you again in song.
[00:47:14] We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
