Jeff Miller

May 17, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Light of the World

Jeff Miller

May 17, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing the Light of the World (John 8:12-30)

Isaiah 49:6 - I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

Introduction:

Isaiah 49:6 - I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

  
  Knowing the Light of the World (John 8:12-30):

You can come to the Liight ... (John 8:12)

  
    Or you can stay in the Dark . (John 8:13-27)
  Willful Ignorance doesn't want to Know the truth. (John 8:13-20)
Pride doesn't want to Apply the truth. (John 8:21-30)

If you look to the cross, you will Know Jesus . (John 8:28-30)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:03
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to John 8.
00:05-00:17
Our message today is "Knowing Jesus, knowing the light of the world." You know, when I was in sixth grade, our school would take the sixth grade class to Camp Lutheran.
00:18-00:21
And I had a very horrifying experience. Let me tell you why.
00:21-00:29
We were in these cabins that had beds, I don't know, 10 or 15 on each side, on both sides.
00:31-00:39
And I had this problem as a child that I have much less as an adult, and that problem was sleepwalking.
00:40-00:52
And I remember at Camp Lutheran, the first night, and if you've never been a sleepwalker, then it's hard to really explain this, But I just remember suddenly waking up and I was standing.
00:53-00:55
I just came to my senses and I was standing.
00:56-00:57
It was pitch black.
00:57-01:00
You could not see your hand in front of your face.
01:00-01:01
That's how dark it was.
01:02-01:11
And I thought, "Well, maybe I just stood up beside my bed and I'll just get back to bed." Well, I reached down and I felt a hand.
01:12-01:22
And I thought, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's not my bed." And then I thought, well, maybe I stood up and maybe I kind of spun around a little bit, so maybe my bed's on this side.
01:22-01:26
And I reached down and, no, there was somebody in that bed, too.
01:27-01:29
I had no idea where I was.
01:29-01:40
And I spent what seemed like three hours, I didn't time it, it just seemed like it took me hours to find my bed.
01:40-01:47
Do you know how hard it is to try to find the empty bed in a dark dorm full of beds?
01:48-01:52
And do you know the emotional turmoil that takes on a 12-year-old?
01:52-01:58
I was horrified all night frantically trying to find my bed.
01:59-02:05
And you know, I think that's a great picture of how many people live their entire lives.
02:07-02:11
Many people, people that you know, are walking around in darkness.
02:12-02:13
They don't know where they are.
02:13-02:15
They don't know where they're going.
02:16-02:19
And they don't know how to figure either of those things out.
02:20-02:24
And to this, Jesus says, "I am the light of the world.
02:25-02:33
Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." Remember this scene in John 8.
02:34-02:47
We've been at the Feast of Tabernacles of booths where thousands of Jews converged upon Jerusalem to celebrate, in particular, the exodus from Egypt.
02:48-02:51
And verse 20 tells us that Jesus was in the treasury.
02:52-03:02
And that's very important, because for this feast, to be in the treasury, which was in the courtyard of the temple, they had these huge candelabras.
03:03-04:09
And during this feast, they would light these candelabras up night and history reports that it would shine not only the temple courts, not only the temple, but you could see this light, this dazzling array of light from the entire countryside, like a diamond. It lit up the temple. The purpose was to remember how God led them through the wilderness. Remember, He led them as they followed a pillar of cloud by day, and at night they would follow a pillar of fire. So with this backdrop, as they celebrate how God led them through the wilderness, with this backdrop, Jesus made an extremely controversial statement when He said, "I am the light of the world." They knew what that meant. They He knew what he was claiming because there was so many Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being the light of the world.
04:09-04:27
For example, Isaiah 49.6, speaking of the Messiah, says, "I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth." But what does it mean that the Messiah, that Jesus Christ, would be the light of the world?
04:28-04:31
I want you to draw a few things down here today.
04:32-04:33
Knowing the light of the world.
04:34-04:36
Number one, you can come to the light.
04:37-04:39
You can come to the light.
04:40-04:41
Look at verse 12 again.
04:42-04:47
It says again, "Jesus spoke to them, saying, 'I am the light of the world.
04:48-05:00
Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" following Jesus, gets you out of the darkness of death and into the light of life.
05:00-05:18
You get the imagery? Just as light has a way of dispelling darkness, Jesus Christ, as the light of the world, dispels all of the spiritual darkness, all of the falsehood, all of the impurity, all of the sin, all of the wickedness.
05:19-05:21
The light of Christ dispels it all.
05:22-05:24
And the whole world is in darkness.
05:25-05:26
But Jesus is the light to follow.
05:27-05:30
Jesus lets us see everything in the path.
05:31-05:36
Jesus lets us see things in this life as they really are.
05:36-05:41
Only Jesus Christ and His Word can make sense of the world.
05:41-05:43
He shines a light.
05:43-05:54
And Jesus Christ and the Word of God, by obvious extension, They give us clear answers to questions about life.
05:54-06:01
The people who don't follow Jesus, in other words, people who walk in the dark, they don't have answers for these questions.
06:02-06:03
Do you realize that?
06:03-06:17
As human beings, we have all of these philosophical and spiritual questions, and there are no right answers without the light of Jesus Christ and His Word.
06:17-06:20
You're like, "Well, what kind of questions?" Here's some.
06:21-06:30
"Why do we have an inclination toward self-centeredness even as children?" Well, the light of God's Word tells us that we're born with a sin nature that we inherited from Adam.
06:31-06:31
Romans 5.
06:32-06:38
Here's a question. "Why do we get old and die?" Well, the light of God's Word tells us it's tied into Adam's sin.
06:38-06:43
God told Adam if he would disobey, he said, "You will surely die.
06:44-06:50
Dying you will die." Meaning, we will all wear out and waste away and die.
06:51-06:56
Why is it so hard, but so right to forgive others, to show compassion?
06:57-07:01
Well, the light of Jesus Christ shows us that's the very heart of our Creator.
07:01-07:08
So many questions that we have, that the light of the world Jesus Christ lights up for us.
07:08-07:09
Why should I give to the church?
07:10-07:12
Why is there corruption in governments?
07:12-07:14
Why are all these global events happening?
07:15-07:15
Why am I here?
07:16-07:17
Where am I heading?
07:17-07:19
I could go on and on and on.
07:20-07:26
So many hard questions, but when you walk in the light, you see why this all makes sense.
07:27-07:33
You see how Jesus Christ and the truth of His Word lights it up.
07:34-07:36
And understand, that's why unbelievers don't get it.
07:37-07:40
That's why unbelievers still wrestle with these questions.
07:40-07:41
It's not that they're stupid.
07:42-07:43
No, it's not that at all.
07:43-07:45
It's not that they're just oblivious.
07:46-07:49
They're blind because they're in the dark.
07:50-07:56
But you see, Jesus Christ comes to us lost people in the dark.
07:57-07:58
He shines His light.
07:59-08:00
He shows us things as they are.
08:01-08:05
And if we're willing to see, He makes sense of everything.
08:06-08:20
When my son Owen was a baby, he had some very serious health issues works and we've been to different doctors and couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong.
08:21-08:31
Well, Aaron knew, but I had no idea until we went on vacation with Aaron's family to the Outer Banks.
08:32-08:39
And on the beach I met a man who had a son that was there with him, and the son was a few years older than Owen.
08:39-08:42
and this man was explaining that his son was autistic.
08:43-08:47
And as this man was talking, I was watching his son's behavior.
08:47-08:51
Then I was turning around and looking at my son's behavior.
08:51-09:06
And I was watching his son, and my son, and his son, and my son, and I saw that this man's son was exactly like an older version of Owen.
09:06-09:16
I remember that day, standing on the beach, listening to this man talk, and seeing the behavior of these kids, the lights came on.
09:16-09:19
And suddenly, everything made sense!
09:20-09:29
Okay, Owen's behavior and his health issues and the developmental delays, this all makes sense now, I get it now!
09:30-09:40
The point is this, church, just as that dad shined some light on child issues, he let me see things for what they really are.
09:40-09:43
He answered so many questions that I've been carrying.
09:44-09:47
That's exactly what Jesus Christ does for us spiritually.
09:48-09:56
When we listen to Him, when we let His light shine upon us, He makes sense of everything that pertains to life.
09:56-09:58
You can come to the light.
09:58-10:02
Or, number two, you can stay in the dark.
10:03-10:05
You can come to the light or you can stay in the dark.
10:06-10:17
And what follows in our text is the account of people who hear these words, who see the light of Jesus Christ, but they'd rather stay in the dark.
10:18-10:18
Like, why?
10:19-10:25
Why would somebody fumbling around in the dark rather stay in the dark than come into the light?
10:26-10:33
Why would I spend a few minutes and look at that because we're going to see it in the text, that there are two things that will keep you in the dark.
10:34-10:37
One is willful ignorance, willful ignorance.
10:38-10:40
And the second one, number two, is pride.
10:41-10:43
Are you guilty of being willfully ignorant?
10:43-10:44
Are you guilty of pride?
10:44-10:47
Well, let's look at how they manifest.
10:48-10:50
Jot this down under number two, letter A.
10:51-10:55
Willful ignorance doesn't want to know the truth.
10:55-10:57
Let's pick up in verse 13.
10:57-11:01
"So the Pharisee said to him, 'You are bearing witness about yourself.
11:01-11:17
Your testimony is not true.' Jesus answered, 'Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I'm going, but you do not know where I come from or where I'm going.
11:17-11:19
You judge according to the flesh.
11:19-11:20
I judge no one.
11:21-11:25
Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true.
11:25-11:33
"For it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent Me." "In your law it is written that the testimony of two people is true.
11:34-11:45
I am the one who bears witness about Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness about Me." They said to Him, "Therefore, where is your Father?" Stop right there.
11:46-11:54
So their argument against Jesus being who He said He is, their argument was based on a few things that they thought they knew.
11:55-11:58
They weren't really looking at all of the evidence that was available.
11:59-12:00
And here's the point.
12:01-12:02
They didn't want to.
12:02-12:04
They didn't want to examine the evidence.
12:06-12:08
They were saying to Jesus, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second.
12:09-12:18
You expect us to believe you when you're the only one that's saying these things?" And Jesus' response to them is, "That's a faulty argument.
12:19-12:26
because even if these were my own claims, that's not a reason to reject them.
12:26-12:32
In other words, something isn't true just because it has witnesses.
12:33-12:36
Something is true because it's true.
12:36-12:41
Just because one person says something doesn't mean it's false, right?
12:42-12:48
But the Old Testament law, as Jesus pointed out, required two or three witnesses.
12:48-12:51
But understand that that was for a court of law.
12:52-12:57
The law required that you have two or three witnesses to back up a fact. Why?
12:59-13:02
Because men are liars. Every man is a liar.
13:03-13:07
But this law doesn't apply to God, because God never lies.
13:08-13:32
But Jesus was sort of, you could say he was throwing them a bone to say, "Okay, you know what? What I'm saying is true, and I know you're all about having the other witnesses, So here, we have two witnesses, "myself and my father." Pick up in verse 19, "They said to him, 'Therefore, where is your father?' Jesus answered, 'You know neither me nor my father.
13:32-13:44
If you knew me, you would know my father also.' These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, but no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come." I love this question.
13:45-13:53
Their response to Jesus, v. 19, is, "Where is your Father?" And that is a completely pointless question.
13:54-13:55
Completely pointless.
13:56-14:01
And you say, "Well, how do you know it's pointless?" I know it's pointless because Jesus Christ completely ignored it.
14:02-14:03
Did you catch that?
14:03-14:21
Jesus could have launched into, "My Father's in heaven and that's where I came from, and here's exactly what it looks like, and here's what He's doing right now." He could have, but He completely ignored Why? Because answers will not help someone who is willfully ignorant.
14:21-14:25
Because somebody that's willfully ignorant does not really want answers.
14:25-14:29
See, so Jesus didn't waste his time giving them more information.
14:30-14:40
It's like somebody asking for information on a certain subject and you hand them a comprehensive book all about the subject that they want to know about.
14:40-14:48
So immediately they take the book into the room and turn off all the lights and sit there in the pitch black with that book on their lap.
14:48-14:54
It doesn't do them any good to have the information if they'd rather sit in the dark and not examine it.
14:55-14:57
That's exactly what was happening here with Jesus.
14:57-14:59
They really weren't interested.
15:00-15:09
Jesus said to them, verse 19, "You don't know God." And you have to understand what a slam that was to them.
15:09-15:13
That was like the worst thing Jesus could have said to them.
15:14-15:16
Because that was their whole thing.
15:16-15:21
These were people that prided themselves on knowing God.
15:21-15:24
We know God more and better than anybody else.
15:25-15:26
They were the religious elite.
15:27-15:38
And Jesus said, "You have no idea who He is. You don't know Him." They were happy with their idea of God, or who they thought God to be.
15:38-15:41
Boy, is that a message for the church today.
15:42-15:46
Is that a message for Christianity in the United States today?
15:47-16:05
As we are so content to worship the God of our own imagination, we would rather think of a God that abides by our rules or matches our preferences than seeking to understand God as He's revealed Himself in His Word.
16:06-16:07
What are you talking about?
16:07-16:11
Do you know how many Christians I've talked to that have said, "There's no such thing as hell.
16:12-16:20
There's no hell." That's, oh, that is old, like, boogeyman stuff, and people don't really believe that anymore.
16:21-16:22
Because let me tell you why.
16:23-16:27
The God that I know, He wouldn't send anybody to hell.
16:28-16:32
You know, the God that I know, He would just bring everybody to heaven.
16:32-16:33
That's the God that I know.
16:33-16:35
The God that I know is just love, man.
16:35-16:39
The God that I know is love, and God just wants me to be happy.
16:41-16:44
That's the God that I know. He just wants me to be happy.
16:45-16:49
No regard whatsoever for what God actually said.
16:49-16:52
That's just who I want God to be, so I'm going to go with that.
16:53-16:56
You're designing God, is what you're doing. You're designing Him.
16:57-17:01
You're tailoring God, and do you know what the Bible calls that?
17:01-17:03
That's called idolatry.
17:03-17:06
Making God the way I want Him to be.
17:07-17:19
And that's why Jesus said to these people, He goes, "You don't know the Father at all." And it's not because they didn't have the information, it was because they were willfully ignorant.
17:19-17:28
Letter B, not only willful ignorance doesn't want to know the truth, but pride doesn't want to apply the truth.
17:29-17:30
Let's pick up in verse 21.
17:31-17:39
So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.
17:40-17:45
Where I am going, you cannot come." So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself?
17:46-17:52
Since he says where I am going, you cannot come?" He said to them, "You are from below.
17:53-17:54
I am from above.
17:54-17:55
You are of this world.
17:56-17:57
I am not of this world.
17:57-18:08
I told you that you would die in your sins, "For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." God doesn't want to apply the truth.
18:08-18:21
Right off the bat, they ask in response to Jesus' statement, they said, "Is He going to kill Himself?" And you have to read that as sarcasm, because they believed wrongly.
18:22-18:29
They believed that if somebody committed suicide, they immediately went into the worst, lowest level of hell.
18:30-18:32
It was sarcasm. They're like, "Oh, is he going to go to the worst hell?
18:33-18:36
And that's why we can't go where he's going?" They're just mocking him.
18:37-18:42
And Jesus points out to them in verse 23, "You have no spiritual sense at all.
18:43-18:49
All you think about is earthly terms, what you can see and what you can feel.
18:49-18:55
You have no spiritual sense whatsoever." And he tells them twice, I'm sure you saw it, verse 21.
18:55-18:57
Verse 24, you have to note this.
18:58-19:03
Jesus said, "You will die in your sins." Do you know what you have to do to go to hell?
19:04-19:05
Do you know what you have to do?
19:06-19:06
Nothing.
19:07-19:09
You don't have to do anything to go to hell.
19:10-19:12
Because by nature, you're a sinner.
19:13-19:20
And if you just stay on that course, if you just remain in your sin, Jesus said you will die in your sin.
19:21-19:24
And ultimately, that is eternal death and hell.
19:25-19:31
But the good news, as there's a way out, there's actually exactly one way out.
19:31-19:39
And that one way out of that course to hell that you are naturally on is verse 24.
19:40-19:43
That way out is believing that Jesus is God.
19:43-19:56
Verse 24, Jesus said, "I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Now, understand the word "He" is not in the original.
19:56-20:03
that was added to the English, thinking it was going to make the text read easier.
20:03-20:20
But literally what Jesus said is this, "Unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins." "I Am" is the name of God that He revealed about Himself back in Exodus 3.
20:21-20:24
You must believe that Jesus is who He says He is.
20:25-20:28
God in the flesh. You have to believe that.
20:29-20:30
And that's what prompted their question.
20:30-20:38
Verse 25, "So they said to Him, 'Who are You?' Jesus said to them, 'Just what I've been telling you from the beginning.
20:39-21:02
I have much to say about you and much to judge, but He who sent Me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from Him.' They did not understand that He had been speaking to them about the Father." their response to all of this is, "Who are you?" Which is kind of a funny question for a couple of reasons.
21:03-21:11
One, "Who are you?" is a question that you ask someone that you just met, and these guys had spent a lot of time already conversing with Jesus.
21:12-21:24
But another reason, a better reason, a more funny reason that this is such a bad question to ask at this point is because Jesus literally just told them who He was.
21:25-21:26
But that's pride, you see.
21:27-21:30
Pride just mocks Jesus.
21:30-21:32
How does pride mock Jesus?
21:32-21:37
Well, you have to think pretty highly of yourself to be willing to try to belittle Jesus.
21:38-21:45
And pride is just willing to ignore very clear statements about Jesus as if you know better.
21:46-21:53
See, Jesus very clearly told them who He was, and their response is, "Who are you?" They weren't willing to hear Him.
21:53-21:56
They weren't willing to listen, they weren't willing to believe.
21:56-21:58
Too many people like that today.
21:58-22:04
It's not that they don't know what the Bible says, or who Jesus claims to be.
22:05-22:21
Pride says, "No, I know better. I know better." Finally, we said, "Knowing the light of the world, you can come to the light or you can stay in the dark." Finally for today, number three, if you look to the cross, you will know Jesus.
22:22-22:25
If you look to the cross, you will know Jesus.
22:26-22:27
Look at verse 28.
22:27-22:41
"So Jesus said to them, 'When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but I speak just as the Father taught me.
22:42-22:43
And He who sent me is with me.
22:44-22:55
He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.' As He was saying these things, many believed in Him." It's a great word to end this passage, right?
22:55-22:56
Many people believed.
22:57-23:04
But verse 28, Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man..." He's talking about the cross.
23:04-23:16
"When He is nailed to the cross and lifted up," literally, "on display," Jesus said, "then you will know that I am He." Again, the word "He" wasn't in the original.
23:17-23:24
Jesus was saying when He is lifted up on the cross, And you will know that He is the I Am.
23:25-23:28
When Jesus is lifted up, it's all going to be visible.
23:29-23:31
It's all going to be illuminated.
23:31-23:32
We're all going to see it.
23:33-23:38
And Jesus is pointing out here very clearly what makes the difference is the cross.
23:39-23:42
The cross of Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the world.
23:43-23:45
Because Jesus Christ didn't just talk the talk.
23:46-23:48
He walked the walk, right?
23:48-24:08
all of the claims about who He is, He's the bread of life, He's the light of the world, He's the Lamb of God, all His claims about what He came to do, seek and save the lost, deliver us from death, lay down His life for us, all of these claims were ultimately displayed or lit up while He was on the cross.
24:09-24:20
As He was lifted up, as He was dying, all of His claims about our sin, all of His claims about His great love for us manifested brightly.
24:20-24:30
Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, you will know that I am." Because on the cross, you see the very depths of man's depravity.
24:31-24:32
We killed the Son of God.
24:33-24:37
On the cross, you see the love of Jesus Christ.
24:38-24:42
He chose to love me anyway, despite how we treated Him.
24:42-25:18
And you can accept His loving invitation come into the light, to come to this Savior who died for you, or in your willful ignorance, in your pride, you can shield your eyes from the light and walk back into the dark. But maybe for you today Jesus is calling you into the light. And maybe you're watching this and you're thinking, "Yeah, but you know what, Pastor Jeff? You don't know what I've done. You don't know what What I've done this week, you don't know what I've done today.
25:19-25:21
Well, jump back to verse 12. This is where it all started.
25:22-25:23
I want you to circle one word.
25:24-25:34
Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, whoever..." Circle that word "whoever." "Whoever follows Me will not walk in dark." Whoever. That's you.
25:35-25:36
You are a whoever.
25:37-25:38
And it doesn't matter what you've done.
25:39-25:43
Jesus Christ is calling you out of the dark.
25:43-25:44
Will you come?
25:45-25:46
Will you look to the cross?
25:47-25:49
Will you follow the light of the world?
25:50-25:51
Let's pray.
25:51-25:57
Father in Heaven, because of our sin, we have made this world a very dark place.
25:58-26:01
Father, we thank You that You've sent the light of Jesus Christ.
26:02-26:04
You've sent the light of the world, Father.
26:04-26:12
And I pray for those that are watching this video, I'm listening to this message, reading Your Word.
26:12-26:21
I pray, Father, that they wouldn't run back into the darkness, they wouldn't try to explain away what Your Word teaches, that they would come into the light.
26:22-26:27
They would look to the cross, because Jesus said that is how we'll know.
26:27-26:31
Father, I pray that Your Holy Spirit shine that light.
26:31-26:35
And if there's anybody who needs to come to You, Father, let this be the day.
26:35-26:37
Let this be the day, Father.
26:38-26:40
Thank you for not leaving us in the dark.
26:41-26:49
For those of us who are called by your name, Father, I pray that we would reflect your light, that people would see Jesus Christ in us and through us.
26:50-26:51
We pray in Jesus' name.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 8:12-30

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Explain how willful ignorance and pride keep someone (who doesn’t believe in Jesus) in the dark. Why would these make someone refuse the light?
Re-read John 8:28. How does the cross give the ultimate revelation that Jesus is God?
What are some ways that people have “reinvented” God, ie, worship a god of their own imagination (John 8:19)? Before you came into the light of Christ, how did you imagine God to be?

Breakout
Pray for one another to walk in the light of Jesus Christ! Is there any area of your life that you’ve been keeping in the dark?

Jeff Miller

May 10, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Grace

Jeff Miller

May 10, 2020

Knowing Jesus

We All Need Grace (John 8:1-11)

But, am I a gracious person?

Introduction:

We All Need Grace (John 8:1-11):

But we don't often Give it. (John 8:3-5)
Leviticus 20:10 - If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

  
    Am I a gracious person?
  
  Deep down, am I still angry with someone who wronged me, ever after they apologize?
Are there broken relationships in my life that I refuse to heal?
Do I believe certain people don't deserve forgiveness?
When someone messes up, do I prefer to criticizing their mistakes over praying for them to get to a better place?

But we don't often Recognize our need for it. (John 8:6-9)
But we don't often Understand it. (John 8:10-11)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:06
Welcome everyone to Harvest Bible Chapel as we prepare to worship the Lord and to get into His Word together.
00:07-00:16
And today, on behalf of the leadership of Harvest Bible Chapel, we would like to give a special shout out to all of our mothers, or mother figures, that are part of our church.
00:17-00:18
Happy Mother's Day.
00:20-00:25
Open your Bibles with me please to the Gospel of John 8.
00:26-00:29
Actually, we'll be starting at the end of chapter 7.
00:32-00:44
While you're turning there, I read this week back in 2016, a man in Australia spotted a large tour bus.
00:45-00:48
And he knew that these buses had very large gas tanks.
00:50-00:56
And what he wanted to do was to siphon the gas out of the tour bus.
00:57-01:05
And if you don't know what siphoning gas is, I can't recommend strongly enough that you never ever do it.
01:05-01:14
But it's taking a hose, putting the hose into a gas tank, and sucking the hose and having the gas come out.
01:14-01:17
It's a way of stealing gas out from people.
01:17-01:21
and it's extremely dangerous and it's extremely stupid.
01:23-01:24
It's extremely mean.
01:25-01:42
Well, this man saw this tour bus and thought, "Well, I can steal a lot of gas from the bus." Well, little did he know that he inserted the hose into the sewage tank instead.
01:45-01:58
So when he placed the hose in his mouth, and inhaled deeply, he got a mouthful of...
01:58-02:00
you can probably guess.
02:01-02:08
Well, the police were called, but the owners of the bus decided that they did not want their property back.
02:10-02:11
What do we call that?
02:13-02:15
We call that karma, don't we?
02:16-02:19
Actually, specifically, we call this instant karma.
02:20-02:25
It's this belief that ultimately, eventually, you get what you deserve.
02:25-02:36
And I'm not sure I believe in karma, but I do believe in the opposite of karma, and that's what we're talking about today.
02:38-02:39
We're talking about grace.
02:41-02:43
Karma is getting what you deserve.
02:46-02:48
Grace is getting what you don't deserve.
02:51-02:58
The best way I have ever heard grace defined is with this little story, this little analogy.
03:00-03:04
Imagine that you have a 16-year-old son.
03:05-03:07
And your 16-year-old son goes to a party.
03:09-03:14
at this party, another 16-year-old boy, for whatever reason, gets angry at your son.
03:16-03:19
And this other 16-year-old boy murders your son.
03:21-03:28
Now if you track that boy down and murder him yourself, that's called vengeance.
03:31-03:41
But if you track that boy down and you get him arrested and he goes to court and he's prosecuted and he goes to jail, that's called justice.
03:43-03:53
But if you track that boy down and he's arrested and he ends up in court, and somehow you convince the judge to let him go.
03:55-03:57
No punishment, just let him go.
03:57-04:00
That is called mercy.
04:04-04:22
But if you track that boy down and the rest of the ends up in court, and you somehow convince the judge that you want to take that boy into your home, and you want to raise him as your own son, and love him and care for him, that's called grace.
04:25-04:27
Grace is the very essence of knowing Jesus.
04:29-04:35
But unfortunately, many people just do not We know grace.
04:38-04:49
We learned some very surprising things about grace today as we walked through a very familiar and for a lot of people, a favorite passage of God's Word.
04:49-04:53
So if you're taking note of the heading on this outline, it's simply this.
04:54-04:54
We all need grace.
04:56-04:56
We all need grace.
04:57-05:05
And that's something I think we can all readily admit, But, here are the surprising truths that we're going to see in the text.
05:05-05:11
Number one, we all need grace, but we don't often give it.
05:12-05:15
We all need grace, but we don't often give it.
05:17-05:19
Look at 7:53.
05:20-05:24
It says, "They went each to his own house.
05:25-05:27
But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.
05:28-05:30
early in the morning, he came again to the temple.
05:31-05:34
All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.
05:34-05:59
The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst, they said to him, 'Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.' "So in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such a woman." So what do you say?
06:01-06:02
Let's stop there.
06:03-06:06
And I would say, hang on, let's back up for a second.
06:09-06:12
Something pretty obviously strange about this story, right?
06:14-06:17
Where's the man who was caught in adultery?
06:18-06:25
It says that this woman was caught in the act, and it takes two to tango, right?
06:27-06:28
So where's the man?
06:28-06:30
Why did they only bring the woman?
06:32-06:36
Interestingly, she offers no defense throughout this passage.
06:37-06:43
So it seems that she was guilty, but there was somebody else guilty that was conveniently left out.
06:45-06:59
The scribes and the Pharisees bring this woman to Jesus, and they say, "Hey, she was caught committing adultery." And Moses said, "We need to stone her." That comes from Leviticus 20.
06:59-07:15
In verse 10, it says, "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death." Now understand that stoning was the means of legal death penalty in the Old Testament.
07:16-07:19
Okay, that was like the electric chair or lethal injection.
07:21-07:35
But when we get to New Testament times, we see that stoning would sometimes be carried out by a mob, not through the courts, not through the authorities, not without due process, like Stephen in Acts 7.
07:38-07:46
Remember, it was illegal since Israel was under Roman occupation, it was illegal for Israel to execute criminals.
07:50-07:54
But regardless, honestly, all of this is irrelevant.
07:55-08:03
They weren't interested in the woman's fate as much as they were interested in trapping Jesus.
08:03-08:04
I mean, just think about it.
08:04-08:15
If this scenario was about justice, If they were really concerned about justice for this criminal woman, why didn't they take her to the appropriate authorities?
08:17-08:30
I mean, how often do you hear of an accused criminal being dragged before a civilian for the civilian's opinion about what should happen to the criminal?
08:31-08:47
I mean, do we ever hear that? Like somebody gets caught shoplifting, and we're going to arrest you, but before we take you to the police, we're gonna stop by and see Melanie the barber and see what she has to say about, like what?
08:48-08:51
They drag this criminal to Jesus.
08:51-08:52
Like, what do you think about this?
08:54-08:55
Well, look at verse six.
08:58-09:00
This they said to test him.
09:01-09:05
they might have some charge to bring against Him.
09:07-09:09
It was a trap. They wanted to discredit Jesus.
09:09-09:13
They wanted people to think that Jesus was a fraud.
09:14-09:24
Because if Jesus said, "No, no, no, no, don't stone her, don't stone her," well, then He's defying the law of Moses, and the people could say, "Oh, oh, oh, you don't believe in the law.
09:24-09:25
You don't agree with Moses.
09:25-09:29
You think you know better than the law that the Lord gave us.
09:31-09:41
But if Jesus said, "Yeah, you know what? Stone her. Execute her." Well, there's a problem there because you see Jesus loses His whole reputation.
09:42-09:48
Jesus had this reputation of being a friend of sinners, right?
09:48-09:51
Matthew 19.10, Luke 15.1.
09:52-09:53
He's a friend of sinners.
09:53-10:02
Jesus loves the tax collectors and the prostitutes, and Jesus cares for these people.
10:04-10:20
And if Jesus says, "Stone this woman," you see these scribes and Pharisees could say, "Well, that's awfully selective of you to want to kill her because you didn't want to stone the other sinners." They thought they had Him trapped.
10:22-10:24
What do you say, Jesus? What do you say?
10:27-10:38
And as much as I don't want to face this personally, you know, a lot of times I am more like these guys than I want to admit.
10:43-10:46
Everyone wants to think of themselves as a gracious person.
10:46-10:53
We all think of ourselves as, "Deep down I'm good, deep down I'm..." I'm very gracious.
10:55-10:55
Are you?
10:58-11:00
I'm going to give you a quick little test.
11:00-11:08
Just some yes or no questions to just sort of think through how gracious you are in your relationships to other people.
11:09-11:12
Specifically, as we're focusing on this passage.
11:12-11:13
Am I a gracious person?
11:16-11:17
Ask yourself.
11:18-11:18
Keep down.
11:20-11:24
Am I still angry with someone who wronged me even after they apologized?
11:26-11:27
Yes or no? Is that you?
11:28-11:29
What if I asked your wife?
11:30-11:31
What if I asked your husband?
11:35-11:40
Are there broken relationships in my life that I refuse to heal?
11:40-11:46
Even if they came crawling back to me, that person walked out of my life, I don't want them walking back in.
11:48-11:49
Is that true of you? Yes or no?
11:51-11:55
Do I believe certain people don't deserve forgiveness?
12:00-12:10
When someone messes up, do I prefer criticizing their mistakes over praying for them to get to a better place?
12:11-12:20
You see, if you're answering yes, Or even maybe, to any of these questions, then you probably aren't as gracious as you thought.
12:22-12:23
Here's the truth.
12:23-12:31
By default, because we are fallen people, born with a sinful nature, living in fallen flesh, by default, we are not gracious.
12:32-12:33
We just aren't.
12:34-12:45
And we need to start by acknowledging that as fallen people, Every single one of us have room to grow in grace.
12:45-12:46
We all need it.
12:48-12:49
But we don't often give it.
12:51-13:01
Secondly, we all need grace, but we don't often recognize our need for it.
13:02-13:04
Pick back up in verse 6.
13:06-13:19
and John points out that they said this to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him, Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground.
13:20-13:27
Do you know this is the only passage in the New Testament that says that Jesus wrote, and we don't know what He wrote.
13:27-13:33
Wasn't there somebody there that was taking notes or could pull out a cell phone and take a picture of what Jesus was writing?
13:33-13:35
Everybody wants to know what Jesus wrote.
13:36-13:45
I read so many ideas and thoughts, and it really doesn't matter though.
13:45-13:52
Because if God wanted us to know what Jesus wrote, then He would have told us in His Word.
13:53-13:57
So you understand that it doesn't really matter what Jesus wrote.
13:58-14:07
What matters was Jesus stooping down to perform this action of writing on the ground.
14:08-14:09
Look at verse 7.
14:12-14:34
"And as they continued to ask Him, He stood up and said to them, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." So Jesus, as He was writing in the ground, they just continued to badger Him.
14:34-14:35
Do you see that in the text?
14:36-14:37
Like, "What do you say, Jesus? Hey, what do you think?
14:37-14:39
What do you think we should do with this lady?
14:39-14:49
What do you say, Jesus?" And Jesus finally stood up, and He made one of the most famous statements in the Bible.
14:50-15:05
"Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her." Then, verse 8, "And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground." Back to writing.
15:08-15:13
I love this because this story started with them bringing a challenge to Jesus.
15:16-15:19
And Jesus turned the challenge to them.
15:20-15:29
Verse 9, "But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones.
15:32-15:43
And Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him." They were convicted by their own conscience, and they suddenly became their own judge.
15:47-15:49
See, the Bible says that the older ones left first.
15:51-15:52
The older ones left first.
15:55-16:01
And I've got to tell you, I get that.
16:04-16:18
I've been in pastoral ministry now for 20 plus years, And I remember, as a much younger pastor, being so hard-nosed on things, holding the line on some things.
16:21-16:25
To go after people and say, "Hey, you violated the Scriptures!
16:26-16:27
What is the matter with you?
16:29-16:30
Don't you know the Bible?
16:30-16:39
I'm about to go full Leviticus on you." Then, you get a few miles on the car.
16:41-16:43
You take a few laps around the track, right?
16:45-16:52
And you mature in your understanding of your own failings.
16:56-17:06
And you minister to people who have struggled with bad choices, But they need somebody to pick them up, not kick them while they're down.
17:11-17:12
Come on church, we've all been there.
17:14-17:19
We hear that somebody is going through a divorce, and instantly we condemn.
17:20-17:23
Like divorce is evil, do you know what the Bible says about divorce?
17:23-17:24
And yes, yes.
17:26-17:30
Divorce is not God's optimal plan.
17:31-17:52
Divorce is wrong, but we're so quick to disregard a woman who has been abused or cheated on for years, who tried so hard to faithfully endure, maybe entered into a divorce that wasn't her choosing.
17:54-17:55
But we're quick to condemn.
17:58-18:00
We're quick to condemn parents.
18:01-18:15
"Your kids are out of control." "Look at him." "Her kids are always out of control." And then we find out that the kids are acting out because they experienced something traumatic.
18:16-18:28
And we don't see the countless hours of the parents trying to raise their kids, parents trying to get help for their kids to go through whatever it is they've gone through.
18:28-18:31
We don't see that. We don't care about that.
18:31-18:34
We're just so quick to condemn.
18:39-18:48
But you know, even for people like these scribes and Pharisees who didn't even believe in Jesus, experience has a way of putting things into perspective.
18:51-19:03
Jesus said, "Let him who is without sin "Among you, be the first to throw a stone at her." You know, that's one of the most misused verses in the entire Bible.
19:04-19:09
Because do you know how people want to use and quote this verse?
19:11-19:19
They want this verse to say this, "You know, we're all sinners, so we should never ever call out sin." Right?
19:19-19:23
Somebody tells you that what you're doing is wrong, what you're doing is sinful.
19:24-19:33
"Hey, hey, hey, he who is without sin cast the first stone." Like, only if you're sinless can you tell me about my sin.
19:33-19:37
And that is not what Jesus was saying at all.
19:39-19:48
The point here - listen closely - these men were all law and no grace.
19:48-19:52
Jesus wasn't saying judges have to be sinless.
19:54-20:02
And the Bible teaches so clearly that we as a church must address sin when there's sin in the church.
20:02-20:14
But, righteousness and judgment have to have this foundation of a spirit of grace.
20:16-20:21
Otherwise, our judgment becomes heartless.
20:23-20:27
Truthfully, it becomes hypocritical because we all need grace.
20:31-20:32
I want to make this clear.
20:32-20:37
Some people look at this passage and think that Jesus completely threw out the law.
20:38-20:43
That these men said, "Hey, the law says stone her, and Jesus says, 'Ahh! Who needs the law?
20:43-20:48
Just forget about it.'" and look a little closer, that's not at all what happened.
20:49-20:51
Jesus actually affirmed the law.
20:52-20:54
Here, did you see that?
20:55-21:02
In an amazing twist, Jesus said, "Okay, she should be stoned.
21:06-21:15
But I'm going to appoint the executioner." So, sinless guy, you get the first throne.
21:18-21:21
Jesus wasn't minimizing adultery.
21:24-21:29
Adultery is so destructive and so painful.
21:30-21:33
Adultery violates the marriage covenant.
21:34-21:36
Adultery destroys entire families.
21:36-21:39
Adultery does harm to children.
21:39-21:41
Adultery is horrible.
21:42-21:45
We've talked about that so much in the past.
21:47-21:48
Jesus wasn't minimizing that.
21:51-21:57
But to this group of self-righteous men, Jesus was saying, "Hey, you know what?
21:57-21:58
You're no better.
22:00-22:06
You're condemning a woman for adultery, but your hearts are full of hatred.
22:07-22:08
Your hearts are full of malice.
22:08-22:18
What kind of people would grab just a woman, not the guy, just a woman, what kind of men would drag a woman through the streets and dump her right here?
22:21-22:22
Treat her like that.
22:24-22:25
You're heartless.
22:27-22:30
Jesus wasn't minimizing sin, He was elevating grace.
22:32-22:42
Saying the reason you are so harsh to judge because you don't recognize your own need for grace, even though you need it just as much as she needs it.
22:45-22:54
And you know, church, I am, I am by far the worst sinner that I know.
22:56-23:00
I need Jesus Christ more than anybody that I know.
23:01-23:04
And I know this because I know what's in my heart.
23:06-23:07
How about you?
23:11-23:22
And when you and I fail to recognize that we are sinners saved by grace, we become just as harsh as these guys in this passage.
23:25-23:43
But, when we are constantly drinking in the grace of Jesus Christ, That river of grace flows out of our hearts, and we become much better ministers to others who need that same grace.
23:45-23:46
We all need grace.
23:47-23:53
Finally, but we don't often understand it.
23:54-23:55
Look at the last two verses for today.
24:00-24:05
Jesus stood up and said to her, "Woman, where are they?
24:07-24:16
Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go.
24:17-24:26
And from now on, sin no more." Jesus said, "Well, I guess the trial is over.
24:26-24:28
the jury all sort of disqualified themselves.
24:30-24:32
Jesus alone had the right to condemn.
24:33-24:37
Jesus alone had the right to throw a stone, and He chose to forgive her.
24:38-24:41
And some would look at this passage and say, "Wait, wait, wait a second!
24:42-24:44
She didn't confess her sin.
24:45-24:47
She didn't repent from her sin.
24:47-24:53
She didn't do nothing that the Bible says we need to do to turn from our sin and to receive forgiveness.
24:54-24:55
She didn't do anything.
24:55-25:03
"How can you say she's forgiven?" And I would reply, "You want to step in at this point of the story, really?
25:04-25:05
This is where you want to step in?
25:06-25:12
This is where you want to go look for a rock?" Jesus knew her heart, right?
25:13-25:16
We've seen that all through John, over and over.
25:16-25:18
Jesus knows what's in a person.
25:19-25:20
He knew what was in her heart.
25:21-25:23
He knew that she was repentant.
25:26-25:34
There's a big difference in the way you minister to someone who's repentant than someone who's rebellious in the church.
25:34-25:35
This is a whole other sermon.
25:37-25:54
But just to say, when someone who calls himself a believer in the church is guilty of sin, if that person comes repentant and says, I need help. I'm trying to do the right thing.
25:54-25:58
Would you please help me?" I will work with that person all day.
25:58-26:00
All month, I will work with that person.
26:01-26:12
But the person who calls himself a believer who is flagrantly in unrepentant sin refuses to turn from it.
26:14-26:16
The Bible says that person is no longer welcome in the fellowship.
26:17-26:18
Huge difference, right?
26:20-26:22
And this woman was obviously repentant.
26:24-26:25
Sin no more.
26:27-26:30
Jesus didn't excuse her sin.
26:31-26:31
Like, hey, you know what?
26:31-26:34
You had a rough childhood, so you're off the hook.
26:35-26:38
Jesus didn't have her embrace some victim mentality.
26:39-26:45
Like, well, you know, the reason you committed adultery is because of something your husband did a while back.
26:45-26:47
He didn't give her this victim mentality.
26:48-26:51
He didn't call it an alternative lifestyle or whatever.
26:52-26:53
Jesus, He called it sin.
26:55-26:59
And He said to walk away from that kind of living.
27:02-27:10
We often don't understand grace because we view it as permission to sin.
27:12-27:16
People say, "Well, I'm not saved by my conduct, My conduct doesn't matter.
27:19-27:21
That's spoken like someone who doesn't know Jesus.
27:22-27:30
That's spoken like someone who doesn't have God's Holy Spirit indwelling you, changing you into who God has called you to be.
27:31-27:37
Jesus Christ is not about, "Here's your magic ticket to heaven." Jesus Christ is about transformation.
27:42-27:48
Jesus said, "Sin no more." Sin no more.
27:50-27:58
You see, the point is, grace points us in a new direction.
27:59-28:03
Grace moves us in a new direction.
28:04-28:14
And Jesus didn't tell this woman, "Sin no more, so that you can avoid being executed by stones somewhere down the road.
28:16-28:17
And it's the same for us, church.
28:17-28:28
Our motivation for turning from sin just can't be boiled down to, "Hey, don't sin because you fear the consequences." Like this woman, it's this.
28:31-28:33
Turn from your sin because you met Jesus Christ.
28:35-28:40
Turn from your sin because you can never be the same after experiencing His forgiveness.
28:43-28:46
Well, the scribes and the Pharisees certainly brought the right question to Jesus.
28:48-28:53
It all boils down to, hey, how do you harmonize justice and mercy?
28:56-29:00
If God is just, this woman dies.
29:01-29:04
But if God is loving, she lives.
29:07-29:07
What's it going to be?
29:10-29:16
Well, the answer for her sin and for yours is the cross of Jesus Christ.
29:19-29:25
See, the cross of Christ is an intersection where God's justice meets God's mercy.
29:28-29:42
And Jesus eventually took Her place on the cross as He has taken yours, so that we could be forgiven and go and sin no more.
29:45-29:55
And along the way, what motivates me to seek to show grace to someone struggling with sin?
29:59-30:01
Well, it's because forgiven people forgive.
30:03-30:06
because forgiven people know His grace.
30:07-30:08
Let's pray.
30:09-30:13
Father in heaven, thank You for Your Word.
30:15-30:18
And I pray, Father, that Your Word would transform us.
30:21-30:33
As we all so readily acknowledge that we need grace, but sometimes, Father, we're a bit thick-headed that comes to the application of it.
30:36-30:41
Father, let us be people that live in Your grace and extend that to others.
30:46-30:58
That when we find ourselves in this story, we would show the compassion and restoration of Christ, not the hate-fueled judgment of these scribes and Pharisees.
31:00-31:12
Father, let us be people who represent You, who represent Your Son, by demonstrating that grace to others.
31:16-31:19
Thank You, Father, for the grace that You've shown us on the cross.
31:23-31:25
We pray these things in Jesus' name.
31:27-31:27
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:53 - 8:1-11

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
In John 8:7, Jesus said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” People often quote this to mean “we are all sinners, so it’s never right to call out someone’s sin.”
- Is this an accurate interpretation of this verse? Why or why not?
- How and when IS it appropriate to call out someone on their sin?
John 8:9 says the older ones walked away first. Why do you think that was? How does experience seem to temper inappropriate zeal?
Jesus told the woman to “sin no more” (John 8:11). How does knowing Jesus motivate us to walk away from sin?

Breakout
Pray for one another to grow in Jesus’ grace - and being gracious to others.

Jeff Miller

May 3, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Living Water

Jeff Miller

May 3, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing the Living Water (John 7:37-52)

Isaiah 12:3 - With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

Introduction:

Isaiah 12:3 - With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.

CONTROVERSY – 2 separate disputes:

"Gen Pop": Believers vs Lazy Researchers (John 7:40-44)
Authorities: Haters vs Seekers (John 7:45-52)

Knowing the Living Water (John 7:37-52):

Living water flows Into thristy people. (John 7:37)
Living water flows Out of quenched people. (John 7:38)
1 Corinthians 12:7 - To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

1 Peter 4:10 - As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another...

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:04
Open up your Bibles with me please to John 7.
00:04-00:07
And we'll be picking up in verse 37.
00:10-00:18
Several years ago, we took a little family trip to Erie, actually up to Presque Isle where they have this long biking trail.
00:20-00:25
And I got on my bike, and we had one of those little carts where you pull your kids behind you, right?
00:25-00:29
So I had our two boys They were much smaller back then.
00:30-00:35
I was pulling them and their little cart on my bike, and Erin was riding on her bike.
00:36-00:39
And we went the whole way around that bike trail.
00:40-01:12
And when we got near the end, Erin said, "I must be really out of shape because this was so hard biking today." Well, when we stopped, I looked at her bike and saw somehow the brakes were on and locked, but not tight enough to completely stop the wheel, but the brakes were on to stop it from moving freely.
01:14-01:21
So Aaron biked the entire Presque Isle trail with the brakes on.
01:22-01:29
And at one point near the end of this biking trip, obviously Aaron was so unbelievably thirsty.
01:30-01:35
It was warm and it was a long trip, even with a functioning bike.
01:36-01:41
And we pulled up and saw there was a little water fountain that was on the beach.
01:42-01:52
Well, Erin saw that and ran to the water fountain, and when she got there, she took a big, long gulp of water.
01:55-02:01
But the water was contaminated, and it tasted like dead fish.
02:03-02:16
So after Erin took that giant drink, she spun around, and there were two girls that were were just sitting there on the beach, and she spewed the dirty fish water all over the beach.
02:16-02:17
Just blech!
02:19-02:21
I got permission to tell that story, by the way.
02:23-02:30
And you know, there are two girls to this very day that I'm sure are still telling that story.
02:32-02:35
Today, we're going to talk about thirst.
02:38-02:40
We're going to talk about how to quench your spiritual thirst.
02:41-02:44
We're going to talk about how to know that you have.
02:45-02:54
As we get back into John 7, just to remind us where we are, Jesus had showed up privately at the Feast of Booths, not how His brothers wanted Him to.
02:55-02:57
And Jesus was teaching Him at the temple.
02:58-03:00
And He was met by so much confusion.
03:00-03:01
Is this the Christ?
03:02-03:03
Is this not the Christ?
03:04-03:05
Is He a deceiver?
03:05-03:06
Who is this guy?
03:07-03:16
And we saw last week that Jesus warned the people that they would not have Him forever, and they couldn't come where He was going.
03:17-03:18
Look at v. 37.
03:20-03:25
It says, "On the last day of the feast..." The great day.
03:26-03:32
We're going to stop right there because I need to explain what's going on because it helps us understand what's happening in this passage.
03:32-03:45
Remember, we said Jesus here is at the feast of booths, the Feast of Tabernacle, to remember the wilderness journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.
03:45-03:48
And this feast, this holiday, lasted for eight days.
03:49-03:56
And each day, the high priest would lead a procession to the pool of Siloam.
03:56-04:12
And the high priest would, at the pool, take this golden pitcher and fill it with water, and then the procession went back to the altar where they would pour the water from the pool onto the altar.
04:13-04:40
And while the high priest did that, the people in their booths on the streets, on the rooftops, the people that were in their booths would shout and wave palm branches and they would sing Psalms 113-118 and they would recite Isaiah 12:3 which says, "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." That's what they recited.
04:41-04:50
"With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." The last day of the feast was called the Great Day.
04:52-04:58
And on the Great Day, the people would actually march around the altar seven times.
04:59-05:00
Does that sound familiar?
05:03-05:04
This was to remember Jericho.
05:05-05:10
Jericho was sort of the unofficial ending of the wilderness wandering.
05:10-05:16
So why would they do all of these things in this Feast of Tabernacles?
05:16-05:18
What was the symbolism here?
05:19-05:26
This was to remind Israel that in the wilderness, God provided.
05:27-05:35
Specifically, this was to remind Israel when God provided water from a rock.
05:36-05:45
And with this backdrop, at this moment, Jesus shouted these words.
05:47-05:57
Verse 37 says, "Jesus stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
05:59-06:13
Whoever believes in Me, "As the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Verse 39, sort of an editor's note from John.
06:14-06:36
He says, "Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified." See, at this point in Jesus' ministry, The Holy Spirit had not yet come to indwell all of God's people upon belief.
06:36-06:45
After Jesus ascended - we get to Acts 2 - the Holy Spirit comes and indwells everyone who believes in Jesus Christ.
06:46-06:51
So John's little editorial note here, this is for us.
06:51-06:57
What Jesus is saying here is something specifically for those of us that live on this side of Pentecost.
07:00-07:05
As usual with Jesus, His words were deemed controversial.
07:06-07:11
And also as usual, Jesus put people into two camps.
07:12-07:14
Let's talk about controversy.
07:14-07:19
Now, there are actually two separate disputes happening here.
07:20-07:21
We're going to look at this quickly.
07:22-07:24
Letter A, let's talk about Gen-Pop.
07:24-07:27
general population, the crowds.
07:28-07:33
They were really divided into two camps, and we're going to call them believers versus the lazy researchers.
07:34-07:35
Look at verse 40.
07:36-07:59
It says, "When they heard these words, some of the people said, 'This really is the prophet!' Others said, 'This is the Christ!' But some said, 'Is the Christ to come from Galilee?'" Hasn't the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?
08:01-08:04
So there was a division among the people over him.
08:05-08:07
Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
08:08-08:10
Stop here. Again, this is gen pop.
08:10-08:12
We have believers, we have lazy researchers.
08:12-08:13
Some people believe.
08:13-08:18
Some people were like, "Well, this is obviously the prophet that Moses talked about." Deuteronomy 18.15.
08:19-08:22
Others were like, "Yeah, this is obviously the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One.
08:23-08:27
Obviously, this has to be Him." But some people didn't believe because they were willfully ignorant.
08:28-08:28
Did you see that in the text?
08:30-08:33
They're like, "No, no, wait a minute. The Messiah, He's supposed to be the offspring of David.
08:34-08:35
He's supposed to come from Bethlehem.
08:36-08:45
This can't be Him because He's from Galilee." Well, they were wrong. They actually could have checked the temple records to see that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
08:45-08:52
They would have been able to see that Jesus had David on both sides of his family.
08:56-08:56
But they didn't check.
08:57-09:00
And we talked about this last week, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this.
09:00-09:02
But here's the bottom line.
09:02-09:08
If you want your sin more than Jesus, you'll find an excuse to suppress the truth.
09:10-09:17
So that was one camp, but let's look at another camp here, or another group, rather, of people divided over Jesus.
09:18-09:21
Another group of people divided over Jesus, we're just going to call them the authorities.
09:24-09:26
We're going to see the two camps that they fall into.
09:27-09:28
Haters versus seekers.
09:30-09:32
And this passage is actually kind of funny.
09:32-09:33
Look at verse 45.
09:33-09:52
"The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, "I said to them, 'Why did you not bring him?' The officers answered, 'No one ever spoke like this man.'" Stop there. The officers - these were like the temple police, so to speak.
09:52-10:00
And they were sent - we saw back in v. 32 - they were sent to arrest Jesus Christ.
10:00-10:02
And they returned empty-handed.
10:05-10:12
Did you ever go into a room and forget why you went into the room in the first place?
10:12-10:13
Has that ever happened to you?
10:15-10:22
If that event was an Olympic competition, I would be gold medalist.
10:22-10:23
I am constantly doing that.
10:24-10:27
Walking into a room and, "Wait, I came in here for something.
10:27-10:28
What is it?
10:28-10:33
Anybody else?" That is so me.
10:34-10:37
And that's exactly what happened to these officers.
10:39-10:51
They were sent to do one thing - arrest Jesus - and they show up and they're like, yeah, we kind of got so wrapped up in what He was saying, we kind of forgot to arrest Him.
10:52-10:53
Look at v. 47.
10:55-10:58
"The Pharisees answered them, 'Have you also been deceived?
10:59-11:09
Have any of the Pharisees believed in Him?' This crowd that does not know the law is accursed.
11:10-11:11
See what the Pharisees do?
11:11-11:14
They sort of play into the officer's pride, right?
11:15-11:29
The Pharisees basically - to sum up what they said - the Pharisees were basically saying to these officers, "You surely aren't that stupid." I mean, you're siding with these uneducated people?
11:29-11:30
Seriously? That's who you're siding with?
11:31-11:52
"They don't know anything." Verse 50, "Nicodemus, who had gone to Him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 'Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?' They replied, 'Are you from Galilee too?
11:53-11:59
Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.'" Remember Nicodemus from chapter 3?
12:01-12:07
He knows that their plans to kill Jesus is just the absolute lowest form of evil.
12:09-12:14
And Nicodemus defends Jesus by appealing to the law.
12:15-12:29
Nicodemus is saying, "Hey, you know what guys, you better be careful because you're about to break your own law in what you're about to do here." I think it was really Nicodemus' way of trying to protect Jesus from them.
12:32-12:37
And the Pharisees' response, they said, "No prophet arises from Galilee." Did you see that?
12:38-12:39
Well, that's just incorrect.
12:40-12:43
Jonah, Nahum, Hosea, they were all from Galilee.
12:43-12:44
But you know what?
12:44-12:50
When you're really emotionally charged up, when you're angry, you don't really need facts, do you?
12:52-13:01
Then and now, whether you're in the gen pop or you're someone in a high place, you're going to see that Jesus Christ always divides.
13:03-13:09
We've talked a lot about the controversy, the hatred, and I didn't want to spend a lot of time on that today.
13:10-13:18
Instead, I want us to take a few moments to look at two sentences that Jesus literally shouted according to the text.
13:19-13:24
sentences that truly describe what it means to come to Jesus Christ.
13:27-13:29
And what it looks like when you have.
13:31-13:43
The amazing thing is Jesus explained the most profound spiritual truth using the simplest thing that man has ever known.
13:44-13:47
The very focus of their parade.
13:51-13:53
So two things today.
13:55-14:00
As you're taking notes, knowing the living water is the heading.
14:01-14:02
There's two points, and here's the first one.
14:04-14:07
Number one, living water flows into thirsty people.
14:09-14:10
Look at verse 37 again.
14:13-14:16
"Jesus stood up and cried out..." Look at what Jesus said.
14:17-14:37
"If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink." The whole process of salvation - you know, sometimes we make things so complicated, and Jesus took the whole process of salvation and boiled it down into three words.
14:38-14:42
Thirst, come, drink. Right?
14:43-14:45
Let's talk about thirst for a second.
14:47-14:50
Do you know thirst is the most powerful drive known to man?
14:52-14:55
More than food, more than sex, more than anything.
14:57-14:59
Thirst is the most powerful drive.
15:02-15:08
Jesus was pointing out here by talking about thirst, you have to be aware of your condition.
15:11-15:16
Did you know that most people are physically thirsty?
15:17-15:18
And they don't even know it.
15:19-15:19
Did you know that?
15:20-15:24
I read this week, 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.
15:27-15:33
And I did some reading on symptoms of dehydration, and the list is long.
15:33-15:43
Dehydration causes fatigue, foggy memory, cognitive function stress, anxiety, irritability, and the list goes on and on.
15:43-15:49
All of these symptoms that people face simply because they're thirsty.
15:52-15:54
And church, this is a spiritual truth too.
15:56-16:03
People have all kinds of painful spiritual symptoms because they're spiritually dehydrated.
16:05-16:06
That's a long list too.
16:08-16:14
People face worry and anger and envy and hatred and discontent.
16:16-16:21
"What is wrong with me?" You're dehydrated.
16:23-16:23
Spiritually.
16:24-16:25
That's what's wrong with you.
16:27-16:32
And Jesus cries out for anyone.
16:32-16:33
Did you see that?
16:34-16:35
Anyone thirsts.
16:36-16:40
Anyone who has rightly diagnosed their spiritual deficiency.
16:41-16:42
Anyone who thirsts.
16:43-16:46
This is where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to start.
16:47-16:48
Are you thirsty?
16:49-16:50
Are you spiritually dry?
16:51-16:52
Are you lost?
16:52-16:56
Do you realize your sinful and guilty condition?
16:56-16:57
Are you thirsty?
16:57-17:00
It has to start with recognizing that.
17:02-17:03
Jesus says thirst.
17:03-17:05
He says, "Come. Come.
17:07-17:13
Turn your back on the world and all the things that you tried before." The Bible calls that repentance.
17:15-17:21
We try everything to satisfy our spiritual thirst.
17:22-17:27
It can be money, some new gadget, things, people.
17:27-17:38
We try all of these things that we think are going to satisfy us, and we get them, and we use them, and we find out that we're still spiritually thirsty.
17:40-17:55
But you have to see here, that Jesus doesn't tell you, "Hey, get your act together, and come to Me." Because we can't.
17:57-18:05
He just says, "Come." And you see the only qualification is to thirst.
18:07-18:10
That's who Jesus is calling, and that's what He says to do.
18:11-18:12
Are you thirsty? Well then come.
18:13-18:16
And finally, He says drink. Drink.
18:18-18:21
Water isn't helpful until you drink it.
18:23-18:30
You're like, "Well, I'm learning all kinds of profound spiritual truths today." Think about it. Water isn't helpful unless you drink it.
18:31-18:32
What did Jesus mean "drink"?
18:32-18:35
Well, He means to take Him in. Right?
18:35-18:42
Like we saw in John 6, Jesus said you have to feed on His flesh and drink His blood.
18:43-18:45
He was saying you have to receive Him.
18:45-18:47
You have to consume Him.
18:47-18:51
You have to take Him in to yourself.
18:54-19:21
with the living water. Water isn't helpful until you drink it. That doesn't really need explain does it? Just grab an athlete coming off the field and show him a picture of a waterfall. Hold up a Gatorade bottle full of water and explain hydration to that athlete and explain why water is important.
19:22-19:24
That does the athlete no good.
19:26-19:28
It does the athlete no good to know about water.
19:29-19:31
He needs to drink the water.
19:32-19:56
And in the same way, church, everyone who's listening to this, in the same way, hearing a sermon, going to Bible study, mouthing words to a worship song, sitting in a church, watching a church online, knowing all about Jesus does not satisfy your spiritual thirst.
19:56-20:02
You need to go from knowing about Jesus to knowing Jesus.
20:03-20:04
Have you done that?
20:07-20:09
Because according to Jesus, it's not that complicated.
20:09-20:12
It's hard, but it's not complicated.
20:14-20:20
"Thirst, come, drink." Living water flows into thirsty people.
20:22-20:23
Check this out. Point two.
20:24-20:29
Living water flows out of quenched people.
20:31-20:34
I want you to look very closely at what Jesus said.
20:35-20:36
The result of believing Him.
20:37-20:39
The result of thirst, come, drink.
20:39-20:41
I want you to look very closely at what He says.
20:43-20:54
In verse 38, Jesus said, "Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said..." Like Ezekiel 37, different passages in Isaiah.
20:54-20:58
He just sort of summed up some Old Testament concepts with this statement.
20:58-20:58
But look at this statement.
21:00-21:06
"Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Did you see that?
21:07-21:39
"Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." You know, no matter how many times I've read the Gospel of John, every time I get to this passage, my mind wants to read this passage, and my mind wants to remember this passage as saying this, "Into his heart will flow rivers of living water." I have like this mental block that I think that's what it says.
21:39-21:42
Into his heart flow rivers of water. Into his heart...
21:44-21:45
But did you notice that's not what it says?
21:47-21:57
Jesus said, "Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." The point is this, the water doesn't stay in you.
22:00-22:04
Christians, you are not a bucket.
22:07-22:09
But many Christians sure act like one.
22:10-22:15
Like yes, Jesus is the living water, and I'm His bucket.
22:16-22:19
The Christian life is about me being blessed.
22:19-22:20
Pour into me, Jesus.
22:21-22:24
Bless me. Give me. Make me happy.
22:24-22:26
Now listen, does that happen?
22:27-22:30
Absolutely, for sure it happens.
22:32-22:36
But that is only where it starts.
22:38-22:47
You see, it's like saying the Kentucky Derby is all about opening a gate for a horse.
22:49-22:51
That's only where it starts.
22:53-22:55
So it is with the Christian life.
22:55-22:57
Yes, we drink.
22:57-22:59
Yes, He pours in.
22:59-23:01
And some people think that's the end game.
23:01-23:02
But it's not.
23:02-23:06
Jesus pours into you so He can pour out of you.
23:07-23:15
In Christ, we become a river to others as living water flows from us to them.
23:15-23:21
In other words, Christ flows through you to become a blessing to other people.
23:22-23:27
And this verse certainly isn't an isolated example of this teaching, right?
23:27-23:40
1 Corinthians 12.7, Paul said, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." Why do you have the Holy Spirit? For the benefit of others.
23:42-23:44
1 Peter 4.10, Peter says the same thing.
23:44-23:53
"As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another." He pours into you, but the purpose ultimately is to pour through you.
23:55-24:21
So Christian, your concern is not, "Are my needs being met?" In Christ, as the living waters flow, our concern becomes, "How can I meet other people's needs?" "How can I minister to them?" "How can I share Christ with them?" "How can I encourage them?" "How can I bless them?" It becomes an outward, focused life.
24:25-24:59
And when that happens, when that living water, you're drinking of it, and it is flowing like rivers out of you into the lives of other people, when that becomes your default way of living, it's proof that your own thirst When I was preparing for this message, I did a Google search for stories about thirst.
25:02-25:10
And read some articles, and this article I read just really stuck out to me, and I wanted to just share this story with you.
25:12-25:30
But several years ago, a man by the name of Dave Buschow, age 29, paid over $3,000 to go on a wilderness survival exercise in the deserts of Utah.
25:32-25:39
It was like one of those, what do they call them, the Spartan races, the Iron Man, those kinds of things.
25:39-25:57
like that but even more intense. It was about testing mental and physical toughness. On the second day, this crew hiked for 10 hours without water and 100 degree temperatures.
26:00-26:16
At one point, Dave Habushaw had stopped at a place where there was water and he stooped down to get a drink, but the guides who lead them on this survival expedition, the guides discouraged him from doing that.
26:16-26:17
Tough it out.
26:18-26:19
Keep pressing on.
26:22-26:25
Well their destination was this cave that had water.
26:25-26:28
That was sort of their checkpoint finish line.
26:28-26:32
We're going to rest here, we're going to drink here, but that was the finish line.
26:34-26:44
And the crew, including Dave Bustschow, was less than 100 yards away from the cave when Dave collapsed and died.
26:47-26:48
It's a tragic story.
26:50-26:52
What I'm about to tell you makes it even more tragic.
26:54-26:56
His guides had water the whole time.
26:58-27:04
His guides were carrying water with them for emergency.
27:04-27:21
But they didn't give the water to Dave because they "didn't want to ruin the experience for him." The tragedy of this story with Dave Boushchow is he died of thirst with water all around him.
27:23-27:32
And I read this story and I thought, spiritually, this tragedy, it's happening every day.
27:35-27:38
There are people spiritually dying of thirst.
27:38-27:43
All around us, while we carry with us the living water.
27:44-27:50
So I just want to ask you, church, what are you going to do about it?
27:52-27:53
Are you going to be like the guides?
27:56-28:04
I have the water, but I'm keeping the water, and I'm not giving the water, and I'm going to watch people die knowing that I could have prevented it.
28:06-28:19
Or, will you save a life by giving the living water of Jesus Christ that flows through you?
28:21-28:22
Let's pray.
28:24-28:29
Father in Heaven, we thank You so much for Your Word.
28:30-28:38
It clears up any doubt as to who You are, what You require from us.
28:38-28:40
What You've required, Father.
28:40-28:42
Jesus made it very clear.
28:43-28:44
We thirst, we come, and we drink.
28:46-28:51
And when we do that, we let those rivers of water and give a thrust to others.
28:55-29:11
Father, I just pray simply for my brothers and sisters who are watching this, that we would be people who come to Jesus Christ for the satisfaction that only the living water can give.
29:14-29:17
That Father, we would find our fulfillment and identity in Him.
29:19-29:38
Father, I pray that we would be people who are just so constantly blessing others and looking to the needs of others because we are just so flowing with the water.
29:41-29:47
Father, we're sorry for our selfishness.
29:51-29:58
We're sorry for the times that even as Christ-followers, we start to look for satisfaction in other things.
30:01-30:09
By Your grace, Father, by the power of Your Spirit, let us once again recognize our thirst.
30:11-30:12
Let us once again come to Christ.
30:13-30:18
Let us once again drink the water that He gives.
30:19-30:22
We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:37-52

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
How does someone recognize they are thirsty (John 7:37)? If you are a believer: how did you recognize YOU were thirsty when you came to Christ to drink? How can you recognize when someone else is thirsty, and needs Christ?
What are some things people try to find satisfaction in, when what they really need is Christ? What are some things that you tried?
Read John 7:38. Explain, in your own words, what Jesus is saying. How do you know when you are “quenched”?

Breakout
How “outward focused” have you personally been during the COVID season we are in? Pray for one another to be RIVERS, not BUCKETS, of living water.

Jeff Miller

April 26, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing Him Now

Jeff Miller

April 26, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Lies We Hear from the Lost (and how we should respond) (John 7:25-36)

What do I say when someone claims to know the Bible, but they obviously do not?

Where do you get your knowledge of Jesus? Would you like to know what the Bible says?

What do I say when someone claims everyone goes to heaven?

Where do you get your idea everyone goes to heaven? Would you like to know what the Bible says?

What do I say when someone claims they'll come to Jesus later?

Where do you get your idea you have time? Would you like to know what the Bible says?

Introduction:

Lies We Hear from the Lost (and how we should respond) (John 7:25-36):

I know what the Bible says. (John 7:27-28)
What do I say when someone claims to know the Bible, but they obviously do not?

Where do you get your knowledge of Jesus? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )

Colossians 1 | John 1

Everyone ends up in Heaven . (John 7:34)
What do I say when someone claims everyone goes to heaven?

Where do you get your idea everyone goes to heaven? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )

Matthew 25:46 - And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
I have Time . (John 7:33)
Isaiah 55:6 - "Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near..."

What do I say when someone claims they'll come to Jesus later?

Where do you get your idea you have time? Would you like to know what the Bible says? ( Y / N )

Hebrews 3, 4

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:04
We'd like to welcome you to Harvest Pittsburgh North online.
00:05-00:12
We are so glad that you are worshiping with us this morning, and you'll be getting into God's Word with us this morning, so let's turn our hearts towards the Lord together.
00:12-00:17
Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel of John 7.
00:17-00:19
We will be picking up in verse 25.
00:20-00:26
While you're turning there, when I was in college, I worked with a man named George.
00:26-00:40
And George was a very interesting fellow, because George would look me in the eye, and he would tell me about working, not only with me at Walmart, but he also drove truck on the side.
00:41-01:23
And George would say things like, "Yeah, I had to haul a load down to Florida and back last night." And I said, "George, you drove to Florida and back last night?" And he's, "Yeah." I said, "Well, that's a lot of miles on the car in one night." And he said, "Yeah, I worked 210 hours at my other job last week." I said, "You worked 210 hours at your other job last week?" He goes, "Yeah." I said, "How many hours do you work at Walmart?" He said, "40." And I said, "George, you worked 250 hours last week?" And he would look me dead in the eye and he'd say, "Yeah, yeah, I put in 250 hours last week." And I don't know what motivates somebody to lie like that.
01:24-01:32
I don't think George wanted to impress me, but it was so strange because he did this almost every time I saw him.
01:33-01:37
He was talking about these huge inflated number of hours.
01:37-01:42
You know there's only 168 hours in a week, but he would work 250 hours.
01:43-01:50
And I never corrected him, because when he looked me in the eye and told me these stories, he seemed like he really believed it.
01:51-02:00
In church, we face lost people who tell lies, and like George, they really believe the lies that they tell.
02:01-02:04
But their lies have much more serious consequences.
02:05-02:12
Because believing these lies that lost people tell and believe, these lies keep people from truly knowing Jesus.
02:12-02:14
They keep people from coming to Jesus for salvation.
02:15-02:25
As we turn to John 7, recall Jesus showed up privately at the Feast of Booths when we started chapter 7 last time.
02:26-02:34
His brothers wanted Him to go into Jerusalem and make this big show at the Feast, and Jesus didn't do it according to their time or according to their method.
02:35-02:38
Jesus went privately, and He taught at the temple.
02:39-02:43
Let's pick up in verse 25 where we left off last week.
02:43-02:54
because some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, "Is not this the man whom they seek to kill?" And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him.
02:55-03:00
Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
03:00-03:02
But we know where this man comes from.
03:03-03:06
And when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.
03:07-03:08
Stop there.
03:08-03:42
There is so much confusion happening in this passage said first of all, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, isn't this the man that they're trying to kill?" And you might be thinking, "Well, hang on a second. Last week when we were in verse 20, the crowd said, 'You have a demon! Who's trying to kill you?' So how is it that there were people saying, 'Who's trying to kill you?' but then there are people that instantly knew that this is the one that people wanted to kill?" Well, the difference is in verse 20, it says the crowd was saying that these were people that were from all over, right?
03:42-03:46
They were not just from Jerusalem, they were from all over.
03:46-03:48
They came into Jerusalem for the feast.
03:48-03:53
So they didn't know what was happening in Jerusalem as much as the city's residents would.
03:54-03:56
And that's exactly what's being talked about here.
03:56-03:57
Did you see that?
03:57-04:02
Verse 25, "Some of the people of Jerusalem..." Okay, these were the local people.
04:02-04:06
They knew that the leaders wanted Jesus dead.
04:06-04:09
But the people on the outskirts were unaware of that plot.
04:10-04:10
That's the difference.
04:11-04:16
But regardless, we see in verse 26, people were all up in arms, confused.
04:18-04:22
He's teaching, and no one's doing anything about it!
04:22-04:23
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
04:23-04:27
Do they really know that Jesus is the Messiah?
04:28-04:29
Are they covering it up?
04:30-04:31
You know what this looks like to me?
04:32-04:34
This looks like a good old-fashioned conspiracy.
04:35-04:41
Like these leaders know who He is, apparently they're just not telling us.
04:41-05:09
No, no no, in the temple.
05:10-05:17
"You know Me, and you know where I come from, but I have not come of My own accord.
05:18-05:21
He who sent Me is true, and Him you do not know.
05:22-05:30
I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent Me." So they were seeking to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him.
05:31-05:32
They were like, "Wait, wait, wait, stop.
05:32-05:38
If they wanted to arrest Him, and He's teaching in the temple, Why didn't they just grab him, right?
05:38-05:41
Why didn't they just walk up and grab him?
05:41-05:48
Well, I'm sure at that moment if you would have asked them, "Why don't you just arrest Jesus?" they would have had some excuses.
05:48-06:03
Maybe they would have said something like, "Well, this is the feast and there's so many people here, we don't want to cause a riot, we don't want to cause problems, so that's why we're not grabbing him." But the real reason they didn't, look at the end of verse 30.
06:04-06:10
It says, "But no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come." That's why. That's why they didn't arrest Him.
06:10-06:12
They were being restrained by God.
06:12-06:16
Whatever excuse there was in their head, God was restraining them.
06:17-06:20
And nothing happens before God says so.
06:21-06:23
And that's why Jesus was preaching so boldly.
06:24-06:28
Because Jesus was so aware of God's sovereignty.
06:28-06:34
Jesus knew nothing was going to happen to Him before the Father wanted it to happen.
06:34-06:51
Verse 31 says, "Yet many of the people believed in Him." They said, "When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?" The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him.
06:52-06:53
See, at this point, some people did believe.
06:53-07:06
They said, "Well, if Jesus isn't the Messiah, what more could the Messiah do than Jesus?" But the leaders had enough. The Pharisees, the chief priests, they had enough.
07:06-07:18
They said, "He's just getting too popular. People are starting to buy into him, and we can't have this. We have to stop him." And it says that they sent officers to arrest him.
07:19-07:22
Well, they wanted to arrest him, but they didn't, and now they sent officers.
07:22-07:23
What happened to these officers?
07:24-07:28
We're going to see when we get to verse 45 what happened to the officers.
07:29-07:37
But look at verse 33, "Jesus then said, 'I will be with you a little longer, and then I'm going to Him who sent Me.
07:38-07:40
You will seek Me, and you will not find Me.
07:41-07:47
Where I am, you cannot come.' The Jews said to one another, 'Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him?
07:48-07:52
Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?
07:53-08:02
What does He mean by saying, "You will seek Me and you will not find Me, and where I am, you cannot come." These are sad verses.
08:02-08:09
Jesus was saying, "It's going to be over soon, and you're not going to have to deal with Me here anymore.
08:09-08:13
But the day is coming that you're going to seek Me and you're not going to find Me.
08:14-08:29
You're going to wish that I were still around, but you will never be where I am." In other words, Jesus was saying, "You don't have forever to receive Me. I'm going to be back in heaven, a place that you are never going to be." They're very sad and very hard words.
08:30-08:32
And we saw the people's response to that.
08:33-08:40
"Where is he going to go? Is he going to go preach to the Greeks? What does he mean?" Were these honest questions that people had? Were they mocking him? I don't know.
08:41-08:44
I do know that they just didn't get it.
08:45-08:46
They just didn't get what he was saying.
08:47-08:48
Like, what are you going to do, Jesus?
08:48-08:52
Are you going to go and find some scattered Jews out among the Greeks?
08:53-08:57
Surely you're not going to go preach to the Gentiles themselves.
08:57-08:59
What in the world is he talking about?
09:00-09:10
But it's obvious that Jesus' statement, "You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come," that became a much-discussed statement.
09:10-09:17
Now, this isn't a confusing passage, but it is a passage of confused people.
09:18-09:22
We saw that throughout the passage in response to Jesus' teaching.
09:23-09:25
"Oh, aren't they trying to kill Him? Why don't they just grab Him?
09:25-09:27
Is He the Christ? Nah, we know this guy's from a town of family.
09:27-09:34
What in the world is He talking about?" There's just so much confusion in this passage about who Jesus is.
09:34-09:36
What is He saying? What does it mean?
09:37-09:38
You know, nothing's really changed.
09:38-09:55
At Harvest Bible Chapel, our goal is to teach and preach the Word of God clearly, because we too live in a culture that's all kind of confused about Jesus, about heaven, about salvation, about spiritual matters.
09:56-10:13
And simply today, in light of this text, I want us to look at three lies that your lost neighbors believe, your lost family members, your lost co-workers, Three lies that people in our culture believe, because these lies are directly corrected in this passage.
10:14-10:17
So on your outline, we're going to take some notes.
10:17-10:20
Lies we hear from the lost, and how we should respond.
10:21-10:24
These are lies that we hear, and how we should respond to them.
10:24-10:25
Number one, here's the first lie.
10:26-10:29
"I know what the Bible says." That's a lie that we hear from people.
10:30-10:33
People that have never cracked the spine of a Bible in their life.
10:33-10:39
"I know what the Bible says." And that's exactly the kind of people Jesus was dealing with here.
10:40-10:43
I know what the Scripture says.
10:44-10:47
Jesus doesn't fit how I understand...
10:47-10:50
Well, verse 27, look at that again with me.
10:50-11:02
It says, "When the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from." That was their belief, and that didn't come from a proper understanding of the Old Testament.
11:02-11:07
See, legend had it that the Messiah would just appear out of nowhere in the temple.
11:07-11:11
That one day, He just shows up out of thin air.
11:11-11:14
Poof! Here He is! Suddenly the Messiah just shows up.
11:14-11:16
Like, where did they get that idea?
11:16-11:20
Well, they wrongly understood Malachi 3.1.
11:21-11:30
It says, "And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple." And they took that verse to mean that that's how the Messiah would show up.
11:30-11:32
That's why they said what they said.
11:32-11:37
Well, you know, when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.
11:37-11:39
He just magically shows up in the temple, right?
11:40-11:44
Never mind all of the content in the Old Testament about the Messiah.
11:44-11:48
Virgin born in the city of Bethlehem.
11:49-11:50
Never mind all of that.
11:51-11:55
These people had the Messiah standing literally right in front of them.
11:56-11:58
And they missed him. Why?
11:58-12:03
"Oh, that can't be Him because I know what the Bible says." And they didn't.
12:04-12:10
If they knew their Old Testament Scriptures, if they knew the Law and the Prophets, then they would have recognized the One standing in front of them.
12:11-12:12
Fulfilled that.
12:13-12:15
They didn't know about the Christ.
12:15-12:16
They didn't know their Bibles.
12:17-12:20
But that didn't stop them from being experts on both.
12:20-12:23
And that's the same thing today in our culture.
12:24-12:32
Everyone - I'm speaking for the United States - I mean, let's be honest, Jesus is a household name, right?
12:33-12:41
Everybody in our country has heard the name and could probably tell you a couple things they've heard about Him.
12:41-12:48
In fact, Jesus' name is so popular and well-known that in our culture, people curse with His name.
12:48-12:51
And people in our culture think that they know the Bible.
12:52-13:00
"Oh, I know what the Bible says!" I went to VBS once when I was a kid. I know what the Bible says.
13:01-13:05
My grandmother, she was Catholic. I know what the Bible says.
13:06-13:18
And people will use or try to quote the Bible wrongly to justify beliefs and behaviors because I know what the Bible says.
13:19-13:22
And church, I have seen this so many times over my ministry.
13:23-13:25
Like the people that Jesus was dealing with here.
13:25-13:32
There are people that didn't know the Scriptures, but that doesn't stop them from speaking like they're experts because they want to justify something.
13:32-13:34
These people wanted to justify not believing in Jesus.
13:35-13:40
What kind of things have I heard people try to justify with a wrong view of Scripture?
13:41-13:46
This video could be hours long if I told you all the stories.
13:46-13:50
I'm just going to give you a couple, and I'm going to give you the short version.
13:50-13:54
I had a guy one time tell me that it was okay to smoke weed because of the Bible.
13:55-14:52
the Bible says. It's okay to smoke weed." I'm like, "Why is it okay to smoke weed according to the Bible?" He says, "Well, doesn't it say, you know, that God created the plants for us to eat?" And I said, "Yeah, you eating your weed?" He's like, "No." But my point is, he was using the Bible to justify what he wanted to believe. I had a guy one time at my old church visiting, and he came up to me after service, and I don't know why this visitor, new guy, felt the need to tell me all of this, but he came up after service and told me that according to Matthew 19, divorce is fine as long as you have the paperwork done. And I said, "That's exactly the opposite of what Matthew 19 is about!" But he went on this whole thing, he was going, "Look, you know, I've gone through this divorce, but it's totally cool because the paperwork's done." And really, in God's eyes, that's all that matters, is making sure the paperwork's done. I'm like, "What are you talking about?
14:53-15:48
Have you read Matthew 19?" He was the expert on it. I've told you before about running into the Jehovah's Witness years ago at Dollar General, and somehow we got to talking, and my wife was with me, and this woman was... she said something about the earth lasting forever and ever, and I said, "Well, you know, the Bible says that the earth is going to be burned up someday." And she got so indignant, she goes, "I read the Bible, and it certainly does not say that!" Interestingly, we were in the aisle where they sold Bibles. Maybe it was Big Lots, I don't know, it was some cheapie store. Anyways, we were in the aisle where they sold Bibles, and I grabbed one off the shelf, opened it up, and showed her what Peter said about this heaven and earth being burnt up, and I showed it to her, and she said, "Well, I've never read that before." I'm like, "Well, I guess it's It's invalid if it's in the Bible and you've never read it before.
15:48-15:49
I mean, what do you even say to that?
15:50-15:57
When we had our first open house to tell people this church was launching, this was back in, what, 2010.
15:58-16:00
Our first open house.
16:00-16:02
We had a guy show up with some family members.
16:03-16:14
And I called and followed up with him after the open house to find out that two of those ladies that were with him were both wives of his.
16:15-16:27
And he went off on this whole thing about how God endorses polygamy and God encourages polygamy and I don't understand the Bible because if I did I would believe in polygamy as he does.
16:28-16:38
And I said, "Well, I just don't think this is the right church for you." And he had some kind of nasty parting shots because I didn't believe in polygamy.
16:39-16:45
But he had his defense built on, "I know what the Bible says." That's what Jesus dealt with here.
16:46-16:50
In Jesus' response, He put them on the stand.
16:51-16:59
That's why verse 28 that I stumbled over earlier, there really should be a question mark after Jesus' first statement.
16:59-17:02
Some translations have a period, but there really should be a question mark.
17:03-17:06
Jesus put His audience on the stand.
17:06-17:16
"You know me? And you know where I come from?" They obviously didn't, because their knowledge of the Messiah was based on tradition, not the Bible.
17:16-17:20
That's a whole other sermon, because that's so prevalent in our culture.
17:21-17:27
My knowledge of spiritual things is based on traditions I've heard, not what I've actually read in God's Word.
17:28-17:30
But people today are happy to be just as ignorant.
17:31-17:33
"I know what the Bible says," and they've never read it.
17:33-17:34
So I want to help you.
17:35-17:38
When you face this, as I have, I want to help you.
17:39-17:49
And you ask me, "What do I say when someone claims to know who Jesus is, but obviously they don't? What do I say to that person?" Here's what you say. I want you to ask them two questions.
17:49-18:01
First, ask them, "Where did you get your knowledge of Jesus?" And then just listen. Let them respond. "Where did you get your knowledge of Jesus?" And then after they answer that question, you're going to ask them another question, and this is a yes or no question.
18:02-18:08
You're going to ask, "Would you like to know what the Bible says about Jesus?" That's yes or no.
18:08-18:23
If they say no, say, "Okay, if you change your mind, let me know." But if they say yes, you need to take them to some passages of Scripture that clearly explain Jesus, like Colossians 1, John 1.
18:24-18:29
Take them to these passages, sit down, read them together, and ask them what it says.
18:30-18:35
Let them see for themselves that, "I know what the Bible says." That's a lie that they've told themselves.
18:36-18:40
So secondly, lies we hear from the lost and how we should respond.
18:41-18:43
A second lie that we need to address is this one.
18:44-18:45
Everyone ends up in heaven.
18:45-18:47
Everyone ends up in heaven.
18:47-18:53
People want to believe that everyone, eventually, somehow, ends up in heaven.
18:53-18:55
And here's the thought process.
18:55-18:58
It's this belief that good people go to heaven.
18:59-19:09
And deep down in my heart of hearts, in the heart of my heart of hearts, at the very heart of my heart of hearts, deep down I know that I'm a good person." Everybody believes that.
19:10-19:27
"Yeah, I've made some mistakes and I might speak sort of gruffly, and I've done some very bad things, but deep down I'm a good person, and good people go to heaven." If there were a lie that I could wish was true, it might be this one.
19:27-19:30
But Jesus was clear. Look at verse 34 again.
19:30-19:38
Jesus said, "Where I am, you cannot come." He was speaking very plainly about going back to heaven to be with His Father.
19:38-19:47
And He said to the crowd, "You're not going to be there." He was saying, "I'm going to heaven, and you can't come to heaven." The alternative is hell.
19:47-19:51
And hell is a truth that's discovered too late by people.
19:52-19:55
Yes, hell is described as painful suffering for sin.
19:55-19:57
It's described as fire.
19:58-20:02
But there's also a very emotional element to hell at the same time.
20:02-20:04
And that emotional element is resentment.
20:04-20:09
That's why Jesus described hell as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
20:09-20:19
That for all of eternity, not only are you experiencing the worst physical torment you can imagine, but you're facing the worst emotional torment you can imagine.
20:19-20:28
You are as bitter and angry and resentful as you could possibly be, maxed out for all of eternity.
20:28-20:38
I heard a preacher this week, and speaking of hell, in this passage in Jesus' teaching here, he said, "Hell is not where Christ is forgotten.
20:39-20:45
Hell is where Christ is unavailable." The hard reality is that heaven is not for everyone.
20:45-20:46
I want you to think about it.
20:46-20:57
I mean, if you live your life on the earth, and you love God, you love Jesus, you love God's truth, you love worship, you love fellowship with other believers, I've got great news for you.
20:58-21:00
You are going to love heaven, because do you know what heaven is?
21:01-21:05
Heaven is God's presence in the presence of Jesus Christ for eternity.
21:05-21:14
God's truth, worshiping the Lamb on the throne, in perfect fellowship with all believers who love Jesus Christ.
21:15-21:18
You're going to love heaven if that's the thing that fires you up on the earth.
21:19-21:24
If you live your life on the earth, you live your whole life and you say, "You know what? I don't want anything to do with God.
21:25-21:29
I don't want anything to do with Jesus. I don't want anything to do with God's truth.
21:29-22:15
I don't want anything to do with worship. I don't want you don't want anything to do with me? Okay, I have a place for people that don't want to experience a loving relationship with me. So you ask, "Well, what do I say when someone claims everyone goes to heaven?" You're going to ask them two questions. First question is, "Where do you get your idea that everyone goes to heaven?" I don't mean that in a jerky way. Just ask them, like, "That idea that everyone goes to heaven, where did you get that idea?" The second question you need to ask, again it's a yes or no question. You I know what it is.
22:16-22:21
You need to ask, "Would you like to know what the Bible says?" And I've had to deal with this issue a lot with heaven and hell.
22:22-22:23
Who goes, who doesn't? Is it eternal?
22:24-22:28
And one verse that I take people to is Matthew 25, verse 46.
22:29-22:40
"And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." You need to take the person that raises that issue, who believes that lie, you need to take them to this verse.
22:40-22:45
You need to give them the context and say, in this passage, Jesus is talking about the final judgment.
22:45-22:49
Have them read this verse, ask them to explain it to you.
22:49-22:51
What does it look like Jesus is saying to you?
22:51-22:59
And you need to point out to them that that word eternal in this verse is the same word for both heaven and hell.
22:59-23:07
In other words, Jesus is saying in this verse that hell lasts as long as heaven lasts and vice versa.
23:07-23:13
So looking at this verse, ask the person Maybe that believes the lie that everyone goes to heaven, nobody goes to hell.
23:13-23:16
In this verse, does Jesus say some people go to hell?
23:17-23:20
In this verse, does Jesus say that hell lasts as long as heaven lasts?
23:20-23:24
And let them see for themselves that everyone goes to heaven.
23:25-23:28
Let them see that that's a lie that they've told themselves.
23:28-23:48
Finally, the last lie that we hear from the lost is this one, "I have time." "I have time." And as we already mentioned, Jesus pointed out here in verse 33, "You don't have forever to come to Him." Isaiah 55 verse 6 says, "Seek the Lord while He may be found.
23:48-23:51
Call upon Him while He is near." Do you know what that verse is saying?
23:52-23:58
"Seek the Lord while He may be found." That's saying that there is going to come a time that He will not be found.
23:59-24:07
And you'll want to seek Him, and you'll want to go after Him, and you will be unable to do it because he won't be found.
24:07-24:11
That's why he says you have to do it now, because today he can be found.
24:12-24:13
That might not be true tomorrow.
24:14-24:16
The lie of the devil that Jesus was confronting.
24:16-24:22
I can reject Jesus now because I have all the time in the world to change my mind.
24:22-24:24
Another question again, to help you out.
24:25-24:26
What do I say, Jeff?
24:27-24:30
What do I say when someone claims they have time?
24:31-24:33
And what do I say when someone says they'll come to Jesus later?
24:34-24:35
We're going to ask them two questions.
24:36-24:37
You see a theme? Trying to help you.
24:38-24:39
Same two questions.
24:40-24:52
First question is, "Where do you get your idea that you have time?" Or another way of saying it is, "How do you know how much time you'll have?" The second question is, "Would you like to know what the Bible says?" And again, that's a yes or no question.
24:52-24:55
If they say no, that's fine, the conversation can end.
24:55-24:59
But if they say yes, you need to take them to Hebrews 3 and 4.
25:00-25:21
And I know I've shared with you in the past, one time during prison ministry, I had a man ask me, "Wait a minute, if I give my life to Jesus on my deathbed, do I go to heaven?" And I smiled at him and I said, "Yeah, technically that's true." And he said, "Okay, I'm just going to do that then." And I said, "No, you won't." He said, "What do you mean, 'No, I won't'?" I said, "You won't do that.
25:22-25:30
And the person that you are ministering to that has that same belief, I'll give my life to Jesus when I'm old.
25:30-25:33
You need to take them to Hebrews 3 and 4.
25:33-25:43
And you're going to need some time to sit down with them because this is obviously a longer chunk to look at than the few verses that we looked at with the other lies that people believe.
25:44-25:55
But the main thing you want to focus on over and over and over and over in Hebrews 3 and 4, He says today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.
25:55-25:56
It's a quote from Psalm 95.
25:57-26:03
And when somebody believes the lie that they have all the time in the world, they'll just give their life to Jesus on their deathbed.
26:04-26:08
When somebody believes that, I explain to them two things in looking at Hebrews 3 and 4.
26:09-26:10
I explain two things.
26:10-26:12
Number one, you might not have a deathbed.
26:13-26:13
Right?
26:13-26:16
It would be nice to think that that's how we all die.
26:16-26:18
Right? I die at 100 years old.
26:18-26:21
I'm laying in bed. I'm surrounded by my family.
26:21-26:22
And I just close my eyes and go to sleep.
26:23-26:23
And that's it.
26:24-26:27
It would be nice if we all died that way, but the reality is we don't.
26:28-26:36
There are car accidents, there are sudden heart attacks, or strokes, or diabetic complications, or cancers.
26:37-26:39
The list goes on and on and on.
26:40-26:45
Truth be told, few people have the deathbed experience that we all think that we're going to have.
26:46-26:48
The other thing I like to say, hypothetically.
26:49-26:53
Hypothetically, let's pretend that you have your deathbed experience.
26:53-27:02
Let's say that you live to be 100, and you're laying in bed, you're surrounded by family, and you don't plan to come to Jesus until that moment.
27:02-27:08
That means every day of your life until then, you're saying no to Jesus.
27:09-27:13
And the Bible says when you do that, you are hardening your heart.
27:13-27:20
It's like calluses on your hand when you exercise or work outside or whatever.
27:20-27:22
These calluses, they don't happen overnight.
27:23-27:31
It's years and years of abuse and wear and tear and work that gets to the point that it becomes so hard, nothing can penetrate.
27:32-27:36
And that's what happens to your heart after years of saying no to Jesus Christ.
27:37-27:41
Eventually, your heart gets so hard, the Gospel won't penetrate it.
27:42-27:50
And it's only going to be easier to say no to Jesus on your deathbed if you've spent every day of your life saying no to Jesus.
27:51-27:57
That's the person in light of Hebrews 3 and 4, after you walk through that with them, talk about it.
27:57-27:59
Why did God give this warning so many times?
27:59-28:02
Do you see how dangerous hardening your heart is?
28:03-28:07
Let them see for themselves that I have time is a lie that they've told themselves.
28:08-28:12
The church, like Jesus, you are in the middle of a confused culture.
28:12-28:16
And they believe the same lies that Jesus was addressing here.
28:16-28:17
We are not Jesus.
28:18-28:32
But we have the same confidence Jesus had, because look again at verse 28, where Jesus said, "He who sent me is true." That was Jesus' confidence. He knew God was true. He knew God's Word was true.
28:33-28:38
So he didn't have any problem sharing it. We have that same strong foundation.
28:39-28:59
And you're not going to show them, these people that believe these lies, you're not going to show them that they've been deceived by arguing with them, or by insulting them. The only way you're going to show them by giving them the Word of God, trusting His Spirit to be at work with His Word, pleading with them to know Him now.
29:00-29:00
Let's pray.
29:01-29:17
Father in heaven, it's amazing how relevant Your Word is, because the same issues, the same confusion, the same lies circulated in this passage about Jesus, about Your Word, the same kind of stuff people believe today.
29:18-29:21
So much confusion, Father. So much misunderstanding.
29:22-29:29
Father, today I pray for my brothers and sisters, that we would find our confidence in the same place that Jesus found His.
29:29-29:34
Jesus knew that you are true. He knew that your Word is true, Father.
29:34-29:35
Why are you so bold?
29:36-29:48
Father, I pray that you would give us boldness, not in a jerky or arrogant or self-righteous way, but in a loving way where we can come alongside people and encourage them to see for themselves what your word has to say.
29:48-29:49
Lies are of the enemy, Father.
29:50-29:53
By your grace and your power, let us be people who destroy them.
29:53-29:55
We pray in Jesus' name.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:25-36

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Why do people confused about Jesus (John 7:25-26) receive the same condemnation as those who hatefully reject Him (John 7:32)?
Why do you think Jesus’ statement in John 7:34 became such a “trending topic” for the Jews (John 7:36)?
Why is it effective to ask questions when you are confronting spiritual lies people believe?

Breakout
Pray for one another! And pray for opportunities to lovingly confront lies believed by the unsaved people that you know.

Jeff Miller

April 19, 2020

Knowing Jesus

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Teaching of God

Jeff Miller

April 19, 2020

Knowing Jesus

How Can I Know Jesus is Legit? (John 7:1-24)

Note: If using an Android or iOS device and you don't hear audio from the device's built-in speaker, simply plug in hardwired headphones or pair a bluetooth speaker to your device.

If you call Harvest your home, please let us know if you and your family joined us today by texting their names and the word HERE on your cellphone to 412-324-3147, thank you!

  
  Introduction:

How Can I Know Jesus is Legit? (John 7:1-24):
NOT by forcing Jesus to  Perform s. (John 7:1-9)
NOT by adopting popular  Opinions s. (John 7:10-13)
NOT by looking for Excuses to not believe. (John 7:14-24)
BUT by Desiring and Doing, God's Will. (John 7:17)

Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!

00:00-00:07
Hey, Harvest Bible Chapel, we are so excited to worship the risen Savior with you this morning.
00:07-00:30
We're also excited to be getting back into our series in the Gospel of John called "Knowing About Jesus." Actually, not "Knowing About Jesus," it's "Knowing Jesus." Open up your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel according to John, and we will be picking up where we left off before Resurrection Sunday.
00:30-00:33
We'll be in John 7.
00:34-00:36
While you're turning there, I've got to tell you this story.
00:36-00:50
At my old church one day, I was standing outside in between the church building and the office building, and a man walked in off the street and just came up to me while I was standing by the church.
00:50-00:51
This is a true story.
00:52-00:53
It doesn't sound like it, but it's true.
00:54-01:02
But this man came up to me, and he said, "I need some paper." And I said, "Well, I can help you out with that.
01:02-01:30
Come on in, I'll get you some paper." He goes, "No, no, no, no." He goes, "I need you to give me $50 to go buy paper." And I said, "Why in the world do you need $50 paper?" And he said, "Because I have some very important documents that need mailed to the White House, and they have to go on special paper." It would cost $50." And I said, "Well, I'm not really in a position to give you $50 for paper.
01:30-01:49
I'd be glad to give you paper, but I can't give you $50 for paper." He said, "Furthermore, I'm about to become very famous." And I said, "You are? Why?" He said, "Because I discovered a hidden song in the Bible about the tribes of Israel.
01:49-01:52
I'm the only person in history and I discovered the hidden song.
01:54-02:00
And I said, "I didn't know there was a hidden song in the Bible." And he just started belting it out.
02:00-02:20
He said, "Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Ishaqar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, Benjamin..." And I'm standing on the sidewalk with this guy singing at me, I'm thinking to myself, "He's making a lot of really big claims.
02:22-02:24
He's discovering hidden things in the Bible.
02:24-02:29
He's got some important governmental business requiring very expensive paper.
02:30-02:37
He's making a lot of really big claims." And you know, when you make a big claim, you better be able to back it up.
02:40-02:45
And the bigger the claim, the bigger the proof that you need to back it up.
02:46-03:06
For example, if you came over to my house and I made a claim to you, and I said, "I'm a musician." You would say, "Can you back that claim up?" And I'd pull out a guitar and play you a little something, you know, "dee-lee-dee-lee-dee-ee." And you'd be like, "Oh, okay, you backed up your claim." But that wasn't a huge claim.
03:08-03:21
If you came to my house and I said to you, "Hey, I am the Almighty God." That is the biggest claim, and you better have some big proof to back that up.
03:22-03:25
Well, you know, Jesus Christ made some claims about Himself.
03:28-03:30
Jesus said He was from Heaven. He said He was eternal.
03:31-03:35
He said He was the Savior. Jesus said He was equal with God.
03:36-03:38
Jesus said He had the power to give life.
03:39-03:41
Jesus said He was the Judge of all.
03:41-03:43
Jesus said He was sinless.
03:43-03:45
Jesus said He had all authority.
03:47-03:53
But you know one claim in particular that Jesus made that's absolutely staggering.
03:53-03:55
We studied this back in John 5.
03:56-04:00
Jesus said that He is the subject of the Old Testament.
04:00-04:04
And in this day, the Old Testament was the only Bible they had.
04:05-04:07
But Jesus said He was the subject of the Bible.
04:08-04:10
Can you wrap your brain around a claim like that?
04:11-04:30
and say, "Hey, this book that our nation sets its heart upon and bases its life upon, the nation of Israel, this book that we Israelites give our lives to understanding and knowing, this book... I'm the subject of that book.
04:30-04:34
That book is all about me." That is a huge claim.
04:36-04:37
I want you to think about something.
04:41-04:48
For Jesus Christ to be true, the whole Bible must be true.
04:49-04:49
I'm going to say that again.
04:51-04:52
Wrap your brain around that.
04:53-05:10
In order for Jesus to be true, all the claims that He made about Himself, all the claims that others made about Him, for Jesus to be true, The whole Bible must be true.
05:12-05:13
That's exactly what this book claims.
05:13-05:19
It's the living Word of God describing the person of Jesus Christ.
05:19-05:26
But this morning, as we turn to God's Word, I want to ask you, have you ever wrestled with that?
05:28-05:29
Wrestled with this.
05:30-05:34
How do I know that this Book is true?
05:34-05:36
How do I know any of it's true?
05:36-05:39
How do I know all of it is true?
05:41-05:43
Have you ever wrestled with that?
05:43-05:43
I know that I did.
05:44-05:46
I came to Christ when I was 20.
05:48-05:56
And very shortly after coming to Christ, it was within months, after coming to Christ, I'm sitting on a plane heading to Thailand for a mission trip.
05:56-05:58
I had no idea what I was doing.
06:01-06:10
I remember sitting on that very long flight to Thailand, and I had my Bible on that little tray that comes on the back of the seat in front of you.
06:11-06:19
I remember sitting there looking at my Bible thinking, "Do I really believe that this is the Word of God?
06:20-06:25
Do I really believe that every word in this book is true?
06:25-06:28
Do I really believe that?" Do you know why I was asking myself that?
06:28-06:35
Because I felt, I believed, that God called me into ministry to give my life to teaching this Book.
06:36-06:45
And if God called me to give my life to teaching this Book, I better be sure that I believe that this Book is true.
06:45-06:48
That it is what God says it is.
06:51-06:58
The same way, church, you are called by Jesus as a disciple to give your life to Him.
06:59-07:04
Don't you want to be sure that you haven't given your life to a lie?
07:06-07:16
And as we've gone through John, we've seen a plethora of objective statements about Jesus, right?
07:16-07:19
Jesus is the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life.
07:20-07:25
We've seen all kinds of objective things about Jesus in the text.
07:28-07:31
But what about subjectively?
07:32-07:35
I mean, let's move away from the objective facts.
07:35-07:39
Let's talk about the subjective aspect of this.
07:43-07:50
Can you say, deep down, "It is settled in my heart.
07:52-07:56
I am sure that Jesus Christ is God.
07:57-08:00
I am sure that the Bible is true.
08:00-08:10
I am sure that this is really reality." Do you have that 100% subjective confidence in the Word of God?
08:12-08:30
Because the passage we're looking at today will tell you, once and for all, how you can know subjectively in your heart that Jesus, and really the whole Word of God, is legit.
08:31-08:48
So on your outline, "How can I know Jesus is legit?" And Justin Katie isn't here right now to tell me if the kids are still using the word "legit." So, "I don't know." That was cool not too long ago, I think.
08:49-08:54
It's short for "legitimate." How can I know Jesus is real?
08:54-09:00
A reality that all of this in God's Word regarding Jesus is real.
09:00-09:04
How can I know in my heart that Jesus is legit?
09:06-09:11
Well, as we go through this text, first of all, we're going to be looking at some ways that don't work.
09:12-09:21
Some ways that people try to use, or some things that people employ that do not result in confidence in Jesus.
09:21-09:22
This is going to be pretty obvious in the text.
09:23-09:26
So number one, how can I know Jesus is legit?
09:26-09:30
Well, not by forcing Jesus to perform.
09:31-09:32
Look at the first five verses.
09:34-09:36
It says, "After this, Jesus went about in Galilee.
09:36-09:40
He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
09:42-09:55
Now the Jews' Feast of Booze was at hand, so his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing.
09:56-10:00
For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.
10:01-10:09
If you do these things, show yourself to the world." not even his brothers believed in him.
10:09-10:10
Let's stop there.
10:10-10:17
Jesus was doing ministry in Galilee for about six or seven months because in Judea the Jews were trying to kill him.
10:18-10:21
We saw that starting clear back in chapter 5, verse 18.
10:21-10:26
And the other gospel accounts discuss what happened during this six or seven months in Galilee.
10:27-10:30
John just kind of skips over that chunk of Jesus' ministry.
10:31-10:35
It says that the Jews' feast of booths was at hand.
10:36-10:39
What's the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles?
10:40-10:42
Well, Leviticus 23.
10:43-10:46
Israel was to hold three feasts.
10:47-10:52
The Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles was one of those feasts.
10:52-10:54
It lasted about a week, eight days.
10:55-11:01
It was to remember Israel's time in the wilderness.
11:02-11:05
That's why they had this festival.
11:05-11:17
It was Israel's way of celebrating or commemorating that once upon a time they were wandering through the wilderness and they would actually build these little booths and stay in the streets or on the rooftops.
11:17-11:21
It was almost like a mass camping trip.
11:21-11:30
And it was to remember where God had brought them from, bringing them into the promised land.
11:32-11:35
But here, Jesus' brothers address Him.
11:37-11:38
Technically they're half-brothers, right?
11:40-11:47
Because Mary and Joseph would have had children after Mary had Jesus, before her and Joseph came together.
11:48-11:50
So these were, you could say, Jesus' half-brothers.
11:51-11:53
And did you know Matthew 13.35 names them?
11:53-11:57
There's James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas.
11:58-12:11
And here John just kind of lumps, I don't know how many were here, and some of them came together, maybe it was all of them, but his brothers came to Jesus and they said, "Hey, we want you to go to the feast." Why? Why did his brothers want him to go to the feast?
12:14-12:19
I found this to be extremely interesting, because do you know what we have here that we just read in these verses?
12:21-12:40
Here we have four men who weren't the Messiah tell the real Messiah that they, who are not Messiahs, had the perfect game plan for being the Messiah.
12:43-12:48
Their game plan was, "Hey, here's how you Messiah, bro.
12:49-12:50
You get down there to the feast.
12:51-12:52
You show them all.
12:52-12:54
You show them what you've got.
12:54-12:55
You show them!
12:57-12:59
Mighty works. Come on, bro. Go show them.
13:00-13:02
Why are you sneaking around Galilee?
13:02-13:04
Why are you keeping it so private?
13:04-13:06
Go show them what you've got.
13:07-13:15
Verse 6, "Jesus said to them, 'My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.
13:15-13:21
The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil.
13:21-13:22
You go up to the feast.
13:22-13:30
I am not going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.' After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
13:31-13:40
So Jesus said to his brothers, "You go. I'm not." No one forces Jesus' hand.
13:41-13:43
No one tells Jesus what to do.
13:43-13:46
He's on God the Father's schedule.
13:47-13:53
Jesus will go to Jerusalem when and how the Father says.
13:54-14:00
In some translations in verse 8, the word "yet" is added.
14:00-14:07
"I am not yet going up to this feast." We're going to talk about that in just a couple of moments.
14:08-14:10
But for now, Jesus is saying, "For now, I'm staying in Galilee.
14:11-14:12
I'm staying.
14:14-14:21
I'm not going to the feast with you guys." But again, the brothers had it all figured out for Jesus.
14:22-14:26
He had his whole game plan on how he should do his ministry, but there was one problem.
14:26-14:28
The problem was they didn't believe in Him.
14:30-14:38
And church, people that don't believe often want Jesus to perform for them.
14:40-14:40
Right?
14:41-14:42
Come on, Jesus!
14:43-14:47
If You're real, You need to prove Yourself by doing this for me.
14:47-14:52
If You're really true, Jesus, You're going to give me that job that I asked for.
14:53-14:57
If you're really true, Jesus, you're going to give me something that I want.
14:57-14:59
You're going to make that person do this for me.
15:00-15:02
If you're real, prove yourself to me.
15:02-15:10
If you exist, show me." As if that's somehow going to prove that Jesus Christ is legitimate to you.
15:15-15:18
You will never know that Jesus is legit.
15:19-15:27
You will never experience who He is if you demand that He do your bidding.
15:29-15:33
You don't know Jesus is legit by trying to force Him to perform.
15:33-15:34
That's not how it works.
15:34-15:36
That's sort of where the brothers were.
15:37-15:56
And I would say if that's how you're trying to understand the truth about Jesus, by forcing Him to do something for you, you need to get educated "Which one of you is God, and which one of you is not?" So you don't know Jesus is legit by forcing Him to perform.
15:56-15:59
Secondly, how can I know Jesus is legit?
15:59-16:01
Well, it's not by adopting popular opinion.
16:03-16:04
Look at verses 10-13.
16:05-16:11
"But after His brothers had gone up to the feast, that He also went up, not publicly, but in private.
16:12-16:18
The Jews were looking for Him at the feast, and saying, 'Where is He?' There was much muttering about Him among the people.
16:19-16:30
While some said, "He's a good man!" Others said, "No! He is leading the people astray!" Yet, for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of Him.
16:32-16:35
So eventually, it was the time for Jesus to go.
16:37-16:38
But Jesus went privately.
16:39-16:46
He didn't make the show, or the grand entrance, or the spectacle of Himself that his brothers wanted him to make.
16:47-16:48
He didn't do that.
16:50-16:52
Everybody was wondering where he was.
16:52-16:53
Everybody had an opinion.
16:55-16:57
People were afraid to give it.
16:58-17:01
I think it's interesting, everybody had a very strong opinion about Jesus.
17:02-17:04
Like, what's that like?
17:04-17:05
I would say it's like our last two presidents.
17:06-17:08
I don't want this to turn into a political thing.
17:10-17:14
But I just want you to think about the current president and the former president.
17:15-17:26
Whatever your opinion or feelings are on those two men, can you recognize that with both presidencies, everybody had a strong opinion on one side or the other.
17:27-17:35
"He's the Savior! He's the devil!" And in the case of Jesus, same.
17:36-17:39
Both sides. Very polarizing.
17:41-17:47
But a big difference here, His opinions were all wrong.
17:48-17:51
For example, some people said he was a good man.
17:51-17:52
You're like, "Well, what's wrong with that?
17:52-18:00
Wasn't Jesus good?" What that means is people just reduced him to being a good man.
18:02-18:03
Like that's all he was.
18:05-18:06
And that is an understatement.
18:06-18:10
That's like saying Mario Lemieux was an okay hockey player.
18:11-18:18
That is a severe underselling of who the person is to say that God Almighty - He's a good man.
18:21-18:22
Some people said He was a deceiver.
18:23-18:31
That Jesus was intentionally teaching things that weren't true because He wanted to mislead people.
18:33-18:35
And I just want to say, you can't go with the crowd.
18:35-18:38
We talked about this at the end of John 6, right?
18:38-18:41
So I'm not going to spend a lot of time here, to a crowd.
18:42-18:45
Biblical history has taught us - remember Noah's day?
18:47-19:01
Social media has taught us today that crowds often hold strong, wrong opinions that others get caught up in despite any facts.
19:03-19:05
You cannot go with the crowd's opinion.
19:06-19:13
And you are never going to know Jesus is legit personally if all you ever do is listen to popular opinion.
19:16-19:21
And if Jesus is who He says He is, you better take an honest assessment yourself.
19:23-19:25
Now how can I know Jesus is legit?
19:26-19:36
One more "not." Number three, "not" by looking for excuses to not believe.
19:38-20:13
people like that? They look for excuses to not believe. Look at verses 14-18. It says, "About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, 'How is it that this man has learning when he's never studied?' So Jesus answered them, 'My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me. If anyone's I know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.
20:14-20:17
The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.
20:19-20:24
But the one who seeks the glory of Him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
20:27-20:29
Stop right there. Did you see it? Right out of the gate?
20:31-20:35
People were looking for an excuse to not believe Jesus.
20:35-20:37
Did you see it? Right out of the gate.
20:38-20:39
They acknowledged his amazing teaching.
20:40-20:47
Like, "This guy's teaching is incredible!" But immediately they attacked his education.
20:49-20:50
Or lack of education.
20:52-20:53
It's crazy.
20:54-20:59
They're like, "Wow, this guy is speaking divine words of truth!
20:59-21:02
But what kind of a degree do you think he has?
21:03-21:05
Where do you think he went to rabbi school?
21:05-21:07
Who do you think he studied under?
21:07-21:36
to see some diplomas or some certification here. Like, what difference does it make if God's speaking to you? What diploma God has on His wall? It's foolishness, but they were looking for excuses to not believe. Look at verse 19. "Has not Moses"—again, this is There's still Jesus teaching. He says, "Has not Moses given you the law?
21:37-21:50
Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?" I'm going to stop right there. Like, what's going on here?
21:51-21:55
Well, there was a plot to kill Jesus, and Jesus pointed that out.
21:57-22:00
But a lot of the people in the general population didn't know about that.
22:02-22:04
So why did Jesus bring that up?
22:07-22:17
You see, the general population, they might not have been aware of the plans to kill Jesus, but the general population would soon be screaming for His death.
22:19-22:21
They're like, "You're insane! You have a demon!
22:21-22:26
Who's trying to kill you?" Jesus knew, like, eventually it's going to be you.
22:27-22:28
You want to kill me.
22:30-22:31
That's your future.
22:32-22:32
Let's pick up.
22:35-22:39
Verse 21, "Jesus answered them, 'I did one work, and you all marvel at it.
22:39-22:46
Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
22:47-22:56
If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me?
22:57-23:01
Because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?
23:01-23:02
Stop there.
23:05-23:08
Jesus said, "I did one work, and you marvel at it." What work was that?
23:09-23:11
That's back in chapter 5, verse 9.
23:12-23:15
This is talking about healing the man that was lame by the pool.
23:16-23:18
The man who was lame for 38 years.
23:21-23:23
Some people look for an excuse to not believe.
23:24-23:27
Jesus healed a man who was lame for almost four decades.
23:27-23:28
Did you see the reaction?
23:29-23:44
The people were like, "Yeah, that was pretty awesome, but we have a little problem with what you did, Jesus, because you healed him on the Sabbath, and you know it's kind of illegal to do that stuff on the Sabbath." Which actually isn't true.
23:46-23:54
According to the Old Testament, it's illegal to work on the Sabbath, but Jesus didn't do anything that violated Mosaic law.
23:55-24:07
But Jesus gives an absolutely beautiful and ironclad irrefutable argument for healing this man on the Sabbath.
24:08-24:12
Just to paraphrase Jesus' argument, He was saying this.
24:14-24:17
We're saying circumcision is part of the Mosaic law, right?
24:19-24:29
Well really it dates back to Abraham, Genesis 17, but technically we're focusing on the law, the Mosaic law, Moses, specifically the Sabbath law here.
24:30-24:31
Jesus says, "I want you to think about something.
24:32-24:38
Circumcision was always done eight days after the baby was born, right?
24:38-24:39
That was the law.
24:40-24:42
Male baby born, eight days later, circumcision.
24:42-24:43
We got that.
24:43-24:44
That's how it is, right?
24:48-25:00
But if the baby was born on a Friday, he still needs to be circumcised eight days later, but eight days later would be on the Sabbath if he was born on a Friday.
25:02-25:05
Jesus and the law allows that, right?
25:06-25:40
Why would the Mosaic law allow a baby to be circumcised on the eighth day if the eighth days of Sabbath. Why? Because the Sabbath law was set aside for something that they deemed more important, which was the sign of the covenant. Jesus says, "Everybody knows that's wrong. I mean, everybody's on board with that. Everybody knows that's okay." I healed an entire man on the Sabbath and you're furious. Jesus is saying, "So why Why is circumcision okay?
25:42-25:43
The healing is not.
25:46-25:56
Verse 24, the thesis of the whole passage, Jesus said, "Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." Come on people, use your head.
25:58-26:02
Think about things before you start protesting based on how they look.
26:03-26:12
Some people don't want to discover, they won't discover that Jesus is legit because they're They're always looking for some objection.
26:13-26:14
They're always looking to nitpick.
26:15-26:18
I don't want to believe, so let me find a reason not to.
26:21-26:42
Many years ago, in the letters to the editor, in the Butler Eagle, there were some letters being submitted, this huge debate between creation and evolution, and there were people saying, "Well, if you believe in creation, "you don't believe in science." And at that point, I couldn't stay silent anymore.
26:42-26:50
Do you have any idea how many branches of science were founded by Christians and it started from understanding God's Word?
26:50-26:54
It's a list longer than your arm. You can look that up yourself.
26:55-26:59
So many branches of science started by Christians.
26:59-27:06
So I sent a letter in, giving that perspective, and it was printed.
27:08-27:10
Well, there was a lady that reached out to me, furious.
27:11-27:12
This lady was an atheist.
27:15-27:17
Furious, so furious that she came to my office.
27:18-27:21
And we had some very lively discussions.
27:23-27:36
We talked about creation, we talked about Noah and the ark, She talked about all kinds of things, Bible and science, and I couldn't convince her of the truth of God's Word.
27:36-27:41
So she left, but she made a parting shot when she left.
27:42-27:51
She said, "Jesus is a liar." "Oh?" I was not aware.
27:52-27:53
Like, why do you say that?
27:54-27:56
because the Bible tells us he lied.
27:58-27:58
Like where?
27:59-28:15
She goes, "I don't know, but it's in there." I said, "Well, if you're raising the point, you have the burden of proof, right?" "I don't know." Well, sometime later she mailed me a letter and said John 7 says that Jesus lied.
28:16-28:21
He told his brothers that he was not going to the feast, and then he went to the feast.
28:22-28:24
Jesus is a liar.
28:27-28:38
So she said, "See? Jesus lied. He lied." Well, let's just ignore the facts that the text itself gives, because Jesus wasn't lying.
28:39-28:43
Verse 8 has the word "yet" in a lot of ancient manuscripts.
28:44-28:53
The fact that Jesus actually went at a later time, not with the brothers, not how the brothers wanted Him to go.
28:55-29:02
Jesus went to the feast when and how He wanted to.
29:02-29:06
In fact, I don't even see Jesus hanging out at the feast, I see Him going straight to the temple.
29:08-29:15
So I have a lot of evidence in the text that Jesus didn't lie to them, but you know, we can't let the facts get in the way of a good objection.
29:16-29:20
And that was the objection to the Bible that she was going to hold on to.
29:21-29:25
Because some people always look for an excuse to not believe.
29:25-29:41
And if that's you, if you're always looking for an excuse, some sort of "the way this is worded, this can't be right." And if you're always looking for that excuse to not believe Jesus is legit, like these people, you're going to find one and you'll never come to really know Jesus.
29:43-29:53
So how can I know Jesus is legit? Not by forcing him to perform, not by adopting popular opinions, and not by looking for excuses to not believe.
29:53-30:01
Number four, but how can I know Jesus is legit? But by desiring and doing God's will.
30:02-30:06
Everything I shared to this point is the introduction. Now here's the sermon.
30:08-30:15
You will know Jesus is legit by desiring and doing the will of God.
30:15-30:17
I want you to jump back up to verse 17.
30:18-30:26
This should be highlighted and underlined in your Bible because this is one of the most profound verses in the entire New Testament, in my opinion.
30:27-30:43
Jesus said, "If anyone's will is to do God's will, He will know whether the teaching is from God, or whether I am speaking on my own authority.
30:47-30:48
Here it is.
30:48-30:52
This is the subjective test to know that Jesus is legit.
30:53-30:58
Here it is, listen, because this is the sermon, and unlike the introduction, this is very quick.
31:00-31:20
The person who truly, deep down, desires to do the will of God, that person that says, "Whatever God wants from me, I will do it!" And that person seeks to live by the Word of God.
31:20-31:25
"If this is what God wants, I want to do God's will, I'm going to do it.
31:25-31:38
Just let me live by the Word of God." God, the person that does that, he or she will know that Jesus is God.
31:39-31:45
His teaching is from God and the Bible is the Word of God.
31:45-31:49
In other words, that person who does that will know that Jesus is legit.
31:50-31:54
And I've got to tell you, this is opposite of what I would have expected the Bible to say.
31:55-32:07
You see, we would think the Bible says this, "Only those who desire to know God's will can do God's will." That's not what it says.
32:07-32:17
It says, "Only those who desire to do God's will can know God's will." Do you have a desire?
32:19-32:22
A true desire to do God's will?
32:24-32:36
And Jesus here is saying, "Well, if you do what God says to do, then you will know." Repent. Turn from your sin.
32:37-32:38
Cry out for His mercy.
32:38-32:40
Believe in who Jesus is and what He's done.
32:41-32:43
Love people how He says to.
32:44-32:47
Do marriage and parenting God's way.
32:47-32:48
Be generous to the church.
32:49-32:50
Give to the needy.
32:51-32:53
Forgive your enemies.
32:53-32:55
is to bless those who hate you.
32:57-32:58
Do it! Do those things!
33:01-33:05
I want to do what God says, and this is what God says to do.
33:05-33:06
Well, then do it!
33:06-33:07
You do those things.
33:07-33:22
You make your life about putting God's Word into practice in your life, and you will know - you will know internally, subjectively, that Jesus Christ is legit that God's Word is right.
33:24-33:25
So have you ever struggled with this?
33:26-33:30
Have you ever had a crisis of faith like I had very young?
33:33-33:50
To say, "Is Jesus legit?" Well, if you expect Him on your terms, if you just listen to what everybody else says about Jesus, if you're always looking for reasons to not believe, You're never going to get there.
33:53-34:09
But when you get to the place in your life that God's will is all you want to do, you'll see and you will know that Jesus is legit.
34:11-34:12
Will you bow your heads in prayer with me please?
34:15-34:27
Father in Heaven, this just isn't enough time to really come to grips with such a profound statement.
34:29-34:39
Jesus taught us that when we want to do Your will, we will know that You are true.
34:42-34:44
Father, so often we get that backwards.
34:45-34:49
We think if we can know Your truth, then we're going to want to do Your will or we'll know how to do Your will.
34:49-34:50
And that's just not how it works.
34:52-34:54
The desire has to be there first.
34:54-34:55
And God, that has to come from You.
34:56-34:58
We are lost. We are dead.
34:58-35:01
We are so helpless.
35:02-35:10
Father, I pray that we stop going with the crowd.
35:10-35:13
We stop caring what other people think.
35:15-35:18
I pray, Father, we stop looking for excuses to not believe.
35:18-35:22
I pray we stop thinking that we tell You what to do, or we dictate the terms.
35:24-35:38
Bring us to a place of humility, where we say, "Whatever God wants, that's all I want." Bring that transformation, with gratitude, Father, into our hearts.
35:41-35:47
So we can walk in full confidence in knowing Jesus Christ.
35:48-35:50
It's in His name that we pray.
35:51-35:51
Amen.

Small Group Discussion
Read John 7:1-24

What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
Have you ever had a crisis of faith, wondering “Is this all real? Is the Bible true? Is Jesus legit?” How did you handle it?
State Jesus’ teaching in John 7:17 in your own words.
What are ways our culture has redefined sin (see John 7:7)?

Breakout
Pray for one another. And pray for our leaders (President, Governor) to make the right decisions in transitioning back to “normal”.

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Light of the World

Introduction:

Knowing the Light of the World (John 8:12-30):

Knowing Jesus - Knowing His Grace

Introduction:

We All Need Grace (John 8:1-11):

Am I a gracious person?

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Living Water

Introduction:

CONTROVERSY – 2 separate disputes:

Knowing the Living Water (John 7:37-52):

Knowing Jesus - Knowing Him Now

Introduction:

Lies We Hear from the Lost (and how we should respond) (John 7:25-36):

Knowing Jesus - Knowing the Teaching of God

Introduction:

How Can I Know Jesus is Legit? (John 7:1-24):

Upcoming Small Group Questions CLICK HERE

How much of the Bible have we covered since 2011?

Introduction:

Knowing the Light of the World (John 8:12-30):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

We All Need Grace (John 8:1-11):

Am I a gracious person?

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

CONTROVERSY – 2 separate disputes:

Knowing the Living Water (John 7:37-52):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

Lies We Hear from the Lost (and how we should respond) (John 7:25-36):

Audio Transcript

Introduction:

How Can I Know Jesus is Legit? (John 7:1-24):

Audio Transcript