Why People Hated Jesus

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Yeah.

Yeah, let's pray together.

Lord, we just want to echo that we are who you say that we are.

And there's a there's a good side to that, and then there's a not so good side to that.

And so, Lord, the reason we read the Bible is not because we want to be more religious, is we want to understand who you say we are, because we live in a culture uh that tells us a lot of untruth.

And so, Holy Spirit, take the truth of God's word and wash untruth off of us this morning in Jesus' name.

We want to be free.

Jesus, you said that the sun sets you free, you'll be free indeed.

And that's the kind of freedom we want.

Reading the Bible, understanding the Bible, doesn't lead to religious bondage, it leads to spiritual freedom we don't find anywhere else from anything else or from anybody else.

And so we place high priority and high value on your word today, God.

And we say, speak, Holy Spirit, illuminate what the Bible says.

This is not a collection of words gathered up by a bunch of old people from a long time ago.

This is the active, living, breathing word of God.

And it's going to get down to the get down.

That's what we want it to do, God.

And so unleas your word today and come in power, Holy Spirit.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You could have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I want to invite you to take it over up to John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one in your row.

I'm on page 892.

And now, if there are seats in the middle of your section, if you would scoot in, that would help facilitate some folks that are arriving a little bit late.

They had to beat their kids on the way to church, and that takes a while.

So you beat yours on the way to church as well.

There you go.

I'm on page 892.

Well, I talked to you this morning about why people hated Jesus.

Why people hated Jesus, and you say, Why would anybody do that?

That's a great question.

And here's the answer.

I'm gonna lay all my cards out right up from the beginning for the same reasons that some of us hate Jesus.

Now you may be thinking, oh, I would never hate Jesus.

Listen carefully to what I'm fixing to say.

Jesus would rather you love him or hate him than remain indifferent to him.

Think about it.

He would rather you love him or hate him than just kind of be just kind of lukewarm, indifferent, kind of like, nah, well, yeah, I mean, I mean, I believe there's a God, I believe there's a higher power, but I'm gonna do what I want, and in the end, everybody gets in.

Your spiritual indifference is the most offensive thing in the world to God.

He takes it personal.

He would rather you love him or hate him.

You say, I don't think you can say that.

Sure you can.

If you look in the Bible, Revelation chapter 3, by verse 15 and 16, God says, I would rather you be hot or cold.

Revelation 3 · chapter mention

Love me or hate me.

But since you're lukewarm, I'm gonna spit you out of my mouth.

The literal translation is that is you make me want to throw up.

Yeah.

God is not a big fan of just kind of this cultural spirituality where I take a little bit from Buddhism, a little bit from Christianity, a little bit from my grandma's Catholicism because I want grandma to be mad at me, and you kind of mix it up in a pot, and you've got what you believe.

Or as we say in our culture, that's my truth.

You got your truth, I got my truth.

The Bible says there's one truth, and it's called the truth.

That's what Christianity is about.

That's what it's built on.

So I was gonna lay all my cards on the table and just kind of say, I want to talk this morning about why people hated Jesus from John chapter 7, starting in verse 1.

John 7 · chapter mention

Now, by the way, we ended at chapter 6 back in May and took a break for the summer from the from the book of John.

Jesus has left that region of the country because people are so mad at him they wanted to kill him, okay?

And so it's about six months has elapsed.

The Bible's not chronological in that it's like, okay, that ended on a Thursday and today's Friday.

Now, six months has elapsed between when he fed the 5,000 and and this feast of booze that Jesus is about to go to.

The Bible says this, John chapter 7, verse 1.

John 7:1

After this, Jesus went about in Galilee.

He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.

Now the Jews' feast of booze was at hand.

So his brothers said to him, Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may also also may see the works that you are doing.

For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world.

For not even his brothers believed in him.

And Jesus said to them, My time is not yet come, but your time is always here.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it that its works are evil.

You go up to the feast.

I'm not going up to this feast, for my time is not yet fully come.

After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.

The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, Where is he?

And there was much muttering about him among the people, while some said, He's a good man, others said, No, he is leading people astray.

Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.

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 him, his who sent me.

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.

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.

For the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

Has not Moses given you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law?

Why do you seek to kill me?

The crowd answered, You have a demon.

Who seeking to kill you?

Jesus answered them, I did one work, and you all marvel at it.

Moses gave you circumcision, not that it's from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.

If on the Sabbath a man received circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

One of the biggest differences between Jesus and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day, is that they were all about snorkeling, and Jesus was about scuba diving.

Have you ever been snorkeling?

It's nice.

You lay up on the surface, you got a little mask and a little snorkel, and you can fend, you can see stuff, and every once in a while you take a deep breath and you go down there and then you've got to come back up.

Scuba diving, you can go much deeper and you see more.

Here's why you should, and by the way, there's all kinds of people in the room.

Some of you like, I like to just stay up on the top and get a suntan and just see stuff from a distance.

Uh here's why you should learn to spiritually uh scuba dive.

It's because the treasure is on the bottom of the ocean.

The treasure doesn't float.

If you spend your life on the surface, just kind of trolling around, you'll never understand things you were created by God to understand.

Let me point to in the Bible five reasons why people hated Jesus, and it's some of the same reasons that we hate him today.

Number one, the first reason is in verses one to five, they didn't believe in him.

They didn't believe in him.

It says right there that in verse 5, for not even his brothers believed in him.

Now it says brothers, it's not talking about like, hey, my brother in Christ or my sister in Christ.

It's talking about his flesh and blood relatives.

They did not even believe in him.

One of the things that should strike you about Jesus is that you never see him trying to pressure people into believing.

Instead, he demonstrates what only he can demonstrate, and he lets people decide for themselves.

He doesn't coerce them, he doesn't force them.

I didn't grow up in church, but the few times that I went, it was such an emotionally manipulative thing.

It was brutal.

The invitation would last for 30 uh minutes, and they would sing songs like, Just as I am without one play.

And it would go on, and the preacher would say, We're gonna sing one more verse and no one comes.

And I'm back in the bag going, No one's come so far.

Shut up.

We gotta go.

And I was just like, for the love, dude, stop.

They never stopped.

It was always this pressure to believe.

And I didn't want to be a Christian.

I didn't understand it.

I thought you people were crazy.

I just thought it was kind of like, hey, you know what?

You should feel bad and help Jesus out because Jesus needs friends.

And I was just like, I was standing in the back of my friends go, hey man, you don't go down front?

Are they giving away a car?

No, I'm not interested.

And by the way, y'all are like, dude, it's a miracle God didn't strike you down.

I think God values that kind of honesty more than he values religious pretension and just phoniness.

And so I was just kind of like, eh, I'm not so much interested in that.

And then when I became a Christian and started reading the New Testament, especially, and I realized that, hey, Jesus didn't go around getting people in the head like Nolan Ryan.

Bam, wham, wham.

Remember that?

By the way, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of that.

For those of you who don't have Sports Center, uh, Nolan Ryan was 46 years old pitching for the Texas Rangers, and that brother was bringing the heat, and he beamed Robin Ventura in the back of the arm just for old time's sake.

And Robin Ventura was like 23 years old, and he threw the bat down and he ran out to charge the mound against Nolan Ryan.

Bad idea.

Nolan Ryan works cattle.

Nolan Ryan saw him coming and got him in the headlock and just started haymakering on that boy.

He was trying to grab his hand, like, oh, please, Hamma, don't hurt him.

He just pounded him and then let him go.

No one ever charged the mound ever again.

46-year-old man just put noogies on your head.

Jesus didn't do that.

He didn't, matter of fact, look at me.

He didn't do something for people and then look at them and go, now you owe me.

Matter of fact, you if you read the Bible, if you ever read through the New Testament, you will see that Jesus heals people.

And then he says to them, Shh, don't tell anybody.

The Bible says it like this, and he charged him, do not tell anyone, to tell no man.

But some people couldn't help themselves.

They would just run into town and go, Jesus healed me.

I used to have leprosy, and now I don't have it anymore.

And they're like, What in the world?

Now why think about it.

Why would you heal somebody?

Why would you radically reorient their life from despair to hope and not want them to tell anybody?

One simple reason, don't miss this.

Jesus does not want you relating to him based on what he can do for you.

He wants you relating to him based on who he is.

Don't come for relief, come for truth.

A long time ago, the church in America, about 25 years ago, started preaching to your felt needs.

And the church filled up and the church grew really fast.

But after a while, we realized that the people that go to church, they live no differently from the people that don't go to church.

Because they appeal to your felt needs.

Are you tired?

Are you lonely?

Do you need more money?

Come to Jesus, and he'll make you feel better about all these things.

Look at me.

No, you won't.

You're gonna come to Jesus, and sometimes life's gonna be just as hard as it was before.

But you now have a presence that you can bring to bear on your circumstances that you didn't have before.

You have an understanding.

But that's felt needs preaching.

It appeals to what you feel, and it picks a few verses in the Bible from random places, puts them together, and holds them out to you and says, You're not a victim, you're a victor.

Oh, some of you watch him on TV.

Because some of you are like, You're not saying what I think you're saying.

That's exactly what I'm saying.

Absolutely.

And and and and get this part.

Not because I don't like that man, I don't think about that man, but because I love you, and more importantly, because I love the truth.

Jesus does not want to surface following.

They didn't believe in him.

That's why they hated him.

They just didn't.

They were just like, huh?

Well, Jesus says, Hey, don't come to me as a resource, come to me as the truth.

You see, it's demonstrated.

We saw it earlier in John's gospel, John chapter 2, by verse 23, it says this.

John 2 · chapter mention

Now, when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many people believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

Did you hear that?

They believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.

But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people.

He needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in a man.

It's easy to believe that when you see Jesus doing stuff.

But he didn't do, he didn't perform miracles so you believe in him.

He performed miracles to get the people's attention to say, hey, I'm not like the rest of these religious schmucks that have been ripping you off your whole life, okay?

I'm the Son of God.

I am God concarney, God with meat on.

And here's what I've come to do.

And it wasn't just heal, it was to proclaim the good news of the kingdom.

But people hated him because they didn't believe in him.

Secondly, they hate him because he lived according to different timing.

He lived according to different timing.

Look at verse 6.

Jesus said to them, My time is not yet come, but your time is always here.

Look at me.

There's probably not a more insulting statement that Jesus says to anybody in the New Testament.

Let me say it again.

Probably not a more insulting statement that Jesus says to anybody in the New Testament than he says to his brothers, My time is not yet come, but your time is always here.

Why is that insulting?

What he's saying to them is that you guys are disconnected from God.

So therefore, it doesn't matter how you live your life.

You can be willy-nilly, come and go as you please, because you're not synced up with who God is and what God's doing in the world.

But instead, for Jesus, he says, Hey, my time is not yet come.

He lives basically, there's two two different Greek words for time.

One is chronos, which is chronological, which is, you know, right now it is 1041, it'll be 1042, and then 1048, and then 1056, and you also start thinking, uh, when is it gonna get done?

Are we gonna get out of here?

We've got to beat the Presbyterians to the good restaurants.

Uh I'll get you there.

Stay with me, okay?

Uh, that's chronological.

It's horizontal.

And then there's a second Greek word for time, it's kairos.

Kairos is vertical.

The Bible talks about this.

You'll hear this phrase, in the fullness of time.

In other words, it's this appointed time when time filled up.

And that's what Jesus lived in.

He didn't live in Kronos, horizontal.

He lived Kairos, this vertical, always talking about my time has not yet come.

He he he teaches in the temple in one of the gospels, and people get so mad they pick up rocks and they're gonna stone him to death.

And Jesus walks right through the crowd.

And how does he do that?

And they don't kill him.

Because the Bible said, His time had not yet come.

Now you'll notice this as we journey into John, the closer he gets to the cross, then he starts talking about time with more granularity.

He goes from talking about my time has not yet come to saying, My hour has not yet come.

So much so that he gets to John chapter 12, and some people come up and ask to see Jesus at the feast, and Jesus says, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

John 12 · chapter mention

He's talking about the cross.

Now, why do I make such a big deal out of that?

Because he reverse engineers his life around this one reality, the one thing that he came to accomplish for the world that we could never accomplish for ourselves.

Let me say that again.

He reverse engineers his life around this one reality, the cross.

Ask yourself this morning, what are you willing to reverse engineer your life around?

Do you know what I mean when I say reverse engineer?

In other words, like start from the ending and work back.

Start from that point and work back for Jesus, it was the cross.

And the closer he got to the cross, the more he started talking and saying things like, instead of my time has not yet come, he'd say, the hour has not yet come.

And all of a sudden, ding, the hour has come.

He wasn't put off by that.

This is the way we would think about it.

Jesus not only knew when he was gonna die, how he was gonna die, and why he was gonna die, so you gotta ask yourself, if you could know when you were gonna die, would you want to know?

We have what we call table questions at my house at dinner with our family or other people.

We'll say, like, we play the I feel rich win game.

Sometimes my wife will say, Let's play I feel rich when.

You have to say, I feel rich when, and it can't have anything to do with money.

It's an interesting insight into people's hearts.

Like one of my kids is, I feel rich when I'm home all by myself and y'all aren't here.

To which I said, I feel the same way.

Yes, indeed.

And so, why am I making such a big deal out of this?

You see, Jesus has reverse-engineered his life around the cross.

Ask yourself, what's the thing?

Because whether you realize it or not, you should ask yourself that question before you go to bed tonight, because whether you realize it or not, you have reverse engineered your life around something.

For some people, it's retirement.

I got 30, I got two years and seven months, so I have 30 years of the company, and then boom, you're done.

But most people don't think about what they want to do after that, so that gets here, and your wife is kind of like, You gonna be here all day?

Your wife calls me, you got anything that needs to be fixed down there?

I got a man that's available.

I'm like, uh, I don't know.

Uh Wade Burgess coordinates all that or whatever.

Because you reverse engineered your life around something.

For some of you, you reverse engineer your life around your grandkids.

Uh-oh.

Did you feel that?

Y'all just slip your hand, your mom just slipped your hand in that purse and said, Where's my pistol?

Right here.

Uh stay with me.

I'm not saying don't love your grandkids, but I will tell you this uh psychologists, counselors, and therapists are seeing this trend in young people today and students.

Uh, it's called narcissism.

We used to, you had to be an adult to be a narcissist, and they they're trying to figure out where all these narcissistic kids come from.

And they realize that most of the adults in their life, well, pretty much all of their adults in their life have made the greatest sacrifices for them.

And so these kids, since they were babies, the baby's born, mom, grandma, and grandpa go, you know what, we're gonna sell our house, we're gonna move to a city where we know nobody, we're gonna pull up our community, and we're gonna go, go, we've got to be next door to that grandbaby.

That's great.

Glory to God.

Now, when that kid grows up and is a narcissist because all the adults they know have made the greatest sacrifices for them, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Uh-oh.

We stepped off in it there.

Y'all are like, wait a minute, honey, don't write that down.

We don't receive that.

No, write that down.

Write that down.

Because it happens all the time.

I mean, kids are kind of like, you know, I was at the mall the other day.

I wanted to whip half those kids.

One kid said to his mom, You're gonna buy me those shoes, or we're gonna be gonna be a problem.

I'm like, they're gonna be a problem right now.

You're about to get whipped by a stranger up in here.

I just like but then I thought about this article I read by this therapist.

He just said, uh they said, What's the trend you see coming in in adolescent psychology?

He said, Narcissism.

Narcissism is ruining these kids because every adult they know has made the greatest sacrifices for them.

So don't, don't, don't, again, let me let me back up and say, I'm not saying don't love your grandkids.

No, don't, I'm getting my grandpa's name tattooed on my chest, big poppy.

Okay, I can't wait to be a grandfather.

Some of y'all just threw up in your mouth, didn't you?

You're like, no, don't do that.

No.

Hey, but see, here's the thing.

Jesus lived differently.

He lived in sync with who God is and what God was doing.

So, here's the other part.

To live in sync with what God's doing, listen to me, means sometimes you gotta live out of sync with what everybody around you is doing.

Let me say that again.

To live in sync with what God's doing, you gotta be willing to live out of sync with what everybody else around you is doing.

And and saying and believing and feeling.

Playing golf the other day, and uh, and a guy tells me, he says something about me, you know, this woman that wasn't my wife, and I said, Well, are you divorced?

He said, Yeah, we're kind of good, we're separated, and uh, and there's no infidelity, but you know, I'm just not happy.

It's like they're gonna divorce her.

Excuse me.

What?

Because if we can divorce our wives and we're not happy with them, I'm divorcing mine as soon as she gets home from Florida.

Come on, call her up, I'm kicking you to the curb, woman, I'm done with you.

Because she makes me crazy.

She says crazy stuff like it's 108 degrees outside.

I want to go for a walk after supper.

Why can't we wait till it's cool?

It's never cool here.

Let's go for a walk.

Why do we gotta go for a walk?

Because I want time with you to connect with you and commune with you.

I'm good, I'm connected, I'm communed, I'm all communed up.

No, I want us to go.

I mean, if I just don't feel like it, I can just see sometimes, again, to be in sync with what God's doing means you gotta be willing, you gotta be okay with being out of sync with what everybody else around you is doing.

Now, why do I make such a big deal out of this?

Here's why.

Because people that feel a sense of connection to what God is doing live lives that are marked by purpose.

They just live lives that are marked by purpose.

I'm not alone in this world.

God sees me, He's aware of my situation, He's at work in it because I'm included in what God is doing here in this world.

My life matters, therefore, I feel purposeful.

And by the way, it's not always some big bright light experience, you know.

Sometimes it's just in the little warp and woof of life.

Like Friday was a crazy day for me.

Uh had a breakfast meeting, it was great, had counseling appointment, had a thing that afternoon, had all kinds of stuff, had a lunch meeting, went to Perry's and had the pork chop because that's God's will for humanity.

It's on sale on Fridays.

And so I'm just fat and sassy and having a good time.

And then I ended my day by going down to the med center.

A friend of mine's getting treatment from from uh from Tennessee, flew down here to go to MD Anderson, and they're like, hey, you got 36 months to live.

And I went to go down there and see him, and I'm talking to him, and he said, Yeah, somebody in my church said to me, God's gonna spend the rest of eternity explaining to you why he allowed this to happen.

And because I want to live in single, who God is, what God's, I looked at him and said, Hey, God ain't gonna owe you no explanation.

And he said, I know.

I know.

I don't believe that person got there.

What per what church did that person go to?

Are they teaching the Bible?

God doesn't owe you anything.

And my friend Rod just smiled and said, Hey, all I want to do is I want to glorify God to the day I die.

If that's today, glory to God.

If it's six months now, glory to God.

I want God to get glory from my life.

Because Rod lives synced up.

None of you know Rod.

Rod was in ministry.

Married seven years, and his wife just up one day and said, I don't want to be married in my ministry anymore and left him.

That cat never remarried.

He's lived with a deep sense of sadness in him ever since then.

He's a great guy.

Shows up at his church, volunteers, loves people, has led a Bible study in his home for the past 20 years.

Just a simple servant who just lived in single, who God is and what God was doing.

I'm coming back from seeing him on Friday.

It's about 7 o'clock by the time I get back to Sugarland Friday night.

I'm tired.

I had taken some, uh I bought some screws.

I thought I needed Home Depot earlier in the week.

I realized got home, had some in the garage, so I just thought, I'll add them to the collection.

My wife's like, no, take those back.

We don't need those screws.

Eek, eek, eek.

Stop talking.

So I took them back.

Anyway.

She hung them on the doorknob in a bag like I wouldn't forget to take them.

I'm like, no, you're gonna wait till I go to sleep and you're gonna go hide them in the garage somewhere.

That's exactly what I was gonna do.

So my mom like, geez, I'm tired, okay?

I'm people done.

I don't want to take these things back.

And then I'm coming to Holly 6, I'm gonna cut through my neighborhood to get to my house, and the line's too long, the turn lane.

And something just said, go on to Home Depot while you're out.

So I wounded out and gunned it and go down to Home Depot.

I'm walking in there and I'm just like tired.

I'm like, what if good people like Rod get cancer and the world's messed up?

And I'm gonna go here and I need one picket to a fence I gotta repair, and I'm gonna stand in the return line, and then my mom, that's probably 20 people in line.

And they got one person working the returns, 48 people working the registers, and they're all standing around talking their orange vests, and I've got it all worked up in my head, and I'm walking in and I hear, Neil, and I'm like, oh Lord, what?

Lord, is that you?

Uh and it's one of our men, Larry Pavlek.

He's pulled right up to the front door and he's unloading something out of the back of his truck.

And I get closer, he's unloading wooden pickets out of the back of his truck from a fence.

And I said, Did you like fix it?

Yeah, he said, I fixed a fence with the neighbor, and we had some extras.

I'm returning all this.

What are you doing?

I said, Well, I gotta return these screws and I need one of those.

He went, Well, here, take one.

Here, it's free.

Keep hope alive, okay?

And so I got it, went stuck in my truck, and then I'm walking back in.

I thought, I bet the line's out the door.

I go in there, he's at the front of the line.

And he said, Hey, Neil, come get up in front of me.

I got a lot of stuff.

I won't be here a while.

You got that one box of screws.

He said, Who's next?

I said, me.

She goes, beep, beep, beep.

You want this back on your thing?

Beep, there you go.

Thanks for coming.

I walk back, whole thing, maybe two minutes.

I was floating to my truck.

Woo! Now look at me.

Why do I tell you that?

That's a kairos moment.

That's not coincidence.

That's God kind of winking saying, hey, you're not in this by yourself.

This isn't the world isn't against you.

I'm for you, okay?

Stop being so negative and in just joy, some of the momentum that I create every once in a while, some of the grease I put on the wheels.

I was like, oh Lord, I know.

I'm so thankful.

Whew, I was in and out of the Home Depot in two minutes.

Miracles never cease.

Not coincidence.

Kairos, in the fullness of time.

In the fullness of time.

Ask yourself, do I feel purposeful about the life that I'm living?

Do I feel like I'm connected to who God is and what God is doing in the world?

Or do I just feel like I'm out here all by myself?

This all depends on me, so I better I better get it right.

Thirdly, third reason they hate him, he was a threat to religion.

He was a threat to religion.

Look at verse 10.

But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, and he also went up, not publicly, but in private, the Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, Where is he?

And there was much muttering about him among the people, while some said, He's a good man, others said no, he's leading people astray.

Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.

Now look at me.

When the Bible says for fear of the Jews, that's not talking about all the Jewish people.

It's talking about the ruling authorities.

That's how they referred to them the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, those people that were in charge of the religious subculture of the day.

Now, he was always a threat to them because people had a sense, not that he was on to something.

Hear this distinction.

They felt threatened by Jesus because the people had a sense that not that Jesus was on to something.

Hey, Jesus has a new take on Christianity we've never heard before.

No, no, no.

They had a sense that he was something different.

He was somebody they'd never heard talk before.

So much so when the first time he opened his mouth and talked in the temple, the people were like, he didn't speak as the scribe or Pharisee, translation, like all you cats.

He speaks like someone who has authority.

And then they try to figure out why he was that way.

And he told them crazy things like, I'm the Son of God.

This is what God's like.

And they're like, shut up.

And he's like, no, I didn't come to shut up.

I come to tell you the truth because the truth is what's going to set you free.

Now, you get that on this hand, and then you got these, these, these, the Jews, these, not all Jewish, the Jewish people, but but the leaders of the religious subculture.

And when they talk, look at me.

When they talked, people looked at them like birds looking at the moon.

I don't think we can get there from here.

And people walked away from temple.

People walked away from church, and they felt a million miles away from God.

And the religious authorities of the day, the Jews, they lorded that over those people.

They told them, You're such wicked sinners.

They got the rules, they got the laws of the Old Testament.

They made up 613 more.

Because the more, the more separated people felt, the more religious nonsense they were willing to tolerate.

Oh, you got to wash your hands and you got to throw some over the left shoulder and some over the right shoulder, and you got to spin around three times and then give us$20 to get in.

It was always some little gimmick.

Jesus comes along and says, Hey, you know what?

God so loved the world that he said his one and only son that if you'll just believe in him, you'll have everlasting life.

And they were like, shut up.

We don't have to do all this stuff these Jews been telling us forever.

I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill the law.

I'm gonna fulfill the law on your behalf in your place.

You willing to believe in me, or do you just want me to do the stuff that I can do?

And people walked away and they were like, huh, we gotta think about this.

I don't know exactly what you mean by all this kind of stuff, but they knew that something was stirring deep inside of them.

Because God knows they had this sense of separation.

He sends his one and only son to close the gap between a holy God and a sinful humanity.

And all of a sudden their their revenue stream was abolished.

That's why they wanted to kill Jesus.

That's why he was a threat to religion.

Look at me.

Religion is you, is mankind trying to work our way to God.

Christianity is God coming down to people and doing for us what only he can do.

Again, hear this.

If you hear nothing, hear this.

Religion is man trying to get to God.

Christianity is God coming down to be with man.

And that's what Jesus represented.

And it drove the religious authorities of the day crazy.

Here's the fourth reason they hated him.

He preferred God's will to his own will.

He preferred God's will to his own will.

Look at verse 14.

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?

I mean, he's like will hunting, good will hunting.

He slaps a number on the window.

You like apples?

How do you like them apples?

I mean, he is educated beyond their capacity to understand.

And they're like, no way! He doesn't even have a junior college degree.

How does he know all this stuff?

And Jesus explains to them.

He just keeps on talking.

He says, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

If anyone's wills to do God's will, he will know whether this teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

Now, Jesus tells us something very important there.

Don't miss it.

He said, if anyone's will is to do God's will, then you'll know this.

There's some things you can't understand until you submit to God's will.

Let me say that again.

He says, it's right there in the Bible.

I'm not making it up.

Look what he says.

He says in verse 17, if anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

There's some things about God that you cannot understand until you submit to God's will.

And the holy momentum of obedience begins to clarify things in your life.

When I say he preferred God's will to his own will, this is all through the Bible.

Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before he goes to the cross, Jesus says he's in agony.

He knows what awaits him.

And he says, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

That is the record of Jesus all through the Bible, all through the New Testament, is preferring God's will to his own will.

When's the last time you were to impasse at work and you just said, hey, what do we believe God's will to be in this situation?

Because that's what I want to do.

When's the last time you got sideways with your wife, man, and you looked at her and said, Hey, what's God's will in this circumstance?

Because that's what I'm going to vote for.

See, it's so foreign to the way we think.

It just, it's just, it's like, wait a minute, what do you mean God's will?

Because we're taught.

Now, by the way, when you get around people that are oriented around God's will, it is wildly convicting and it's alluring all at the same time.

It's kind of like, for me, it was when I was in college.

Uh, when I was in college, I worked at a restaurant, and one of the other weddings there was a guy named Marvin.

Now, my friends that heard I was going to this college, they'd all say, Have you met Marvin?

Hey, have you met Marvin?

Have you met Marvin?

I was like, what's the Marvin guy?

And then I met Marvin.

I was like, oh yeah, I get it now.

He's crazy.

Marvin was, I mean, love Jesus.

I mean, love Jesus, and his life was oriented around God's will.

One night Marvin and I were both type A personalities.

We were great waiters.

We made a ton of money.

And our manager was so mad at everybody else that worked there.

He made them sit in the back and he split the restaurant in half.

And he goes, These two guys can do the whole thing.

The rest of y'all are just here because you're lazy and you're going to get tips because people aren't very discerning.

And so he told them, don't clock in, sit back there, and Marvin and I split the restaurant and waited on everybody.

I made a killing.

I mean, I had my pockets were bulging with cash.

I mean, I was kind of like feeling bad.

I was going to the cash restaurant, kind of going, hey, can I get a 20 for these ones and these fives?

And they're like, How much you got?

I don't know, but I mean, my pockets were like this.

I look like a kid who'd been set free at a candy store.

Marvin walked by me, he goes, dude, I'm putting it in my back pockets now.

People have caught on to the fact that there's two guys doing this whole thing and they're cheering us on and they're going, hey man, you guys are working double.

We're going to tip you double.

May your tribe increase, my man.

At the end of the night, now the guys in the back, stay with me, but I'm fixing to tell you is true.

One of them was so racist, he would say to me, I'm not waiting on a black person.

If a black person sat in their section, he would come to me and go, You got someone in my section.

I was like, dude, you racist fool.

Are you kidding me?

Those are people creating the image of God just like you.

I ain't waiting on them.

So he's back there.

And part of me is enjoying the fact that he ain't getting to work.

And I held up some money.

I said, Look at that green money.

That ain't black or white.

That's green money right there.

Woo! Smells like blessing coming down.

Shoot up, McClendon.

And so I can't wait because I kind of got an idea how much I got, and it's a lot.

I'm got it in my back pockets now because it's falling in my front pockets.

And then Marvin, remember, who orients himself around the will of God, comes to me and he always tip his head to the side and he goes, Yeah, you know, I'm kind of thinking, we're getting all the attention, but God's not getting the glory.

I'm the bird looking at the moon.

I don't think I can get there from here.

And then he said this.

You know, I just put that they're back there getting more and more angry because they see us being blessed.

Let's just empty our pockets out on the table and tell them to take what they want.

What you talking about, Willis?

And he's like, I just, I think that's the Lord.

I think because right now we're getting attention, and I think they would give God glory.

Let's come up with some other ways that God will get glory.

I can think of three right now.

I'm gonna go to church and give some of this money back because I like to tithe.

Matter of fact, I told one of the guys, he goes, Man, you seem to have like favor on your life.

And I said, I don't know.

I said, I just try to do what the Bible says.

I said, I honor God with my money.

I give back as God blesses me.

He's like, I don't believe in none of that.

I'm I'm I'm keeping everything I make.

I'm like, all right, good luck with that.

Uh he was back there too, next to the racist.

And Marvin was like, let's just lay it out.

And right when Marvin said it, it was like a sharp knife went in my heart.

I was like, oh, I think that's right.

I don't want that to be right, but I think that's right.

And so we walk back there and we just emptied out our pockets.

I said, I got more.

Because here's how depraved I am.

I thought, well, just empty your front pockets.

They can't see you back.

I know none of you would think of that.

Lying Baptist.

So I'm reaching in the back and kind of go, hey, and there's some 20s, and there's some tens and fives.

And then what are you doing?

Hey, you guys didn't get to work.

You got bills like we got bills, and God blessed us, and we want to share that.

Take whatever you need.

We went to clear the restaurant and do the teal work, fill the salt and pepper, wipe off the catch-up and everything, come back.

Maybe a third of it was left.

Crazy.

Marvin looked at me like, man, isn't that awesome?

Isn't that awesome?

We got to be like Jesus tonight.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking, Marvin.

That was awesome.

That was 1986.

I could tell you the shirt he was wearing.

It left such an indelible impression upon me.

See, because when people orient themselves around the will of God in a culture full of people who orient themselves around their will, it leaves an indelible impression.

It just does.

Here's the last reason they hated Jesus and we'll be done.

He was always seeing the bigger picture.

He was always seeing the bigger picture.

Look at verse 19.

You still with me?

He says, has not Moses given the law?

Because they're talking about all this other stuff about authority, and Jesus says, Hey, those who kind of make it up for themselves, if their will is to do God's will, they'll know whether teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

He says, the one who speaks on his own authority, he seeks his own glory.

But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true.

And in him there's no falsehood.

Jesus says, I'm not here for myself.

I'm here to remind you how right God is, how true God is, and how available God is to you.

You're not a million miles away.

God has put on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.

And people are like, Really?

I mean, we're really big sinners, and I'm a really bigger God.

And they're scratching their head, and then Jesus says, This has not Moses given you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?

Verse 19.

Why do you still seek to keep kill me?

You have a demon, the crowd answered.

Who's seeking to kill you?

Jesus answered, I did one work and you marvel at it.

Moses gave you circumcision, not that it's from Moses, but from the fathers.

And you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.

If on the Sabbath a man received circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken?

Are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well?

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

What do I mean?

They hated him because he was always seeing the bigger picture.

He was working from a bigger picture and towards a bigger picture.

What do you mean?

These guys, he brings up the law of Moses because none of them keeps the law, and yet they are radically insistent on enforcing the law.

The law says you're circumcised on the eighth day.

By the way, circumcision was what's known as a perfecting rite.

It's what made you right with the law.

Hear this distinction.

It made you right with the law.

You check the box, check.

We got circumcised on the eighth day, just like the law says.

And Jesus says, you guys have no problem doing that on the Sabbath, this perfecting right, but you perfected this guy.

You got this guy.

You brought him in line with the law.

I healed a man's body back in John chapter 5, who for 38 years had been laying there like an invalid beside this pool of water because no one would put him in the water.

John 5 · chapter mention

I healed that guy.

I made his whole body well.

I didn't just check the box and get him right with the law.

I got him right with God.

And they so valued the law more than they valued God because they were about rules, not relationship.

They were about the rules.

Oh, Jesus, you can't do anything on the Sabbath.

Like you guys can't do anything on the Sabbath?

Well, it was okay because circumcision is important.

And Jesus says, Yeah, I get that.

I didn't come to abolish the law.

But you guys are just making this man, you're getting him lined up with the law.

I'm getting him lined up with God.

He said, What do you mean?

Back door in Jesus healed.

I love this about Jesus.

Back when he heals the guy, John chapter 5, verse 14.

John 5:14

Jesus finds him in the temple and he says, This, see, you're well.

Sin no more that nothing worse may happen to you.

Hello.

Now I didn't preach John 5.

Somebody else preached.

I think Wade Collier preached that Sunday.

But Jesus says, See, you are well.

Stop sinning.

Sin no more.

That nothing worse may happen to you.

But one of y'all emailed me and said, Hey, um, I didn't even want to talk about this, but I was reading the Bible and after Jesus healed this guy, then he kind of gives him this little thing.

What's he saying?

Jesus is connecting his physical condition with his sin.

And Jesus says, Stop sinning, or something worse is going to happen to you.

Well, I mean, that doesn't like a fair thing to do, and blah, blah, blah.

And I said, This bothers you because you have this American mentality about Christianity that says, I can know Jesus and just continue to live in sin.

And Jesus said, I paralyzed you because of your sin.

Keep it up and I'll do worse.

You're like, whoa, wow.

I got a problem with the God that would do that.

No, no, no.

What you have a problem with is that your insistence on getting to live in sin and still profess to be a Christian.

That's why stuff like that bothers us.

What do you mean?

He was always seeing the bigger picture.

Here's the bigger picture, and we'll be done this morning.

Look at me.

The bigger picture that God's looking at and working towards in your life and in my life is that we stop being ruled by our sin.

That we're not just, we're not going, we don't shrug and go, well, you know, hey, I'm just human.

Is that the big picture God's looking at when he looks at you?

Not at all.

Not at all.

He believes you're capable of so much more.

He believes that you can accomplish so much more than you're accomplished.

I can accomplish so much more than I'm accomplishing right now.

That's the big picture that God looks at when he relates to you.

Here's a question you have to ask yourself this morning.

What picture are you looking at when you relate back to God?

Let's pray together.

We'd like to take a moment after we teach the Bible just to kind of say, hey, let's let's think about this.

Let's get our head around this.

And so that's what this time is for.

Clyde's gonna come, he'll just play for a little bit and give you some soul space to just kind of think about.

The Bible, the first thing the Bible does is it makes us think.

Yes, it makes us feel certain things, but it makes us think on a level that we weren't prepared to think about earlier.

And God doesn't do that as punishment, he does that as invitation.

It's basically God saying, Hey, come here.

I want you to see what I see.

This is why I say this in the Bible, because I see this.

And what and what I want to see happen is this.

It's the big picture that God is kind of relating to you out of.

Take just a moment and ask yourself, hey, what do I walk away with this morning?

Just think about that.

Father, give us the eyes to see this morning that the picture that you see is bigger and better than the one we so often settle for.

The picture you see is us becoming more and more like you, and less and less like who we've always been or who we used to be.

And so we can trust you.

We can yield to your hand, we can yield to your timing, we can yield to your will.

And so there's so much that's available to us this morning in Christ, in relationship with Christ.

So I pray for anyone in this room that's never begun a relationship.

The Holy Spirit, today would be the day you would just kind of reveal yourself to them.

You would just kind of pull back the camera and let them see, oh, it's not religion, it is relationship.

It's not me trying to work my way up to God, it's God coming down and saying, I'm here and I'm available, and you can be forgiven.

That is the gospel, that's the good news of Christianity.

God, may we find not just comfort by identity, but identity in that.

We pray that in Jesus' name.

When everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

If you're our guest, uh thanks again for being part of our service.

Hope you've had some time to fill out one of those guest cards that are available on the on the seat backs in your row.

And if you would, on your way out, just drop that one of these wooden boxes by the door.

That's also where we receive our offering.

Uh so if you consider Grand Parkway your church, uh, and today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity, that's where you do that as well.

Let me make you aware of one announcement, uh, and that is that our women's fall gathering is coming up.

This is Elizabeth Woodson, a very godly, intelligent, brilliant woman.

My wife heard her at a conference.

Uh her and some of her women's ministry team went to, and she said, I want this woman before my women.

And I was like, Great, I've never met her, sounds great.

Oh, you don't understand.

Uh, but anyway, the women's fall gathering, there's information.

It's August 26th, 5:30, 8:30, right here in the sanctuary.

Uh, we'll strike all these chairs, round tables will be set up, dinner will be served in here, and then Elizabeth, who is on staff at the village church in Flower Mound, uh, she is a direct, she's the writer, speaker, thinker.

She's the uh uh the director of leadership development among women at our church.

Uh and so do not miss an opportunity to hear this woman.

You will walk away.

She sees the big picture.

And when someone sees the big picture, they invite you to kind of live into a bigger picture as well.

You'll be blessed for having been around her.

I think the cost is$10 for all of that.

They're registering in the lobby this morning, or you can register online, okay?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord cause his face to shine upon you.

May the Lord turn his countenance towards you.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.