From Blasphemers to Worshipers - John 10:22-42 - July 26, 2026

Matthew Poole: Good morning, Harvest. Good morning, visitor. If you're here joining us as one of our guests, praise God for you. We pray today you are encouraged in Jesus Christ. That there would be more faith and more hope in your heart this morning than when you first came here. For all of us, that our joy would be greater in Jesus by the end of this morning than when we got here for his glory. Let's pray as we get into his scriptures for his help to do what only He can do. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a speaking God and that you have given us your word. More importantly, you have given us your Son Jesus, who this word testifies about. So we ask God for the grace this morning that would be upon us that you would give us ears to hear how your word is. Declares to us the revelation of Jesus Christ. God, we thank you that the word of Christ is good news. It is good news. It is mercy. It is grace. It is kindness. It is life. So we pray this morning, God, wherever we might be coming in this morning, confused, beaten down, broken, struggling, hurting, ashamed, despairing, anxious. God, would you speak? Good shepherd, would you speak? Lead and guide us in this time for your glory and our eternal joy. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen. A few weeks ago we celebrated one of my daughters' birthdays, and we had a great and wonderful time. But I just want you to imagine for a second if what if we had this big party and she was not there? She was not present at the party, but we carried along like normal. We're celebrating the party, we're singing, we're playing games, activities, having snacks, we have the cake, blow out the candles, do the whole thing. Favors, everybody goes home, have a blast. And she's not there. How absurd, right? Why is that absurd? Because the substance of the party is not present. And when we open up to John chapter ten this morning, that's what's happening. This is part of the condition of fallen man. We like to celebrate God and celebrate who he is, and sometimes he's missing. A lot of times he is missing from the picture. We have a tendency to operate in the flesh apart from Christ. And so Christianity without Christ is a real thing. This happens all the time today. Entire churches, entire denominations doing the religious show devoid of the substance. It's absurd. We laugh at it, but yet we do it. Maybe we don't have Christ. We never believed in Christ. Or maybe we do believe in Jesus, but we're functionally doing it. We're functionally going about life, doing the religious thing, and Jesus is nowhere present. He's not at the center of it. Which means what are we doing it for? We're doing it for our own glory. For our own glory. Self is usually at the throne if Jesus is not at the throne. That's the way the scriptures have presented this to us. When we open up John 10 today, this exact thing is happening. There is a party going on. Celebrating God. But yet God's not present in their celebration. John 10 is intended to call us, I think, to repentance here from a worship, a form of worship that it has the form, but it has not the substance, which is Christ. This text this morning is to lead us freshly into repentance, or maybe for the first time, back into a life of worship that has Christ at the absolute center of it. Not the self. Not anything else we could possibly give ourselves to. Let's tune in to God's Word, John chapter ten, verse twenty two. At the time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem, it was winter. And Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. We're going to pause there because this is the context, and John is very particular about the context of what happens. The context informs the dialogue that takes place. So what's going on here is there in the temple. And if you're new to any of this, the temple is at the absolute center of the identity of the Jews. It's the center of their theological reality, it's the center of their literal identity, their culture is wrapped around the temple. The temple is the most important thing on planet earth because at the temple, God exists. And at the temple, the place, the point of the temple is the connection point. Between a holy God and a sinned and sinful man. The temple is the thing that allows sinful man to dwell with a holy God and a holy God to dwell with sinful man. The temple could not be more important. So they rightfully love the temple. And they are rightfully devastated. In 167 BC, a Syrian king. comes in, attacks Jerusalem, takes over the temple, and absolutely desecrates it. It's a horrific picture. I don't know if he's a a a pig where a swine worshiper, but they go in, I think they literally put pigs on the altar, they sacrifice altar to to sacrifice these pigs to their gods. They're just making a whole mockery of the Jewish culture, the Jewish God, Yahweh. So the people, the Jews They are rightfully devastated. The way that they related to God is is gone. All this is is now missing from the picture. And that's why they also get very jubilant and are celebrating when three years later this guy named Judas Maccabeus, also known as aka the hammer. Rises up, getting a group of soldiers, and leads this guerrilla warfare effort and takes back the temple, reestablishes it, cleans it out, gets the serum people out, and then they restore worship. Worship happens again, takes it by force, clean it, cleanses the temple, worship then resumes. They consecrate and establish the temple. This is the feast of dedication. This is what they decided we need to now celebrate every single year. This is what you might know, or the the the language, the term is Hanukkah. That's what Hanukkah is about. It's an eight-day celebration remembering when Judas the Hammer took back the temple. That's this feast that's going on right now. The temple again, it's always been about God. The the rich irony here is that the par the party is on, God in the flesh is walking around the temple, and no one could care less. Matter of fact, they don't even want him there. It's way worse. This is like if my daughter happened to show up at the birthday party seeing us celebrate someone else. And we're like, you need to go away. It's absurd, but it's what's happened. The darkness in our hearts is absurd. We continue verse twenty four. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense? Or literally, how long will you annoy us? If you're the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered then, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness about me, but you do not believe, because you are not my sheep, not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. This is an ominous little scene. I don't think there's curiosity here. These are, we'll see. These are the same guys that have tried to stone Jesus before. They're not here because they really want to learn from Jesus. They're here to attack Jesus. They're encircling him, which is like an ominous note. They're surrounding Jesus and they're coming and they're blaming him either for their lack of clarity, like it's his fault. He just needs to give more clarity for them to understand. Stop talking about. Being the good shepherd and the light of the world and the gate and the door and all this stuff, speak to us plainly. Maybe it's some of that, or likely they just want to trap him. Give us something we can really grab so we can kill you. That's that's my lean. Jesus says the reason why you don't believe it's not because of lack of more information. It's not an intellectual problem, it's a moral problem. You don't believe 'cause you're not among my sheep. It's a heart problem. You're not receiving Jesus because of your nature. Now, he then speaks to the sheep. He speaks about the sheep. Some incredible benefits here. This is one of the most comforting passages in all of the scriptures for sheep, for Christians. But the context here is one of rebuke. It's rebuke because what Jesus is doing here is he's drawing the attention. To his authority. He's making sure that these Jews understand the type of authority that he has. The emphasis is there the authority, the power, and the purpose of Christ, which he says is equal with the Father. Jews worship God, and Jesus is very clearly saying: the power of the Supreme One is the same power that I have. Jesus saying all authority is his because the Father has given that authority to him. These are not two hands here in this passage. There's not the hand of the Father and the hand of the Son. The construction here is it's the same hand. To talk about the hand of Christ is to talk about the hand of the Father. If you're in Christ's hand, you're in the Father's hand. And if you're in the Father's hand, you're in Christ's hand. Jesus can therefore say, because of that authority, my sheep know my voice. I keep my sheep. I hold my sheep. I give my sheep eternal life, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can snatch them out of my hand. There's not a more negative way in that construction to say that. There's nothing. We just read that from Romans 8. That's great. Absolutely nothing can separate the sheep from the hand of Christ. Because all authority is his. He's acting for the Father here. Great comfort for us, a rebuke to them. How do they respond? Verse thirty one. The Jews picked up stones again to stones. They hear it. They hear the clarity on the lips of Jesus. He is claiming to have the authority of Yahweh. Kill him. More clarity. did not lead to repentance. It led to more anger. And I wonder sometimes, I know I'm here, maybe this morning, you want more information before you'll give your life to Jesus. Before you'll trust Him with that next thing. You're looking for signs, not that He's not a gracious Savior who will lead you, but sometimes the heart posture is wrong to begin with. We don't want to believe, and we're saying it's because we need more information when we have the information, we have the clarity. The issue is our hearts will we repent? Trust. Jesus answers as they I mean this is a tense scene. He's encircled. They're all holding stones about to execute him. Jesus doesn't back down. He answers them. I have shown you many good works from the Father. From which of them are you going to stone me? And the Jews answered him, It is not for a good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy. Because you being a man are making yourself God. We're gonna kill you for that. You can't do that. Our law forbids you to do that. It's their argument. And as many have pointed out, they get this completely backwards, do they not? Jesus is not a man making himself God. He is God who has made himself man. We are the ones who try to make ourselves God. Jesus is this eternal word putting on flesh. That is the marvel. That's the marvel. How does that happen? That's where the party's at, not the other way around. Jesus continues verse thirty four. Is it not written in your law? I said you are gods. If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken. Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world you are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, his words, believe the works. Believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father. Jesus is about to be executed and right here I think he turns that this is an invitation to them. This is an invitation right back to his murderers. Guys, let's consider the scriptures. Let's consider the scriptures. And he goes first there to get on their turf. You guys love the scriptures. You you uphold the scriptures. You believe they can't be broken. Let's go there. These aren't fighting words from Jesus. These are helpful words. Let's reflect before you throw a stone at me. We asked him to consider the scriptures and he's quoting Psalm 82. And Psalm 82 is a strange psalm. And it has in there where it's God is addressing the people as gods. He calls them gods. And the point there is that there is a relationship that God has in some of his called people. in his called people that they would share a representative office on the earth. And in Psalm eighty two, the Jewish leaders, who I believe is that that's referencing, they are abusing their power. Humans are made in the image of God. God uniquely calls Israel to be reflecting his image in the earth. And they're not doing it in Psalm eighty two. That's the referent point. So the religious leaders in Psalm 82, they're called gods. And Jesus is saying, guys, you have in your own scriptures a spot where it says there is an office of people called gods, a representative office. Is it not too big of a leap to consider my office then? As the son of God? A different type of office, similar. But different can you conceive of that he's trying to say? He's telling them I'm the fulfillment of Psalm eighty two God in the flesh. He clarifies, he says, about being the Son of God. I'm doing the works of the Father, or whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world. So this is like temple language. There's a consecration and a setting apart to be holy. This is what the Father has done to Jesus, and He's sending him into the world for the purpose and the mission of God. Consecrated, set apart. sent into the world to fulfill this special unique office, representing God. Representing God to the world. And he continues, he's like making the same argument again, saying that there's unity with the Father here. There's no disunity. There's no disunity between the Father and the Son, and the Son and the Father. There's unity, and this time, though it's it's landing on the representative nature of the office. And maybe if this illustration might help, a few months ago or a couple months ago, I was trying to get reimbursed. for insurance on a car payment or on a insurance payment on a car we no longer owned. That's another story. There was half procrastination, half I didn't think it mattered because actually got at one point I got the car off of the account. So I'm like, it's great. We stalled it. I'll just call them later, get all reimbursed, whatever. Well I'm on this call and I'm like, sir, okay, we're paying insurance on this car. I don't own it anymore. Can I please get a refund? And he's like, No. I'm sorry. We can't do that. I'm like, are you kidding me? I've been paying for a car I don't own. We can't do it. I'm sorry. And like explain that to me. He's like, well, sir, if you hadn't have taken it off of the account, I could have given you the refund. But since you removed it, I can't do that anymore. Like, are you kidding? Is there can I talk to someone else? Is there a manager, somebody above you that I can talk to? He's like, sir, I'm really sorry. I understand your pain. I'm really sorry. No. Well, I mean, I could connect you, I could transfer you right now, but I'm telling you, they're gonna tell you the same thing. The system is the system. You're not getting your money back. Okay, just transfer me. Let's just try. I transfer, the guy picks up, I explain the sish the situation. No problem, Mr. Poole. We'll take care of that refund right now. Click, click, click. Is there anything else I can help you with today? I'm like, what? What just happened? Like, your representative, I don't want to get into all that. Like, this was this was a mess. Clearly, y'all weren't on the same page. That's the antithesis of what's happening in our text today. The father is being perfectly represented by the Son. All that the Father is is represented in all who the Son is. As Hebrews tells us, Jesus is the exact imprint. Of his nature, the radiance of his glory. You want to know who God the Father is, you look at Jesus, He's the visible representation, He's the human representation, all that God is comes to us through Jesus Christ, the perfect representative. So this is what Jesus is saying. I'm in perfect alignment with the Father. And if you don't, if you don't hear my words, if you don't believe my words, and you're not believing these scriptures. At least believe this, believe the works that I'm doing. Believe the works. What's Jesus doing? He's healing the lame. He's giving the lame legs. Healing the blind, giving the blind sight, the deaf are hearing. See, next week, Lazarus, he's raising the dead, and outside of John's gospel, we see Jesus calming storms, casting out demons. All over all of it, he is extending mercy and grace. Forgiving sins. And Jesus is saying You should know this, Jews. You should know what God is like. These are the types of things He does. Can you not look at my life and see that I'm doing what God does? Throw out everything I've said. Just drop all my teaching for a moment. Look at what I've done. Does that not testify in? For them. No. Jesus is encouraging, drop your stones and simply worship. They dig in. Again, they sought to arrest him, verse 39. But he escaped from their hands. He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. And many came to him, and they said, John did no sign. But everything that John said about this man was true, and many believed in him there. So Jesus winds right back up in the very place where his ministry started. This is the end of Jesus' public ministry in John. It's the end. He started in the wilderness, baptized by John. He goes into the city, into the temple, and he's rejected. And he lands back out in the wilderness. He's rejected in the one place in the temple where he should have been received. He's rejected by the one people, the Jews, who should have received him. And he leaves, but it is in the wilderness. Listen to this in the unlikely place with an unlikely. That he is received. This foreshadows Jesus' ministry to come. So we'll follow it in the rest of the book of John. Soon Jesus will be surrounded again. And he will get caught. He will not escape the trap. Not because they actually do trap him, but because it's time. It's time for what? It's time for him to restore worship. It's time for him to transform blasphemers into worshipers. It's time to establish true worship in Israel as the New Testament scholar Edward Clinky puts it this way The true hero of Israel has returned to cleanse and rededicate the temple. But this hero comes not like a hammer. Not like a hammer, but as a lamb. The lamb Jesus is ushering in the kingdom of God, and he's not doing it with force. He's doing it through sacrifice. The mission was not to come and take over a palace made of gold and a temple. This was part of the mission that he would be rejected from his own and cast out of the city gates with the refuse, with the criminals, and strung up on a wooden cross to die. The death of a blasphemy. That was the appropriate death for a blasphemer. It was part of the mission. Because Jesus is dying the death of a blasphemer, not because he deserves it, but because you and I do it. where we deserve to be. You and I, day in and day out, that make ourselves to be God. And we have no room for Christ in our party. Just the self. And yet Jesus goes to the cross to die for us. And it's at that cross that blasphemers are transformed into worshipers. It is there as we behold the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf, our debt is paid, our sin is dealt away with, our old man dies, and a new man, a new birth comes to be that praises God and worships Christ, that beats for Christ. There's transformation there. Jesus laying down his life for us. Is this not the good shepherd? Is he not a good shepherd? Yes or no? He's the best of shepherds, church. He's the best of shepherds. One of the reasons he called himself good here in last week is because the shepherding was the job of the Jewish religious elites. They were supposed to shepherd the people of God into glory. They couldn't do that. They abused the sheep. Jesus is here to do away with all of the religious system. It failed. It failed. People can't relate to God on their own effort. It doesn't happen. We deserve the opposite. When Jesus says he's the good shepherd, he's saying, I'm doing for you what you cannot do yourself. I'm getting you to God. I'm establishing a connection between a sinful man, sinful. Sinful humanity and holy God. He's establishing it. Christ is the establishment of our relationship with God. We're now, in fact, in Christ. What a good shepherd. He has authority to lay down his life, and he has authority to pick it back up. And pick it back up, he does. He picks it back up three days later. He rises from the dead, conquering sin and Satan and the grave and suffering, and he ascends where? To the Father's right hand. We've seen that hand hand imagery today. There's not another hand of God. It's symbolic. The hand of the Father is Christ reigning and ruling and exerting all the power and all the authority of God the Father above every name that can be named. Over every power that there is, Christ exalted over all. Are we not safe in that hand? Are you not safe this morning because of him? You're safe. You are safe because a sovereign hand has secured your salvation. Praise God. There is absolutely nothing that you can face for the rest of your life if you've placed your faith in Christ that can separate you from glory. This is the hand that reaches out to get you. This is the hand that sustains you. This is the hand that is holding you and keeping you and taking you to glory. Praise God. I love the shepherd imagery all over the Bible. Psalm 23, I think uniquely of the valley of the shadow of death. This is why we can say we will not fear when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Because he has gone before us and he is with us. He is a good shepherd. He knows our names. We know his voice. My question this morning to us is, are we hearing? Do you hear Jesus calling you this morning? Calling you by name. Do you hear him calling you? Leave the temple system. Come out. Come outside the city gate and behold the sacrifice. Give up the performance, give up the posturing, give up the panicking and all of that, and gaze upon Jesus. He's asking us, compelling us this morning to give it up. We will never get there on our own. Eternal life is a gift that we receive. Do you hear him calling your voice this morning? Maybe for the first time. Just say yes. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord, I'm tired of making myself the centre of my story. And I want to give it up. It's sinful. It's idolatrous. It's making myself God. And I trust you, dying in my place. Maybe you can do that for the first time this morning. And Jesus promises you eternal life in his presence. Or maybe this morning we need to do a serious recalibration. That's somewhere along the way. Like that altar illustration in Romans twelve, I believe, where Jesus comes off the altar and we wiggle ourselves back on and it's us. I'm sorry, I'm getting this backwards. We come off the altar and we try to we try to I'm all twisted up in my words now. Start over. Maybe we need to do some calibration this morning. Where we have been operating like we're the center of the story. Somewhere along the way we've just lost our way, and it's no longer about Christ. We do need to get ourselves on the altar and worship. That's what Paul is saying. Because of the mercy of God, we are now laying our lives down in worship. Where do you need to recalibrate this morning to put Christ back at the center? And we're stop we're gonna stop doing the show. If we're just doing the show of Christianity and there's no Christ here, then we might as well just go home. Church, God is asking us to do what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians, that he decided to do nothing but Christ and him crucified. That's our rally cry. Christ and Him crucified. This morning, today, in your life, is that the way you are living? May Christ and Him crucified be everywhere in your life. In every sphere, every influence. Let's be real where we need to repent this morning. Grace fueled repentance and transformation. Husbands, what are our wives learning about us? Are they learning Christ and Him crucified? Are they learning mercy and tenderness and kindness and servant leadership? Wives, what are husbands learning about us? Are they learning Christ and Him crucified? The way we parent, when we parent Christ and Him crucified, when we enter the workplace, Christ and Him crucified, and our neighborhood and in our hobbies and in our classrooms, Christ and Him crucified everywhere we go, Christ and Him crucified here on Sunday morning in our small group, in our Bible studies, in our personal Bible time, Christmas. Christ and Him crucified, worshiping and beholding Him, not beholding ourselves. This is the call for us this morning, and if I can go one step further. One step further. We're gonna see this later in John. So a little bit of a sneak Jesus is consecrated from the Father to go into the world as his representative. We as the church are in Christ, consecrated and sent into the world to represent our God. To represent our God faithfully. We sin and we struggle, but the challenge is to close the gap between what people experience from us and who our God is. From our words, our proclamation of the gospel and our works, our lives that adorn the gospel, we are representing God, church. It's not a game. It's not a game that we're doing. We are representing God to the world. Are we being faithful to that joy-filled task? And there is more joy in pursuing this than the joy of celebrating something without Christ. This is a road of suffering, it's a road of obedience, but it's a road of glory and it is a road of joy. Christ is magnified and our joy is made full when He is. None of this is to be a killjoy, not meaning to come across like a killjoy. Jesus is about the party. Let's get back to the party language. We saw this as a second, first miracle. First miracle miracle is cleansing the temple, if you call it that or a sign. The first miracle, he literally started a party, a wedding party. Jesus wants your joy and he wants it to be full in him. And there's not a greater pleasure that we can experience. We as the church, we're gonna suffer. We read that earlier. That's what happens. But we suffer with hope. We suffer with joy. We suffer because we have a lasting and abiding possession that no one can steal from us. That's why the early church, when they got their stuff stolen, run away worshiping, praising God. That's countercultural. God has asked us, He's called I mean He's valuable enough for us to praise Him in the middle of all the storms that we're going through. Let's celebrate Him. Let's celebrate Him in all of our activities. It's not to paste on a fake smile or anything like that. It's a deep joy. It's a deep joy that goes through things like crosses. This was the model Christ gave us. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross. By faith, he was tasting that joy. That's what we're doing. We're tasting the joy. So we do all this. We're tasting the joy of seeing Christ in the middle of the new heavens and the new earth in that Jerusalem where he belongs, and all the peoples and tribes and tongues surrounding him, not to attack him, to throw stones, but to lift up his name and to worship him. That future joy is joy in life that you and I can have right now by faith. How good is that? No one can steal that away from you. That's where we're going, church. May we be a vibrant, sacrificing people that worship Jesus, that behold him, that believe him, and that have him at the center of our lives, the center of all of our worship. Now and forever. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your grace this morning. Thank you that you are a God worthy of our worship. And we ask for the grace. We ask for the illumination of your spirit, the conviction of your spirit to guide us. God, that we would not be afraid of the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings gladness through repentance. The devil brings condemnation through conviction. The Spirit wants to lead us to joy through conviction. May we know this morning. That there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It is our response to see you, Lord Jesus, your sufficient sacrifice that you have paid for us. Forgive us for the ways that we have tried to make ourselves like God. Controlling life, manipulating life, worshiping ourselves, seeking self-glory. Forgive us for all of that, God. And we repent now and we freshly see you lifted up, God, at the absolute center of our hearts and our lives, and at the absolute center of the universe, even right now, God, reigning, reigning supreme over every name that can be named. We thank you, God. Help us to be your faithful witnesses and representatives on the earth now. Let us look forward to that day when we will be with you in the new Jerusalem. Where there will be no need for a temple, for you're there. And all is the presence of God. We love you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.