John 7:1-24 – The Gospel of John

Happy New Year to you.

It's good to have you here, especially if you're new or visiting with us.

Thank you for joining us this morning at City Church.

My name's Mark.

I'm one of the leaders here.

We're going to be looking at that passage that uh Arena read for us in John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

Uh this is the kind of resumption of our John series.

We started back in September.

We paused for a little while uh during Advent, and uh now really we're we're in it up until uh just about Easter or so.

Um we'll pause again at the end of uh John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

And I want to draw your attention this morning to one of the things that Jesus says uh to his brothers, which actually, when you think about it, is quite shocking.

First of all, uh uh Jesus' brothers, um, just by the by, uh his actual biological brothers uh shared uh parentage uh through his mother Mary, there, not some uh euphemistic way that you might call your friend Bro.

Uh they're uh his actual uh blood brothers there.

Uh Mary had other children.

And uh if that's not shocking enough, perhaps to some of you, uh he does say uh something shocking to them.

He says to them in verses six and seven, if you have a Bible on your phone, you can be following it along with us.

Uh and uh it would be good for you to do so, just make sure that I'm not making stuff up.

But Jesus says uh to his brothers, My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.

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

He looks at his brothers and he says that the world cannot possibly hate you uh because you're not uh confronting it, you're not rubbing the world up the wrong way.

Uh, you're in fact uh completely going with the flow of the world.

You guys are indistinguishable from the world.

So what that means is the world doesn't even notice you, you don't even blip on the world's radar, but I do because I'm confronting it, I'm challenging its expectations and presumptions, I'm challenging its values, and so it's starting to bristle up against me, and that's why it hits me.

I'm testifying that its works are evil.

Now, let's just really uh by way of revision and just be clear on what John means, the gospel writer, what John means when he uses the world, the word world.

Because the word world, it's a hard thing to say.

The word world has a particular meaning in John's Gospel.

It's not talking about the uh the large spinning ball there traveling around the sun.

No, he's talking about humanity arrayed in hostility against God.

The world in John's Gospel is a moral term, it's a term for moral uh distortion, moral disorder.

And Jesus comes and actually is trying to correct that moral order, and but because he is trying to do that, that is seen as confrontational against the world, and so the world responds with hatred towards him.

That's what the world means in John's Gospel.

Here in this passage, and increasing through the Gospel of John, ultimately climaxing, of course, in the crucifixion, is that Jesus and the world are on a collision course, as exemplified here by the crowd and the Jewish leaders, and also by his brothers.

There is a collision course between Jesus and the world.

And that's an important thing to try to remember that Jesus doesn't come alongside us and simply affirm everything about us, everything that we think, everything that we value, everything that we believe, or everything that the world thinks, values, believes, prioritizes.

That there is a confrontation also that happens in Jesus trying to correct that moral distortion that we by nature grew up in.

What that means for us as Christians today is that if the church, those who follow Jesus, if the church is doing its mission, then some people are going to get angry at it.

If the church is doing its mission, some people are going to be rubbed up the wrong way.

Some people for sure find Jesus compelling, but others find him deeply enraging and off-putting.

Isn't it interesting that in the Gospel accounts, the one response that you don't get to Jesus is apathy?

Something that you see very much today.

It's not what you see in the pages of the Gospels.

Nobody encounters Jesus in the pages of the Gospels and goes, meh, I like, I'll I'll deal with him when I'm on my deathbed.

I mean, I could take it or leave it.

Like he seems like a nice enough guy, but not really for me.

You do you, Jesus.

You don't see that in the pages of the Gospels.

Some people are really drawn, some people are really put off.

Jesus here in this passage and increasingly through the Gospel of John, is against the world for the sake of the world.

Jesus is against the world for the sake of the world.

Jesus doesn't follow the fashions or the market trends or sensibilities of the world, but challenges them.

This is why he goes on to tell the disciples later in the upper room.

He's like, Don't be surprised when the world hates you.

Don't be surprised when the world can't quite wrap its head around you.

Why you're acting the way you are, why you're speaking the way you are, why you're thinking the way you think.

And maybe you've had that experience as a believer that uh that you have done or said things uh as a Christian because you are a Christian, and the people around you think, gosh, that's strange.

Why why would why would she act like that?

Why would he say that?

Why would they think like that?

Or maybe on the flip side, you hear this morning and you wouldn't quite describe yourself as a uh as a Christian, you're still exploring, and you look at some of the things that Christians say, do, and believe, and think, actually, that it's quite strange.

You think it's odd.

There is this, there is this antithesis, there is this um there is this collision course that's happening even in your own mind, perhaps.

Here I want to draw out a number of things.

Uh the first point is much longer than the other two.

Uh, the two really the last second and third are really quite short.

But first of all, we're going to look at what the world's thinking actually is, because there's evidence of the world's thinking, the way the world thinks, in this passage that I want to draw your attention to.

Four ways in which the world's thinking is uh disordered, uh, distorted.

Four ways.

First of all, is the this encounter, this conversation with his brothers.

Now, essentially, Jesus' brothers come alongside Jesus and try to be his PR firm.

He needs a bit of marketing, a bit of uh rebranding, because things had been going really well up until John 6, and then he starts talking about eating my flesh and drinking my blood, and people get a bit weirded out by that.

And so by the end of John 6, everybody's left.

Everybody, except for the 12, and one of those is Judas who's going to portray him.

And so you start John 6 with the feeding of the 5,000, probably 20,000 people, because they're counting uh the men in the count of 5,000, probably 20,000 people are following his ministry at the start, and at the end there's 12.

This is a bit of a PR disaster.

And so his brothers come along and say, Look, you're doing these great works.

What you need to do is you need to get back in the game with one swing.

You need to go up to where everybody is.

There's this big feast, this big festival going on, feast of booths, big deal.

We're going to get into more of that next week.

Head up there, maybe maybe make some dinner for everybody miraculously.

They'd love that.

You'd be back in the game.

The people would be flocking to you.

An immediate show of miraculous strength.

And surely that's positive of the brothers, right?

They see Jesus, they understand uh that he's kind of a big deal, to quote Ron Burgundy.

He is, uh they understand that he is powerful, they maybe have some sort of understanding that he is the uh the Messiah.

Isn't that good of the brothers?

Well, no, we read that in verse 5 of uh of John 7, where John writes, for not even his brothers believed in him.

Isn't that curious?

They believed that he was powerful.

They believed that he could do miraculous things, and that John tells us they didn't, that they didn't believe in him.

You see, there's a way of relating to Jesus that sees him as powerful, that sees him as useful to your life, that is a kind of unbelief.

That is a kind of unbelief.

Why is it that they didn't believe?

What is the source of their unbelief?

Well, I think it's because Jesus' brothers wanted exaltation now, they wanted glory now.

He'll go on to talk about that more with the the crowd, saying that that's kind of the culture that people are seeking glory and fame now, and the brothers wanted that.

They wanted to be exalted on Jesus' coattails, they wanted to be associated with him now, immediately.

The immediate payoff of fame and fortune and power and exaltation.

This immediacy is why Jesus refers to time, where he says, uh where he says, your time is always here, but my time has not yet come.

This word time is the word seculum, which is we get the word secular from.

That's people who are all about the now.

That's what his brothers are.

They're all about the now.

They are coming with this secular thinking about the now.

The time is right for immediate desire gratification.

You have a need, it must be met.

There's a problem.

What's Jesus' problem?

Lack of popularity, lack of following, and so it must immediately be addressed.

Go to the feast, demonstrate some power.

That's the thinking of the brothers.

That's the thinking of now, that's the thinking of the world.

When we become a follower of Jesus, we begin to live with a different time frame.

One of the things that being a follower of Jesus gives you is a different perspective on time.

We don't just feel needs now and insist on having them met.

We realize that there are some things that are stored up for us in the future.

Yes, there are blessings now, but there is much of the Christian life that is not yet.

There is both now and not yet.

Who are the most secular people in the world?

The most obsessed with now and the meeting of an immediate need.

Who are the most secular people in the world?

Give me the answer.

Kids.

Every parent giggled.

Because they know.

They understand that if you have young children, they have a need and they demand that it is met in that moment.

There is no delay of gratification.

Just wait ten minutes.

Oh no.

This is a way.

And what godly parents, what good parents try to do in maturing their children, is to raise children who aren't just pure instinct, who aren't just pure desire.

People who can exhibit that patience, who understand something of the now, but the not yet.

And so too, for Christians, for us to mature in our thinking when coming when following Jesus is not to simply think about God meeting my needs now, but on hoping for what is laid up for us in eternity.

Do you remember the story of Jacob and Esau in the Old Testament, the two uh twin brothers?

Esau was the older brother, and so uh uh um entitled to the uh to the inheritance, to the birthright, and yet he sells it for what for a meal, for a bowl of stew.

He sells it to his brothers.

Why?

Because Esau had a need and insisted that it was met right now.

He was hungry, and so all of the things that were stored up in the future, he turned aside from.

He was secular in his thinking.

He didn't have a mature view of time.

That is one of the ways in which Jesus confronts the thinking of the world.

Jesus then, uh, we have this little uh this little exchange where Jesus then says, uh, I'm not going up to the feast, you guys head on, uh, for my time is not uh fully come.

Verse 9, after saying this, he remained in Galilee.

Verse 10, but after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.

Did Jesus lie to his brothers?

Did Jesus just change his mind?

Now, verse 10, the emphasis on is that he went up privately.

He's not going up in the manner that his brothers wanted.

A public display of miraculous power.

And so what you see actually is when he arrives in the temple courts, in the middle of the feast, this is verse 14, about the middle of the feast, he begins what?

Doing miracles?

No.

He begins to teach.

See?

Much less about the show and the fanfare and the glory.

He goes privately, he's unknown for a few days, and then he begins to teach in the middle of the feast.

The feast was a set was a seven-day feast with a solemn assembly on the eighth day, and so around about day three, day four, Jesus gets up and begins to teach.

More on that next week as to why any of that's important.

He's not doing the miracles that his brother wanted.

And here's another way in which the world thinks, revealed to us in verse 15.

So he begins teaching, and the Jews, that is the Jewish leaders, the crowd that's there in the temple, and they marveled at him, saying, How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?

How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?

There is an ignorance that leads to prejudice, isn't there?

We can be ignorant of people's backgrounds, we can make assumptions about people, and that leads us to a prejudice about them, a prejudging of who they are and what they'll be like.

That is part of the thinking of the world.

We look at uh people's immutable characteristics, like their sex, and we make assumptions about them.

We look at somebody's socioeconomic background and we make assumptions about them.

We look at somebody's ethnicity and we make assumptions about them.

There is an ignorance that leads to prejudice.

They looked at Jesus and thought, this guy's from, this guy's from the country.

He's a he's a culchy from this dumpy town, Nazareth.

Can anything good come from Nazareth?

That's what Nathaniel said back in uh uh in chapter one.

And they make assumptions about how is it that he can teach this when he hasn't, when he's never been to university, never went to uh to Trinity, he never studied that's a profoundly worldly way of thinking.

To look at people because of their background or these immutable characteristics and to dismiss them, to make judgments about them.

Christianity stands opposed to that way of thinking.

That is, against the thinking of Christianity that that imbues every human being with dignity and worth, regardless of background, ethnicity, sex, or education.

And so to be mature in our thinking is to not be taken in by the ignorance that leads us to prejudice.

Jesus' response to them is that his learning comes not from himself, but from his father, but from God.

And that the purpose of his teaching is not to big himself up, it's not self-exaltation, but the exaltation of the Father who sent him.

Cast your eye down if you have it to verse 18.

There's things happening behind me.

Verse 18, the one the one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

What's Jesus saying here?

Jesus is saying that the mark of a truth-telling person is the person who doesn't seek to simply exalt themselves.

The mark of a truth-telling person is God exaltation, seeing that God gets the glory, that he gets the regard, that he gets the fame, not self-exaltation.

Do you see?

And that again reveals something of the thinking of the world.

Because the world longs to what do our political class long to do?

They are about self-exaltation.

And we can feel that pull ourselves.

I mean, the apprentice is back on uh BBC One at the minute.

And what is that what is the apprentice full of?

It's full of self-exalting people.

What is the problem with self-exaltation?

Making sure that you are at the pinnacle of the hierarchy, that you are seen as being better than those around you.

What's the problem with that?

Well, one of the problems with that is that it can lead you to duplicity.

You can become economical with the truth.

It can lead you down paths of manipulation where you uh where you uh big up your successes and downplay your failures.

Where you spin things and twist things to make yourself look better.

I've done it, and I'm sure you've done it too.

It comes from a place of self-exaltation.

People want to promote themselves, and so they play fast and loose, loose with the truth.

This is self-seeking, this is self-exaltation.

And this, in fact, is the common route between the Jews here at the feast and Jesus' brothers.

One thought that he was uh great and powerful, and so they could be exalted on his coattails, others uh despised him and exalted their own their own moral law-keeping, which we'll get into in just a moment.

But both were concerned about self-exaltation.

Jesus challenges that thinking by saying, actually, the the correct way to approach this is not to exalt yourself, but to exalt the God who has made you, who has gifted you with the things that you are proud of, that has put you in the places that have given you the opportunities for you to advance and to succeed.

The mark of maturing Christian thinking is increasing God exaltation and decreasing self-exaltation, do you see?

The final way that Jesus challenges the thinking of the world is that Jesus exposes what you would call their virtue signaling.

He begins to expose this in verse.

16, Jesus answered that my teaching is not mine, but is uh but 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 of my own authority.

What he's saying here essentially is if you actually wanted to do what God required, then you would know who I was, but they don't.

Rather, their boast is in their moral rectitude, in their law-keeping.

Their boast is in Moses.

But the problem with their boast being in Moses is that they don't keep it.

Look at verse 19, where Jesus says to them, Has not Moses given you the law?

That's the covenant at Sinai after the Exodus.

Has not Moses given you the law?

Yet none of you keeps the law.

They're boasting, as the Jews did, in the law that they received that set them apart from the rest of the world.

It was something that the Jews were very proud of.

They boasted it in their uh in how moral and ethical they looked, particularly the Pharisee class.

And yet Jesus exposes, actually, they don't keep it.

What is the evidence that Jesus offers that they are not keeping the law?

Well, it's there in the very next sentence in verse 19.

Yet none of you keeps the law.

Why do you seek to kill me?

What is the evidence that Jesus offers that they do not keep the law?

Because they're trying to kill him.

John's already primed us on this.

John's already set us up at the start of the passage, very first verse.

After this, Jesus went about in Galilee.

He would not go about in Judea.

Why?

Because the Jews were seeking to kill him.

You see, the Jewish leaders were looking moral on the outside.

They were going through all of the correct rites and rituals, saying all of the right things, looking moral.

And yet inside they were filled with murderous hatred.

That's virtue signaling, isn't it?

Wanting to look like you have virtue, but not actually possessing it internally at the level of the heart.

And Jesus begins to expose that.

He's saying it's not just simply enough to appear virtuous.

You have to actually pursue real virtue.

That's what 16 means.

He's saying, you know, if you actually did the will of God, not just thought right thoughts about God, if you actually did the will of God, pursued him truly, then you would know who I was.

And Christianity, similarly, Christianity is not about merely having right ideas about God.

Where we like we like theology, we like that our theology, we like our theology to be as clear as we can.

We like to think deeply, but the sum of Christianity is not merely about thinking right ideas about God.

That must translate into right action, doing the will of God, as Jesus says.

This is why he brings up the example of circumcision and the Sabbath.

Let's read the verses and then we'll unpack them because it takes a little bit of thinking.

Verse 21, Jesus answered them, I did one work.

And you all marvel at it.

What's the one work that he did?

He's referring back to the healing at the pull and the Sabbath in John chapter 5, where he healed the man who was paralyzed for 38 years.

John 5 · chapter mention

He's saying, I did one work.

That's the one work that he's that's the healing at the pull and the Sabbath.

That's what he's referring to.

You all marvel at it.

Continue with me.

Moses gave you circumcision.

Not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers.

What he's saying here is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, right?

Uh, Genesis through uh to Deuteronomy.

So Moses gave, but in terms of the account of what happened, circumcision was given to Abraham, who lived before Moses.

That's verse 22.

And you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.

If on a Sabbath a man receives 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 by right judgment.

Here's what's going on.

In the law of Moses, handed down at Sinai, it was commanded that uh that young Jewish boys would be circumcised on the eighth day after they were born.

Sometimes that eighth day landed on a Saturday, which was the Sabbath.

And so there is this discussion of, well, what do we do?

Because if we circumcise the baby boy on the eighth day, have we done work on the Sabbath, that which we're commanded not to do?

Have we broken the Sabbath?

And what they concluded was, no, we haven't.

Why?

Because circumcision was given not to Moses, but to Abraham, the father of faith, who preceded Moses.

And so they say, no, there's a prior command here that takes primacy over the Sabbath-keeping command.

Now, Jesus' argument here isn't you break the Sabbath, and so I broke it.

No, he's saying to them, you understand that there's a priority, that there's a primacy to certain values, i.e., that it's more important to circumcise than to keep the Sabbath in that moment.

And in Jewish thinking, circumcision was a way of making the body perfect.

The same way some people think about baptism as washing away original sin.

That's why Jesus talks in terms of perfection.

And so his argument then is surely it is better then to heal the whole body and make it perfect than simply one part.

And so he says in verse 24, do not judge by appearances, but judge by right judgment.

He says you need to focus on the right things.

The right things are not simply performing rites and rituals.

They were focusing on the right and ritual, but forgetting what the rite and ritual pointed to.

The whole point of the rite of circumcision, the whole point of Sabbath rest was to be a signpost pointing beyond itself that God one day will make all things new, that God one day will bring an eternal rest to the people of God.

And what Jesus is saying is, I've come to bring that full reality.

And you're still obsessing over the over the shadow.

You're still, you know, imagine that somebody who you who you loved and admired, that you had a picture of them, you know, an old Polaroid, and you you looked at it all the time, but actually they're standing right there in front of you.

Jesus is saying, stop obsessing over the picture.

The reality is here.

You need to judge with right judgment.

Do not simply seek to signal your virtue, but embody true virtue.

That is the first point.

I told you it was long.

Uh the final ones uh will be much shorter.

How can just say a couple of notes on how is it that we can overcome the thinking of the world?

How can we overcome the thinking of the world?

First, we need to have a different time frame.

Take generosity, for example.

The world, I'm sure, thinks it bonkers for people to give any percentage of their income, 10%, some people tithes, which comes from the tenth, right?

Imagine the world would think you're crazy to give that much of your income to the church and its mission.

Why would you do that?

Why would you not keep it for yourself?

You've worked hard for it, it is yours.

But actually, the Christian realizes that actually all of the stuff that I have doesn't come from me.

It's gifted to me by God.

I'm a steward of it in my generation, and I and I pass it on.

There are things that I prioritize.

I don't simply live for now, I live for eternity.

And so every cent that I that I give to Christian work and the advancement of the gospel is an investment in eternity.

It's not just about now, do you see?

Another way that we can uh just push against the thinking of the world is that when it comes to other people and that prejudice, we want to have we want to be people who have X-ray vision.

The world looks at what is fashionable, chic, marketable, popular.

The Christian rather looks at the unloved, the unlovely, the unpopular, the unappreciated, and sees their dignity and celebrates their worth.

Third way to push against the thinking of the world is to seek love over looks.

Your integrity is one of the greatest evangelistic tools that you can cultivate.

I am sure that the non-Christians who are doing life with you are more interested in seeing whether or not your life matches up with what you say you believe than simply just what your correct doctrine is, what your right thoughts about God are.

Do you actually live a life of integrity?

They want to know: is your pursuit of Jesus more than skin deep?

Is it more than just ritual?

Is it more than virtue signaling?

Is it more than the empty religion of much of our past?

See love overlooks.

Excuse me.

The world's response to Jesus is the world hates him.

There are three ways in which uh the world evidence excuse me.

Three ways in which the world evidences its hatred towards Jesus in this passage.

First of all, is it's dismissal.

You don't know what you're talking about, you're uneducated, you don't really know what's going on.

Secondly, they count him and say, You're demon-possessed.

You have a demon.

What they say to him down in verse 20, ah, it's just the ancient world way of saying you're crazy.

How can you say that?

How can you think that?

How can you believe that?

Maybe that's something that you uh have also encountered.

And then finally, they want to destroy him.

To shut him down, to see that they do not, that he does not advance, to see that he does not advance in his intolerant, hateful, exclusivist views.

That is the hatred of the world.

Now finally the hope of the world.

What is the world's hope?

Jesus looks at his brothers and he says, My time is not yet come, and that's the key.

That's the key to the whole thing.

Where is there hope in the distorted thinking of the world?

And let's be clear.

The world in its thinking needs hope.

To live for now is exhausting and excruciating, and you can find yourself hopeless.

If you live for now going into the pandemic, you are destroyed.

Because everything stopped.

There was no clear and certain future.

It was very disorientating.

Moreover, to judge others not by their character or by their competency, but by their immutable characteristics like their ethnicity or sex is destructive.

To exalt yourself over others is to is to damage yourself and others.

It's to undermine the very social fabric of your life, to say nothing of the evil of robbing God of the glory that's due to his name.

So the world does need hope, and where is it?

It doesn't come with public fanfare or a blaze of glory.

Where does it come?

It comes in the darkness and in the privacy of the garden where the Son of God chooses not to exalt himself, not to do his own will, but the will of his father who sent him.

The hope of the world is not in a public display demonstration of heavenly power, come down from the cross that we might believe, but in a public display of weakness, of shame and ignominy.

That is how the thinking of the world is broken.

That is how the thinking of the world gets given hope.

Christ on his cross did not live for now, but rather, as the writer to the Hebrew says, that he lived for what?

For the joy that was set before him.

He was looking beyond the cross and despised its shame and looked to the joy of what was in front of him.

And what is that joy of you and me and countless billions of believers trusting in the Lord Jesus and with him on that last day.

He looked with that X-ray vision to the condemned thief and saw something else, and so showed him grace.

He embodied true virtue, true selfless love, fulfilling the law, becoming the perfect sacrifice.

And so what did the cross do?

Do you know the cross did the cross created a crack along the seam of the thinking of the whole world?

Over Christmas, I was watching uh the uh Return to Hogwarts, the 20th anniversary of all of the all of the movies.

And I was reminded of uh what happens to the to the elder wand.

Why is the elder wand uh flawed?

Because there is a crack that happens along its seam.

The cross creates a crack along the scene of the thinking of the world that will one day come to an end.

People won't always be judged by their immutable characteristics.

One day people will pursue true true virtue, it will overtake all of the signaling.

There is a crack along the thinking of the world, and we get to hold out the hope of that now.

We get to say, come and see it displayed in part amongst us.

That's what we're that's what we're trying to bring to earth now.

That godly, mature way of thinking, the way of regarding one another, the way of interacting with one another and with the world, the way of speaking and way of acting that looks intriguing and implausible to the world around us.

There's a crack along the seam of the thinking of the world, and one day it will simply explode.

Jesus confronted the thinking of the world for the sake of the world.

And so we turn from foolish and futile thinking and seek by his grace, by the power of his spirit, to embody mature Christian thought, perspectives, and values.

This is how we will show ourselves different.

This is how we will repulse some and intrigue others.

The world will hate you.

Sometimes the world will hate you for being a jackass.

So don't you know if you're sitting there going, oh well the world just hates me all the time.

It might be because you're godly, it might be because you're a jerk.

But if the church is doing its mission correctly, some people will be drawn to it.

And some people will be repulsed.

We challenge the world.

With the hope of the world.

For the sake of the world.

Let's pray.

Father, by your spirit, would you reveal in each one of us the ways in which our thinking, our acting, our speaking is immature and not of you?

Help us by that same spirit to turn aside from those futile ways of interacting.

And we pray that as we seek to live a spirit-filled distinct lives before those who don't know you, that you would intrigue people, that they would see the hope that there is in Jesus.

And we thank you for his selfless love and for his sacrificial death that means the ultimate renewal of all things.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to this week's sermon.

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