Freedom In Obedience (John 7:1-13) Myles Holmes | June 8, 2025

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the Spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to be together this morning.

If you have a copy of God's Word, you're gonna need it.

We're gonna be in John chapter 7 this morning.

John 7 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a copy with you, our ushers are making their way to the front of the aisle.

You can just raise your hand in the air and they'll get one into your hands, which you can keep as our gift to you.

As you turn there to John chapter 7, let me remind you of something you probably very much feel on a day-to-day basis, and that is that you are being watched.

John 7 · chapter mention

Now I'm not talking about like big brother, I'm not talking about you know the kids in your family, not talking about the creep in the bush.

I am I'm talking about the quiet quiet but constant pressure that all of us feel to prove something.

Whether we feel it at work, at home, often even in the church, there's this sort of low-grade sense that all eyes are on us.

That we need to be something, that we need to prove something.

Maybe it's success at work, maybe it's strength for the family, maybe it's just like I just want to look like a human being who kind of has it together.

Maybe that's how high our goals go.

Whatever the case is, we do feel this pressure to have it all together.

We don't usually say it directly, and in each of us it's different, but if you were to look beneath the surface of your heart, you would find this pursuit, this thing that you're chasing after, which if you if you got, you feel like it might be the first time you could ever sort of exhale.

Like you might experience peace if you had this thing.

Maybe it's productivity, maybe it's success, maybe it's respect, spiritual growth, six-pack abs by next Tuesday.

Whatever it is, we just have this feeling if we could walk in, if we could get it right, then we would be free.

Then we would be living the life.

You ever feel like that?

Like if I just lock in for this season, then I'll then I'll be something, then I'll be viewed as something, then I'll have freedom from what's currently dragging me down.

Pressure exists in our lives, but the reality is that for many of us, when you add faith to it, that pressure just becomes all the more real because it, yes, it's one thing to be to remind ourselves of the terrifying reality that other people's eyes are on us.

Or to think about the crushing weight of, you know, just having a high view of your own productivity and wanting to accomplish a lot.

It's a whole nother thing when we start to think about the reality that the eyes of God are on us.

And what can happen is that even though we believe in the grace of God, even though we say God forgives, the reality of this holy, perfect, all-knowing God watching us can terrify us.

And we can begin to believe that if if God's really gonna bless me, if God's really gonna love me, if I'm really gonna experience freedom in Christ, then I need to be more.

I need to be more obedient, I need to be more faithful, I need to be more impressive to God.

In other words, we say that God sets us free.

But deep down there's sort of this belief that obedience is the price tag for our freedom.

That God offers us divine help, but he still wants us to make something of ourselves.

And I want to remind us this morning that if that's our life, then we haven't really experienced freedom.

That's not freedom at all.

In fact, what many of us experience on a day-to-day basis is like running on a hamster wheel.

The world with its values, or religion apart from true faith with its value, puts us on this hamster wheel where we just run harder, we try harder, we do more, but we always feel like we're going absolutely nowhere.

Do you feel that this morning?

This feeling like we do more and more, but feel like we're less and less?

This passage that we're in confronts that.

And what John wants to do in our lives this morning as he continues to record the signs that Jesus would accomplish is ask us this question: where does real freedom come from?

What kind of obedience, what kind of life do we need to live in order to get there?

How do we get to freedom?

Jesus came from heaven to answer this question.

Here's the main idea I want you to see this morning.

This is what we're going to get to, that in Jesus we are free to live not for acceptance, but from it.

In Jesus, we're free to live not for acceptance, but from it.

Let's see this in John chapter 7 this morning.

John 7 · chapter mention

Would you stand with me as we read from God's word?

John chapter 7, verses 1 to 13.

John 7:1–13

This is the word of the Lord.

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 booths was at hand, so his brothers said to him, Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples 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.

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

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

You go up to the feast.

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

After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

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

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

And there was much muttering about him among the people.

Well, some said he is a good man, others said, No, he is leading people astray.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

You can take a seat.

What we read in this text is that Jesus is not immune from the pressure that you and I just talked about.

Jesus himself endured, as perfect as he was, the pressure to be something different.

And what we find here is that Jesus not only had that pressure from his enemies or from people who did not know him, here we find Jesus' own family misunderstanding him, calling him to be something that he wasn't called to be by the Father.

Many of us will be comforted to know that as perfect as Jesus was, his family was a mess too.

Isn't that good to know?

None of our families, none of our families survived the fall.

And yet here is Jesus surviving the pressure to fall as his family calls him to do something that he has not been called to by the Father.

Now, this had already happened in John 6.

You remember in John 6 that when Jesus multiplied the bread and the loaves and fed the crowd, that their immediate reaction was to make him a king.

A revolution almost happened where the crowd sort of revolted against the power of the government and said, This, we want a new king.

But Jesus was unwilling to do that.

Jesus was here to accomplish a different mission.

And so he escaped the pressure of the crowd.

But here we find him in an even more immense pressure.

It is the pressure of his own family, wanting him to go to the feast of booze and to build a name for himself.

Calling him, if he's the real thing, to prove it, to do a public performance, to get results, to build a platform, to gather a following for himself.

Now Jesus says, brothers here, we see a picture of the kind of obedience that you and I are called to every day, in obedience to worldly standards.

And Jesus is showing us here how to break through that.

Jesus is showing us how to find the strength to obey God's word.

Here's the first thing I want you to see that Jesus is teaching us about, and that's the pressure to prove.

The pressure to prove.

The scriptures they tell us that when Jesus came into the world, he faced every challenge that you and I would face.

He was tempted in every way that we are.

The writer of Hebrews says that he was tempted like we are.

The difference was that he did so without sin.

That means that there is nothing that you can face that Jesus has not endured.

Not only has he endured the temptations that we face, whether it's our suffering or as we're talking about this morning, the pressure that we often feel to fit into a worldly or religious mold as opposed to what Jesus has called us to in face.

Not only did he resist that, but he endured it successfully.

And so the scriptures paint this picture of Jesus as one who knows temptation more than you and I do.

He is like the Olympic lifter who lifts a weight heavier than you and I could possibly even imagine, getting an inch off the ground, and knows that weight because he lifts it over his head.

That's Jesus.

And here we find Jesus being faced with the weight of peer pressure, being faced with the weight of the pressure of not only society but his own family.

Jesus is under immense pressure here.

Notice that it is from his own brothers to become something that the Father never asked him to be, to go to the feast of booths and to go public with his ministry.

Now look here at verse 1.

Get your eyes on the text with me.

Notice what John says.

After this, Jesus went about in Galilee.

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

Jesus is resolved, while everyone else is going up to the feast of booths.

Jesus is resolved here to stay in Galilee.

As we begin to ask why he would stay in Galilee, look down at verse 6 with me.

There we find this.

He says, My time has not yet come.

Jesus is not hiding, he's not worried of the Jews who will kill him.

He knows exactly how the story is going to end.

What Jesus is doing is waiting for the word of the Father.

Time and time again through the Gospel of John, Jesus reminds us of this reality.

He says it again in John 5.19.

We we studied this a few weeks ago.

The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing.

In other words, what Jesus is saying to his brothers is this I'm gonna go to Judea.

Specifically, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem, but I will not go your way.

I will not go up to this feast.

You notice that in verse 8.

He says, I'm not going to this feast, but Jesus certainly will become the center of attention in Jerusalem.

And it will not be to put his powers on display.

In fact, it'll be completely the opposite.

Jesus will go up to Jerusalem to lay down his power, to be sacrificed, not to rise up and the authority of a king, but to lay down the authority of heaven and earth in order that he might secure salvation for his people.

Now you can understand then.

If you put yourself in the shoes of his brothers, you can understand by the worldly way of thinking the foolishness of Jesus.

From their perspective, Jesus just had amassed 10 to 12,000 people who were following him, who were hungry to hear his word.

I mean, can you imagine that?

You sit down with someone who's on social media and they show us their Instagram and they have, you know, like a thousand followers, and we think this is something.

And how easy is that to do today?

And yet, here is Jesus with a message that has gathered this giant crowd of people who are at his feet saying, We want to make you king.

And of course, his brothers are standing there saying, Jesus, listen, you really dropped the ball here.

And so they say here in verses 2 to 4.

They say, Go up to the feast, Jesus.

Get in front of people, show off a little.

Like you can do this whole multiplying bread thing.

What if we brought some Chick-fil-A out there and we multiplied that?

Like, let's go public with this power that you have.

Jesus is unwilling.

Now, you and I, as we read this text, we find ourselves in it, don't we?

Don't you find yourself resonating with Jesus here?

We face pressure on a daily basis to do the things that God has called us not to do.

And to stop doing the things that God has called us not to do.

And on a daily basis, we feel the scrutiny.

If you're a follower of Christ, you feel the scrutiny of the world's eyes being on you, scratching their head.

How could you do that?

You turn down the promotion so that you can disciple your family, so that you can serve the church.

And the world can't understand it.

You give up your leisure time.

A beautiful Sunday morning.

Am I making you regret your choice this morning?

I hope not.

A beautiful Sunday morning where you say, I'm gonna go to the church, I'm gonna worship the Lord, and I'm gonna serve him, and the world watches you leave as you leave the greatest idol, one of the greatest idols of the world, leisure, time off, and scratches their head.

How could you do that?

The world doesn't get it.

Can't get it.

The world has a different rubric.

And that's exactly what Jesus exposes here.

What his brothers are offering is not a worldly, it's not a spiritual wisdom, it's a worldly logic.

Look then at verse 5, put your eyes on the text with me.

Notice what Jesus says in verse 5.

He says, for uh for what John says, for not even his brothers believed him.

Not even his brothers believed him.

His own family didn't trust him.

His own family wanted him to prove himself.

This passage is rich with irony as you think about it, isn't it?

I mean, here are these brothers not believing Jesus.

Hey, go up to the go up to the feast of booths and just do a miracle.

Then we'll know that you're Jesus.

Here is the Son of God who John said in chapter one, this is the word of God who was with God and is God.

This is the word by whom God created the world.

When God said, Let there be light, that was the power of Jesus, and this is the one standing in the presence of his brothers, and there are his brothers asking for some proof.

It's rich with irony.

Here's what John is teaching us this morning.

He's teaching us that if you're a follower of Christ, you will constantly have two rubrics that are grading your life.

Do you remember rubrics in school?

I hated rubrics.

I was always on the wrong side of them.

However, many of you loved rubrics.

And the reason you loved them was because they showed you what you should do.

They showed you how to take this sort of nebulous assignment and get perfect marks.

Here's what the teacher wants.

And I want you to understand that when it comes to your life, you have two rubrics.

As a follower in Christ, you've been given two rubrics that could not be more opposed.

You are constantly being graded.

One rubric is the rubric that God gives.

We read about this in Deuteronomy.

You know, here's what God says.

Here's what God requires of you.

And that rubric says this: obey the Father.

Walk in his will, stay faithful.

Even when no one is watching, God is watching.

That's what the rubric of Christianity calls us, but then we have this rubric of the world that says, you've got something to prove.

We've got to be successful, you've got to look like this, you've got to build something big, you've got to be impressive.

And the tension that you and I find as Christians that we need to recognize is that we live in between these two worlds that are constantly discipling us to a different kind and definition of success.

Where the world says that success is defined by performance, by productivity, by power.

The scriptures come and with a quiet voice call us to a different kind of success.

To humility, to trust, to prayer, to obedience.

These things that are not flashy, things that the world does not care about, but that God loves.

The question is which pressure will you obey?

Whose rubric are you living by?

Whose voice is shaping it?

I'm reminded of this pretty much on a daily basis.

There is this real temptation.

When you're in ministry, there is this real temptation to define success by something that biblically is not defined as success.

And I have a book on my bookshelf.

It may be apart from the Bible, the book that I reach for the most.

It's by an author named Kent Hughes.

He was a pastor for years and years, and he wrote a book about the middle of his ministry called Liberating Christian Ministry from the Success Syndrome.

I love that.

Because it paints this picture of this idea that the world has painted, and often, honestly, even Christian ministry has painted success as one thing, and the scriptures come in and say it's a completely another thing.

While the world paints success in terms of the three B's, they call it the bodies, buildings, and bucks.

Scripture comes in and shows us a man like Isaiah, who was faithful to God, and yet nobody listens to.

Scripture comes in and defines ministry success as things by like prayer, like faithfulness, like love.

And here we have our lives being graded by two different rubrics.

One which says success looks like something that biblically it just is not.

And the question for us is this to which rubric will we bow down to?

Now, Jesus in this passage faces this pressure of his own family.

He resists.

And so my question this morning is this where do we get the strength to do that?

So at least the next point I want you to see.

Jesus is showing us this, the trust to wait.

The trust to wait.

Notice how Jesus is drawing a sharp distinction here between him and his brothers.

Look what he says in verse 6.

You see this?

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

That's a little insulting, isn't it?

Brothers say, go up to the feast.

Jesus says, Hey, listen, you don't have any master.

You can go anytime you want.

In other words, he's saying this, like your life is not as important as mine.

You ever do that with your own calendar?

You get asked to do something.

Oh, I'm so busy.

I just want you to know how important I am.

My calendar is so filled up with things.

And here is Jesus doing the same, saying, This, listen, the Father governs my calendar, not governing yours.

You can go anytime.

My time has not yet come.

In other words, Jesus is looking at his brothers and pointing out this difference.

They can go whenever they want because they're not living on anyone's schedule but their own.

This is the kind of freedom the world promises us.

It's a sort of freedom of like, you can be your own master.

You can do whatever you want.

You don't have to live under the authority of anyone else.

But the problem is that this freedom is a lie, and Jesus knows it.

Jesus knows that the brothers don't actually have freedom at all, that they are living under the in obedience to the pressure of the society.

That they're trying to be something molded into something that the world wants them to be.

And Jesus says, I'm unwilling to do that.

I'm going to listen to the word of my father.

The brothers are projecting onto Jesus here what they think would be success for Jesus.

They see an opportunity for power.

They see an opportunity for momentum in Jesus' life.

They want to capitalize it on it.

But what they've Failed to understand is what Jesus' mission really is.

Look at ver again at verse 4 with me.

Look what the brothers say to him.

It's so so interesting.

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

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

Now notice that Jesus doesn't say respond to them by saying, Listen, I'm never going to show myself to the world.

Jesus will show himself to the world.

In fact, that's why Jesus came.

You'll remember the conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus, where it says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

Jesus came to offer life to the fallen world.

Jesus will show himself to the world.

The question is, how?

Not through a political takeover, not by building up a platform for himself or a name for himself.

The way that Jesus will show himself to the world is by being lifted up on a cross.

It's through the humiliation of crucifixion.

And he will make this crystal clear.

You see that in verse 8?

You see what Jesus says?

But it's not to make a name for himself.

Look what he says in verse in verse 8.

You go up to the feast.

I am not going up to this feast.

For my time has not yet fully come.

Jesus isn't refusing to go altogether.

In fact, in verse 10, Jesus will go up to the feast.

What Jesus is refusing to do here is to go up on their terms.

Jesus is waiting for the Father's timing.

Here's where he really draws the dividing line between his obedience and the obedience that the brothers are seeking.

Look at verse 7 with me.

You notice what Jesus says there?

The world cannot hate you.

But it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

Why can the world embrace the brothers?

When the brothers go up to the feast, why can they be embraced by the world?

Because the world doesn't hate them.

Because they are from the world.

Because they are like the world.

They like the things that the world likes.

They grade themselves with the rubric that the world has.

Jesus points to his brothers and says, This, you're still thinking like the world.

You're still operating by the same rubric.

You still want the same things.

You want power.

You want image.

You want results.

But they don't yet see the world for what it truly is.

This is something we're going to have to come to terms with.

If we're going to live the Christian life, if we're going to follow Jesus, one of the realities that we need to come to terms with is this: that obedience to God's word is hard, not because we don't understand it.

It's hard because deep down we battle this belief that disobedience might be better.

That is so important.

So I'm going to let me say that again.

The reason why obedience is hard is because deep down we believe that disobedience might be better for us.

You know that?

You know, you can look at every time in your life where you've disobeyed God's word, where you know you've struggled with temptation and given in.

And one of the realities is that you've never gone kicking and screaming.

You know, when you've b overflowed with anger, you've overflowed with anger because you thought it would feel good.

When you've gossiped about that person or been jealous or envious, you have done that because you thought it would bring relief.

When you have put off the pursuit of Jesus Christ to pursue things like comfort, money, material possessions, you have done that because you believe that disobedience would win more for you than obedience would.

That's why obedience is hard.

Think about the garden.

God had already given Adam and Eve everything they needed.

What was the problem?

The problem was that Eve, Adam and Eve began to look at what was supposed to be disgusting and started to desire it.

Instead of acknowledging that the fruit of the tree would bring death, what did they do?

They looked at it and it looked desirable to them.

They thought that they might be able to find life by eating this fruit, and so they disobeyed.

Now you and I find the same thing time and time again.

We disobey, not because we don't know God's will, but because in the moment we think we found in disobedience something that is more desirable than obedience.

Jesus has two choices here.

One is to listen to the word of his brothers and go find fame, popularity, and power.

One and the other is to listen to the word of his father and die a suffering death by crucifixion on a cross.

The path of disobedience, it often seems hard.

It often seems like loss.

So we too face the same temptation to believe that there is more life for us in disobedience than there is in obedience.

You and I struggle with this on a day-to-day basis.

We believe that freedom is found in finally doing what we want, when we want, with no one else telling us otherwise.

We believe the lie that joy is found in sexual sin.

We believe that real life is found when we cut ourselves loose from boundaries or expectations or other people's commands.

We believe that peace will be found when we can just manage our lives a little bit better, when we just get a little bit more control.

We believe satisfaction will be found when we get a little bit more money, some success, comfort, applause.

But in each of these things, Jesus is reminding us in this passage that disobedience is always a mirage.

It promises something it cannot deliver.

And when Satan tempts you to disobedience, he presents the bait and he hides the hook.

He will show you what seems to be lovely, but he will hide what will drag you down to eternal separation from him.

Jesus could have gone the way of applause, could have gone the way of popularity, could have gone the way of power, but he chose the cross.

And the question that you and I face is this do we trust that God's word is actually good for us?

Wasn't that interesting in Deuteronomy?

You know, we read when we when Mark prayed this morning, he read Deuteronomy.

Here's a whole list of commands that God has given to his people.

And I don't know about you, you read a list like that to love the Lord your God with all your heart, to listen to all of his commands, and you just feel like I can't do it all.

And yet, what does he say at the end?

That these commands and statutes are for your good.

They are for your good.

God is not the kind of father for his children who calls them to do to obedience just for the sake of proving that he's something.

Parents, we know what that's like.

The amount of times I've called my kids to obedience because I'm in a grocery store and I just want to look like I'm a parent who has it together.

It's impossible to do.

But you're trying to wrangle in these cats and just tell them to act like normal civilized human beings.

It's impossible.

Because you're trying to present a picture of yourself, but I want you to understand that God the Father does not do that.

When God the Father commands us to do things, when he gives us his commands, they're not for his good.

They're for our good.

Showing us the path of life.

And so the question is this will you trust God enough to wait on him when doing so looks like you might be losing?

Maybe that means staying put in your job because a promotion would cost your family.

Maybe it means choosing integrity when a shortcut, a lie, something else would get you ahead.

Maybe it's trusting God's timing in your life right now, in the way that circumstances are going, and in the sickness that you're facing, and the singleness that you're facing, in the situation that you're whatever it is, trusting God's timing that He has you here for a reason, trusting that that difficult person that God has put into your life is placed there for your good.

Trusting that the challenges that you're facing in family and work and church and life, trusting that God has placed these things there for your good.

Maybe what obedience looks like for you is waiting on God, even though you feel by the world's standards that you might be losing by doing that.

Jesus finds himself in the same place we do.

There are two rubrics: the world's rubric and his father's.

He not only resists the world's rubric, he rests in the father's rubric for what true success looks like.

And love one, you know what the beauty of the gospel is?

The beauty of the gospel is that when Jesus does this, he does not do it just for himself.

That the thing that drove Jesus' obedience was not just a desire for the glory of the Father.

You know what drove Jesus' obedience here?

It was you.

It was you.

The reason why Jesus would stand up to the pressures of his family to become something that he was not was because he knew that he needed to be obedient for you, for the ones that he came to save.

Which points to our the third thing that Jesus teaches us here.

Teaches us about the freedom to follow.

Notice in verse 10, Jesus does go up to the feast.

There's a difference though.

This isn't in contradiction to what he said earlier.

He said he wasn't gonna go up to the feast, but but what he doesn't do is go in obedience to his brothers' desires.

Instead, he goes up in quiet obedience to the father's will, not publicly, we're told, but in private.

And John wants us to see this, that he doesn't go for the reasons that his brothers are pushing.

He's walking here in step with the Father.

He's following the Father's will.

He's doing this the Father's way.

Now, as he goes up to Jerusalem, as readers who understand the fullness of Jesus' story, there is this note of sadness that's being wrung.

This will be the last time that Jesus leaves Galilee.

Jesus here begins a journey that is incredibly painful.

It is not leading to applause.

It is not leading to people's praise immediately.

The journey that Jesus begins here is a path to the cross.

It's a road to Jerusalem where he'll be crucified and he will be left alone on the cross.

There will be no one who publicly supports him.

In fact, even his closest followers there would deny him.

It would be exactly the opposite of the picture that his brothers painted for him in Judea.

But it won't be meaningless.

Jesus won't ascend for the glory of people.

He won't accept ascend to Jerusalem for the praise of people.

He will walk towards sacrifice.

And he will choose the path of obedience, even though he gets nothing from man, because he gets everything from God.

Because in this obedience, there would be this loud declaration for you and I this morning that his death on the cross would be made for us.

That in our place, he would die in our place for our sin and as our substitute.

Notice as soon as Jesus arrives in Judea in verse 11, the Jews are looking for him, and Jesus walks directly into the brokenness he knew he would experience.

They do not know who he is.

Some wonder if he's a good man, some wonder if he's just deceiving the masses.

But Jesus did not come just to be known as a good teacher, and he does not care if he's misunderstood as a deceiver.

He came to be known as something far more scandalous than what the Jews thought.

He came to be known as a crucified savior for his people.

As Jesus comes up to Jerusalem, he understands this.

This is why his obedience matters.

Because of the cross.

To secure our atonement.

And with something so much greater than popularity in view.

Our rescue.

So what you and I understand this morning then is that as Jesus goes up to Jerusalem, he is doing something that is extremely significant for us.

You and I need the obedience of Jesus.

Jesus is going to Jerusalem not for his own personal popularity, not for his own personal praise.

Jesus is going with a mission to solve our greatest problem.

What's our greatest problem?

Our greatest problem is not that you and I have failed to accomplish our goals.

Our greatest problem is not that you and I have failed to reach a level of success that other people look at and recognize.

And yet, so often on a day-to-day basis, the pressure, the pressure we feel is a pressure from people who, if we just could take a step back and look at this with like a 30,000-foot view, at a 30,000-foot view, we'd recognize like these people are not gonna be around for long.

The boss that you are living to please at work, the reality is that tomorrow that boss could be gone.

The position that you are laboring so hard to get at work will be replaced by someone else.

All these things are fading, all these things are passing away, all these things are rotting, rusting.

What God offers us and invites us to in Jesus is the solving of a permanent problem, our estrangement from Him.

And we are created to live under His voice, to walk in His presence, to delight in His love.

You and I went our own way.

We listened to other voices.

We delighted in the love of other things.

And here is Jesus going to Jerusalem, and he will not be altered from his mission.

He is going for us.

He's walking a painful path.

A path of perfect obedience.

With one mission.

To take your place, to die on the cross for you, to obey perfectly.

So rebels like you and me, people who had disobeyed God's word, people who had believed that there is a greater life found for us outside of God's command.

Jesus is marching to Jerusalem for a people like that.

What does that mean for us as we come to the foot of the cross, having recognized that you and I have chased our own way, have chased life on our own terms, have tried to prove our own worth, have tried to fix our shame ourselves, have lived according to the law of the world or our own law.

What does that mean for us?

It means that in Jesus, you're being invited to step off the hamster wheel.

It means in Jesus, you're being invited to find acceptance, not that you need to earn, but that has already been earned for you.

To find union with the one who not only obeyed in your place, but died in your place so that you could be saved.

This is the heart of the gospel.

This is why the gospel is good news, because despite your rebellion, despite your disobedience, despite that even today, this week, you and I will choose the path of disobedience, believing that there is greater life in it.

Jesus came so that we could be accepted by the Father.

That even though we are more sinful than we could ever possibly imagine, we are more loved in Jesus Christ than we could ever possibly dream of.

In Jesus, we do not live for acceptance.

In Jesus, we live from acceptance.

Listen, the world is treating you like you need to earn something.

The world is treating you like you need to have like almost like credit score, isn't it?

Don't we feel that in our workplaces or our family?

It's like, I gotta do all these good things to, you know, get this good rating, but man, one thing will really bring you back a lot.

And here's Jesus who says this, I have an inheritance for you.

I have an inheritance.

And it's an inheritance that cannot be touched.

It is kept in heaven for you.

What does it mean for us?

It means we're free to obey.

Not to earn love, but because we already have it.

You know, it's interesting when Jesus reaches for an illustration of how he can talk about our relationship with the Father.

It's interesting that he talks about the prodigal son, isn't it?

Because this prodigal son had given up everything to go and chase his own vision of freedom.

And in doing so, he lost everything.

And he finds himself humiliated, eating from the same food that pigs are eating from.

And he says, This, I'm gonna go back to my father.

But but you know what he says?

I'm not, there's no way I can go back as a son.

I'll tell him I'm not even worthy to be a servant.

I will beg for him just to accept me, not even as a son, just as a servant.

And when he returns to the father, the father is not interested in a servant, the father is interested in his son.

Where the son expects a list of conditions, here's what you need to do in order to receive my love.

What the son instead receives from the father is his affection.

Can I ask you, is your Christianity all about conditions?

Is it all about do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that?

Then you need to understand you do not know what it means to be a child, a son, a daughter of God.

Because those who place their faith in Jesus Christ come to understand that they have been accepted.

So that they don't need to obey for acceptance.

They obey because they already are.

Not with pressure, but with joy.

Not to earn their identity, but because they have already received it.

Loved one, you'll be tempted in every way.

You'll be tempted to hide your sin.

Where the old rubric says, rubric of the world.

So the people found out who you really were.

You'd lose out, you'd lose their respect.

They'd never love you.

Here the gospel comes and says, you are already fully known and fully accepted.

That your sin is deeper than you could ever even imagine.

You don't even know the beginning of it.

But you are loved by God.

You'll be exhausted from trying to be enough.

The rubric of the world says, keep producing, keep impressing, keep performing.

But the gospel comes and says you don't have to earn your place.

It has already been earned.

It's already been given to you.

There will be times in your life when obedience comes at a cost.

And the world will look at you and say it's foolish.

Do not pay the price.

And the gospel will come and say, if God has already gave his son for you, there'll be nothing to withhold.

There's nothing he'll withhold from you.

He's entirely trustworthy.

Where does that leave you and I?

It leaves us this morning standing in grace.

Before we had lifted a finger, before we could ever prove ourselves to be anything, we were accepted and loved by Jesus so that this morning you and I can exhale.

We can take a breath.

The pressure's been lifted.

The weight has been removed.

Jesus has done everything that we needed to do to earn acceptance from the Father.

And in him we find God looking at us as sons and daughters, saying, This, you are my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.

You believe that, loved one?

If you believe that, then we follow him, not to earn acceptance, but because we already have it in him.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for the gospel that we return to week in and week out because we need it hour by hour, minute by minute.

Lord, we need to be reminded of this reality that Christ has accomplished for us what we could never do on our own.

We need to be reminded of this reality that even though we constantly fall short, we are given grace in Jesus Christ so that it does not depend on On our effort.

It does not depend even on our success.

It depends entirely on Jesus Christ, who perfectly obeyed for us and died the death we deserve to die, winning for us a righteousness we could never get on our own.

Father, I pray that out of this would grow a deep love and affection for you.

Not because you are a relentless taskmaster, asking us to accomplish what we never could possibly accomplish apart from you.

But because we are loved children, sons and daughters of God.

God, as we respond to you in song, I pray that our heart would be.

Help us to sing that way.

We pray this in the name of your son.

Amen.

Would you stand and sing with me?