From God (John 7:25-36)

John chapter 7, starting at verse 25.

John 7 · chapter mention

Some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, Isn't this the man they are trying to kill?

Yet look, he's speaking publicly, and they're saying nothing to him.

Can it be true that the authorities know he is the Messiah?

But we know where this man is from.

When the Messiah comes, nobody will know where he's from.

As he was teaching in the temple, Jesus cried out, You know me, and you know where I'm from, yet I have not come on my own, but the one who sent me is true.

You don't know him.

I know him because I am from him and he sent me.

Then they tried to seize him, yet no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.

However, many of the crowd believed in him and said, When the Messiah comes, he won't perform more signs than this man has done, will he?

The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about them, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent servants to arrest him.

Then Jesus said, I'm only with you for a short time, then I'm going to the one who sent me.

You will look for me, but you will not find me, and where I am, you cannot come.

Then the Jews said to one another, Where does he intend to go so we won't find him?

He doesn't intend to go to the Jewish people dispersed among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he?

What is this remark he made?

You will look for me and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for this morning.

I thank you for your word.

And I thank you that it is the compass that guides all that we do.

And I ask, Lord, that you would fill me with your spirit to rightly teach your word, that you would fill the hearers with your spirit to rightly discern what is of you.

And I ask that you would be glorified, and ultimately that we would grow closer to you and fall more in love with you today.

In your name.

Amen.

Go ahead and have a seat.

It's an interesting little chunk of a passage.

And for those of you who haven't been with us throughout the weeks, we're going verse by verse through the Gospel of John.

And this is the chunk that we have.

And you may be looking at that and going, that's a small chunk.

We might actually get done early, and then you look up and go, Oh, Ben's teaching.

We'll get through it.

But I like to manage expectations a little bit in that we're going, it'll be backloaded a little bit.

So we might fly through the front a little bit and have a little bit more meat in the back.

So what on earth is going on in this passage for those who didn't have not had the luxury of the rest of this?

Going through chapter 7, we see that they are at the festival of shelters or the feast of tabernacles.

And that is one of the three feasts where all able-bodied Jewish men are required to go to Jerusalem and observe this feast.

And so there is a huge influx of people to Jerusalem.

Places packed out for this feast.

What on earth is the festival of shelters at the Feast of Tabernacles?

It is a commemoration of the wandering in the wilderness as the Lord delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and was bringing them to the promised land.

So that is the whole impetus from what is going on here.

And so we had a little bit of that last week.

We're going to have a lot of that next week.

But here in the middle, we have an interesting chunk where there's less teaching than normal, so we have a good opportunity to get behind the scenes of what is going on.

So this is less about Jesus giving a speech like he did in John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

Long chunks of speech of teaching, although he does do some of that here, but it's more seeing what is going on in Jerusalem.

Specifically, seeing the tension between three groups.

There's Jesus, he's a group, I guess.

Trinity, three of them, Holy Spirit, boom.

So Jesus, and then there are the people, and then there's the religious leaders.

So you have three chunks here.

And those interactions and how that works, specifically in Jerusalem, because we're going to see this rhythm of tension as Jesus keeps going into Jerusalem, out of Jerusalem.

Every time he goes into Jerusalem, there's more tension, more friction between him and the religious leaders.

And a lot of that is a result of how the people are responding to Jesus because of how the religious leaders need the people.

So there's a bit of irony here at the very beginning, because we're just seeing the crowd's reaction.

And the first thing we see in verse 25, some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, Isn't this the man they're trying to kill?

Okay, now why is that ironic?

Because a few verses earlier, in verse 19, Jesus is addressing the crowd in the temple and saying, Why are you trying to kill me?

And the crowd says, You have a demon.

Who's trying to kill you?

And then here in verse 25, they're like, hey, isn't it that guy they're trying to kill?

There's clearly some sort of dissonance going on here.

And what I see, this is how I interpret it.

This is not, first of all, this is not that important, but how I see it, tons of influx of people coming into Jerusalem from all over.

The crowd.

In verse 25, specifically, John lets us know it's the people of Jerusalem.

So within that subset of the people, there are the people who actually are locals in Jerusalem.

They are very clear on the fact that the religious leaders are trying to kill Jesus.

Is that weird?

Like, the just like we're like, okay, yeah, we know the whole story.

But pause for a second.

The locals in Jerusalem are looking at Jesus and they're like, hey, there's that guy that our religious leaders are trying to murder.

Let it be said that if any of the elders here are known to be trying to murder somebody, call the police immediately.

It's weird that that's a part of their culture, right?

That this is something that is so because here's the thing, here's why I'm making a big deal out of this.

Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, they are a part of the Roman Empire at this point.

Yes, they have Herod as their king, and at this point in time you have the tetrarchy of Herod the Great's sons ruling over different chunks, except for in Jerusalem, where they have a Roman governor, because that son of Herod's was such a loser that Rome kicked him out and said, We're taking over.

And so you have the governorship with them.

So they do not have capital authority here in their own nation.

That comes specifically when they're trying to bring Jesus to the Romans at the end to have him crucified, because they specifically say, We are not allowed to kill people.

Yet here they are trying to kill people.

If you know almost nothing about Christianity, killing people is bad.

Cool, we got that.

So having that said, it is crazy that they're so, and how on earth do you get to that point, honestly?

Looking at the whole body of what's happening, the religious leaders, if you get to a point where you know that you are right, then the end justifies the means.

That's part of the problem here.

If you can say, we are right, anything that is a threat to us is wrong, then I feel I have the moral authority to do whatever I want to protect that.

And that is a dangerous form of self-righteousness that goes all the way from us feeling that way in a small level to, I don't know, the crusades.

So, with that, there's a it's it's a little disturbing that that is the default state at this point in time.

And the reason why I'm bringing this out is because we are seeing the three motivations of those three groups colliding in this passage.

So, why does that matter?

All the way back in Ezekiel.

Okay, truth time.

How many of you read the entire book of Ezekiel before?

There's no judgment here.

That is a lot more than I thought.

Because Ezekiel seems like a really fun book to start, and then you go, huh, whoa, this got weird.

No, actually, that wasn't weird, this part's weird, and it just keeps getting weirder, and then he rounds off the last nine chapters with a detailed description of a building.

So, that is definitely an interesting read, but there is a prophecy in the midst of that.

In Ezekiel 34, and I'm actually going to put up chunks of that throughout the time here.

Ezekiel 34, looking at the first two verses.

Son of man prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.

Prophesy and say to them, This is what the Lord God says to the shepherds.

Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves.

Shouldn't the shepherds feed their flock?

You eat the fat, wear the wool, butcher the fattened animals, but you don't tend the flock.

You haven't strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost.

Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty.

What on earth is going on in that specific passage?

Well, Ezekiel is prophesying at a time where both the kings of that time and the priests, all together in the southern kingdom of Judah, have become ultimately corrupt and not seeking the Lord in any way, shape, or form.

And that starts the cycle of the overthrow of the kingdom of Judah.

And why on earth am I bringing up this passage?

Because it's going to culminate in a messianic prophecy that we see Jesus in the midst of it here.

So it gives a little bit of context that even though there was the downfall of the kingdom of Judah, and even though they were brought back, the same thing was happening.

It may look a little bit different, but ultimately you have, at this point in time, as they are highlighting this throughout the book of John and the rest of the Gospels, you think of the moneylenders in the temple earlier in this book, I believe in chapter 2, who are extorting the people for their sacrifices to actually make money on them trying to do the religious law with that.

You see them functioning as a basically as organized crime here, plotting to kill people.

There is a very disturbing aspect of how they are functioning here.

And why are they functioning that way?

Because they're functioning from the prospect of we are right, we are serving the right thing, and therefore whatever we do is okay.

And so that's chunk number one here.

We'll start to unpack that a little bit more, just tuck that away here.

So, with that in mind, the second thing they say in verse 26, look, he's speaking publicly, and they are saying nothing to him.

So, what's confusing them is that Jesus is openly teaching in the temple, and they know that the religious leaders are trying to kill him, and yet there he is, unkilled.

And they're asking, why what's going on here?

How are they saying nothing to him?

This is a theme we're going to chase through this passage, and then a little bit more through the rest of this book, and tuck this away, this whole idea that they are unable to exert their will upon Jesus.

We'll look at that more in a moment.

But number three here, can it be true that the authorities know he is the Messiah?

So the word Messiah, which is the promised Savior, the one who would deliver the people, who would rule them in righteousness, Hebrew Messiah, Greek Christ, same word.

It is the Savior.

And here they are repeatedly using this word.

Can it be true that they know he is the Messiah?

They're asking themselves, are they not touching him?

Because deep down they know that he is the Messiah.

But it looks here like they have a tradition.

We know where this man is from, and when the Messiah comes, nobody will know where he's from.

So it sounds like there is kind of this weird extra-biblical tradition going through that when the Messiah comes, they're not going to know where he is coming from.

Why is that a weird thing?

Well, if we look just down a few verses to John 7, 41 and 42, the crowd is saying, this is the Messiah in 41, but some said, surely the Messiah doesn't come from Galilee.

Doesn't the scripture say the Messiah comes from David's offspring and from the town of Bethlehem where David lived?

So it's kind of weird that part of this crowd is going, well, we know that when the Messiah comes, that it is uh we won't know where he's coming from.

And then another part of the crowd is saying, no, well, the scriptures clearly say that the Messiah is supposed to come from Bethlehem.

So there's uncertainty there too.

Why does this matter?

Ultimately, there is a stirring amongst the people asking about Jesus as it pertains to the Messiah.

Is he that or is he not?

Um we are very used to that.

We are very accustomed to that language because we go to church, we've read the Bible, we understand that.

That's not a normal thing for them to be discussing here in Jerusalem at this feast.

That they would be looking at this man going, is he actually the Messiah?

And I'm not saying, like, what's important is we're not saying, is he a Messiah?

Is he going to be somebody who to delivers?

They're literally saying, is he the one the entire Old Testament has been speaking of?

That's a big deal.

And so that is the stirring amongst the crowd.

You can imagine the religious leaders don't like that.

We'll get to that in a moment.

So, the response of the crowd, they're apparently just used to their religious leaders being willing to kill threats.

They are uh seeing that he's not being touched, and then they are going, This guy is he the he can't be the Messiah, can he?

And so Jesus speaks in verse 28.

As he was teaching in the temple, Jesus cried out, You know me, and you know where I'm from, yet I haven't come on my own, but the one who sent me is true.

You don't know him.

I know him because I am from him and he sent me.

So, not a whole lot of new information as we've been going through this gospel, and that's the point.

Jesus is consistently saying the same thing over and over because that is his message.

So in John 6, when he was saying this to the crowds in Capernaum in the synagogues, what was he saying?

I am from heaven, I was sent from the Father, I was sent to do his will.

And here in Jerusalem, you know where I'm from.

The one who sent me is true.

I know him because I'm from him, and he sent me.

Consistency in his message, there's no confusion in that.

And there's also a big theme throughout this gospel of knowing.

The words for knowing are more in the Gospel of John than the rest of the Gospels combined.

That there's this, you know, you don't know, I know, they there, no one can know, this idea of knowing what is true.

And so here he is doubling down on these big, somewhat offensive themes because in Capernaum, that's when the whole crowd that he just miraculously fed walks away because he is saying this exact same message in different words.

So there's a bit of irony here.

I would like to think that when Jesus says, You know me and you know where I am from, that there is a little bit of sarcasm under the under the uh under the scenes there because they know that he is from Joseph and Mary, we saw that last uh chapter in chapter 6 when they were offended about him.

We know that he is born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, all these different things.

But they're saying he's saying, Well, you know me and you know where I'm from.

You really don't understand, though, because where I'm from, he repeatedly says, is heaven.

We talked about this uh a few weeks ago.

If somebody says they are from heaven, that's called crazy, unless it's true.

And this is one of those situations where the Messiah is revealing himself as such.

There is exactly one time in the history of humanity where somebody can make the claims that Jesus claims and it not be crazy talk.

And that's the cool thing about what we're seeing here, and we're so used to that that we go, well, yeah, Jesus, that's how that works.

But what he is saying is very offensive and very um friction-inducing for these people, but he doesn't back down from that message because that's why he's here.

He is here as the savior of the world.

So, here's a big offensive statement in that when he's saying, I haven't come on my own, the one who sent me is true, you don't know him.

I know him because I am from him and he sent me.

Under no uncertain terms is he telling them, specifically the religious leaders, you don't know the father, and I do.

That is a big statement.

That is not just like he said something, you know, snarky on his on his socials, and people got upset, and then he had to backtrack on it, and then all those different things, and he deleted it for a month and then he came back, and then he had the same father.

Uh he is saying, you don't know God.

And he's also saying, Jesus speaking, I know God because I am from him and he sent me.

We're used to that wording, but that is a big thing, and not only it's one thing to be saying that in Capernaum, Galilee, way up there, he's in Jerusalem.

He's in the temple, not like a temple, the temple, saying to the religious leaders and to the people, you don't know God.

That is a big statement, but that would be crazy if it wasn't true.

So then we get to see three reactions here.

First 30.

They tried to seize him.

Yet no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.

In case you were curious, did they understand what he was saying about them not knowing the Father?

Yeah, because here they're trying to seize him.

Why could they not lay a hand on him?

His hour had not yet come.

This is huge, and it's something that's repeated throughout this gospel.

They are powerless to exert their will upon Jesus.

And it's interesting how John hits this over and over and over.

This idea, it is not like Jesus is like a super spy who can evade them and can pop up and do what he needs to and slip out of that without them seeing it.

And we can sometimes teach it that way, which is kind of weird, or that it can fit in and blend in, therefore, they don't know who he is.

Clearly they know who he is.

They looked at him and said, hey, there's Jesus.

But the why could they not lay a hand on him?

Clearly, his hour had not yet come.

They were, human beings, were not physically able to do what God did not allow to happen.

And here's where I see him spelling this out even more in John 10, 17 through 18.

A couple chapters from now he says, This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again.

No one takes it from me.

I lay it down on my own.

I have the right to lay it down, I have the right to take it up again.

I have received this command from my father.

So he is saying in this passage and in this passage, you cannot subvert the Lord's will here.

Comforting, threatening a little bit.

There's a little, it depends on which side of that you're on.

So it's like you read the book of Revelation and you go, if you're like, you know, on the side of you know being uh saved and adopted and uh meet right with God, you go, Yes, the Lord's judgment is righteous and true and he will reign.

And if you're not, it's the most terrifying thing in the world.

Same kind of idea.

It all depends on our relationship with the Lord that determines whether that's comforting or terrifying.

So they could not seize him because they were.

They were powerless, no matter how many, no matter who, no matter their strategy, were powerless to subvert what Jesus had come to do.

And that is comforting because Jesus was not one of these good teachers who finally everything caught up to him and he slipped up and they were able to capture him and kill him.

Literally, his death was his plan, was the plan of the Father.

So was his resurrection.

So, with that, this is a really big deal that he was at the point where they were powerless to seize him.

Now what about, okay, what about the crowd?

Verse 31.

Many from the crowd believed in him and said, when the Messiah comes, he won't perform more signs than this man has done, will he?

So not to disillusion you at all, large crowds of humans do not tend to sound intelligent or make rational decisions.

So it's amazing how because this is again Jerusalem, big feast, all the good Jews come there.

We don't know how many of these same people in this crowd, a couple of feasts later, will also be shouting, crucify him.

So, look, we don't put a whole lot of faith in the crowd, but at that time it is interesting to see their response because they believe in him at this point.

And just the there's a there is a funny honesty in their response to him that they're basically like, Well, we got this guy here, and he does some pretty amazing stuff.

So even if the Messiah is coming later, I mean this is a pretty good deal, isn't it?

And it's basically one of those, is it's almost like they're buying a used car and they haven't found the model they were looking for, but this one has some really good features, so they're kind of tempted to go for it.

And it's kind of a weird response, but I don't I I the reason why I bring this up, the crowd response, is to what this does to the religious leaders.

That's the important part here.

Because throughout the Gospels, we see that the crowd is fickle, that they tend to be really enthusiastic and then really unenthusiastic, and then they're just kind of just shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, depending on which way the wind blows in that.

But there is one group in all of this tension that does not like that at all.

And that's the Pharisees here.

Verse 32.

The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things about him.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees sent servants to arrest him.

So they heard what?

They didn't hear what Jesus was teaching.

They heard the crowd murmuring about this guy, going, could this guy possibly be the Messiah?

And their initial response is, okay, now we have a problem.

Why?

Why on earth is this a problem?

Why are they so threatened about this?

It's a power struggle.

When it comes down to it, there is nothing in, this is a pretty bold statement, so this has been talking, not the Holy Spirit, but there's nothing that I see in the Gospels that indicates that the Pharisees are actually wanting the Messiah to come.

Because who's in charge right now?

They are.

They have the people, they have a system where they can control the people, they have a good deal with Herod, where they can get a little uh backing if they need to financially, in other words, otherwise.

It is at this point in time, the priesthood, the high priesthood, is basically a mob family for hire.

And there is an immense amount of background corruption in this, and one thing they don't want is the Messiah coming to free the people.

Because it's working out really well for them.

And so they're and ultimately they're threatened because the crowd is talking about Jesus, not about them.

It's 2,000 years later, media focus is all that matters.

2,000 years ago, same thing.

So, with that in mind, it is a power struggle here.

And why do I see this as well?

Because we see also in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark, later when they have arrested Jesus and he's before Pilate, that Pilate, the messed up Roman governor, is able to perceive that the reason they have handed Jesus over is envy.

Specifically uses this word, not uh protecting the orthodoxy, not self, not righteousness, not against the laws.

It was because of envy that they handed Jesus over to be crucified.

So this is the impetus of this crazy power struggle we see here.

So we see Jesus who has come from the Father from heaven to do his will.

We see the crowd that seems to be like, well, this is cool.

Okay, maybe it's not so cool.

He wants us to eat his body and drink his blood.

I'm not in on that.

Hey, this is cool.

And back and forth and back and forth.

And then you have the religious leaders that are immensely threatened by Jesus and are seeking to kill him.

What does this power struggle look like from the other side?

We continue in Ezekiel 34, and it says, This is what the Lord God says.

Look, I am against the shepherds.

I will demand my flock from them, and I will prevent them from shepherding the flock.

The shepherds will no longer feed themselves, for I will rescue my flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.

So here the Lord is prophesying, there is going to be a day where he comes against the shepherds of the flock, the people of Israel, directly and removes the flock from their care.

Beginning of Acts, you're going to see thousands upon thousands of people repent and believe in Jesus at a Jewish feast in Jerusalem here.

But ultimately, there is going to be there is no avoiding this collision between the religious leaders and Jesus.

And one side is powerless to exert their will upon the other.

And yet the other, ironically, is determined to not demonstrate his power on earth in what we would understand, but rather through dying and rising again.

So, with that in mind, there is a friction here that goes all the way back to the prophets and will continue forward.

So the Pharisees are very threatened by this.

And Jesus' response in verse 33, I'm only with you for a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me.

You will look for me, but you will not find me, and where I am, you cannot come.

He gives two statements here that fully display how powerless the religious leaders are over him.

Because he's saying, hey, I'm only going to be here for a short time.

And then I'm going to the one who sent me.

You will look for me, but you won't find me.

Where I'm going, you won't find me.

Not, I don't think you can, not there's a chance you won't be able to.

You have no hope of finding me there.

And then where I am, you cannot come.

So he's specifically telling these people who are powerless to arrest him, saying, You cannot find me where I go.

You cannot come where I go.

He is speaking of heaven, of the Father, of course, of eternity.

They do not understand this.

We'll see that in a moment.

But it is interesting that he is highlighting for them that they are also powerless to go to the place that they think they have secured by their own righteousness.

They think we're in.

Look at us.

We're good.

We do the things, we do the things, he does the thing, we good, we're good.

And Jesus is saying, not only are you unable to do that, but you are unable to go where I go.

Here's the ironic thing.

What would it take for them to go where he is going?

Belief.

Like the it is not like he is saying, you don't meet the requirements, you're not good enough, you're not cool enough, you don't have this or whatever.

All it would have taken was for them to actually humble themselves and repent and come to him, and this would not be true.

That's the irony in this, is it's not like he is saying, you can't come because I don't want you.

He is saying, you can't come because, as we saw through this whole book, you were not willing to come to Jesus.

Because that's all the one thing that it required is the one thing they won't do.

The uh often quoted C.

S.

Lewis quote in the problem of pain, the doors of hell are locked on the inside.

This idea that it is not like there is a group of people who are desperately hoping to come to the Savior, and He's like, nope, not you, nope, you smell weird, nope, not this way, nope, I don't know about you.

It's that the people who are not receiving Him are rejecting Him actively.

We see that all the way through, again, to the very end in the book of Revelation, where in the midst of the warnings and the judgment, the people are actually cursing God and hiding from him rather than repenting.

So, with that in mind, this is the tragic irony here for these religious leaders is the reason they can't find him, and the reason they can't come is because they just aren't willing to submit.

In the midst of that power struggle and that friction, they are unwilling to actually lay down their own perceived righteousness and accept his.

And look, we do the same thing.

The religious leaders here, we see that problem there, but it is highlighting the same thing that lives within us.

So just be very, very, very clear here.

It's just not like, hey, we're the smart Christians and they're the dumb Jews.

That is uh very much not the case here.

We should be seeing ourselves in these things, we should be seeing our own friction with the Savior in that.

We should be seeing our own threatened state within their threatening.

So, anyway, having that said, coming to the end here of this passage.

Here's something I want us to remember.

What are they celebrating right now?

Feast of Tabernacles.

Feast of Tabernacles, right?

Jesus God miraculously, Jesus is God.

Two points.

Uh God miraculously delivers Israel, brings them through the wilderness.

That's what they're celebrating.

Is they're wandering through the wilderness in tabernacles where the Lord guided them, right?

What happened at the end of that?

Well, Numbers 14 happened.

They get, because we sit there and we're like, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years.

No, not all, not initially.

They wandered in the wilderness for like a year.

And then they come to the promised land, and what happens in Numbers 14?

They refuse to enter the promised land.

God takes them right up to the border.

Twelve spies send out, they come back, ten of them are like, man, it's a great land, but there is no way we can take this.

Two spies, Joshua and Caleb, say, well, God can, so we should follow him.

And the people say, no.

No.

Number two, we're going back to Egypt.

Number three, we're going to kill Joshua, Caleb, and Moses.

Like, this is, you know, there's the rational thought.

Okay.

So it is amazing to see here that even in the feast that they're celebrating, the Feast of Tabernacles, the end of that story is they were not willing to follow Jesus, to follow God, and ultimately they perished.

They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years until that generation, minus Joshua and Caleb, were uh that generation died, and then Joshua and Caleb and a new generation entered into the land.

So it is interesting because that is a direct mirroring of the hearts of the Pharisees here.

They are not willing to enter in.

And that's the friction.

They don't want the Messiah, they want their own influence.

They want their power, their authority, their own perceived righteousness.

The crowd goes for whatever looks cool at the time, and Jesus is on a mission from God to come and actually do the will of the Father.

So, the final chunk here.

The Jews said to another in verse 35, where does he intend to go so we won't find him?

He doesn't intend to go to the Jewish people dispersed among the Greeks.

Here version might say the diaspora, and teach the Greeks, does he?

What is this remark he made?

You will look for me and you will not find me.

Where I am, you cannot come.

So, of course, they do not understand.

They're like, What?

Where's he going that we won't find him?

He's not he's not going out there, is he?

He's not going out to the other, is he?

Because what is the whole point of this?

All going in to Jerusalem.

Come in, stay here, go here, all on the outside, are uh apostate.

And so he's like, he's not gonna go to the rest of these people who were scattered, is he?

That would be weird.

And wait a second, he's not going to teach the Greeks, is he?

And then you could kind of see if Jesus heard that, being like, funny, you should ask.

Because uh this is what we see in here.

Two different things.

Number one, why wouldn't they find him if he went out there?

It indicates they ain't going out there.

The Jew, like basically the Jews scattered among the Greeks and the Greeks are of absolutely no concern.

Because what is the concern for this setup is Jerusalem.

It's all about building into this thing.

Um, the fancy church words of this, there's this idea of incarnational and attractional.

And so an attractional church will seek to have tell everybody come in, come in, come in, everything's in here, everything out there is scary, don't go out there, stay in here.

An incarnational will go out, out of the walls, into their community.

And that is a huge broad brush.

Both of them have strengths and weaknesses.

There's not a good or a bad with that, it's just different approaches with that.

But it's an idea to see here.

One thing that's interesting is Jesus goes out, goes outside that area.

He spends a lot of time in Galilee.

When the religious leaders sent, like we're thinking about John the Baptist, they didn't actually, for the most part, go.

They sent servants to go, hey, what's up with that guy up there?

So, why wouldn't that happen?

So, think about the juxtaposition between them targeting all the good Jews in Jerusalem for the feast and them going, wait, is Jesus going to go out there?

And then you could see him being like, haha, yeah, actually.

And then there is a juxtaposition here that they would never go to the Greeks, the Gentiles, but Jesus' salvation will be brought to the Gentiles, as we see in the book of Acts.

A couple things that we're rounding the corner here.

Can when we see in Ezekiel 34, what's Jesus going to do?

This is what the Lord God says.

See, I myself will search for my flock and look for them.

As a shepherd looks for his sheep on the day he is among his scattered flock, so I will look for my flock.

I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and total darkness.

I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, bring them to their own soil.

I will shepherd them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, in the inhabited places of the land, I will tend them in the good pasture.

Their grazing place will be the Israel's lofty mountains.

They will lie down in a good grazing place, feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

I will tend my flock and let them lie down.

This is the declaration of the Lord God.

Why on earth did I bring in Ezekiel 34 when it started out all the way back with captivity?

Because it culminates in Jesus and him shepherding, going after the scattered.

And we see that in John 10, 16.

I have other sheep that are not from the sheep pen.

I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

There will be one flock, one shepherd.

Even a couple chapters later, he's going to be alluding that it's like, it's this is a much bigger family than you think it is, by the way.

And we see that played out in Romans 9, 30 verse through verses 33.

What should we say then?

The Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness, namely the righteousness that comes from faith.

But Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law.

Why?

Because they didn't pursue it by faith, but as it were by works.

They stumbled over the stumbling stone.

As it is written, look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over, and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame.

And that's the beauty of this chunk in this whole passage, is ultimately when they're like, Where is he going?

And he's going, he's saying, like, heaven to the Father, but they're like, He's not going to go to the Jews among the Greeks, is he?

He's not going to go to the Greeks, is he?

And ultimately, the good shepherd is going to seek out sheep that are not his, that are not of this normal pen.

And he's going to seek the Gentiles who were not even seeking him and bring them in.

Because at this point, Israel, embodied by the religious leaders, were stumbling over Jesus and were not willing to come in.

That's what we see in this passage.

It's not so much Jesus giving us a big sermon that we can take huge, like, okay, he says this, he says this.

We see instead the behind the scenes.

The religious leaders, what do they want?

They want their influence.

And do I believe, like, that they truly thought they were doing the right thing?

Yes.

I mean, I don't think that there's like mustache twirling villains here who were like, all we care about is the bottom line.

It morphs that way, but I think they truly believe that they were doing what was right in the process.

Yeah, that's the problem, is sometimes you can believe you're doing the right thing and do the wrong thing.

That's a part of human nature.

But then the crowd is looking and going, like, hey, could he be the Messiah?

That's cool.

Um, and then we see they believe in him.

We'll see how long that is.

And then Jesus consistently, the same message over and over and over that he has come to seek and to save.

Not to set up his kingdom, not to um an interesting thing, he's not here to usurp the Romans, he's here to usurp the religious leaders and to bring his flock back, and we see that in the book of Acts blowing up at Pentecost, where they all gather for Pentecost, and then Jesus uh actually uh the Holy Spirit falls on them, and thousands upon thousands repent.

And then it goes to the Gentiles and continues outward with that.

So, just in conclusion here, um God's sovereignty as it's portrayed here, they are unable to exert their will on Jesus.

Jesus's mission is unstoppable.

Is that comforting or is that threatening that God is sovereign?

Here's why I say that.

Because if we look at it through the lens of God is good, then we when we look at God acting in this way, we are comforted.

Because if God is good and he cannot be stopped, then he does what is good ultimately.

If we question, is God good?

And then, wait, he can't be stopped, what does that mean for me?

It is an interesting thing that centers around the question of do I believe truly that God is good?

And He is the good shepherd, as we'll see from some of the chapters we were referencing in John 10.

He is good.

But that's the core of the question of how we then encounter Jesus.

Because if that's the case, we would be able to trust him to surrender our lives to him, to put faith in him.

But also, something to remember too is at this moment, God's unstoppable sovereignty looks like them being unable to arrest him.

Stick around for a few months till we get to the end of the book, and God's unstoppable sovereignty looks like him being crucified.

Paul's, the sovereignty upon Paul's life looked really, really good when he kept not dying.

I don't want his life.

Like, you know, also the Lord's sovereignty brought him to an immense amount of suffering and pain.

You'll look, I mean, it's it's a constant thing with that.

That do we accept those good parts?

And basically, do we think that God is here to make us an unstoppable force in comfort?

Or do we trust that even in the horrible times, God's sovereignty and his goodness means that we are safe, even when it doesn't feel that way.

There's just something to process in that because in the midst of this power struggle and this threatening, I really saw that theme through there.

But ultimately, it all, spoiler alert, comes back to Jesus.

Everything comes back to Jesus.

And not only is the salvation process before the foundations of the world laid out, but it requires us coming to him and receiving that and walking through that.

In order to do that, we need to trust that he is good.

And we need to be willing to put down our own agendas with that.

So, all coming back to Jesus, but we get to see a little bit of that background in the thing.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your goodness.

I thank you that you are trustworthy in all things.

That your sovereignty is not scary because you are good.

I thank you that your love is so great that you offered your only son as a sacrifice for our sins.

Sinless, so that our sin could be blayed upon him and the price be paid, and his sinlessness be imputed to us.

I thank you for that gift.

I ask that we would walk in that, that we would walk in greater trust of you as a result, that we would not be threatened by you, that we would not be swayed by the opinions of the masses that wave to and fro like wheat, but that we would be anchored on you and content in you, and knowing you are good.

For those of you who have not given your life to Jesus, not surrendered to him, it is as simple as confession and belief.

And Lord, I ask by your spirit that you would work on hearts to do so, that you would move and convict of sin, that you would move to want to desire that salvation, and that they would turn to you as a result.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.