No Trivial Matter

And turn, oh, sorry, Children’s
Church is dismissed. Please take your Bibles, turn
back to John chapter 7. John chapter 7. We essentially
pick up where we left off last week’s day. Jesus has been away
from Jerusalem for almost six months. John doesn’t record it, and it
seems that there’s a seamless transition from chapter 6 to
chapter 7. But there’s actually six months
worth of activity that John does not choose to capture. Matthew
captures the greatest amount of it. There are many different
minutes If you want a little bit more
detail, Mark chapter 7 through 9. And if you want the fullest
treatment of what takes place between chapter 6 of John and
chapter 7, Matthew’s gospel, had informed Christ of this timetable. Jesus knew well of it, and He’s
not going to circumvent the Father’s plan. His plan is the Father’s
plan. And so He withdraws from Jerusalem. We saw the ministry in Samaria.
We saw a lengthy ministry outside of Jerusalem. And now Jesus reenters. We’ll go all the way through
verse 31 this morning. Some of that by way of review,
the first nine verses, and then we’ll delve into the matter that
we’re going to cover this morning. After these things, Jesus was
walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea, because
the Jews were seeking to kill Him. Now the Feast of the Jews,
the Feast of Booth, these things, show yourself to
the world, for not even his brothers are believing in you. So Jesus
said to them, my time is not yet here, but your time is always
up with me. The world cannot hate you. It
hates me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the beast yourselves.
I do not go up to this beast because my time has not yet fully
come. And he said these things, he
stayed in Galilee. But, when his brothers had gone
up to the peaks, then… Yet no one was speaking openly
of him for fear of the Jews. But when it was now in the midst
of the feast, Jesus went up to the temple and began to teach.
The Jews then were astonished, saying, how has this man become
learned, having never been educated? So Jesus answered them and said,
my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone is
willing to do his will, he will know of the teaching, whether
it is of God or whether I speak from myself. He who speaks from
himself seeks his own glory. He who is seeking the glory of
the one who sent him, he is true. There is no unrighteousness in
him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you carries
out the law? Why do you seek to kill me? God
answered, you have a demon. Who seeks to kill you? Jesus
answered them, I did one deed, and you’ve all marveled. For
this reason, Moses has given you circumcision. Not because
it is for Moses, but from the fathers. And on the Sabbath,
you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision
on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses will not be broken,
Are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on
the Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance,
but judge with righteous judgment. So some of the people in Jerusalem
were saying, is this not the man whom they are seeking to
kill? teaching and saying, ìYou both
know Me and know where I am from, and I have not come of Myself,
but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him because
I am from Him, and He sent Me.î So they were seeking to seize
Him, and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had
not yet come. believed in him, and they were
saying, when the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs
than those which this man has, will he? We entered into chapter 7 last
week, which passage or section I entitled, Divine into the plans, secret plans
of the Almighty. Jesus gathers His own family
together and begins to pull back the cover a little bit to allow
them to see God’s great plan. He allowed them to see, first
of all, the setting of Revelation. That the Jews were seeking to
kill Him. They knew well that Christ We looked at the prompter to
that revelation, that the Feast of the Jews was near, the Festival
of Booths, one of the biggest celebrations of the year, and
his brothers were urging Christ to go and immerse himself in
that, and really to call the question on whether or not their
brother was indeed who he claimed to be. And then we saw the details
of that revelation, him informing them that his time, that is the
time for him to manifest himself and ultimately to manifest himself
for the purpose of offering himself as a sacrifice, his time had
not yet come. And so he informs even his own
brothers that his time had not yet come. And as that circle of influence
increases, he does indeed go up to Jerusalem eventually. And
as that circle increases, he has divine revelation for even
those detractors, those who are so hatefully against him. Verses
10 through 14 are essentially a transitional passage. And though Jesus told them that
he did not intend to go up to the feast at that moment, he
ultimately makes the decision to go up. And it just says, sometime. We don’t know exactly when he
went up. Verse 14 says it was in the midst
of the feast. I found it amusing to see some
commentators spend so much time dialoguing arguing really over
exactly what day Jesus chose to go. We don’t know. The Jews were ultimately waiting
for him. They were seeking him actively,
verse 11 says, wondering out loud where he was. The rest of
the crowd who also knew of Christ, some of them were quite contrary
to Christ. Some of them were very much against
Christ. Some thought that he was a good
man, others felt like he was a subversive, that he was a heretic
of sorts, leading the people astray. And yet everything was
under hushed tones, everything was under the breath, so to speak.
They did not dare to speak of Christ, especially not affirmatively,
because of the Jewish leaders. But now suddenly, The feast is
underway, whether it’s day two, day three, day four, we don’t
know. It’s in the midst of the feast. The feast is well underway. And what follows is a discourse
in the midst of this feast in which a number of different groups
are present. And it’s very difficult to determine
who is present at all times and who kind of comes and goes. You
have the Jews, which are spoken of just very generally in 14-24,
very likely pointing to the Jewish religious leaders, the elite,
the Pharisees, scribes. The Lord, whom they were seeking,
they were lying in wait, as it were, actively seeking Christ,
all of a sudden Jesus suddenly shows up in the temple. John records here in these verses
that Jesus begins to give a discourse. It’s the first time. The first
time that he visited the temple, you remember, flip back to John
chapter 2 just briefly. The first time that Jesus was
in the temple, it was a very different scene. It was a confrontation. And it turned, you know, from
our perspective, ugly, if you will. Look at verse 13 of chapter
2, the Passover of the Jews was near. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those
who were selling oxen and sheep and doves and the money changers
seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords
and drove them all out of the temple with the sheep and the
oxen. He poured out the coins of the money changers. He overturned
their tables. And those who were selling doves,
He said, take these things away. Stop making My Father’s house
a place of business. His disciples remembered that
it was written, zeal for your house will consume you. Well,
Jesus doesn’t exactly open up the Bible and begin a five-point
sermon message. You could call that a lesson
of sorts. You could say that he taught,
in a sense, but it wasn’t a didactic lesson, if you will. incident here recorded in John
chapter 7 is the first time that Jesus really takes opportunity
to really teach in the temple. And so the Jews are present,
the Jewish religious elite, and then chapter 7 verse 25 records
that some of the people of Jerusalem, we know that they’re present
and at times they kind of come and go, verses 25 through 27, And then ultimately we will see
envoys from the Sanhedrin in verse 32 through 36. We’ll see
them kind of come, but we know they’re working. We know they’re
all about. And so we have this very strange
scene. We have Jesus withdrawing from
Jerusalem because He knows people are seeking to kill Him. He tells
His brothers that He’s not going up, and then He goes up, as it
were, in secret And of all things He begins to teach in the temple.
Christ has a purpose in all of this. And just as He pulled the
cover off to His disciples, Jesus Christ does not want to hide
ultimately who He is or what His mission is. He faces a series
of challenges to His ministries. Perhaps you’ve discovered, as
I have, that not every battle needs to be fought. Not every
argument needs to be entered into. That’s part of the wisdom
in a good marriage, I think. That not every argument needs
to be conducted. I think we learn more about life
As we learn more about life, we begin to set aside things
that don’t need to be said, and only the most important things
come to the surface, and those are the things that we really
take up. What about from Jesus Christ Himself? If we were to
ponder and look through the Gospels, there are many, many arguments
that Jesus didn’t take up. Even standing before Pilate,
who thought that he held Christ’s life and well-being in his hand,
Jesus didn’t even obligate himself to speak to Pilate. There were
many arguments that Jesus didn’t enter into. The argument between
the two young men arguing over their family inheritance. Who
appointed me arbiter and judge, Jesus said. There are many arguments
that Jesus didn’t take up. There are many opportunities
that Jesus eschewed. And yet, in this particular setting,
the most unlikely of settings, which we’ve already identified,
these are those waiting to kill him. He’s challenged repeatedly. And on each of these occasions,
he says, this is worth argument. This is worth challenging. It was no trivial matter for
his detractors to bring up these things and no sooner do they
challenge him, Jesus answers the challenge. The first of which
is the challenge to his teaching. Look at verse 15. It’s the challenge
to his teaching. The Jews were astonished They
heard Christ. They saw what He was doing. And
they said, how can this man become learned? How has this man become
learned, having never been educated? See, these guys ran the schools.
They ran the so-called seminaries. They knew exactly who had been
trained. They hand-picked them. They walked
with them for years and years and years in a very formal process
of training. And all of a sudden, Jesus comes
onto the scene, and they must have been somewhat impressed
with his capability. Exactly what the doctrine was,
it isn’t exposed in full, but it was intriguing to them. It
was somewhat impressive to them. It wasn’t so much his doctrine
that stirred their hearts. They were quite surprised, though,
that he would be teaching at all. What excited them, really
what bothered them, is that he was doing this teaching, and
that he was doing so well, and that they didn’t have a hand
in it. They would have loved to take some of the credit. Well,
he went to our seminary. But instead, what they want to
criticize is this man has never, he didn’t go through our program.
He didn’t get a degree. He didn’t go to the properly
accredited institution. The Pharisees and the Scribes,
they were all tied to particular schools. Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi
Gamaliel, they all had their particular angle at the Scriptures. They’re all looking at Christ
and saying, He didn’t go to my school. Did He go to your school? He didn’t go anywhere. return to Luke chapter 2. Here’s
where Christ reveals that He is no ordinary seminary student. He is no ordinary trainee in
the religious instruction. Luke chapter 2 records a very
fascinating event. Look at verse 41. Now His parents
went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.
When He became twelve, Most 12-year-olds are concerned
with, you know, what sport they’re going to play, you know, whether
this frog that they caught is going to give them warts, what
have you. When he became 12, they went
up there according to the custom of the feast, and as they were
returning, and after spending a number of days, the boy Jesus
stayed behind in Jerusalem. But his parents were unaware
of it. but supposed him to be in the caravan. And when a day’s
journey, they began looking for him among their relatives and
acquaintances. When they did not find him, they
returned to Jerusalem looking for him. Then after three days,
they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers,
both listening to them and asking questions. And all who heard
him were amazed at his understanding and at his answers. This is Jesus
Christ at 12 years old. Perhaps even some of those that
are now seeing him teaching in the temple, perhaps they recall
doubtful. But it’s this Jesus. It’s this
Jesus who was taught of God. He was taught through the divine
counsels these things. Granted, like any child, Jesus,
it’s said, had to grow up in wisdom and stature. Jesus had
to essentially learn these things from a human standpoint. But ultimately, his knowledge,
his wisdom, came not from a seminary, not from a particular school,
not from a rabbi, but from Almighty God and from the divine counsels. Dr. John, if you would. Their suggestion, their insinuation,
as they challenge and wonder aloud where on earth this guy’s
coming from, where did he get all this, they’re criticizing
the man. Suggesting that he’s just operating
as a loner. Giving his own personal opinions,
giving his own view of things. And they’re very suspicious of
Him. This is worth exposing to Christ. This is worth challenging. This is worth arguing. And Jesus
gives defense of His teaching, beginning in verse 16. Jesus
answered and said, My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent
Me. Just like everything that Christ
did, His mission, His timing, His teaching, It was God the
Father’s. And it was woven in the divine
counsel. They looked at Christ as one
of these self-taught, one of these marvels. They were impressed
with His ability, perhaps His ability to argue and articulate. But what they were unimpressed
with is that He wasn’t tied to any one of their particular schools.
And so they claimed that his doctrine was of his own invention.
And they wanted to know from whom he got these things. Jesus Christ wasn’t taught by
man. He wasn’t self-taught. It was
part of the divine counsel that Jesus held to these truths. Not only had he received these
things, from His Father, but He had also been sent by that
same Heavenly Father to communicate these things. Look at verse 17,
if anyone is willing to do His will, He will know of the teaching,
whether it is of God or whether I speak for myself. What Jesus
says here is just so astounding. He said, if you just pause, and
listened to yourself for a moment and paused long enough to hear
me out, you would know whether this teaching is true and legitimate
or not. If you were really about the
Father’s business, if you really were longing for righteousness,
you would recognize my teaching. And he basically says that one
of the prerequisites for knowing the nature of his teaching to
be able to evaluate it and evaluate it correctly was a heart of obedience. A heart that looked to God, not
for what God would give, but for what God desired from them. Jesus addressed this. Jesus addressed
this in Luke chapter 10. He rejoiced greatly in the Holy
Spirit and said, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You
have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and
have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, this was well pleasing
in Your sight.” Jesus says, essentially, He issues here a call to humility. To those who are seeking to kill
Him, He’s calling them to humility, and He basically utters that
recurring theme throughout the scriptures that God is opposed
to the proud, but He gives grace to the humble. And He says if
you were just humble enough, if you were to humble yourself,
if you were really seeking after righteousness, if you really
wanted to do God’s will, you would know the nature of this
teaching. You would know When Jesus says, if anyone is
willing to do His will, it’s not this slavish, mechanical
performance of God’s will that somehow obligates God to give
more. That if we just have a good day,
or if these people were just to obey the law, the Jewish law,
so effectively that God would be obligated, that’s not at all.
It’s a desire. It’s a desire to know and walk
with God. It’s a desire to please God.
It’s a love relationship, not a law relationship. Look at verse
18. Jesus begins to separate out.
He’s already pointed them to the truth, and now He wants to
prove that. He wants to prove that He’s not
operating on His own. He who speaks from Himself seeks
His own glory. And Jesus had repeatedly told
them that He was about the Father’s glory, the Father’s plan, the
Father’s great plan of redemption, not His own. He who speaks from
Himself seeks His own glory, but he who is seeking the glory
of the One who sent Him, He is true and there is no unrighteousness
in Him. This particular truth really
has to, it has to refer to Christ only. He who speaks from himself,
seeks his own glory, that much is true of every person. But
he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true.
And you know, I don’t know many pastors that would stand up here
and, first of all, speak of themselves, but they would all claim, everybody
that I know, would claim to be Pursuing God’s glory, and yet
we know that not every man who takes the pulpit or teaches is
right all of the time. This is talking about Christ. The one who seeks the glory of
the Father, the one who sent Him, He is true. Only Jesus is
the legitimate teacher. As one said, if the glory of God is the listener’s
ideal, He will be able to detect whether it is the speaker’s ideal. Would a self-appointed prophet
do what Jesus was doing? Would He show in all His words
and actions that He is seeking the glory of the sender? Jesus
just uses this simple logic to say, Your model, your criticism
doesn’t even make sense. If I was a proud loner, why would
I be constantly giving glory to God himself? Then Jesus zeroes
in in verse 19 on their hearts. Look at verse 19. Did not Moses
give you the law, and yet none of you carries out the law? Jesus
had already issued this indictment. Moses, Moses already was condemning
him. Christ said, Matthew 5, 45, Do
not think that I will accuse you before the Father. The one
who accuses you is Moses. They were not living according
to the law. Moses ultimately would be their
accuser. It didn’t even need to be Christ.
They were always boasting about being disciples of Moses himself,
sitting in Moses’ seat, being of the law. They had the law. They had the
civil law, the ceremonial law, the moral law summarized by the
Ten Commandments. They have positioned themselves
as the keepers of the law. They have positioned themselves
essentially as the owners of the law. And Jesus said, you
say that you are the keepers of the law, but you don’t live
by it. And he offers one simple proof.
You say that you’re keepers of the law, and yet you’re lying
in wait to kill. None of you carries out the law,
and not one of you This was worth fighting for.
This was worth arguing. They criticized Christ’s teaching. The eternal one. The one who
had taken on flesh to come down to earth. They dared to criticize
his understanding. They dared to criticize his knowledge,
his teaching. They dared to challenge and say
that He didn’t earn it through proper channels. But there’s another challenge
waiting, and this one is worth fighting for as well. This one
is also worth answering. Not only the challenge in defense
of His teaching, but Jesus answers the challenge to His healing. In verse 20, the crowd answered
and said, to kill you. And in the first place you have
this, I mean, I can’t even think of a worse challenge to issue
to someone. To suggest that they’re demon
possessed. But on top of that you have this
utter deceit. Jesus knew their hearts. And
now many people, as we’ll see in a moment, many people know
their plan. Many people know what they are
plotting. And they suggest that Jesus is
so nervous, so overly concerned about this,
that he must be demon possessed. This wasn’t the first time that
he was possessed. such, John 10 20, he has a demon,
he’s insane, why are you listening to him? They said the same thing
about John the Baptist. But the amazing thing is they
use this to deny innocently, polishing their halos to suggest
that, you know, who’s seeking to kill you? that they were not keeping the
Law. And they challenged Him. They
challenged this fallout really from the healing that was done
at Bethesda. The healing of the crippled man
that was done on the Lord’s day, done on the Sabbath. They challenged
that whole thing. Which ultimately then led to
them desiring to put Christ to death. And now they’re claiming
innocence in that. Look at verse 21. Jesus answered
them and said, I did one deed, and you all marveled. And he points back to the incident
in John 5, the healing at Bethesda. That created such a stir, no
pun intended. The healing of this man done
on the Sabbath led to a plot to kill Christ. The leaders, it became so well
known that it filtered out to the people in the city. That
one deed performed on the Sabbath, that was the whole driving point
of putting Christ to death, that he dared and challenged to do something on the Sabbath.
Look at verse 22. For this reason Moses has given
you circumcision, not because it is from Moses, but from the
fathers. And on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives
circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not
be broken, are you angry with me because I made an entire man
well on the Sabbath? You see, Jesus goes all the way
back to the incident in John chapter 5 months earlier. He knows exactly what’s in their
heart and so do they. And Jesus challenges their logic. You see, the law of Moses, and
Jesus just points out that they already knew well, the law of
Moses required that every infant boy be circumcised exactly on
the eighth day following his birth. And what Jesus points
out here is the logical conundrum that arises What happens if that
circumcision falls on the Sabbath? You know, boys born Saturday all
the way through Thursday, they’re totally fine. We can do the circumcision
right any time. But boys that were born on Friday
presented this immediate dilemma, this conundrum. Because no matter
the calendar, eight days later it falls on a Sabbath. The interesting thing is, the
law of Moses certainly seems to allow a circumcision to be
performed on the Saturday, but it essentially required circumcision
regardless of the day, even though the Sabbath laws seemed to forbid
it. Jesus’ simple little argument
here stipulates that the sign be performed,
how on earth could they possibly object to Jesus healing a man
in entirety on the Sabbath? It’s brilliant reasoning. It’s
godly reasoning. Commentator Summer summed it
up this way, if ceremonial cleansing of one member of the body is
permitted on the Sabbath, then would actual healing of the entire
body be forbidden on the Sabbath? Of course, they were dumbfounded
with the argument. They couldn’t answer that. They couldn’t even
enter into that. Saturday, the Sabbath, then the
rite should be honored. The sign of the covenant was
given as a token of this child being set aside and set apart. That it should not be postponed
until another day and Jesus basically says this is utter hypocrisy. You practice this rite, you’ve
held to this rite, admonition, which is basically
a challenge to their hypocrisy. Do not judge according to appearance,
but judge with righteous judgment. Let’s be just about it. Let’s
be fair. Let’s be accurate. Let’s be consistent,
shall we? That if you’re going to practice
this religious right on the Sabbath, how on earth can you be plotting
my murder because I healed a man on the Sabbath. There’s a third challenge. Jesus
is facing these challenges, and every one thus far, He has seen
fit to answer the challenge, to respond to it, to take up
the argument. They are challenges to His ministry
that He could not in good conscience ignore. These were no trivial
matters. not only a challenge and a defense
to His teaching, a challenge and a defense of His healing,
but the third one that we see is a challenge and a defense
of His origin, where He came from. Look at verse 25. Some of the
people of Jerusalem were saying, is this not the man who they
are seeking to kill? He’s speaking publicly, and they’re
saying nothing to him. The rulers do not really know
that this is the Christ, do they? However, we know where this man
is from, but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where
he is from. This rings obtuse to
our ears. We don’t really grasp all that’s
going on, at least on the face of it. Let’s examine it, ponder it for
a moment. When it says some of the people
of Jerusalem, these would be now the crowds, perhaps the townspeople,
those that had come in for the Festival of Booths, those that
were looking on. They knew of this whole hubbub. They knew that the religious
leaders were seeking to kill this man. They maybe didn’t know
everything about it, but they knew of the plot. The last thing that they would
imagine of Christ is that He would present Himself publicly.
The last thing that they would have assumed is that He would
take this prominent position on so prominent a day, in so
prominent a festival. Isn’t this Then they notice that even though
He was speaking publicly, nobody was taking any action. They weren’t
doing anything. And what they wonder aloud is,
perhaps they’re recognizing that He’s the Messiah. Perhaps this
is the Christ. There in verse 26. Then the people recoil. This can’t
possibly be the Christ. And what they revert to in verse
27 is this kind of a principle, not based on any scripture. It was based on a tradition that
the Messiah’s origin would be completely unknown. We wouldn’t
know where He was actually from. Which, as I said, isn’t even
biblical. We’ve looked at Matthew’s gospel
in times past, in chapter 2. There’s kind of a conundrum there,
because he was thought to have been born in Bethlehem, and there
are scriptures that point to that. There was the weeping in
Ramah, and so was he from Ramah, and he was going to come out
of Egypt? Was he out of Egypt? There was a lot of confusion
about Christ, but there was this one tradition that said, we don’t
know where He’s going to be from, but we know about Jesus. This
little argument is simple. Nobody knows where the real Messiah
is even going to come from, but we know where Jesus comes from,
therefore He cannot be the real Messiah. It’s a very simple argument. We know His hometown. We know
His parents. We know all about him. This isn’t
the Messiah. People knew that Jesus was from
Galilee. They knew kind of what region
he was from. Many people probably even knew
his parents by name. But the Messiah, you know, he
was supposed to be this mysterious figure from Bethlehem, a conqueror. Jesus’ point is, you don’t know
me at all. Look at verse 28. Jesus cried out in the temple
teaching and saying, you both know me and know where I am from. You think you know. You think
you have it all figured out, and you don’t have the first
clue. You both know me and where I
am from, and I have not come of myself. And he begins to point
to his arrival from heaven itself, sent
by God. When it says that Jesus cried
out, this is a passionate appeal. Jesus likely raised his voice. He intensely communicated these
things. You both know me and know where
I am from. And I have not come of myself. I’m not operating on my own timetable. I’m not operating on my own agenda. He basically affirms what they
say, insofar as they know Him. But they don’t really know His
divine commissioning. They don’t really know that He’s
set by legalistic, materialistic citizens
of Jerusalem would actually know Him and His origin. The same
people were so certain that Jesus could not be the promised Messiah,
regarded Him to be a self-appointed prophet. That was their criticism
of Christ, that He just showed up. speaking of many men who enter
the ministry, they said, He said that some is sent, others just
went. That’s what they were accusing
Christ. He wasn’t sent by anybody, He wasn’t ordained by anybody,
He wasn’t affirmed by anybody, He just went. Jesus says, I have
not come of myself, but He who sent me is true. That word there
means true, real, genuine. The One who sent me had the only
authority to send. He had the most perfect authority
to send the Savior into the world. And instead of coming on His
own, taking matters into His own hand, driving His own agenda,
Jesus Christ was the only divinely commissioned One ever sent. by
the Father. Jesus says, I know Him intimately. We are intimately acquainted,
face-to-face with God, as John 1 said. I know Him because I
am from Him, and He sent me. That little word there is, I,
is emphatic. It’s in contrast to their knowledge.
You don’t really know anything, but I know Him. Jesus Christ knew the Father
because of His divine generation from the Father. He came from
the Father, and God the Father had given Him His mission. And
Jesus Christ knew it. This was worth fighting for.
This was worth arguing. Not every argument is. Not even
to the Lord Jesus Christ every argument isn’t worth taking up. But these three were. When His
teaching was challenged, Jesus faced that challenge and defended
His teaching. When they challenged His healing,
Jesus faced that challenge and defended His healing. When they
challenged His origin, Jesus faced that challenge and defended
His origin. And because of all this, it basically
just, it affirms and confirms in their hearts their entire
plan. Look at verse 30. So they were
seeking to seize Him. Because He defended these things,
because He defended Himself in His teaching, because He defended
His healing on a Sabbath, because He defended His claim that He
had come from the Father. Because of that, so. So they
were seeking to seize him. And yet, almost inexplicably,
you hear John tell the story, John was astounded. They were
seeking to seize him. It’s almost like, you know, you’ve
heard of grasping at jello. It’s almost, they were trying
to arrest him. They were actively trying to
capture him. And yet, no man laid his hand
on him. Some people, it was quite interesting,
some commentaries suggested that there was, you know, his apostles
helped him or others were complicitous and squiring him out of the city,
secreting him away. John tells us why they couldn’t
seize him. He tells us plainly. They were
seeking to seize Him, and yet no man laid his hand on Him,
because His hour had not yet come. This was in the sovereign
plan of God. The hour for His appointed passion,
which Jesus isn’t afraid of. Jesus came for this very purpose.
Jesus will be there. When it’s the Father’s time,
Jesus is going nowhere. Because the whole reason they
couldn’t seize Christ is because it wasn’t time yet. But the clock
is ticking. The time will come. But for now
Jesus is in no danger, no real danger. Because it’s not in the
Father’s timetable yet. Verse 31. introduces us to another
conundrum that we’ll take up next Lord’s Day. Many of the
crowd believed in Him. They watched this whole thing
unfold. They heard the teaching. They heard the defense. They
saw these challenges. They saw the heart of those that
were trying to arrest Him. For some people it was confirming.
For some people they saw and heard. They witnessed Christ
stand before His detractors and they believed in Him. And yet
with some of them there was a seed of doubt. Many of the crowd believed in
him, and they were saying, when the Christ comes, he will
not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?
Even yet, there was doubt. Even yet, they were hedging their
bets. We’d like to believe. We’d heard the truth, expounded
to it. This was a very good presentation. But isn’t there going to be something
more? Isn’t there going to be something
more definitive? For some, there never will. There never will be enough information,
there never will be enough truth, there never will be enough of
the miracles, enough of the testimony of Christ Himself. We thank you that you so gently
laid out to your own brothers, you opened up and revealed to
them a peek at the divine plan, that these things were not accidental,
that you had a clear design in them, that you were submitted
to your Father’s will. And Lord, we thank you that you
preserved this particular incident. that Jesus walked right into
the teeth of the machinery of those who were seeking to kill
Him. And instead of remaining silent and letting them face
their doom, you preached to them once again. You revealed to them
who you were. You defended your teaching. You
defended your healing. You defended your divine origin. chapter 9, where Jesus not only
healed the blind man, but then he went seeking him again. Seeking
him to heal his spiritual blindness. Our merciful God, we who have
come to know the Lord Jesus You came looking for us, and
you brought us to repentance. It’s the same spirit that we
see. You could have remained silent on any one of these challenges,
or all of them collectively. Yet, you, out of your merciful
heart, preached the gospel to them. You were a divine teacher. You did divine healings, because
you were sent. from the side of the Father Himself.
Lord, if there are any in the room who do not know Christ,
this is the heart of the Savior. This is the reason that He answered
those questions, those challenges. We pray that You would do Your
work in the heart of any who do not know You. It’s in Jesus’
name that we pray. We close with you take your bulletins
and let’s stand together and sing his praise.