So, John 7, and we're moving forward in John,
making progress, the sixth chapter of John,
just
almost incomparable to any other chapter in
all Scripture as we just went through it. I
hope you
learned as much as I did from going through it
again. I could preach it again right now. I
could
start over in 6-1, but in this seventh chapter
, let me kind of give you the view of where we
are. As always, you can look on the screen or
you can follow along in your Bible. If you
have a
Bible with a map in it, I would encourage you
to turn open to that just to kind of reference
it,
because I'm going to give you a little bit of
geography here. Galilee is the area that is
north
of Judea. Judea is the area where Jerusalem is
located. Galilee is north of Judea, due north.
That's where Nazareth and Capernaum and
everything is. Jesus has been ministering in
Galilee at this point in the Gospel of John
for about a year. Now, as we enter into
chapter 7,
he's going to be making that transition back
down to Judea where his ministry originally
started. As we return to Judea with Jesus, we
find that the picture there is not good.
What we will encounter here in chapter 7 and
then into chapter 8 is an escalating,
pure kind of hatred for Jesus. The thing that
literally it just
in escalates as time moves on to this really
intense hatred for Jesus. We know that for
over
a year now, as we saw especially in 6, Jesus
has been going all around Galilee and he's
been preaching
and teaching and healing and doing all these
amazing miracles on a very, very regular basis
.
By this point, there's just been thousands and
thousands of people. Remember, he's been a
total
of over 25,000 in that miracle when he
produced food out of thin air and he's been
away from Judea
and Jerusalem in the South all this time, but
the hatred for him down in Judea, especially
Jerusalem where the Pharisees and religious
leaders are, that hatred has been smoldering
for him
ever since he left. It hasn't diminished at
all. In fact, it's probably worse, but God's
reports
have been coming back from spies that were
sent by the leaders into Galilee
and they come back to Judea and to Jerusalem
with the reports about the impact of the
ministry.
Imagine when the spies come back to the
religious leaders, you won't believe this,
there was probably
25,000 people out here just being produced
food for all these people. So as we come to
chapter 7,
the desire on part of the religious leaders to
have Jesus literally murdered is probably
stronger now than ever and we know that they
already wanted to kill him. If you remember,
we saw that earlier when he was in Judea
because back in chapter 5, verse 18, before he
went to
Galilee, still in Judea, they said this for
this reason, "Therefore the Jews were seeking
all the
more to kill him." So it was already getting
ramped up before he even went to Galilee,
but the more miracles and the more followers
and the more crowds, the angrier they are
getting.
That's the reason why he went to Galilee in
the first place. And while he's been in Gal
ilee as this
rage builds from these reports, we're fixing
to see this transition take place as he goes
back. So
chapter 7, we see Jesus returning to Judea,
but he does so secretly, as we're going to see
in
just a moment. And as he goes into Judea,
remember that's the area as a whole, he stays
out of Jerusalem
proper, the city, for a number of months until
finally with this intense hatred still escal
ating,
there comes that point where in the prophetic
word of God that was prophesied in the Old
Testament,
he makes that triumphal entry into Jerusalem
with shouts of Hosanna. But as you know,
by the end of that week, he's murdered,
crucified with an unjust trial, and three days
later,
he rises from the dead for our justification
for all believers. So that's kind of where we
are,
okay? And that's where we're headed in the big
picture, just to kind of get our bearing
straight,
but so let's start off today by reading our
text, which is going to be verses 1 through 13
. Usually,
you're used to maybe one or two verses and Eph
esians in the epistles, but in narratives,
we generally cover more verses, and that's why
we're doing 13 of them today. So let's start
in chapter 7 verse 1. "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
booths was near. Therefore his brother said to
him, 'Leave here and go into Judea so that
your
disciples also may see your works which you
are doing, for no one does anything in secret
when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If
you do these things, show yourself to the
world,
for not even his brothers were believing in
him. So Jesus said to them, 'My time is not
yet here.
Your time is always opportune. The world
cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I
testify of
it that its deeds are evil. Go up to the feast
yourselves. I do not go up to this feast,
because
my time has not yet fully come.' Having said
these things to them, he stayed in Galilee.
But when his brothers had gone up to the feast
, then he himself also went up, not publicly,
but as if in secret. So the Jews were seeking
him at the feast and were saying, 'Where is he
?'
There was much grumbling among the crowds
concerning him. Some were saying, 'He is a
good man.'
Others were saying, 'No, on the contrary, he
leads the people astray. Yet no one was
speaking
openly of him or fear of the Jews.' So there
we get the word on the street, if you will.
Some said, 'He is a good man.' Some said, 'He
is leading people astray. He is a deceiver.'
And we know where the idea of deceiver came
from. The Jewish leaders called him the dece
iver
in Matthew 27 and later here in chapter 7, we
're going to see, they're going to ask the
question
to the people, 'Has he deceived you also?' So
they're pressing hard with that narrative
about him being a deceiver. There was also
some pushback here from the people. Why? Well,
they had been affected positively by Jesus.
Some of them had obviously been healed and
they said,
'No, wait a minute. He's a good man.' But to
say that Jesus is a good man, of course,
is infinitely short of the truth. To say that
he is a deceiver is straight out of hell
itself.
Neither of those is a right assessment of
Jesus. And as we've learned here in the Gospel
of John,
more than maybe anything that we've learned in
the Gospel of John is that every soul is
required
to make an assessment of Jesus Christ, the man
who impacted human history more than any other
man in human history, not debatable. Everybody
has to decide who Jesus is. Both of the
options here
in our text are wrong. I found another C.S.
Lewis quote, and it's similar to the one you
've heard
me and preachers quote many, many times.
Listen, if you can hear the similarity, you'll
remember
the quote when I say it. He said this, 'Good
men don't say they're God. Liars and crazy
people do.
That's who say they're God.' And we can say, '
Deceivers don't have the capacity
to raise human beings from the dead very
publicly, which Jesus did with a very dead
Lazarus,
who had the flies buzzing around him and
everybody knew he was dead. And the religious
leaders,
some of them that went out saw him do that and
deceivers don't speak the way that Jesus spoke
.'
Could you imagine, put yourself back there
over 2,000 years ago, sitting on a grassy hill
side,
just listening to Jesus speak, God and human
flesh. I don't think that I can overemphasize
enough that the right assessment of Jesus is
the most important assessment that any human
being will ever make. And we are seeing right
here decisions that are being made by the
Jewish
people who are under the influence of Jewish
religious leaders, and those guys have already
made their decision longer ago. He's a dece
iver who is leading people astray. And it's
interesting.
By the time we get to the end of the Passion
Week, the majority of the people buy into that
lie,
and what do they cry out when Jesus is
presented before them, beaten and bloodied,
crucify him, crucify him, let his blood be
upon us and our children. So right now, we are
starting
on that final part of the process to that
moment here in chapter 7. And as we go, we're
really
going to get into this antagonism that exists
between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. And we
're
going to see, we're going to see how much
power and influence they had over the people.
And remember,
we've learned from chapter 6 that it was never
ever the works of Jesus that caused problems,
was it? No, we've learned this in chapter 6.
It was the words. They loved his works. It was
the,
it was the words as we watched those false
disciples last time in John 6 walk away and
not be with him anymore because of the words
that he said. Those words continued to boil
the blood
of the Jewish leaders. We're fixing to see,
look at verse 7, where Jesus says, "The world
hates me
because I testify of it, that its deeds are
evil." It's his words that are so unacceptable
.
As I said last week, people just love the
benevolent, all tolerant, merciful,
compassionate Jesus who never says anything
negative, only all things positive. They love
that Jesus until you hit them with the things
that he said in this Bible. Oh, then the love
changes.
I don't know if he said that, right? And what
I want you to see here first as we get into
this
7 chapter is how Jesus was operating on a
divine timetable. Jesus is, of course, God
incarnate,
the eternal Son of God. And as part of what
you have to believe about him, there's no
room for what many believe that he was just a
man working out all of this in his time on
earth,
the best he could when he was here. There's no
room for Ben Shapiro's view that Jesus was
just
a religious revolutionary who got himself
killed on a Roman cross. No, he's the God-man.
He's on a divine mission. And we're going to
see that play out here in this chapter as we
see
the sovereignty of God, the Father operating
literally in every single minutiae of aspect
of
his life, including from the standpoint of
time itself. We saw in chapter 6 in the face
of the
rejection of the people. What did Jesus do?
Boy, he leaned hard on the sovereignty of God
and
salvation. You remember what he told them
after the rejection? "That's all right. You
can't come to
me unless the Father draws you." Part of the
words were why they walked away. And in the
same way,
he also completely leaned on the sovereignty
of God in terms of the timing literally of
absolutely
everything that he did, everything in the life
of Jesus. As you go through all of the
Gospels, you see he was on a precise schedule,
everything. Galatians chapter 4, verse 4, it
says,
"But when the fullness of what the time came,
God sent forth his son, born of a woman,
born under the law." Even his birth. 1 Timothy
chapter 6, verses 14 and 15, "That you keep
the
commandment without stain or reproach, until
the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
he will
bring about at the proper time." So both the
incarnation and the second coming of Jesus
have fixed set times. There is a date set
right now that God knows for the second coming
of Jesus
Christ. And right now today, we're one day
closer to that day than we were yesterday.
Even while he was living on this earth,
anything was on a precise schedule. Many times
in the
Gospels, what do we hear Jesus say over and
over, "My time has not yet come." My time has
not yet come. And now as we come into this
seventh chapter, look what we find. We find
Jesus walking
in Galilee, it says. Now, I want you to know
where this is on the time table. This is about
seven
months after the events of chapter 6 that we
just went through. Now, how do I know that?
Well,
I know that because in chapter 6, verse 4,
there was a Passover, remember? And that
Passover
was the event that triggered everything that
happened. And remember, chapter 6, the whole
of
chapter 6 was only a couple of days of time,
the whole chapter. But now in chapter 7, verse
2,
look, we have another feast, the Feast of Bo
oths. So we know that the Feast of Booths
is seven months after that Passover that we
had in chapter 6. So that's how we know where
we are
time-wise here. Passover is a spring event.
The Feast of Booths also knows the Feast of
Tabernacles. It's an October event. It's in
the fall, our October. So think about it.
Seven
months have gone by since all the events we
just went through in chapter 6. Jesus is still
ministering
in Galilee during that time he doesn't leave.
John doesn't tell us about those seven months,
but guess what? The other Gospel writers do.
That's why we have four Gospels to put the
whole
story together. And as I said, during this
whole time in Galilee, the attitude of
especially the
leaders down to the south in Judea is they
want to kill him. Their anger as they get the
reports
back continue to boil and to escalate. Look at
verse 1 of our text. "After these things,
Jesus
was walking in Galilee, still there, for he
was unwilling to walk in Judea." Why? Because
Jews
were seeking to kill him. Even though he had
been gone for over a year from Judea up in Gal
ilee,
they still wanted to kill him more than ever.
And he's not ready to go back. You know why
most of all?
Because he had to wait until it was the right
time on God's timetable. Now as we look at the
first
nine verses, we're going to see something
about the wrong time. And then when we get to
verse 10,
we're going to see something about the right
time. And as I said, the opening of chapter 7,
we're about seven months after chapter 6. So
what was Jesus doing in those seven months?
Well,
that's interesting. His public ministry, we
know from the other Gospels, had started to
kind of fade
away. During those seven months, we get this
information from those other Gospel writers.
And
we learned that from the most part in this
seven-month time period, he kind of pretty
much disappeared
from outward public ministry. Instead of
staying in Capernaum, he went to Tyre and Sid
on. If you're
looking at a map that's north and west over
toward the Mediterranean. And then he goes to
the east
side of the Sea of Galilee. And that was an
area that was called Decapolis. And that had
10 Gentile
cities in it. But Jesus, during all this time,
is pretty much backed up and away from the
larger
populated areas. Now, he continued to perform
miracles. But primarily what he's doing is
teaching
and instructing. Now, there's another great
event on the calendar in these seven months,
the Transfiguration. And also during this time
period, Jesus told his disciples for the very
first time, "Hey, I'm going to die. And I'm
going to rise from the dead." They had never
heard that
before. And while his public ministry
diminished in those seven months, it's very
important to note
that during this time period, his primary
focus, he started to focus in on the 12.
That would have been the most intense period
of training for the 12. Remember, the false
disciples were gone from chapter 6. They left.
These are the men I'm talking about that
stayed.
These may have been a collection of others,
along with the 12 true believers who were
being taught
these tremendous truths of the kingdom. They
were really being prepared for what was fixing
to come.
And even after what was going to come, which
was the fulfillment of the Great Commission.
And as I said, he starts to talk to them about
his death, about his resurrection. And he gets
very
detailed. He tells them, "Hey, I'm going to be
arrested. Hey, they're going to spit on me.
Hey, I'm going to be scourged." Can you
imagine what they were thinking as he said
that?
And then one day, he takes Peter, James, and
John up on a mountain.
Watch this. Pulls back the glory. Now, you
know what was the first thing them three guys
did
when they got down to that mountain with the
other guys. Guess what? Huh? I mean, because
it had to be
hard for them to wrap their minds about spit
on, scourged, arrested.
So that could have certainly created some
doubt in their minds about the fact whether or
not
he was Messiah. So to balance that, "Hey,
Peter, James, and John, come up here for a
minute.
We'll show y'all something up here on this
mountain." And you remember Peter, "Oh, Lord,
let's make some tents. It's good for us to be
here. I don't even want to go back down. Let's
just
stay here." Right? But it left no doubt in
those guys' minds. It was burning in their
brains in their eye sockets for the rest of
their lives, for sure. But these are special
times for
the despites right now. He's given much
attention to them. But now those seven months
of that kind
of special training is up. It's the Feast of
Booths. Look at verse two. Now, the Feast of
the
Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. It's time
to go to the next feast. These men are Jews.
So guess what? For them, every one of them, it
's automatic. There were three main
feasts that all Jewish men had to attend. Mand
atory. Jesus had done this all of his life, too
.
And so as we come to verse three, we find that
Jesus is also still connected to his family,
who is from Galilee. Listen. Away with the
nonsense that Mary did not have other children
.
Mary had other children after Jesus. Okay? If
you don't believe that, you don't believe the
Bible.
Period. It's extremely clear. We're going to
see here that the brothers, and that's half
brothers,
of course, as we understand that Jesus's
brothers are starting to put pressure on him.
Hey, Jesus,
we want you to go with us up to the feast. And
just as a reminder, that seven months that
Jesus
focused on the twelve, it was all about
discipleship for them. That's what God does.
We saw in chapter
six. What did God do? He gathered a crowd for
the proclamation of God's truth from Jesus.
Then what did God do? He started to sort out
the false disciples from the true disciples,
based on the words coming from Jesus. And then
when the weeding out ended, the real work
started
of training the genuine disciples. And that's
what went on for the seven months. That's why
the Great Commission says it doesn't just say
go preach the gospel. It says go into all the
world
and make disciples teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded you.
That's the Great Commission. That's still
going on right here in this building right now
at this
moment. Christians are being discipled here
today. Now, there's a lot of ways to get a
crowd.
It's really not too hard. There's plenty of
methods, but let me tell you something.
It's difficult work to make a disciple. The
success of any spiritual enterprise is not
to get a crowd. The numbers are not the
measure of success. And some might hear me say
that and
say, well, that's what all pastors say. You
only have a church of 30 people. It's not
about the
numbers, right? I get that if you think that.
Okay, that's fine. But let me tell you
something. It's
really true. It's not about the numbers. It's
not about how many people show up. It's all
about
what kind of people do you have and where are
they in the process of their spiritual
development and growth? The Bible doesn't say
get a crowd and see if you can keep them
whether they believe or not. The Bible is
teaching this. Get a crowd and hit them with
the words of
Jesus and don't skip anything in God's book
and then find out who stays. And whoever stays
,
make disciples out of them. That's what
ministry really is. Easy to get a crowd. You
want to tell
you what we could do? We're in a helicopter on
Easter Sunday. Have it drop 10,000 Easter eggs
filled with some great candy down on the
grounds. Get a bouncy house and shoot water
over the top
of it and get your kid to get a picture with
the pagan Easter bunny. Okay? That will get a
crowd.
Promise you. It does it every year, right down
the road. It does. They have to stop traffic
with the sheriff's department for that day.
But I'm here to tell you it's difficult work
to make a disciple. That's the hard work of
ministry. Now let's go back to our text.
Here's Jesus. It's time for the Feast of Boots
. In verse 3, his brothers come to him. As I
said,
actual brothers, they all have the same mama.
Mary, okay? Get that straight. Verses 3 to 5.
Therefore, his brothers said to him, "Leave
here and go into Judea so that your disciples
also may see your works, which you are doing,
for no one does anything in secret when he
himself
seeks to be known publicly. If you do these
things, show yourself to the world. For not
even his
brothers were believing in him." And by the
way, if it says not even his brothers, that
means his
actual brothers. That doesn't mean his
brothers in the faith. That alone should tell
you that,
but let's press on. Time for the Feast of Bo
ots. Now you can read about all about the Feast
of Boots
in Leviticus 23 when you go home, but let me
give you the synopsis. God instituted a feast
in which they would remember their time in the
wilderness back in Exodus when they lived in
Boots. So we would say it in our modern day
language, tents or shelters. They were
temporary
tents or shelters that they lived in. This
would be celebrated again in our month of
October.
It was a week-long celebration. The Jewish
historian Josephus said this was the most
celebratory of all Jewish feasts. Everybody
got excited. It was always a whole week long,
very
joyous, very happy occasion. People would
erect these tents all over the place to stay
in them.
There'd be villages and streets. Some of the
people would put the boobs on top of their
houses,
on the roof, where a lot of them like to hang
out. It just sounds like a great time to me.
Everybody
bring your tent and bring them. Put it all
over the city. But it was all to remind the
folks of
when they lived their people in the temporary
shelters in the wilderness and how it was
that God protected them and brought them
through that hard time and into the promised
land.
That's what the tents were reminding them of.
So the brothers of Jesus come to him
because the years rolled around and it's that
time again. And by the way,
his brother's names were James, Joseph, Simon,
and Judas, which used to be a popular name,
but wasn't too long after that anymore for the
rest of time. So, as I said, going to this
festival
was a requirement. It's so cool to think about
Jesus's brothers. Hey, come on, let's go.
Jesus
to the festival. And there's all kind of
speculation about, okay, what exactly was the
brother's
motivation for wanting Jesus to go? Some have
said, well, they wanted him to get arrested
because they were tired of him getting all the
attention in the accolades. Verse five says,
they didn't believe in him. And so they wanted
to see him fall into the hands of the enemies.
But
there's no scriptural support for that at all.
It does say they didn't believe in him at this
point.
But it doesn't say they wanted him executed.
Others have made the suggestion that they
wanted
to take him down there to force his hand so
that he could become the Messiah like the
crowd back
in chapter six. They wanted to force him to do
this so they could no longer be under the
Romans
and make Jesus a king. No biblical
justification for that either. So why did they
want him to go?
Could it be simply that he irritated them? I
mean, you ever get irritated with a sibling?
I mean, think of these guys. Think of this.
Growing up their entire life with a person in
their
family, their brother, who was very literally
perfect every single minute of every single
day,
he would be a rebuke to you in that house
every waking moment.
He always gave every right answer to every
question that was asked. And he always had
every right attitude to anything that went
down in Joseph and Mary's house. Can you
imagine
living with that guy? So it says they didn't
believe in him.
But for sure, this, now, they were aware of
the miracles. I mean, they had been in Galilee
,
the whole time that he had ministered there.
And even if they weren't there every single
time, he didn't miracle. Don't you think that
in Nazareth, hey, James, guess what your
brother did
yesterday, right? You never stopped hearing it
. And so maybe it is they're thinking he might
just
be the Messiah who's going to overthrow Rome.
He might be the guy. And wonder of wonders,
he can make food too. We just have food
anytime we want it, which remember back in
those days,
it's kind of like how we are now. They didn't
even couldn't comprehend that.
But their conclusion was, hey, look, becoming
the Messiah, that's never going to happen out
here in Galilee. I mean, seven months out here
in the boondocks, not going to get it, Jesus.
So they get proverbial on him. They give him a
self-evidence statement, kind of like a
proverb.
Look at verse four. They say, for no one does
anything in secret when he himself seeks to
be known publicly. And that's obvious. And
then next they say, if you do these things,
show yourself to the world. So they say, come
on, Jesus. If you are who you say you are,
then go down to Jerusalem. That is the
theological capital of the world. That is
where the verdict
on you is going to be rendered. That's where
the decision is going to be made, not up here
in
pumpkin center. And nobody's never going to
render any verdict up here. Jerusalem is the
acid test.
You can't be up here on a fringe. You want to
be realized. You want to be really recognized.
You've got to go to Jerusalem. And there they
say, look at verse three. Your disciples also
may see your works, which you are doing. Now,
what disciples are he talking about there?
He's talking about the followers that he had
gained while he was in Judea that had stayed
in
Judea. And they were believing in him from
those early months at the beginning of his
ministry.
And maybe it was in the back of their minds
that they were open to the fact that, man,
maybe if he goes, we're going to get the final
verdict here. And they rationalized it by
saying,
it's only obvious. You want to be known
publicly. You cannot be in secret. Now, look
at this statement
again in verse four. If you do these things,
show yourself to the world. If you are who you
say you
are, if you're for real, if the works that you
do are really evidence of your divinity, if,
if,
if, who does that smell like? Who said that to
Jesus three times early in his ministry?
Lucifer. If you're the Son of God, turn these
stones into bread. If you're the Son of God,
do this, remember?
And when he was hanging on the cross, what did
they say? If you are the Son of God, come down
off of that cross. What they are doing is sho
ving his claims into his face and telling him
to prove it.
So now at this point, we know whose side they
're on, really. Now, that's going to change
later,
but I'm talking about at this point, Jesus
made it really easy to understand.
He who is not for me is against me. Period. It
's pretty easy. So they pressed the issue,
verse five.
This says for not even his brothers were
believing in him. The word even tells you that
's his blood
brothers, half brothers right there. No
question about that. They didn't believe what
a testimony
this is to the absolute obstinacy of unbelief.
They've been around Jesus since he was a child
in the same house. It's incredible. But don't
forget what Jesus said in John 6. You can't
believe.
You don't have the ability to believe unless
the Father draws you. Obviously, at this point
,
the Father had not drawn them. Now, that's
going to be good news later, but not right now
.
So they are saying, go down there and prove
yourself. Now, skip down to verse eight for
just
a minute. Verse eight and nine, Jesus says, go
up to the feast yourselves. I do not go up to
this
feast because my time has not yet fully come.
And then verse nine, having said these things
to them,
he stayed in Galilee. You go. I'm not coming.
So he stayed in Galilee. Let me tell you
something
in the whole life of Jesus. Nobody ever forced
his hand to do anything. He did everything he
ever wanted to do. He even said, no man takes
my life from me, but I lay it down of myself.
So he's not going. Now, if he had gone with
them, let me tell you what would have happened
.
He would have been a part of a huge caravan of
people that would go down from Galilee and he
would have been with his family and his
friends. How do I know that? Well, in Luke,
when they had
come down for the Passover, remember when he
was 12 years old, there was that whole caravan
and they
had went a whole day of travel going back to
Galilee before they realized, hey, Jesus isn't
here.
It's because they had so many people and
family members and everything. So this is a
large caravan.
They had big extended families and everybody
knows who's coming. They know the groups and
where
they come from. Jesus doesn't want this
exposure. He doesn't want to go the normal way
that he used
to go in the caravan. And he's not going. He's
not going because it's not his time at this
moment.
It's not his time to die yet is what's most
significant. Verse 8 again, my time has not
yet
fully come. He definitely has his mind on the
purpose for which he came.
And then he explains it back up to verse 6.
Jesus said that in my time is not yet here
again. What was this big picture? Six months
later,
from this point, is the next Passover. And
that would where he would become the Passover
lamb.
So he'll go down eventually, but go back to
verse 6. My time is not yet here. Then he says
this amazing phrase to his brothers, but your
time is always opportune. Let me tell you,
there's some depth in that statement. They say
, hey, look, every day matters in my life.
Every
hour is sovereignly determined by God. But for
you, right now, it doesn't matter. If you're
unbelieving, you have one appointment with God
yet. And the rest of the time, you're on your
own.
And it's not that God doesn't sovereignly and
providentially have control of your life. It's
just that for you right now, as unbelievers,
you are irrelevant. It doesn't matter. Your
life right
now is purposeless because you're not
operating within the sphere of the kingdom of
God. So your
life counts for nothing but a soon appointment
with death. Because of unbelief at this point,
they actually knew absolutely nothing about
the purposes of God. They didn't recognize God
's schedule
and they could not perceive the incarnate Word
of God standing right in front of them. Jesus
is
saying you're not operating in the kingdom.
You're not on kingdom time. You have one
appointment to
keep with God and that is death, but that's
not the case with me. And then also verse
seven,
look how he starts out. The world cannot hate
you. Why does he say that? Well, you're part
of it.
You're safe. You fit in the world, but it
hates me. Why does it hate me? Not because of
my works,
not because I can feed you, not because I can
heal you. Look next in verse seven,
but it hates me because I testify of it that
its deeds are evil. It is always the
straightforward
in your face, words of Jesus that are the
issue. So Jesus clearly is on a divine timet
able. He can't
go. The time's not right. What they do doesn't
matter. The world absorbs them. They're part
of it, but not him. The world hates him
because he tells the people that are in it,
hey,
your deeds are evil. So he's not going. Verse
eight, go up to the feast yourselves. I do not
go up to
the feast because my time has not yet fully
come. Verse nine, having said these things to
them,
he stayed in Galilee. Now, we don't know how
long he stayed in Galilee, but he didn't stay
long
because it went from being the wrong time in
verse nine and all of a sudden in verse 10,
it becomes the right time. Look at verse 10.
But when his brothers had gone up to the feast
,
they're already gone. Then he himself also
went up, not publicly, but as if in secret.
By the way, he did something unusual here. He
did what they didn't do. He went through
Samaria. According to Luke nine, if you look
at your map, you got Galilee, Samaria, Judea.
They would go around. He went through.
Remember the story? We went on over all of
that with the
woman at the well. They would make their
journey around Samaria. Jesus right through it
. What did
that do? Well, for one thing, it gave him more
secrecy because he wouldn't be going with the
crowds and the caravan and all the people that
were just flowing into Jerusalem for this
feast. Now,
as an aside, isn't it interesting to think
about the fact, number one, that there is no
human being
who has ever lived that could have possibly
got anywhere close to the realm of
understanding
the sovereignty of God like Jesus Christ. Are
you with me there? He understood completely
God's divine decree from before the foundation
of the world for his life because he is the
God
man. And yet at the same time, would you
notice right here in this text, look how
careful he was
to operate down here in responsibility. He
knew they wanted to kill him. He's not saying,
well,
God ordained me to go to the cross. I'm just
going to get in the caravan. Oh, no.
He went in secret. He went through Samaria.
This tells me that our willing choices down
here in responsibility land are real choices
and Jesus never operated under the idea. Well,
it's all ordained from the foundation of the
world anyway. I might as well just do this.
If Jesus didn't operate that way, then guess
what? Neither should we. We might not have the
ability in our human reasoning to reconcile
sovereignty and responsibility, but we are
smart enough to know this. God's the one that
's sovereign. We're the ones responsible.
So our actions have consequences and choices
that we make. It's critical. It's critical,
folks,
for us to understand biblically the
sovereignty of God to have a right balance
between God's
sovereignty and our responsibility with our
actions. So Jesus goes through Samaria. He's
in
stealth mode. And then next in verse 11, it
says, so these Jews were seeking him at the
feast and
were saying, where is he? Now, what made them
think that he would be there? Well, don't
forget,
these are Jews. All men had to be there. And
they followed the rules in them days.
They knew that he would be there. And guess
what? They knew Galileans. They could separate
somebody from Galilean, from somebody from the
capitalists, because they knew their accent.
They knew how they dressed, but they couldn't
find him. They're looking. Where is he?
Then verse 12, there was much grumbling among
the crowds concerning him. He was the topic of
conversation. He was the topic of the whispers
. Where is he? Where is Jesus? They all knew he
was a miracle worker. Many of them had seen
his miracles. The people in Judea knew it. The
people
in Galilee knew it. Then they had all now
converged into Jerusalem. And he is the topic
of everybody's
discussion. Look next in verses 12 and 13.
Some were saying he's a good man.
Others were saying no. On the contrary, he
leads the people astray. Yet no one was
speaking openly
of him. Why? For fear the Jews. Remember when
John, every time he uses that phrase, the Jews
,
he means the Jewish leaders. That's how much
power the Jewish leaders had in that legal
istic system
of Judaism. Power over the people. They were
afraid to even give an opinion openly,
publicly.
These are whispers. And the folks all knew
that they wanted Jesus dead. They're scared to
death
to say anything. They didn't want to get put
out of their local synagogue. They didn't want
to be
ostracized from their community. That's the
power of this terrible legalistic system.
Jesus comes down privately, secretly, sneaking
his way through Samaria. Those are parts of
Scripture
you don't get to see as he's walking through.
Who did he talk to? Hey, what's going on? You
know, you can get to see that. He's in Judea
now. These are booths. He's going to stay in
this area
of Judea until the last Passover. By the way,
the last Passover there ever was that counted
and then we go into the new covenant. And in
those intervening months, he's ministering in
Judea,
and it's all recorded. You can go read Luke
chapter 9 and chapter all the way through 19,
and it gives us what all was going on at this
time. He's in Judea, but at first he doesn't
go into
the city of Jerusalem. For now, he kind of
stayed out in the towns and the villages
surrounding
Jerusalem. He's operating on a divine timet
able. Nothing is random. Nothing is unplanned.
Nothing
ever goes wrong. Oh, I need to do plan B.
There's no plan B with Jesus ever. Everything
is according
exactly to God's eternal purpose, and it wasn
't going to be a cross and a passion week until
that
Passover. And at the same time, he knows how
he has to operate carefully down here in
responsibility
land, carefully to make sure he wasn't
captured by the Jewish religious leaders.
There's more great evidence that he is the God
man. These Jewish leaders hated his words.
They
couldn't believe that he said he was from
heaven. That freaked them out. And then he's
the only way
to heaven. What? And now only he could give
eternal life. Their heads are spinning by that
time,
and then they really couldn't deal with him
for saying he was going to give his flesh for
the
life of the world. And then when he got to
saying, "You got to be willing to eat my flesh
and drink
my blood," their heads exploded. Right? And
you know what they really didn't like more
than anything
he said? He testified to them that their deeds
were evil. He called them out. He called them
out
with specificity. And he was bolder than
anybody ever with the true claims of the
Christian faith
when he was here. Good man, not enough. Bad
man, terrible error. Deceiver devilish notions
straight
out of the pit of hell. Every person will be
responsible on that great day for the right
answer.
And Peter gave the right answer. Remember,
back in chapter 6, verse 69, "We have believed
and
come to know that you are the Holy One of God
." That's the only right answer. And if today
you
are in the company of those who truly believe
that, then I'm on here to tell you, you are
blessed far beyond what you can comprehend in
this life. The greatest thing that could ever
happen to a human being has happened to you.
You are a Christian who believes just like
Peter did.
But if you're not, I'm here to tell you, you
're breathing God's oxygen right now today. It
's
not too late. Not too late. Choose this day
what you will believe about who Jesus is,
what he has done. Let's pray. Father, we thank
you for the tremendous, tremendous account
of this transition from Galilee to Judea as we
are marching toward the cross,
the greatest event in human history along with
the resurrection.
Oh, we love going through the Gospel of John.
Oh, we love hearing the words of Jesus. We
love
to hear the interactions of Jesus in this
Gospel. He is our King. He is our prophet, our
priest,
our King. And we pray, Lord, that through our
worship service today and the preaching and
the
singing and all that we have done, that we
have made much of him today and he has
received all
the glory. In Jesus' name we pray.