Scripture Introduction
A thermostat and a thermometer both relate to temperature. But they differ: a thermostat senses heat and starts the air conditioner. A thermometer only reports the heat.
The apostle John weaves a thermometer through his book. As he tells about Jesus, he also “feels the foreheads” of the religious leadership and reports their fever. And fevered they are. In the beginning they were curious—maybe flushed with the warmth of excitement. But the events we read about today occur only six months before Jesus’ crucifixion, and the heat is rising; the rulers of the church are hot around the collar. [Read John 7.25-36. Pray.]
Introduction
Henry David Thoreau claimed that most men “live lives of quiet desperation.” To avoid that fate, he spent two years, two months and two days, alone in the woods of Walden Pond. He described his experiences in his 1854 book Walden, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” This is Thoreau’s philosophy of “abundant life” — as an early adopter of Darwinian evolution, he advocated a return to nature accompanied by a casting off of religion.
A different idea is illustrated by a “veteran mountain climber sharing his experiences with a group of novices preparing for their first major climb. He had conquered many of the world’s most difficult peaks, so he was qualified to give them some advice. ‘Remember this,’ he said, ‘your goal is to experience the exhilaration of the climb and the joy of reaching the peak…. If your purpose for climbing is just to avoid death, your experience will be minimal.’” (David Egnar, Our Daily Bread, February 13, 2003). Fear robs the climb of joy.
Sometimes Christians avoid the errors of Thoreau only to slip into those of a novice mountain climber. Professor David Egnar (Cornerstone University and RBC Ministries), who was listening to the mountain climber, said: “Jesus did not call us to live the Christian life just to escape hell. It’s not to be a life of minimum joy and fulfillment, but a life that is full and overflowing. Our purpose in following Christ should not be merely to avoid eternal punishment. If that’s our primary motivation, we are missing the wonders and joys and victories of climbing higher and higher with Jesus.”
Many voices call us to their path. Above the noise, however, if we have ears to hear, Jesus offers abundant life.
This church is not independent; we partner with other, like-minded congregations in a denomination called the PCA. One result of that relationship is that everyone who joins a PCA church makes identical membership vows, the second of which asks: “Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God and savior of sinners, and do you receive and trust him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel?”
That last phrase is relevant to our text: Jesus, “as he is offered in the gospel.” The Son of God stands in a crowd. I could imagine all falling on their faces before him. Yet they do not, because they wanted a Messiah different than God offered.
I think you want abundant life. In order to receive it, however, we must come to the Messiah of the Bible, to Jesus as he is offered in the gospel. To do so, notice, first…
1. We Experience Abundant Life By Knowing God’s Messiah (John 7.25-29)
The crowd does not know what to make of Jesus. He openly challenges the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, yet they refuse to answer him. So some suggest Jesus is the Christ. “Christ” is a title, Greek for the “Anointed One,” just as “Messiah” is the Hebrew title for “Anointed One.” Every culture has ceremonies to make and mark key transitions in life. The President takes the oath of office on the Bible; the man and woman exchange rings and say, “I do,” before the minister pronounces them “man and wife.” And in Israel, a prophet, priest or king was set aside to office by pouring oil on his head, by anointing him. So when some speculate that Jesus may be the “Anointed One,” the “Christ,” they are saying, “Maybe this is the one God promised. Maybe God chose him as the answer. Could he be the Son of David who will save Israel?”
But other quickly respond: “No, it cannot be. For no one will know where the Messiah comes from.” That comment expresses a bit of popular religion based on misinterpretation of the Old Testament.
NKJ Isaiah 53.8: He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
Malachi 3.1: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming,” says the LORD of hosts.
Putting those together, “tradition held that the Messiah would be unknown until He suddenly appeared to redeem Israel.” (MacArthur, in loc., 303). Dr. Andreas Köstenberger (Professor of New Testament and Greek at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary): “According to rabbinic teaching, some believed that the Messiah would be born of flesh and blood yet be wholly unknown until he set out to procure Israel’s redemption” (in loc., 235-236).
God records the speculations of the crowd to warn us of the danger of letting our understanding trump plain Bible truth. Micah 5.2: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” They did not forget these words; they found them inconvenient at this time.
One of my professors at seminary told of the time his family was at grandma’s house for thanksgiving. They always read, immediately after dinner, a Bible passage and short devotional. So after they ate, grandma said to him, “Please get the Bible from the mantle.” The devotional booklet tucked inside the Bible said to read Romans 8.28-30. So he did: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
When he finished, grandma patted him on the hand and said, “Now that’s that predestination thing you Presbyterians believe; you know we Baptist don’t believe that.” No matter how he told grandma that he was reading the Bible, she could only supposed that he was pushing Presbyterian propaganda. I do not intend to pick on Baptists. We all are tempted by this great danger to our souls.
The Apostle Peter speaks of people who “deliberately overlook” certain facts. J. C. Ryle comments: “It is a sore spiritual disease, and one most painfully common among men. There are thousands in the present day just as blind in their ways as the Jews. They shut their eyes against the plainest facts and doctrines of Christianity. They pretend to say that they do not understand, and cannot therefore believe the things that we press on their attention, as needful to salvation. But, alas, in nineteen cases out of twenty it is a willful ignorance. They do not believe what they do not like to believe. They will neither read, nor listen nor search, nor think, nor inquire honestly after truth. Faithful and true is the old proverb, ‘There are none so blind as those who will not see.’” (31).
In response to the blindness, Jesus says, “You think you know where I come from. But you have no idea who sent me.” Or as he said in another place: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5.39-40).
Retreating to the woods will not satisfy. Neither will rejecting Christ and throwing off the constraints of religion. God anointed Jesus to give abundant life. God set him aside to free your soul and heal your heart.
He frees your soul from the bondage to sin and the fear of failing in self-justification. Listen to his words of hope: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news…. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4.18). Receive Jesus as he is offered in the gospel because he gives abundant freedom.
He also heals broken hearts: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11.28-30). Receive Jesus as he is offered in the gospel because he heals hearts and souls. We experience abundant life by knowing God’s Messiah.
2. We Experience Abundant Life By Trusting God’s Timing (John 7.30-32)
A pastor placed a sign on his door:
If you have problems, come in and tell me all about them. If you don’t have problems, come in and tell me how you avoid them.
Even Jesus had problems. John’s thermometer shows quickly rising temperatures. The crowd is muttering and the leaders are murderous. We cannot avoid problems, can we?
Our Daily Bread is a devotional many Christians use with great blessing. Joanie Yoder, who writes for it, seems to have endured more than her fair share of trials. Recently she was diagnosed with cancer and wrote this: “I have relinquished my destiny to God’s will. Nothing, praise God, not even cancer, can thwart His will. I may have cancer, but cancer doesn’t have me — God alone has me. So in this light, I would value your prayers that Christ may be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.” Jesus taught her that.
He teaches in an open and public place, yet none lays a hand on him. John does not reveal the proximate means, whether some believers hid him, or the size of the crowd hindered the authorities, or whether Jesus miraculously masks their sight. The means is unimportant compared to the source of his escape: his hour had not yet come.
Do not miss this. God shows us that all the officers of the courts, all of the Pharisees and powerful priests, all of the mighty men of government, the Herods and Pontius Pilates — even all the powers of hell and Satan, cannot lay a finger on Jesus apart from the Father’s control and permission. Jesus’ story culminates at the cross only because it has been so decreed in the eternal counsels of the Trinity.
Beloved, here is a doctrine which, as one pastor says, is: “sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons.” This is my Father’s world, and nothing happens but by God’s permission. The hairs on your head are numbered. Sorrow and sickness, poverty and persecution, trials and troubles — these touch you only as God sees fit. Speak to yourself as Jesus does: “this cross has no power against me, except as it is given from above.” Your times are in God’s hands, and his hands are both mighty to save and careful to avoid mistakes. You are immortal until your work is done.
Trusting God’s timing is necessary for experiencing abundant life. So also is knowing God’s Messiah.
3. We Experience Abundant Life By Preparing For God’s Future (John 7.33-36)
By rejecting Jesus, these men could not reach the eternal life they longed for. Jesus looks into the future where he sits at the right hand of God, and says, “A day is coming when you will wish for my favor, but it will be too late.”
Wisdom personified says the same in Proverbs 1.24-28: “Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded, because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when terror strikes you, when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not find me.” The end of her speech uses virtually the same words that Jesus does in John 7.34.
Stuart Briscoe writes in his book, Spirit Life, “When I moved to the United States, I was impressed with the number of total strangers who visited my home to wish me well…. They all sold insurance! One day one of these men was talking about preparing for all possibilities. He started out saying, ‘If something should happen to you, Mr. Briscoe.’
“But there I interrupted him. I said, ‘Please don’t say that. It upsets me.’
“He looked bewildered and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Briscoe, but I don’t understand what I said to upset you.’
“‘Then I’ll tell you,’ I replied. ‘It upsets me that you talk about a certainty as if it’s a possibility. Death isn’t a possibility, it’s certain. Don’t say “if something happens to me”; say “when it happens,” whenever death is the subject.’ Then I added, ‘By the way, when death happens to you, what will really happen?’”
Maybe you imagine that abundant life is found in ignoring death so that you can eat, drink and be merry. But such pleasures offered to the flesh will not deceive your soul. You are made for heaven, and you will not be happy here unless you are preparing for that eternal home. Will you seek the Christ now, while he may be found?
4. Conclusion
We must be careful of lightning because electricity follows the path of least resistance. Rivers too, never flow up the mountain, but always down and around. As fallen creatures in a fallen world, we find it easier and more pleasurable to do the same. Watching TV is easier than cooking for our neighbor. Avoiding your wife’s glare offers less resistance to the flesh than repenting and reconciling. Reader’s Digest is more fun to read than the Bible.
As a result of this experience, we may suppose that the abundant life is found in places other than following Jesus. We may hope to be happy by taking the path of least resistance.
One of my favorite writers is G. K. Chesterton. He once said: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
There are days when following God seems the very opposite of abundant life. It must have been so for some in the crowd. They felt the ire of church leadership, believed in Jesus as Messiah, followed him against the wishes of family and friends — these are a type of death. But whoever loses his life for Jesus’ sake and the sake of the gospel will save it. Will you believe, and no longer be confused about the abundant life?
