WHAT'S THE HEART OF THIS PASSAGE? The religious leaders had all that knowledge and yet they didn’t know God.
- John 7:28d – “You do not know Him”
- The religious leaders, of course, thought they were the epitome of knowledge and understanding. They loved the status they had among the people. They loved the respect they had in the eyes of the people.
- Yet our passage is centered on Jesus’ breathtaking statement at the end of v. 28: “You do not know Him.”
- How can that be? Their lives were inundated with God talk, God meetings, and God rules. Sadly, though, that didn’t get them closer to God but instead obscured their vision of God. How did that happen? That’s what we want to explore today.
- The proof of that? They want to arrest the Messiah.
- v. 32b.
- I had a friend years ago who joked that his spiritual gift was being a bad example. Of course, that’s not a real spiritual gift, but there are certainly stories in the Bible where the point we are to get out of it is behavior that we should avoid.
- We want to look at this passage and see what we can learn from the religious leaders. Not to emulate them, but to avoid their mistakes.
HOW DID THEY GET IN THAT STATE? It was their ignorant confidence.
- John 7:25-27, 31-32, 35-36.
- The religious leaders were confident in their knowledge and standing, yet they were in fact ignorant of the truth of who Jesus was and what God was doing.
- Before getting specific about their ignorant confidence, let’s look for a second at what they were spurred by.
1. They were spurred by the crowd’s questions.
a. vv. 25-26 – Why aren’t the religious leaders doing something about Jesus?
b. v. 31b – Isn’t Jesus the Messiah if He’s doing so many miracles?
c. v. 32 – The leaders hear the whispered questions and it spurs them to send soldiers.
2. They were spurred by the crowd’s faith.
a. v. 31a.
- Now let’s dig into the religious leaders’ ignorant confusion.
a. v. 27 – They didn’t know how the Messiah would show up.
b. v. 35 – They didn’t understand the idea of Christ’s death and resurrection.
- “Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find Him?”
c. v. 35 – They didn’t comprehend that the Gentiles would be offered salvation.
- “Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks?”
d. v. 36 – They didn’t understand His divinity.
- They didn’t understand that He intended to go back to His Father.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THEM? Religious arrogance is a killer – you’ve got to humble yourself.
- Luke 14:11.
- Humility is essential.
- We get arrogant and prideful today too. The church in America is far too sure of itself.
- One of the biggest failings of the American church is that we think we know it all.
- We need to humble ourselves at the feet of Jesus.
- We need to admit our uncertainties and our shortcomings. This isn’t throwing away our faith – no, it’s acknowledging where we really are.
- Why don’t we do that?
a. Pride.
b. Power.
c. Position.
