Back when I was in college I was involved with Campus Crusade for Christ. And I think it was my senior year when CCC invited a staff member by the name of Dick Day to come and speak on Love, Sex and Marriage.
And Campus Crusade had a very flashy sort of ministry. They advertised that a special speaker was coming to speak on this challenging subject all over campus with signs and placards and in every possible way.
And it so happened I had an acquaintance that showed up at noon on the Quad the day Dick Day spoke. He was a tall, young long-haired blonde fellow student who was also a fellow worker at the Ralphs Supermarket I worked at. And he came prepared with a notebook and pen to hear all that Dick Day had to say. After all, he had just gotten married, and I suspect things weren’t going nearly as well as he had hoped, and so he was ready to drink in all the wisdom he could gain that day.
That was, until it became evident that the secret to a good marriage, according to Dick Day, was having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t remember actually seeing my friend walk away during the talk, but I heard about it later that week, along with a number of expletives which described my fellow-worker’s attitude about Jesus Christ and “religion” in general.
Of course, being a believer and wanting to be a good witness to the Lord, I sought to persuade him toward the idea that there might be something to Jesus Christ, and what Dick Day said. I got exactly nowhere with it, and later overheard my co-worker register his complaint against me, Dick Day and Jesus Christ with this statement: “Is Jesus Christ the Son of God? I don’t and I don’t care. I just want to live my life and enjoy it.”
Now, 37 years later, I still remember his quote. I’ve never forgotten it, because I believe it is precisely the essence of why most people who don’t believe, won’t believe. It’s not that they can’t believe in Jesus Christ, or that they have some intellectual reason why they can’t believe in Christ, but rather it’s because they won’t believe in Jesus Christ. And they won’t believe in Jesus Christ because their bottom-line question when it comes to spiritual issues is essentially this: Don’t confuse me with facts. I already know how I want to live my life, and therefore, what I prefer to believe.
And that’s exactly what was happening in Jerusalem at the Feast of the Booths in John chapter 7. Jesus had secretly gone up to the feast late, and had started teaching in the Temple at the mid-point of the 8-day feast, much to the chagrin of the spiritual and political leaders of the nation, the Jews, and the crowds of pilgrims from other places in Israel who had come for the feast. He absolutely amazed both his enemies and his friends with His wisdom, confounded their arguments, and exposed their hypocrisy with lock-tight logic, and thus displaying Himself in yet another way to the Son of God and the Savior of mankind.
And in the process, He gave a clinic on how to make right choices in spiritual matters.
And so it was that Jesus literally astonished the Jews as He began teaching in the temple courts in that final Feast of the Booths He attended in Jerusalem six months before His crucifixion and resurrection. And please remember, when the Apostle John spoke of the Jews in the Gospel of John, he was specifically referring to Jesus’ sworn enemies, the chief priests and the Pharisees, the political and spiritual leaders of the nation, who hated Jesus and had determined to arrest and kill him if He showed up at this feast in Jerusalem. For when they heard Him, He spoke with the wisdom and skill of an educated man, one who knew his letters, and yet they recognized He had not received this wisdom in the schools or seminaries of Jerusalem—which was the only place they thought such wisdom and skill could come from. And so a question naturally arose from their astonishment with Jesus wisdom. Where did it come from? How did such an untaught man become so wise?
So Jesus answered their question in verse 16: “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”
The answer was simple: Jesus got His wisdom directly from God His Father. His wisdom was simply divine, beyond what any man could have ever taught Him—an answer which must have further infuriated the Jews. Once again Jesus was not only claiming to be someone special, even the Messiah, but He was also demonstrating it. Not with a healing miracle this time, but with the very divinely-inspired wisdom which they had to know deep in their heart-of-hearts could truly only have come from God.
And if anyone was really interested, Jesus then answered another question that any of us here might have: How can anyone know for sure with regard to Jesus’ teaching that it was truly from God? The answer? Verse 17: “If anyone is willing to do His will, (God’s will), he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself.”
Now, this is truly an astounding truth—something that I don’t want you to miss this morning. It’s a truth that is worth taking the time to meditate on and think deeply about. The pre-requisite for knowing whether what Jesus taught was from God was simply this—the willingness to do God’s will.
And it is our first point this morning. When it comes to making choices about spiritual matters we must be objective: We must be willing to do whatever the truth about God leads us to do.
Jesus is saying to those who heard Him there that day that they could know for sure whether His teaching was from God or not, but only if they approached the question objectively—only if their real interest was to find out if it was the truth, only if their real interest in life involves discovering God’s will. For if they weren’t open to know and do God’s will, neither would they be open to discovering the truth about God—that Jesus was from God.
Clearly, among those in the crowd he was speaking to that day were a significant number of his enemies, the Jews. From their perspective, they were in the “Catbird seat.” They were in control. Many of them had developed a racket that made them rich, which involved rejecting “unacceptable” sacrificial animals brought by pilgrims to the feasts on one side of the temple and selling the same sacrificial animals as acceptable sacrifices on the other side of the temple. They were corrupt. They were rich. They were having everything their way. And that’s exactly the way they like it. It was their preferred lifestyle.
Jesus represented a threat to having things their way. If they recognized He was truly the Messiah, they would have to abdicate their positions of control, and their means of getting, rich to a man who had exposed their unrighteousness and would not tolerate it. They were unwilling to do this. Their basic question when Jesus confronted them with his claims to be the Son of God was “Will He support my preferred life-style?” not “Is He telling the truth.”
And it’s the same way with people today. Essentially, people ask themselves one of two bottom-line questions when confronted with the claims of Jesus Christ to be Son of God, Lord and Savior. The question people should ask is this: Is this the truth? Is this the truth about God and life? Instead, the question many people ask, perhaps most people ask, is this, “Will He support my preferred life-style? Will He allow me to continue to do my own thing, or will I have to adjust myself to His will.” If the answer to this question is no, then they will not objectively consider whether Jesus is truly the Son of God. Because if they do, and they come to the conclusion He is the Son of God, then they know that they will have to follow Him, rather than do their own thing.
So if someone is not willing to do God’s will, they will not objectively consider Jesus Christ’s claim to be the Son of God, the God-man, the Savior of mankind. They will, in effect say, “Don’t confuse me with the facts; I already know how I want to live. I want to be in charge of my own life, I’m not willing to do God’s will.”
When I finally realized this, in my early 20s, it changed my strategy in witnessing. If I noticed someone I was witnessing to was especially contentious, doing their best to invent reasons not to believe in Christ, I would just simply stop and ask them this question: Let’s suppose I was able to build a lock-tight case that Jesus Christ was exactly who He claimed to be—the God-Man, the Son of God and your Savior. Let’s suppose I could prove it to you. Would you then be willing to follow Him? The first time I did this, the person was honest. His answer was no. That ended the conversation, and both of us as well as those who were listening in understood what the real issue was. It wasn’t that He couldn’t believe that Christ was God. It’s that He wouldn’t believe that Christ was God. His problem with Christ wasn’t intellectual. It was moral. He was committed to doing his own thing, rather than God’s thing. He was not willing to do God’s will so he would never find out for himself whether Christ’s teaching was God’s teaching.
Having given us one incredibly insightful statement, Jesus follows it immediately with another. He has told the crowd how they can know whether his teaching is from God. Now He tells them how they can know whether He or anyone else is from God. He says, essentially, when it comes to choosing spiritual leaders, and specifically, when it comes to choosing to follow Him or not: Be selective: Choose spiritual leaders by whether they teach God’s truth and seek God’s glory rather than their own. Choose Christ because He teaches the Father’s truth and sought God’s glory rather than His own.
John 7:18: Jesus says, “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.”
Jesus is here saying that someone who speaks from Himself, from His own wisdom, is seeking His own glory or His own credit. He’s out for Himself. He’s out to be seen as someone special because of his own cleverness or skill. But someone who comes and teaches God’s truth, the truth of the one who sent Him, well, that one is not about his garnering credit for Himself, or gaining glory for Himself, but rather is all about seeking God’s glory and giving God credit for God’s wisdom. A person who is like that, who is all about God and God’s truth and God’s glory, that one is true. The word used in verse 18 for true is alythyes, which means true or faithful or reliable. The person who teaches God’s message for God’s glory is one you can count one. He’s not an egotist. He’s not motivated by pride. He is truly serving God for God’s glory, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
Now, of course, Jesus is here speaking in the third person about Himself. He claims this is His mode and His motivation. He’s not speaking from Himself, or according to His own Wisdom, but rather He is bringing God’s wisdom. He is not seeking credit for Himself, but credit or glory for God His father. Therefore, He says about Himself here, that He, Jesus, is true. He, Jesus, is reliable. He, Jesus, is faithful. You can count on Him. And more than that, He says about Himself this remarkable thing: There is no unrighteousness in Him. When that statement is made with respect to Jesus Himself, by Jesus Himself, it is indeed a remarkable statement, even a claim to deity. For as Jesus said in another context, “Who is good, but God?” And He’s saying about Himself here that He is without sin. Wow! Not the first time He has made this statement about Himself. And one we ought to appreciate.
But in saying all this, Jesus again gives us discernment about the spiritual choices we all face in life. For instance, how will we decide whom we will trust to be our spiritual leaders or spiritual mentors? How will we decide what teachers or preachers we will listen to on radio or trust in our devotional reading? How will we decide what kind of church will we attend?
Well, much of what Jesus has said her tells us about the kind of person we can trust and should choose as our human spiritual leaders. It’s the kind of person who is all about teaching God’s truth rather than his own wisdom, however he might have gained it. It’s someone who is all about giving God glory or credit, rather than taking credit or glory for Himself. In other words, in our day and age, it’s someone who is committed to teaching and preaching God’s Word, rather than impressing you with his own wisdom or his own schemes or thinking apart from God’s Word. He’s not about Himself and His own wisdom, but He’s all about God.
And after all, that’s what spiritual leaders are encouraged to do in the New Testament. They are encouraged not to bring their own teaching or their own wisdom to the pulpit, but rather to “Preach the Word.” “Preach the Word,” because it is the Word of God that is important; it is the Word of God that is powerful and true. It is the Word of God that saves and sanctifies. It’s the Word of God that will last forever. Not the word of a mere man. Follow the man or the men who preach God’s Word, who is all about God’s Word and God’s glory rather than His own.
As for me, I’ve got absolutely nothing to offer if it isn’t the Word of God. I wouldn’t be a preacher except for the Word of God. Apart from the Word of God I’ve got absolutely nothing of value to say. My opinion is no better than that of any other common man, for that’s what I am—a common man who is committed to uncommon God, His glory, and not my own.
What we’ve got to watch out for in this day and age is the person who has decided he can improve on God’s revelation with his own thoughts and ideas and cleverness. He’s the person who believes that somehow we’ve got to water down all that God has to say, or say something that is more relevant or more acceptable to the masses, in order to tickle the ear of the masses and have a bigger church as a result, and feel good about Himself at the expense of both God’s message and God’s Word.
In other words, when it comes to making a choice about who you’re going to follow, who you’re going to listen to, or what church you’re going to go to, what makes you feel good is not to be the final criteria in choosing a place. What makes you feel comfortable is not the final criteria in choosing a place. Rather a place which teaches the truth about God and seeks God and Christ’s glory rather than its own is where you want to go--and represents who you want to follow. Substance, that is the teaching of the whole counsel of God is far more important than style, and what makes you feel good. For after all, it is the wise man who chooses to live in light of the reality of God’s Word, rather than the fantasy of some man’s opinions which make reality temporarily more palatable or comfortable than it might be for us otherwise.
Finally, Jesus goes on the offensive against the accusations of the Jews against Him. The last time Jesus had been in Jerusalem, he had healed a man at the Pool of Bethesda who had been disabled for 38 years. He healed him on the Sabbath. And therefore he had been accused of breaking the Sabbath. This was the trumped-up charge that the Jewish leaders were using to justify their murder of Him. And as He answers this charge and reveals the hypocrisy of these leaders in their application of the Old Testament Law He provides us with a third principle to guide our spiritual choices by: Be consistent. Judge based on confirmed facts and consistent application of righteous standards. I know that’s a mouthful. But think about it a moment. Be sure you have the facts, all the facts, the right facts before you make any decision about spiritual matters. And then be sure you are being absolutely consistent in your application of righteous standards. Don’t judge by appearances, don’t judge according to assumptions that you have all the facts. Make sure you have all the facts. Do your research. And then be careful that you’re consistent in every respect with God’s Word, not merely the letter of God’s Word, but the spirit of God’s Word.
Jesus continues his teaching to the crowd in the temple in verse 19: “Did not Moses give you the Law and yet none of you carries out the Law.”
Now this shouldn’t have been a great revelation to the crowd. Who, after all, can perfectly keep the Law? None of us! That’s the reason that Jesus came. Nevertheless, it gets under their skin. It upsets them. They must be telling themselves they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping the Law. But what He says next puts them over the top, despite the fact it’s true. “Why do you seek to kill Me?”
And there’s the real rub. Here, they were charging him with breaking the Law in that they claimed He broke the Sabbath. And all along the Jewish leaders were plotting his murder. And if that isn’t breaking the Law, what was?
Now before we go on, it’s necessary to remind ourselves of the different groups of people whom Jesus is speaking to. First, there are “the Jews,” which we’ve already spoken of, the chief priests and the Pharisees who were plotting Jesus’ death. Then there is the crowd, which apparently in verse 20 consists of the Jews as well as the pilgrims from all over the world who’ve come for this Feast in Jerusalem. And then in verse 25 we have another group identified—the people of Jerusalem--the residents. And from what verse 25 indicates, it was common knowledge among the people of Jerusalem that the Jews, their spiritual and political leaders, were seeking to kill Jesus. Now some of these may have been in the crowd mentioned in verse 20. But apparently, the most vocal elements of the crowd are the Jewish leaders, who want to deny they’re seeking to kill Jesus, and these perhaps incite the pilgrims, who likely know nothing of the plot against Jesus, to say what the crowd says next in response to Jesus’ accusation.
For the crowd in verse 20 says, “You have a demon! Who seeks to kill you?” Now it makes you wonder why this whole scene suddenly accelerates into an argument so quickly in which the crowd is suddenly accusing Jesus of having a demon, and that that demon is the reason for his accusation that they’re trying to kill him.
And here’s what I think is really going on. Jesus has astounded everybody by His skill in speaking and with His incredible wisdom. It makes them think that there must be some supernatural source behind this undeniable display of wisdom and skill in speaking that just blows everybody away. The Jewish leaders are aware that there are two different sources of supernatural power in the Universe. The first is God. The second is Satan and his demons. And as a matter of fact, demons, when someone is demonized or inspired by a demon, are able to communicate their supernatural abilities through human agents. A person who is demonized may have clairvoyant powers or be able to write poetry or prose with a skill or ability which is truly beyond their ability, which is transcendent, or other worldly. For instance, did you know that the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, does not write her books from her own creative powers. She just sits down and begins writing and the words come to her as she writes. It’s a well-known occultic gift called automatic writing in which demons do the writing through the person who is demonized. So is it any surprise that we have a Harry Potter series which has been used to popularize and create fascination among legions of people in the occult, so that they can get in touch with their own demons and do these sorts of things all over the world? Who is the instigator behind all of this, but Satan himself? At any rate, these Jewish leaders and Jews in general were well aware that there were two sources of supernatural power, but they wanted to reject Jesus. They could not deny that he worked miracles among them, and so they attributed his supernatural miracles to Beelzebul, the prince of demons. And now, when they cannot deny that Jesus speaks with a wisdom beyond this world, they cannot deny that He is supernaturally-empowered. So wishing to defend themselves against a wisdom that they cannot refute, their only remaining defense is to claim that the source of Jesus’ wisdom and powerful speaking and accusation is demonic. It’s their last resort. It’s the only card they can play at this point because they instinctively know that Jesus is going to confound any attempt they have at refuting Him.
Which Jesus then proceeds to do: Verse 21: Jesus answered them, “I did one deed, and you all marvel.” (What did is Jesus speaking of here? The miracle of healing the disabled man at the Pool of Bethesda the last time He was in Jerusalem. “I did one deed and you all marvel.” Verse 22 “For this reason Moses has given you circumcision” (not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers)—the fact is that Abraham had first received the right of circumcision in Genesis 17 as a sign of the Abrahamic Covenant, but Moses then confirmed it as part of the Mosaic Covenant in Leviticus 12:3, and thus it was a part of the Mosaic Law), and Jesus continues “And on the Sabbath you circumcise a man.” Jesus is here referring to the requirement found in the Law, found in Leviticus 12:3, which required that a baby boy had to be circumcised on the eighth day following his birth. Now if the eighth day fell on a Sabbath day, though no work was to be done on the Sabbath day, Jews would still circumcise the boy on the Sabbath. Jesus goes on in verse 23: “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?”
In other words, if it’s okay for you to make part of man right on the Sabbath, why is it not right for me to make a whole man right or well on the Sabbath? In other words, you guys are hypocrites in accusing me of breaking the Law by healing a man on the Sabbath, especially when you not only break the Law by seeking to murder me, but also on account of the fact that you will circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
And so He concludes with yet another profound exhortation for us as well as them in verse 24: Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
Now notice something here right off. Jesus does not say, “Do not judge.” There is no prohibition here given against discerning whether someone is right or wrong in what he chooses to do. Instead, there is an exhortation, a command, that when you do judge, judge rightly. “But do judge with righteous judgment.” Don’t judge, don’t come to conclusions about someone else’s behavior about whether it is right or wrong based on appearance, based on the apparent facts of the matter. No, rather make sure you have all the facts right, check them out. And then make your judgment, and do make your judgment, with righteous judgment, make sure you both have the facts and your understanding of righteousness down pat before you draw conclusions about someone’s behavior.
And so He’s saying this to these Jews who were condemning him. Be consistent. Judge based on confirmed and consistency with righteous standards. And so it is to be with us: before we come to conclusions having to do with spiritual matters. Hold on. Don’t judge according to appearances. Make sure you have the facts. Make sure you understand what is right and wrong. Make sure you’re living consistently with what is right and wrong. And then, and only then, come to your conclusions.
In this case, if these Jews had understood what Jesus understood about the Sabbath Law, they would have understood that the Sabbath was made for Man, not man for the Sabbath. And so if they could pull their ox out of a pit on a Sabbath, or circumcise a baby on the Sabbath, so could He make a whole man well on the Sabbath, in accord with the Spirit of the Law.
And throughout the rest of this debate that continues on in John 7 we will see the Jews continue to play fast and loose with the facts. Anybody who begins for a moment to believe that Jesus is really the Messiah, the Jews will refute by claiming that the Scriptures do not predict that any prophet would come from Galilee. The fact is Jesus wasn’t originally from Galilee, He was born in Bethlehem of Judea, a fact which they preferred not to know and didn’t check out, and thus led people astray. And so it is with anyone who has a preferred outcome with regard to spiritual choices which must be made. They play fast and loose with the facts. And their attitude is “Don’t confuse me with the facts; I already know how I want to live, and therefore what I want to believe.
When it comes to spiritual matters, will you make the right choices? It all depends if you’re really about seeking the truth first and foremost, not just what conforms to your preferred outcome for you life and who is in charge of it.
Want the truth about God? Be objective: Be willing to do whatever the truth about God leads you to do. Be selective: Choose your spiritual leaders by whether they teach God’s truth and seek God’s glory rather than their own. And be consistent: Judge by the facts and righteousness, not by appearance and what you would prefer to believe.
Let’s pray.
