Good morning. I have a very easy opening question for you. How many of you out there like to be liked? Good response. I think we all like to be liked. I am someone who really likes to be liked and that is one more reason that I like Facebook. That is one of the reasons I am on Facebook because Facebook has all these opportunities to be liked. To be able to put quotes down or pictures and have people like you. It is really a neat thing. Rather than me try to explain it to you, I thought what I would do is have my own daughter, Kristin, and somewhat of a Facebook expert come up and explain some of this to us. Please give her a warm welcome. So, Kristin, weren’t you one of the first people to introduce me to Facebook. “Yes, I got you on Facebook.” I resisted it a while. You have been on it for a number of years. “A little over four years.” I would say she is an expert at this. Tell me about this ‘Like’ button. What is this ‘Like’ button all about? “To sum it up, the ‘Like’ button is a clickable link on Facebook that says the word ‘Like’.” Simple enough. Does everybody get that? There is a button you click called ‘Like’. Now why would I use such a button? Can you give me an example of how I might use it? “If someone posts a picture from a recent vacation and you like this picture because it is fun, neat, or nice but you don’t want to write a whole comment about it, you would just go and click the ‘Like’ button and it would say Chuck Gohn Likes this with a little thumbs up next to it.” That is nice. Give me some other way that you might use it besides pictures. “If someone writes a comment or maybe a status update and you also like that you would click the ‘Like’ button. For example, when Brad and I got engaged, we announced it on Facebook and people were ‘Like, Like, Like’. You liked it didn’t you?” I initially didn’t like it but once I got used to the idea, I kind of liked it. But then again no man is good enough for either of my daughters. What if for some reason I didn’t like it? Is there is a dislike button? “No. There is no dislike button. It is a ‘Like’ button. There is only one button and it says ‘Like’. You can only like things on Facebook.” I don’t like to have to click it. What if I don’t click it? What happens? “Nothing happens. You don’t like it. There is one button that says ‘Like’. If you don’t click it, then people either assume that you didn’t see what they put or maybe you didn’t like it.” Then they might get a little angry and think I don’t like them. “No. It is a ‘Like’ button. They just think maybe you didn’t see it. There is one button that says ‘Like’. You either push it or you don’t push it.” Let’s say that I really didn’t like it. I actually hated the comment. Can I click on a ‘Hate’ button? “Hate? No. There is not a ‘Dislike’ button so there is not going to be a ‘Hate’ button. There is no ‘Hate’ button on Facebook. There is a ‘Like’ button.” You have been on Facebook for four years, so I think she is probably one of the early Facebook people. She probably has some connections with Mark Zuckerberg. Would you please make sure I get my ‘Hate’ button? “No one wants you to have a ‘Hate’ button. You go on Facebook so that people will like you and so that you can like things, and if you start hating everything people won’t like you very much, kind of like I don’t like you very much right now.” Aw, Kristin. I guess what you are saying is I should quit while I am ahead. “Yes. Kristin E ‘Likes’ this.” Ok. Thank you.
Although there is not a ‘Hate’ button, I suspect that if Jesus were on Facebook today, he would need a ‘Hate’ button because as we find out in today’s reading, more people hated Jesus than actually liked Jesus. If you have your Bibles today, please open up to John 7:1. We have been looking at the book of John. Most recently, we went through chapter 6. You may recall in chapter 6 we had the story of the feeding of the 5,000. We had the story of Jesus walking on water. We had the story of the Bread of Life discourse. We are proceeding on past chapter 6 and going into chapter 7 where Jesus is beginning to encounter a lot of conflict. As we see in the opening part, we see that Jesus decided to travel a little bit more around the area of Galilee between the Sea of Galilee before going up to Judea. It is not that he was afraid. It is just that he knew there were Jews there that wanted to take his life. There were people there that tactually wanted to kill him. He knew that the time was not right. Yet he had some biological brothers who tried to encourage Jesus to go up into Jerusalem because there was a big feast coming. It was called the Feast of the Tabernacle. It was also known as the Feast of the Tents or Feast of the Booths. It is actually a period of time for seven or eight days where the Jews would set up tents and booths within Jerusalem and sleep and eat there for seven to eight days. Actually, this was one of the three required festivals of the Jews for Jewish men to attend. Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tents. They were encouraging Jesus to go up there because it is a great opportunity to make yourself known to the people and to the public because there were people traveling from all over the world. Jesus, in his own gentle way, lets them know that he doesn’t necessarily agree with that idea. We are going to be reading from John 7:1. (Scripture read here.)
The situation is that Jesus is still around Galilee and he is trying to avoid, at least for now, the area of Judea and Jerusalem because he knows there are people out to kill him. His brothers who aren’t believers, they are his biological brothers, think it is a good idea to go to Jerusalem to make himself known in public. In fact, they kind of strong arm him when they say “You ought to leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world. For even his own brothers did not believe in him.” His brothers are kind of acting like campaign managers as if Jesus was running for office. They are thinking it is a good time. There is a feast going on up there. It is going to be crowded. There are going to be people from all over the world. This is a good opportunity for you to go out and make yourself known in public. We can tell by this last line here that is inserted by the gospel writer John that maybe the source is not so good. In other words, maybe the people that are giving the advice are not the right people to be receiving it from. He says “Even his own brothers did not believe in him.” Once again, we are talking about biological brothers. Contrary to popular belief, Mary was not a virgin her entire life. Jesus had biological brothers. These were once again biological brothers. They weren’t brothers in the Lord. They were not his disciples. You think that seems kind of strange because they spent their life with their brother Jesus and they were able to witness his teachings and his miracles. For some reason, they did not become believers. We don’t know why, but we also know that some of the hardest people to reach are your own family members or your own friends. That could be part of it. The whole idea of familiarity breeds contempt. Maybe they just really didn’t like Jesus. Could you imagine growing up in the house of Jesus? Mother Mary is saying to the brothers why can’t you pick up your dirty laundry like Jesus. Jesus is always picking up his laundry. Why can’t you get better grades like Jesus? Why can’t you do the chores like Jesus? They are tired of hearing Jesus. All kidding aside, maybe there was a little bit of jealousy and envy. The more I read this passage what I thought about is that maybe Jesus’ brothers wanted to see some harm come to Jesus. When you think about it, they had to know that the Jews were out to get him. They had to know that they were trying to set a trap to catch him. Yet they encouraged him to not just go up there but to make himself known in public. I think possibly the brothers were setting him up kind of like the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. Remember the story of Joseph when his brothers were jealous of him and they set him up and set a trap for him and threw him in a trap and later on he worked for the Pharaoh and got redeemed and ministered to his brothers. Jesus has been compared to Joseph in the Old Testament. Once again, maybe I am reading into that, but I think possibly that the brothers really were hoping that some harm or at least embarrassment would come to him.
Jesus lets them know right out. He says “The right time for me has not yet come. For you, anytime is right.” They are thinking what is Jesus talking about. When he says the right time for me what he is saying is that we have two different time zones working here. We have God’s time and we have man’s time. Right now I am in the God time zone. Every second of my life is accounted for. From the moment that I was born in that nativity 30 years ago, my days were numbered. My seconds were numbered. Everything I did had a sense of purpose. Jesus says I know that my destiny is the cross. I know my destiny is the crucifixion. I know that. You don’t have to tell me that. But don’t tell me whose timing I need to be on. I am not on Jewish time. I am not on man’s time. I am not on your time. I am not on anybody’s time but the Father’s time. He goes on to say “But for you any time is right.” They are thinking what is he saying? I think what he is saying is they are operating outside of God’s time because they are not believers. They are still operating in man’s time. They are operating in the idea that you have these 40, 50, 60, 70 years of life. You are born, you live, you die. That is the timeframe that they are working in. What he is saying is as long as you are operating in man’s time, anything you do really has no lasting significance. It doesn’t matter. Anything you do is inconsequential because you are limiting your space to your time right now. It doesn’t matter if you stay in Galilee. It doesn’t matter if you go up to Judea. It doesn’t matter if you go down to Egypt and see the pyramids. It does not matter what you do because it is inconsequential. I am living on God’s time. Two completely different time zones.
Then he goes on to say something even I think a little bit sarcastic. He says “The world cannot hate you but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.” At about that time they are thinking who wants to be hated? What’s up with this Jesus? I am the type of person that likes to be liked. I am the type of person that likes to have that box clicked on Facebook. We like that. We like to be liked. But you are wrong Jesus because there have been times when I know people didn’t like what I said or did. They disliked me or maybe even hated me. Jesus is saying maybe but the hatred that somebody had against you was your own doing. Maybe you were gossiping. Maybe you were slandering. Maybe you were just doing something plain out stupid that insulted somebody. That is the only hate you might experience. On the other hand, you don’t know what it is like to really be hated like my disciples have been hated. In other words, you don’t even know what it is like to be hated like I am hated. They are thinking who would hate you Jesus? You are perfect Jesus. Nobody is going to hate Jesus. Why would they hate you? Jesus basically is saying because I reveal something about the world. I reveal that what it does is evil. They are thinking how do you do that? Well, I just kind of walk through life. I be myself. I go through and I meet people and I talk with people and I visit with people and occasionally I ask them challenging questions. Occasionally I do a healing. Occasionally I challenge people for the sin they are living in. Occasionally I meet up with a demon and I have to cast it out. That is how I exposed the evil in the world. Although they may be thinking that the primary people that hate him are the Jews, what he is saying here is it is not just the Jews. It is the entire world that hates Jesus. Where does that come from?
In order to understand where that comes from, you have to go back to Christianity 101. This is the basics of your faith. Back in Genesis, God created each of us in his image. We don’t look like God but we have character traits of God. He designed us in his image and then said go forth, multiply, make babies, make jobs, take care of the land, build technology, build businesses, build Facebook. Whatever you want to do. Just go out and do it and have fun at it and be the best you can at it, but the only think I ask is that you do this under submission to me. Do this under submission to your creator and you retain a sense of worship for the one who has created you. That is all he asked. As we know, man and woman decided to do their own thing and go their own way. Not two steps out of the garden we see Cain killing his brother Abel. It has been downhill ever since. Evil upon evil upon evil. I would say every evil thing ever known to man can be traced back to that fall. God let man go on like that for a while. He said I am going to give you another chance. I hear your cries. I hear your slavery. I hear the things you are in bondage to so I am going to give you another chance. I am going to send my prophet Moses in. I am going to give him my commands. I am going to have him build a sacrificial system. I am going to have him build a religious system. I am going to have him build a nice system and if you were to do that and obey those things, you actually might begin to understand my presence and be able to get close to me and be able to get back in relationship. He did that all the while knowing that man couldn’t do it. All you have to do is go back and read the book of Leviticus or Deuteronomy and you see those laws and say how could anybody do that. God was trying to demonstrate his high standards. His purity. His need for holiness. They couldn’t do it so they began to create ways to get around those particular laws.
Finally, God said I have had enough. I am going to give you one more chance. I am going to send my son, Jesus Christ, as the one-time sacrifice for your sin. I am going to allow you the opportunity to receive him. As we know, back in John 1, some people received Jesus. Some didn’t receive Jesus. I think it is John 1:10 that says “He came to those who were his own, yet his own did not receive him.” You say why would anybody not receive Jesus? If Jesus is the answer for everything, why would they not receive Jesus? The simple answer was found in John 3 because they loved darkness. They loved to embrace the darkness. John 3:19 says “Light has come into the world but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” Sound familiar? Do you see rings of this in John 7? Do you start beginning to see a whole theme in John? Light has come into the world but man has rejected it. What he is saying here is that although he came to offer freedom, man preferred bondage and slavery. They preferred to wallow in their muck and their mire of their existence. There are some people that would use the term total depravity. Man has become depraved. So depraved that it is almost impossible to change. The apostle Paul says it best in Romans. He talks about the people in Romans. He says “Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind.” He gave them over to insanity. The definition of insanity is to be someone that you are not. “He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. They had become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, god-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” It is like you catch somebody lying or lusting or gossiping and he is saying they will come alongside and say keep going. Good job. They will encourage that depravity. That is what he is saying the world has gotten to. Yet God sends the light into the world and it is like sending his flashlight into the world to shine on the darkness. The darkness hates it. The darkness hates the light. We read on in 3:20 and it says “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” Jesus exposes the darkness. He is the light.
When I was writing my sermon, I got to thinking about an example of this. What came to mind was actually an example from the restaurant industry. I remember working at a restaurant back in the 90s and we would clean up the kitchen, thinking we scrubbed it very well, and turn off the lights and get ready to go home. We would come back about 10 minutes later and for fun flick on the lights. We would see about 10,000 cockroaches running around. They knew there was food out there. If you turn that light on, they run. That is what is happening. The light has come down into the world. The light has come down into the darkness and the roaches are scattering. That is really what is happening. The people hate the light because their deeds were evil and their deeds were exposed. Keep in mind that Jesus is not trying to get people to hate him. Jesus is not out to get people to dislike him. What he is trying to do is get people to realize their sense of value. What he is trying to do is raise them back up to a higher plane that they had before the fall. He is trying to show them their sense of worth. He is trying to show them their sense of significance. He is trying to show them their sense of value. He is trying to show them that they were made in God’s image so to act according to God’s image. To take what he wants to give them. He wants to bring them back home. He wants to restore them back to the pre-fall era. He wants to then fill them with his spirit and give them gifts so that they can then keep on going and begin to have a life full of meaning. That is why the world hates Jesus.
Thinking about his brothers again, when he says “The world cannot hate you” he is saying they can’t hate you the way they hate me because you guys aren’t even operating in this particular time zone. You guys are not even doing things near what I do to get people to hate me. That is the only bit of passage I wanted to cover today. You can see that there is a little bit of sarcasm in there. He is talking to unbelieving brothers. He is not going to take advice from unbelieving brothers no matter how pure it looks like their motives are. It is a little easier to get this sense if we were to look into the book The Message. It is just the Bible in plain English. Sometimes it is good to read from The Message when you have a hard time getting the feel or the sense of a particular passage. What I thought I would do is put The Message translation up here just so you can see. When the brothers said you should go up into Jerusalem, in other words, get yourself killed, this is how The Message would translate Jesus’ response: “Jesus came back at them and said ‘Don’t crowd me. This isn’t my time. It is your time. It is always your time. You have nothing to lose. The world has nothing against you but it is up in arms against me. It is against me because I expose the evil behind its pretentions. You go ahead and go up to the feast. Don’t wait for me. I am not ready. It is not the right time for me.” A little bit more sarcastic there. He is just being honest with them. They operate outside of his realm right now. Fortunately, the brothers did apparently become disciples because we read in Acts where the brothers were in the upper room with Jesus praying on the day of Pentecost so we know that the brothers did come around.
That is all I wanted to address for today as far as that section. As we think about this passage, we think are there any applications for us today. I think there are two. The first one is that each of us needs to ask ourselves what time zone we are operating in. If you are a non-believer, I think this is the time zone you are operating in. You are born, you live, you die. If you believe that that is okay. You don’t consider God. You are born, you live, you die so you live according to the epicurean philosophy which is eat, drink, be merry for tomorrow you will die. In other words, you are going to pack every self-centered activity into those years because you don’t know how many you have. You are going to live for the weekend. You are going to party hard. You are going to do everything you can to enjoy life. We know people like that. They don’t even consider God’s time at all. They live within that restricted amount of time.
Yet, if you are a believer, which I hope some of you are here, you understand that you too look at life as you are born, you live, you die, but you add something to it. You are born, you live, you die, you live. Do you see the difference? You keep on going. There is a spillover. This is not it. There is a spillover into the next dimension wherever that is. There is eternity. That watch is going to keep on going. It is going to keep on and keep on going. You know that the things you do here have eternal significance. You are operating in God’s time zone which means you still go through life doing the things you need to do to survive. You need to take jobs. You need to move. You need to have houses. You do that kind of stuff because that is what God made you to do, which is fine, but you do it all the while knowing that God may have some other plans for you. You are always trying to stay in tune to God’s timing. You are trying to be aware. Just like Jesus knew every second of his time was accounted for. He knew he was going to the cross. Each of us have divine appointments. We have those moments that some of you experience where you know this is no coincidence. God placed me at this place at this time for a particular reason. I think it was Esther who talked about this. Placed for one purpose for one moment in time and you don’t want to miss that time. You go through life and you don’t have the epicurean philosophy of eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you are going to die. You adopt Paul’s philosophy which says make the most of every opportunity. Be wise. He goes on to say “Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish but understand what the Lord’s will is.” Try to live within God’s will a little bit. Try to be sensitive that there are times out there that are ordained by God. I was thinking about the missions group. I love hearing short-term missions. They saw an opportunity. Something was in their heart that they should go to Mexico. They went and they were blessed and they were a blessing. They saw the opportunity. If they were operating on man’s time, they would have said it is expensive, dangerous, and an inconvenience. I am going to miss work. Do you see the difference? That is how Christians live. They take into account God’s time. When they do that, they become a blessing to others. There are times that they will go out and walk in the world and encounter people that will hate them. Not just be blessed by them. Those little kids love them. They can’t wait until they get back. But if they were out on the street sharing their faith or trying to be the light, they might have encountered people that actually hate them. In fact, if we go out into the world and try to live our lives like Jesus and try to encourage people to live that higher life, some people will hate you. They will hate you because they like it. They have a little of that total depravity going on there.
What I am saying is that in addition to living in God’s time or knowing whose time you live in, you should be okay that once in a while somebody is going to hate you. They are going to push that ‘Hate’ button. In fact, I think it is Jesus who said you are blessed if they were to hate you. I know some people think that is too strong of a word. I would just encourage you to at least be willing to be disliked. At least be willing to occasionally be like Jesus. If you start looking like Jesus, you are going to offend somebody because we don’t know how to do it very well. We are kind of clunky at it. You are going to offend somebody. You are not doing it to go out to condemn the world. You are not trying to get people to hate you. You are just going out and walking through your day like Jesus did. You are just walking but you are aware of God’s time. When you are sitting and eating and somebody brings up something about something that is not working in their life, their finances or their marriage, you say this is the way I was but this seemed to work for me. I got it out of the Bible and I can’t explain it but this is where I was and this is where I am now. Some may receive that and some may not but that is okay. Your job is not to worry about who likes you. Your job is to be Jesus out in the world. So you go out in the world and start shedding that light wherever you can go. I was sitting at home last night on the porch. It was about dusk and I remember seeing all the lightning bugs out there. I thought this is the perfect illustration because that is what is going on. You have this dark yard back there but hundreds of lightning bugs just flickering all over the place out there. That is a picture of what we are supposed to do. Just go out into that dark world and be those lightning bugs. Be beacons of light. If enough of those lights are going, people are going to be drawn to that light possibly. In the midst of it, some people aren’t going to like it. They are going to hate you for it. But all you have to do is remind yourself you are in good company. As Jesus told his disciples, the reason they are hated is because they hated him first. John 15:18 says “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belong to the world, it will love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.” Do you hear that last part? You are hated because you have been taken out of the world’s world and put into a new world. You are put into God’s world. You have been taking out of the world’s timing and put into God’s timing. I think it is Colossians that says “You have been taken out of the kingdom of darkness and placed into the kingdom of the Son.” Because you are now in the kingdom of the Son and you are supposed to be operating like you are in the kingdom of the Son, you can pretty much expect that you are going to be hated or at least disliked.
It is not going out there and being obnoxious Christians. There are enough obnoxious Christians. There is a group of supposedly Christians that are out there picketing the funerals of sailors and soldiers because something about the military allowing homosexuals in. They are picketing funerals. They are causing hate upon themselves, but they are projecting hate. Jesus didn’t project hate. He allowed people to hate him, but his whole manner of operating was to give love. We are familiar with John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.” The remaining part of that passage goes on to say “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” In other words, when we go out into the world, we are operating under that same paradigm. The paradigm of love. The sole reason that Jesus came was because of love. He didn’t come to hammer people and condemn them down for the lives they are living. He came to love them into the kingdom. Because he was the light and he was out in the darkness and muck and mire, people’s natural response is to hate back because they didn’t want to change because their deeds were evil and they enjoyed it. Once again, if you love enough and begin to show them their potential, they may change. The job of us is not to hammer people into submission. It is to love them. It is to say God has such a plan for you. You have so much significance. You were made in the image of God. You are a child of God. You have so much value. You have spiritual gifts that God wants to give you in order that you can partner with him to begin to carry out his kingdom work. You can have significance beyond anything that the world can ever offer.
In closing, while you are out there just trying to live your Christian life and be an obedient Christian, actually take the words of the Bible and try to apply them, people are going to be hitting that ‘Hate’ button. While they are hitting that ‘Hate’ button, your response is to hit their ‘Love’ button. You are going to love them into the kingdom. You are going to love them so much that you are not going to allow them to stay in their squalor. That is what you are going to do. You are going to say I love you too much to allow you to live anything less than what God has intended for you. Let us pray.
