Manipulator, Maniac Or Messiah? - [John 7:10-24]

It's getting harder and harder these days to be certain of anything. You get emails, you don't know who they're from, right?

You click on one wrong little thing and boom, you're gone, you've got a virus. But it's even getting tricky around the house.

You got any of these weird kind of phone calls, you know, I read, we had one of these from the

IRS, you know, only she speaks with a foreign accent and it's a recording and they're telling you you're in trouble and, you know, they're about to seize your grandkids and sell off your dog and all these kind of things that are going to happen and you're just like, really?

I would think my tax guy would have said something to me or I would have received something in the letter and then you look online and you find out, oh, it's a scam.

But I have to say the weirdest phone call I can remember getting happened this week.

I mean, I get a lot of weird calls. In fact, I haven't told Janet, I don't think, but we won like three cruises to the

Bahamas this week. I'm very excited about that. Yeah, super.

But I got a phone call today, the phone rang, you know, and right away you just look at it and you're just like, okay, who's bothering me now?

What salesman is going to tell me it's, this isn't a sales pitch, don't hang up. And then, you know, of course, it's a sales pitch and I wish

I'd hung up. But this one was funny because the phone starts ringing and I look at it and I go, okay, this might be the weirdest thing ever because it says it's me calling.

Oh, wait, it's not my cell phone either. It's my home phone. But here's the problem. I'm at home.

I am here. This is me. I'm like having an out -of -body experience. I'm calling me.

I don't know what's going on. Of course, I didn't pick it up, but I'm like, they can even mimic your own phone and make you think that you're calling yourself.

I'm going, I know I'm not calling me. So, I'm ignoring that one. I'll let the machine pick it up.

I wasn't real happy about it later, but, you know, so. Yeah, you get all kinds of weird phone calls, but how do you know who's who?

And really, when we look at this text today, we're going to see three potential responses.

Two are stated right in here, right in the text. Was Jesus, in fact, the sermon title today out front, it said sermon.

Well, that could be the title, but it's not the title. My title is Messiah, Manipulator, or Maniac.

And two of those three are in the text today. One of them is not in the text, but it's the right answer.

Open your Bibles to John chapter 7. This isn't a place where we can use caller

ID, but we can certainly use what we know about Scripture, what we know about John's purpose to help us get to the right answer.

I'm going to begin reading in verse 10 of John chapter 7.

But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, but not publicly, or I'm sorry, not publicly, but in private.

The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, where is he? And there was much muttering about him among the people.

While some said, he is a good man, others said, no. He is leading the people astray.

Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him. About the middle of the feast,

Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, how is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?

So Jesus answered them, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory. But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true.

And in him there is no falsehood. Has Moses not given you the law?

Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me? Verse 20, the crowd answered, you have a demon.

Who is seeking to kill you? Jesus answered them, I did one work and you all marvel at it.

Moses gave you circumcision, not that it was from Moses, but from the fathers and you circumcise a man on the

Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the

Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

Now last week we saw that Jesus faced danger in Jerusalem, danger because the

Jewish authorities were still after him. What had he done? Well, he'd healed a lame man on the

Sabbath, which is what he talks about at the end there. Because he had not only violated their

Sabbath laws, but told them he was acting as his father would, they wanted to kill him.

They wanted to kill him all the more, because they rightly understood that he was claiming to be equal with the father.

They made him or they accused him of blasphemy. And if you recall last week, the half -brothers of our

Lord, James, Joseph, Simon, and Jude, also known as Judas, were oblivious to all this.

They were unbelievers. The text told us that they didn't believe. And their concern was to get to Jerusalem.

They wanted to get to the party. They didn't want to miss a single minute. They were chomping at the bit to get there.

And they're like, come on, Jesus, let's go. Let's go to the festival of booths. Let's go to this terrific party.

This one time of the year where everybody who's anybody, they're all going to Jerusalem. It's going to be decked out.

I mean, the temple's lit up. There are all these tents, lean -to's, booths all over the place, including on people's rooftops.

Anywhere they could cram people, they would, because everybody was there. And as we left last week,

Jesus told his brothers that they were welcome to go. You can go anytime you want. Every time is the right time for you, but it's not the right time for me.

Why? Because he knew that he was going to be seized and tried and executed.

He told them that his time had not come. And it was not for about six months after that that he would be executed.

And after service one week, or last week, somebody came up to me and asked me, they said, well, wait a minute, did Jesus mislead his brothers?

I would say no. If you go back to verse 8, he says, you go up to the feast, I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.

He doesn't say that he's not going at all. The implication is that he's just not going now. So he didn't mislead them, but he's not going to go with them, because we're going to see why he didn't want to go immediately.

It's in our text. But this morning I want you to see, we're going to take a look at five scenes, five vignettes, as it were, from this text.

Some of them are shorter, some of them are longer. But there's a clear picture here.

I mean, this is like, ultimately what we wind up with is Jesus walking, this is like Jesus walking in alone into the

OK Corral. I mean, this is, you know, just in old Western terms.

But it's all for one purpose. John wants us to see Jesus as what? The Christ, the

Son of God. Because it's only by believing in him that we can have eternal life. And so he gives us this text, this vignette, this picture, so that we can see

Jesus as Messiah, not for who the others will say he is, but for who he actually is.

Is Jesus a Messiah or is he a manipulator or a maniac? The answer is in our text.

Our first little vignette, our scene, is the anticipation of Jesus, not meaning he's looking forward, but the way

Jerusalem is just kind of, they're waiting, they're looking, they want Jesus to show up.

And he's going by stealth. Look at verse 10. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.

What does that mean in private? How do you travel in private? Well, you can think of it as incognito.

He didn't put on a disguise, but he's not going with everyone else. He's not going to be there for the first inning, if this was a game at Fenway.

He's not lining up with everybody else to get on the pike. He's not going to travel with everybody else because of what else is going on.

But he's not traveling with his brothers, because that would be foolish. He would be taken into custody.

Again, consider that they wanted to kill him. They wanted to take him into custody. Now, if he had gone, he would have been seized.

And that's exactly what his brothers wanted, because they didn't understand all the implications. What they told him to do is, you know, stop just being this guy who lives in the backwoods of Galilee.

Get on over to the main stage. Show yourself to be who you really are. If you're the Messiah, and by the way, we don't believe that you are, but if you are the

Messiah, then show yourself. Do the things that you do on the big stage. And instead, he rejected that.

He went into stealth mode. The goal of Jesus, he wanted to stay below the radar of the

Pharisees and the religious leaders in Jerusalem. He wanted to arrive safely, so that the city would be all full of people, and he would have the maximum opportunity to minister.

Well, was that the right thing to do? I think we'll see that it was. There's a lot of whispering, whispering in the dark, in the corners in Jerusalem.

Let's look at verse 11. The Jews were looking for him at the feast, saying, where is he?

And there was much muttering about him among the people, while some said, he's a good man. Others said, no, he's leading the people astray.

Now the Jews, it's important to note here, the Jews doesn't mean every single Israelites.

It doesn't mean every single person who claimed to be of the

Jewish religion. It refers to the Jewish religious leaders, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, the people who actually were in charge of the

Jewish faith. And just as he, Jesus, had thought, they were looking for him.

In fact, if you look at the text, you might have the idea that there were just a couple of guys out there looking for him.

Well, that's not right. It's not just the high priest and a couple of his henchmen out there looking for him.

It's the entire leadership group, and everybody they know, and they basically get the police force, if there were such a thing.

They've got everyone out looking for him. And it's a massive crowd. Remember, everybody's coming in from all over the place, from outside of Israel.

Everyone who's a Jew wants to be there for this time of the year. And they have a bolo out, a be on the lookout for Jesus, because they want him.

The verbs they were looking and they were saying both indicate constant activity.

They're looking around. They're interviewing people. They're doing a door -to -door search, basically. They want to find

Jesus. Now, just think, if you were the one who, you know, you saw

Jesus and you said, yep, Mr. High Priest, sir, Mr. Sanhedrin, Mr. Pharisee, I know where Jesus is.

You think that might not have been worth something to you? I think it would have been. So he's going to avoid all that by showing up later, by not showing up with the crowd.

And meanwhile, throughout Jerusalem, wherever you went, the talk was about Jesus. Muttering in verse 12, that verb there.

I don't know if you remember, Pastor Mike, but when I do this, you'll remember. There's a word that is onomatopoetic, meaning that it is defined by how it sounds.

Remember Pastor Mike doing this, going, gungusmus, gungusmus, gungusmus.

Well, that's this word. Muttering, mumbling. The interesting thing, though, is in the dictionary, it says this, it's an utterance made in a low tone of voice, but the context indicates whether the utterance is one of discontent or satisfaction.

In other words, they might be saying good things or bad things. This is kind of behind -the -scenes talk.

That's why muttering is a good translation of it. And when you think about it, not much has changed in 2 ,000 years.

If we just look at that, what they're saying, people still say, what, Jesus is a good man, he's a good teacher, and some people see him as a charlatan leading the people astray.

That's what that word literally means when it says, you know, he's leading them astray. It would give the idea of a charlatan, somebody who's out for his own good.

It wouldn't be wrong, you know, today to say, oh, he's one of those false teachers on TV. That's what some were saying about him.

Some viewed him as morally good and upright. That's what it means.

Oh, he's a good man. He's a good guy. You'd really like Jesus if you met him, I'm sure.

They don't see him as more than a man. He's simply a man. So they see him as either a good man or as a false teacher, but not as the

Messiah. There's no indication of that kind of talking here, that kind of muttering. And why are they muttering?

Why are they mumbling? Why is it only going about in, you know, in the corners, in private conversations?

You know, if you were talking to your best friend, you might talk about Jesus, but nowhere else. Why? Look at verse 13.

Yet for fear of the Jews, no one, no one spoke openly of him.

Well, why? Again, the Jewish leadership. They hadn't made an actual judgment.

They hadn't declared him to be a heretic. They were thinking that. They were plotting against him.

They wanted him. They wanted to capture him. But the people in Jerusalem are talking about him in hushed voices, in corners, in quiet conversations.

Why? Because they're afraid of the Sanhedrin. They're afraid of the Pharisees. Because it's not like they were saying good things about Rabbi Jesus, these religious leaders.

And maybe by saying something good about him and having that traced back to you, you might be implicated in this.

You could be excommunicated from your synagogue. You could be persona non grata. That's a major thing in the

Jewish community. You wouldn't want to be kicked out of your synagogue. Certainly not for somebody you didn't even believe in.

Our second vignette is the preaching of Jesus, the preaching of Jesus.

We see really an unrecorded sermon. We don't have any idea what his sermon was about.

None. Well, why not? Why doesn't John record that for us? You know, frankly, I said this in the first service.

I've had some sermons that I wish weren't recorded. I remember the first time

I ever preached was at a rest home. And Pastor Mike, I've told you before, he was in the back and thought he was being all stealthy when he was recording me.

The problem was it was my recorder he was using and I could see the bright red LED like hitting me right in the face like a laser dot.

Good job, except I didn't preach the resurrection. But the fact that it's not recorded is not the issue here.

Well, why does John leave that out? Because it's not the sermon that's the issue. It's the response to the sermon.

It's the way that the people and the leadership respond to what he says.

Well, he goes into the temple. He's snuck into Jerusalem. Snuck might be a little mischaracterization, but he's not making himself known.

He gets to the temple. He sits down to teach because that's what you would do when you were teaching in that culture.

You would sit down to show that what you were about to say had authority. Well, why didn't the

Jewish leadership take him there, right there on the temple grounds? Why let him speak to all those people?

I think that's a reasonable question and it's really not answered here, but I think it's important to think about the overall context.

If Jesus was someone that they were afraid of giving popularity to, of making some kind of martyr out of him, out of enhancing his reputation, then this could be a problem.

All these people just see him dragging him off, and they'd go, well, why are they doing that to Jesus? Better to build the case.

And we'll see over the months that come, what they do is constantly that the anger is building toward Jesus, and we'll see some of that here.

What they wanted was to get him quietly on the QT. They wanted to get him when he first showed up.

That's why they were asking about him. Anybody seen Jesus? Before he could get in front of a crowd, before he had the opportunity to have a platform,

I think they were pretty surprised that he showed up at the temple. I think they were like, you know, this is pretty brazen.

This is pretty bold of him to do this. And again, there would have been a large crowd at the temple, a very large crowd at the temple, the place, the whole town is teeming with people.

And so the temple would have had many, many people there. We don't know what Jesus said. We don't know what he preached, but we do know how it was received.

So we've seen two little vignettes so far. The anticipation of Jesus. Secondly, the preaching of Jesus.

Thirdly, the rejection of Jesus by the religious elite. Why? Why would they reject him?

Why would they reject his teaching? Well, because he's unlettered. Look at verse 15.

The Jews therefore marveled, saying, how is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?

What they literally say is not he's never studied, but he has not learned his letters.

He doesn't know his alphabet. Well, that's a literal, crassly literal understanding.

But when they use that word gramata, what they were really talking about was the word of God.

He'd never studied. He'd never been. And what they were inferring here, by the way, is he'd never had any formal education.

He'd never been under the tutelage of one of the great rabbis. He'd never been through one of their schools, one of their rabbinic schools.

So today we might say that he was unlettered. He didn't have a Ph .D., a T .H .D., an

M .R .S. He didn't have anything behind his name. I mean, there was nothing. It was just Jesus. No massive number of letters behind his name.

And the Pharisees, to them, this meant that Jesus had never, he had no authority.

He had no way of speaking that would be approved by them.

And therefore, the implication of what they're saying is that he's speaking on his own authority.

He's making this stuff up. He's speaking out of a position of wanting to bring glory and money and fame to himself.

So what they want is for the people that they're addressing when they say, you know, he's never learned anything, they want the people to discount him.

But Jesus responds. He refutes their accusation. You want to talk about his education?

Okay. He says, my authority is heavenly. Look at verse 16. So Jesus answered them, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

It's as if he's saying, oh, you're quite right. I didn't go to your approved schools, but I'm not making this up either.

In fact, my teaching is from a better source than you all. Now, that's going to be heartwarming, right?

They're really going to like him after that. These men had devoted their entire lives to studying the law, but also studying the man -made regulations that accompanied their understanding of the law.

They added all these things onto the law. And, I mean, can you imagine?

Here are all these men with their education, their regalia, all their qualifications.

And they're not just the religious elite. They are the determiners, in their own minds anyway, of what is and what is not orthodox, what does and does not pass religious muster.

And they're sitting there, and they're listening to Jesus, and they're getting madder and madder and madder.

Why? Because he says, I need no human teacher. I need no human academy, because my

Father in heaven, the one who sent me, is my source. Now, if Jesus had said, you know what,

I've got a new word, I've got a fresh word, as so many like to say today, I've got a fresh word from the

Lord. If he'd said something like that, everybody would have discredited him right away. But by appealing to an authority for his teaching, an authority that exceeded that of the

Pharisees, he both validates his teaching, and he infuriated them.

Now, also note here that Jesus' true hearers are heaven -born. That is, they have been given a new nature.

Look at verse 17. It's kind of a hard one to grasp. But the

Lord says, if anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority.

Now, first of all, think about this. They've just basically accused him of teaching on his own authority. So what does this say about them?

If anyone's will is to do God's will. So he's saying, in an indirect way, your will,

Pharisees, is not to do God's will. You're sitting there thinking that you know more than I do.

You're passing judgment on my teaching. Let me tell you something. You don't possess the ability to discern whether or not what

I'm saying is from God or whether I'm making it up. Why?

Because they were not willing to do God's will. Only someone who is born again can do

God's will. Only someone who has been regenerated, somebody who has been brought to spiritual life, someone who has faith can please

God. Only someone who has faith can seek after God. Spiritual discernment, that is, the ability to tell truth from error, is only present in those who have spiritual life.

Those who are spiritually dead cannot hear and understand the Word of God. They can hear it, but it all bounces off.

So is this teaching from God? Yes. But the only ones who would understand that are those in whom

God has so worked to enable them to understand that it's from God. For these men of learning, with all their pride and all their refinements, this was a direct rebuke.

This was a slap in the face. But Jesus' motives are pure.

Look at verse 18. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.

But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

Listen. It's as if he says this, listen, if I was this charlatan you all think

I am, speaking on my own authority, I would be trying to increase my own wealth and stature.

That's what religious frauds do. I'm seeking the glory of my Father. And by the way, what were they all doing?

They were seeking to enhance their own wealth and stature. Why? Because they were religious frauds.

Jesus does not say, if you look back at the text, he doesn't say that he is telling the truth. I'm telling the truth. I'm not lying.

He doesn't say that. He says he is the truth. Who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true.

In other words, I'm the one who God has sent. I'm seeking his glory, and I am true.

Further speaking himself in the third person, Jesus says he has no falsehood, it says in the

ESV, which I think is a bad translation. It really should be unrighteousness, and the idea that word would mean that he's always just, always truthful, he's always godly and sinless.

So how stark is the contrast between the Lord and the religious leaders who view themselves as righteous?

I mean, even if you think about the Pharisee and the publican, the publican beats his breast and says,

God, be merciful to me, the sinner. What does the Pharisee say? God, I thank you that I'm not like others.

That's how Pharisees viewed the world, and not even like that lowly publican. They were above everyone else.

They were self -promoting, prideful, and even hateful. And over and over again in John's Gospel, what does he say?

Jesus say, he said, I did not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

He was humble, loving, truthful. And I mean,

I so want him to go into, you know, woe to you Pharisees mode, Matthew 23, like where he launches in verse 15, he says,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.

Why? Because they would just heap all these rules and regulations as if obeying these man -made rules made them more righteous, as if they made them better, more presentable to God.

Notice also that Jesus' accusers are hypocrites, and worse, they're even murderers.

They have murder in their hearts. Look at verse 19. Has not Moses given you the law?

They had to love this. Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?

Oh, they claim they were the rightful heirs to Moses' authority. In fact, there is even something called the seed of Moses where they would actually believe that they were speaking, they were interpreting the intent of the law of Moses, the scriptures.

They had the singular ability and right to interpret the words of Moses.

They were going to tell everybody what Moses really meant. But in spite of their alleged authority, they did not keep the law,

Jesus says. Not one of them keeps the law. Why? Because no one can keep the law. And in fact, they were bent on killing

Jesus, on putting him to death. Hendrickson writes, Jesus knew that while they tried to pose as the guardians of the law of Moses, a law in which, listen, is summarized in the one word, love, they had hatred and murder in their hearts.

What greater hypocrisy could there be? They supposedly represented the God of love, yet they were filled with hate.

They purported to represent the God of life, and yet they were filled with murderous rage.

So we've seen these three vignettes so far. The anticipation of Jesus. He was eagerly awaited in Jerusalem.

Secondly, the preaching of Jesus. Thirdly, the rejection of Jesus by the elite. Fourthly, and this is a short one, the rejection of Jesus by the people.

Look at their response to his accusation that the leaders wanted to kill him. The crowd answered, you have a demon who is seeking to kill you.

They called him a maniac. They said he was crazy. And again, many people from all throughout

Israel and beyond would have been there. They would have been packing out the temple. Many would have heard him.

But few understood what Jesus actually said. In fact, we don't have anybody here who it's indicated actually understood him.

And they did not know that their religious leaders, in spite of their outward appearance on the inside, were as black as coal.

They were as sinful as could be. They listened to the sermon, Jesus' response to the

Jewish leaders culminating in him accusing them of wanting to kill him. And their conclusion is that he's nuts.

He's a maniac. Today they might say that he needs his head examined. And their main point is contained in that question.

As far as they know, no one was trying to kill Jesus. But we know back from John 5 that after this healing of the paralytic on the

Sabbath, and after he claimed equality with the Father, they were more determined than ever to put him to death.

Our fifth vignette, the exoneration of Jesus. He declares himself innocent.

First of all, notice he did not break the Sabbath. Jesus expressed a surprise at the outrage of the crowd.

Jesus answered them, I did one work. One work. And you all marvel at it.

Well, the only miracle that John records for us, that was performed in Jerusalem that they would have been talking about, or that they were focused on, was the healing of this paralytic.

The man who had been an invalid for 38 years. And the text says that they marvel at it. Here's the point.

They don't necessarily see it as a good thing. That Greek word doesn't mean that it's great, that they're in awe of it.

It just means that they're surprised by it. And it can be negative or positive.

And I think it's pretty clear that Jesus does not think that they are impressed by it. They're probably very concerned about it.

They're bothered. It gets under their saddle. They don't understand it. How can this man have done this?

They don't get it. They couldn't explain the sign away, but they're pretty sure that Jesus is not right.

He's not right in the head. He's got some kind of demon. He's not thinking rightly.

But he explains, he goes on, he explains their misunderstanding of the Sabbath. Look at verse 22.

Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcised a man on the

Sabbath. They circumcised going all the way back to Abraham. Circumcision was part of being an

Israelite, being part of the tribe. But Moses codified it, made it part of, or said it had to be done on the eighth day, and he put it in writing in Leviticus.

So it was important, it was so important that this happened on the eighth day, that it was a work that was permitted on the

Sabbath in order not to break the law. To break the law, they had to bend the law, or to keep the law, they had to bend it.

Now look at verse 23. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the

Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Listen to what J .C. Ryle says. Is it then just and fair to be angry with me because I have done a far greater work to a man on the

Sabbath than the work of circumcision? I have not wounded his body by circumcision, but made him perfectly whole.

I have not done a purifying work to one particular part of him, but have restored his whole body to health and strength.

I have not done a work of necessity to a single member only, but a work of necessity and benefit to the whole man.

What was more important? The good done to a man in healing him, or the

Sabbath day? What was more significant? The healing of this man, or circumcision?

Circumcision was ceremonial. It made a male child ceremonially clean.

Was that more important than what had happened to this man? And by the way, he would have been considered unclean. This paralytic, not before the

Lord, but the Jewish leaders would have considered him unclean. Well, who could sit there and think about this and think that the

Sabbath was more important than circumcision? Well, they knew that wasn't correct.

So how could the Sabbath then be more important than healing this man? It couldn't be.

So Jesus, the implied question is, this is why you guys are so upset? No, well,

Jesus is not saying that he broke the law. He's not saying that at all. In fact, he was fulfilling the law.

If the law is love, if the law can be summarized as love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, love your neighbor as yourself, how is that not loving your neighbor as yourself?

His healing of the paralytic was fully in keeping with the law.

It just wasn't in keeping with the Pharisees' distorted understanding and teaching of the law. And finally,

Jesus exhorts this crowd who have responded wrongly by supposing that he has a demon.

Look at verse 24. Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgments.

Listen, they'd listen to the criticism of the Jewish leaders, the ones who said he wasn't qualified to teach like this, that he didn't know what he was talking about, that he was self -aggrandizing, that he was out for his own gain.

He says, don't be put off by what they said. Don't look at the lack of degrees.

Don't consider the fact that I'm not a Pharisee, that I haven't gone to all the right schools, but judge with right judgment.

This is a rebuke. This isn't, you know, hey guys, don't judge a book by its cover. This is a direct rebuke at this crowd.

They were judging him based on what they had seen, and he is calling on them to repent what they'd heard.

This is really the intransigence of unbelief. This is the stubbornness of unbelief.

This is the unwillingness of an unsaved person with a heart of stone to hear

God himself proclaim God's Word and then to reject it. The religious elites rejected the

Lord because his teaching offended them and did not conform to their man -made rules, and so they said, you know, this guy's a manipulator.

He's out for himself. Don't believe him. And the common folks rejected

Jesus, and they said, he's a maniac. He thinks somebody wants to kill him. He's paranoid.

He's delusional. No one believed him. How about you?

Who and what is Jesus to you? You know, the Bible says that he is the creator of all things.

He's the sustainer of life. If Jesus takes the day off, we all die. He is upholding all of creation by the word of his power.

The Bible also says that he's the soon -coming judge. Well, why would he judge anyone? Because we're all sinners.

We all stand condemned before God apart from some sacrifice that would make us right in God's eyes.

And the good news is that Jesus Christ is that sacrifice, fully God, fully man.

He's Savior, came to this earth, lived a perfect life.

It had to be a man to do this. It had to be a human being to do this.

Why? Because only a human being, the death of a human being, could redeem another human being.

And only the death of God, sufficient to redeem all who would ever believe, could have such value.

Jesus Christ is a redeemer. He paid the price. He redeemed us.

He's a mediator. He rose, is seated at the Father's right hand, and lives to intercede for us.

This is Jesus Christ. I beg you this morning to believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ, his finished work. Seek refuge in him.

He is a Savior to those who seek him.

Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, what a blessing it is to look at the

Lord's ministry, just how he came and proclaimed the truth to people he knew would not receive it.

But to glorify you, he did it. To honor you, he did it.

Rejected by men, eventually wrongly convicted, sent to suffer a horrible death he did not deserve, nailed to a cross, suffered the wrath of almighty

God on behalf of all who would ever believe, that we might be sinless, spotless in your sight.

What a joy. What a great Redeemer. Father, for any who don't know you today, for any you have not called,

Father, would even today be the day that you would give them ears to hear, eyes to see, a new heart that would beat for you, that would see the perfect work of Jesus Christ, would see his death, burial, and resurrection, would flee to the cross for refuge.

Father, let us not be like the unbelievers in Jerusalem, only willing to talk about Jesus in the quiet corners, only with our trusted friends.

Let us be bold proclaimers of the one who redeemed our lives from the pit, we pray in Christ's name, amen.