The Timing of God's Plan

The gospel of John. Today I'd like to speak to you just one aspect of it. There's much here in chapter 7. Lord willing, pick it up next Lord's Day with more to say. But as today with communion before us as we remember the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, I would like to focus on just one aspect of this text.

The Timing of God's Plan and Jesus’ Divine Timetable

We're going to look at the other aspects of it and the interpretation, the content of it, but I'd really like to bore in and focus on the timing of God's plan. The timing of God's plan because Jesus was on the divine timetable here as he was going to the cross.

For this reason he came into the world to seek and save the lost. So in saying that, please turn with me as we continue this study in John's gospel. Chapter 7 beginning with verse 1. I'll be reading to verse 13.

Chapter 7 beginning with verse 1 to verse 13. Hear the word of the living God. After these things Jesus walked in Galilee for he did not want to walk in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him. The ruling authorities.

Now the Jews feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brothers therefore said to him, depart from here and go into Judea that your disciples also may see the works that you are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For even his brothers did not believe in him. Then Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil.

You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast for my time has not yet fully come. And when he had said these things to them, he remained in Galilee. Verse 10, but when his brothers had gone up, then he also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.

Then the Jews sought him at the feast and said, where is he? And there was much complaining among the people concerning him. Some said he is good. Others said no. On the contrary, he deceives the people.

However, no one spoke openly of him for the fear of the Jews. Please bow with me in prayer and may God bless the reading of his word to his holy of his holy word from the hearing of our ears to the our hearts this morning.

Let's pray. Our father and our Lord, our great God, how gracious you are, how wonderful you are, how holy you are. Lord, I pray. Speak now for your servant hears and we pray this for that glory and I honor in the name that's above every name.

Jesus, our Lord. Amen. Let me give you a quick, brief introduction and how the front porch looks like. Let me begin with a question. When is the right time to be involved, to make a comment, to make a right comment?

As Solomon says of apples of gold and pictures of silver, when we need wisdom, we need wisdom. When's the right time to speak out against or for a topic or a comment? This is a dilemma, no doubt. For many of us on a daily basis or even hourly basis, we live in a very impatient world, as you well know.

All you have to do is be on the road and that's very obvious, very impatient. It tends to demand answers right on the spot. A world that says you should stop waiting and do what I tell you to do now becomes very demanding.

Do what you want right now at this very moment. The culture, the media, business worlds, and the world in which we live, the world system in which I'm talking about, we live in stress of our rights to an opinion, tells us that there's no better time than the present.

Stop waiting. Hurry it up. Just rush through it. The deeper the issue, the more we struggle with the decision of what we should do. Any reason why we need prudence and wisdom, and that's not going to come unless we have the fear of the Lord.

For as Solomon said and Job says and David says all the way through scripture, and you can take this back in the Old Testament for the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. As we read throughout the gospel of John, as we have seen, we see that Jesus had many of the same decisions to make.

And here we see in this chapter that his brothers was literally putting pressure on him and tempting him to do something contrary to the will of God. Even though that they thought that, okay, what they were saying was right, Jesus was very patient with them.

I don't know if you noticed that in the text, the way Jesus responds is just absolutely perfect. Of course, this is the perfect son of God. This is the righteous one. This is the Messiah. And he responds in complete perfection.

Patience as well. Patience. We can learn much from our Lord, of course, of how we should be. And as we walk and follow him day by day, let me go on to say this, even though he walked this earth over 2000 years ago in a different culture in the Middle East, nothing has really changed within the hearts of man.

Mankind is very impatient and does not know even what it means to wait on God. So the question arises, when should Jesus confront the leaders of his day? When? Should he perform a miracle to at the moment or even meet the needs of the crowd as the brothers tempted him and pressured him and urged him to do?

Well, actually our passage answers the question today. If you look very closely, it shows a time when he was in his life, Jesus was being threatened and they were wanting to kill him. In verse 1 it says the Jews, the authority leaders sought to kill him.

And as I said last Lord's Day, that the escalation of tension and pressure was building up to kill the Lord Jesus Christ and it actually culminates to the crucifixion on Golgotha's hill, Calvary. Everything in the life of Jesus was centered in the will of his father.

Jesus said that he did nothing outside of what the father showed him to do. He did everything according to the will of God and by the way, let me say he did it perfectly. How wonderful is our Lord? And here we have and we see the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ.

And here he's waiting for he says, for my time is not yet come. My time has not yet come in verse 6 and that's what we're going to focus on. It's interesting about time. This is God in flesh. He dwells in eternity.

He comes from eternity as we sung this morning in that wonderful song, My Savior's Love. He came from the world of light in which he created. He comes from light. He comes from another world and from eternity who created eternity for he is the eternal one.

He enters into time in which he made. We got to remember this from beginning to end, from the beginning of history to the end of history, God made the time clock and out of eternity he started the time clock and he will end the time clock.

But what's amazing about it is this great God who comes in the second person, the father of the first person of the Trinity sends the second person of the Trinity to become flesh. He enters time when the fullness of time has come.

Born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law and we will see that in our application. But what's amazing is God is before time because he created time. And we're not talking about just scales, click, click, click.

We're talking about his plan. Everything revolves about what he has planned. But he comes from eternity into time. He's before time. He comes in time because he's ahead of time and he's right on time.

Isn't it wonderful? This is the kind of God we serve and we have seen here his brothers tempted him with the need to perform these miracles in public and Jesus does not fall for the temptation. He does not enter into this temptation.

He resists it because he knows what the father's will is. Jesus' response, what was his response to the pressure from his brothers to push to do what others wanted him to do? It was actually simple. He said, I am not yet going up to this feast.

I am not yet going because for the Lord Jesus Christ, the time was not right. My hour, my time has not yet come. We need to really meditate on this because everything here that what Jesus was set to do, what he's sent to do was the father's will was to die upon Calvary's cross and he did it for our sake.

First of all, he did it for the glory of God. He died for the glory of God. A lot of times we forget that our salvation in a sense is secondary. You ever think of that? Primarily, Jesus died unto God.

He did all he did for the will of the father, for the glory of God. Everything he did was for the glory of God. If you want to know how he glorified the father, glorified God, which he was God, the second person in the church, but he did it as a man, the son of man.

He did it perfectly. We see his footsteps. We see how he made decisions, perfect decisions, and we see how his timing is in total, complete perfection. My hour has not yet come, what he says. Jesus was absolutely confident of not only who he was and why he was here, but also he was at complete, total rest in the father's will.

He knew the father's will and there was nothing that would stop him from doing the father's will and how important it is for us as followers of Jesus Christ and believers in Jesus Christ that we obey the father's will.

That is very critical. He knew the father's will. He knew the father. That's how he knew the father's will because he knew the father intimately. Well, this is the son. Yet God the son, but here he is.

He's in total, complete submission to the father and to what the father has commanded him to do and nothing deviated him from going to the cross. And then the way, even though in a different way, his mission was absolutely critical and far more important, but how much more should we look at his life and say, nothing should deviate us from doing God's will.

In this life, we should take it all the way to our last breath, beloved, by God's help and strength and in the Holy Spirit. We must remember that because we cannot do this on our own, right? Well, here we see his perfect timing, his divine timetable, a place where all was to be accomplished.

And the Lord Jesus does it. We too, as children of God, again, need to have that same confidence in our heavenly father to trust our Lord, to know when and where we are able to be, what we are able to do and what to say.

And by the way, as it was said in Sunday school, the law of God, the gospel from Genesis to Revelation, these wonderful 66 books of inspiration of God that's sufficient tells us exactly how we can know the will of God.

It's not a maze. It's not something that should be puzzling to us. God tells us what his will is. There's really only one way to have that kind of confidence and knowing the will of God and is by walking and living in the spirit of God.

And we cannot do that if we're out of communion from him. If we're not reading the scripture, these things don't get us saved by coming to church. Someone wants to ask, let's go in the church. Get me saved.

By the way, on the way here, as a side note, I saw a sign of a Baptist church saying, take a right right here to heaven. I said, that is such ignorance. The church won't get us to heaven. Yes, we can know the ways of God when we come in.

If it's a Bible believing church, but who is the way to heaven? Jesus Christ. Now, a lot of people may use that and say, well, that means I don't have to go to church to be saved. Well, look, the way I see it here, and correct me if I'm wrong, going to church, don't make you say beloved, but when you are saved, you want to be in church.

And we say church, we're not talking about a structure. As brother Ben put this morning, and from Earl Blackburn's book, Jesus loves the church and so should you. We're talking about the people of God.

God's people want to be with God's people because we're a family of God. And this is where we come to worship our God together, corporately. One of the easiest things that one Baptist, reformed Baptist minister said years ago to us, and it's always rung a bell, the easiest thing we can do is attend church, to be with God's people.

That's the easiest thing in the Christian life. I tell you what, beloved, I amen that all the way. The hard things is what? Walking day by day, fighting against the flesh, my remaining sin. That's what I battle with.

And even the devil is not as difficult as a problem as my own flesh. I need strength. And this is where we come to get strength. This is where we come to get encouragement. This is where we come to the house of God, meeting with God's people, to hear the word of God, to be encouraged, to be edified, but also to be prepared.

These are days that we cannot back away from that. And we must go full throttle by the grace of God because we need each other. We need the strength and we need the exhortation. We need to hear God's word.

We need the instruction and righteousness, the reproof, the rebuke, the exhort, and long suffering. We need all this instruction to help us and know and do the will of God. It's so important, isn't it?

And only by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ can we do this. Now the arm of flesh will let us down every time. It will fail us, but not God. God will never fail us. Well, as last Lord's Day we looked at the setting, we saw the introduction of this.

Jesus is in Galilee after the Passover. We saw the urging of his brothers to encourage him to go to Jerusalem for the feast, the tabernacles. Show yourself to the world. Show yourself to the world. Then we saw as Jesus responds, he tells them that his time is not yet come.

Even his brothers did not believe him. Verse 5. We see that. So the brothers, we don't know, it says brothers plural, so there was just not one of them that was speaking this. There was many of them telling him to do this and Jesus resisted.

No one can do anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known of them openly, what they said. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. And even his brothers wanted him to put on a display of miracles to dazzle them with the miracles as so many people want to see even in our day.

They don't want to hear the words of Jesus. Pastor John MacArthur says this, and I thought this is a very good observation. Although the text does not clearly state their motivation, talking about the brothers, perhaps they made the request for two reasons.

Number one, they wanted to see the miracles for themselves to determine their genuineness. And number two, they may have had a similar crass political motive as did the people, namely that he would become their social and political Messiah.

Jerusalem's acceptance of him, he goes on to say, was to be the acid test for them as whether his own family would believe in him as the Messiah. And that's a very good observation. Verse 5. Even his brothers did not believe in him.

Well, did they go all their lives not believing him? Want to know? No. There was hope. They did come to the Lord and they did believe because the scriptures tells us. You don't have to turn there, but Acts 1 .14 and this is after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, they became followers.

And I say that because they became followers, disciples of Jesus Christ, learners of Christ after his resurrection. In Acts 1 .14, it says this, in the upper room, this is before the day of Pentecost, prayer meeting was taking place.

The apostles met, verse 13, that all the names of the apostles was there. And it says in verse 14, that these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.

There it is. So they did come to faith and believe in Jesus Christ as their Messiah and they followed him. So it says that after his resurrection in Acts 1 .14. Also in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, it speaks of them being there as well with hundreds more.

But here in this period of time at our Lord's third year of ministry in verse 5, it says they did not believe in him. Because of their unbelief, their lack of faith in him, they don't grasp the timing, the purpose of Jesus's mission.

And actually many of the disciples did not get it until after the resurrection as well. All forsook him when he went to the cross. Jesus responds to their unbelief. And I love this and again, this is our meditation for today.

It will be verse 6. Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. And here we see Jesus's perfect obedience, the perfect timing and the will of God. He's perfectly obeying the will of his Father.

This is a profound statement. Tells us the first reason why Jesus would not go to the feast. And it was not the perfect timing. It was not the perfect timing. In accordance to the will of the Father. This sentence reveals Jesus's complete dependence upon his Father.

Don't you love this? He's committed completely to the Father's will. In the Father's time. In God's time. God, the Father's time. We need to remember this in our lives. As we see the Lord Jesus Christ how he was so careful to do the Father's will and at the right time.

You know, I think many times you read throughout the scriptures and you see many examples of this. Even when Nathan the prophet went to King David about his horrible sin before God, there was a stretch of several months there.

He didn't go immediately to him after he sinned. But when he did go, it was effective. It's God's timing. It was God's timing. John 8, 20 says this, these words Jesus spoke in the treasury. At this time he was at the treasury.

He taught in the temple and no one laid hands on him. No one laid hands. Why do you think that happened? Because God did not allow it to happen. God was sovereignly in control of this. And it says for his hour had not yet come.

That's the reason why we know God is sovereignly leading his son. God, the Father leading his son. And even at the tender age of 12 years old, Jesus had knowledge of his mission here on this earth while he came and it's recorded in Luke's gospel.

Don't you love Luke's gospel on this? Could turn with me very quickly to Luke chapter 2. This is the only gospel that gives us this window of the childhood of Jesus. We have just a few verses. Jesus is 12 years old as the text says from verse 41 to 49.

And it says this, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. Let me stop right there and make a comment.

How does Luke know these things? I believe there was an association as Luke later on has an association with the apostle Paul as he traveled with him. But here, I believe Luke also had some details and he learned and heard this from his mother, the mother of Mary.

As a physician, he writes this to the Gentiles, but he gives us details in the synoptic gospel here. And these details are great. He goes up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast. This is talking about Jesus at the 12 years old, 12 years old and verse 23, when they had finished the days as they returned, the boy Jesus lingered behind in Jerusalem and Joseph and his mother did not know it.

Well, it was the lingering behind disobedience to his parents. No, it was, he was, Jesus was fully convinced that I'm doing the father's will. Verse 44, but supposing him to have been in the company, they went a day's journey.

Could you imagine a full day's journey and sought him among their relatives and acquaintances. So when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem seeking him. And now, so it was that after three days, they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions and verse 47 and all who heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

Well, after all you have the Messiah here at a tender age of 12 years old and his wisdom is already putting them to shame. It's, it's, it's glorious, isn't it? I mean, here he is at 12 years of age. Could you imagine a 12 year old child sitting down and just putting the greatest theologian to shame?

I'd be humbling, very humbling. Verse 48 and when they saw him, they were amazed and his mother said to him, son, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have sought you anxiously in verse 49 and he said to them, why did you seek me?

He gives them a question. It's not being, he wasn't being disobedient. He wasn't being sarcastic back to his parents or disrespectful. He was just saying, why did you seek me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?

You see that? What a question. What a question. I don't know if here he was the perfect son of God in perfection and here they were, they had sin in their heartbeat. Jesus had no sin, but they did not understand.

Get that? The statement which he spoke to them. They did not understand the statement which he spoke to them, nor did their brothers in John chapter seven. They did not truly understand or fathom who is this?

This is the Messiah. Wonderful window there, isn't it? So much more can be said about that. Well, let's go back to John chapter seven and the text has much more for us. Verse six through eight, John shows us actually the demonstration of the perfect obedience of Jesus.

Verse seven, Jesus actually says the world, he tells his brothers this, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me. And then he tells them the reason why it hates him. Because he testifies of it that its works are evil.

He gets right down to it, to the heart of man's problem and it's the problem of the heart. Man's depravity. Man, our depravity. This is why he came. He came to take our sin and take it to the cross that would suffer under the wrath of almighty God.

And Jesus would take that to the full. It's amazing really, if you think of it. It's beyond our comprehension that the son of God would take our filthy sin to the full and then take the full blast, would you please, of the wrath of God upon him.

And as one preacher put it, how can one person absorb so much? Isn't this beyond our comprehension? That Jesus, the creator of the world, the creator of the ends of the earth became man, became flesh and then he would take the sin upon himself as our substitute and take it to the cross, a place of death, of horrific suffering, just not externally but internally and take the complete wrath of God and absorb it that we may be saved.

It humbles us. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me. It hates Jesus' brothers. It hates Christ because he testifies against the world, the sin of it, the evil of it. Isn't this why the world, the religions of the world and all the world that are without Christ are enemies of God and because they hate Christ is because it directs the gospel, the power of the word of God directs its arrows right to the problem and it's the evil heart.

And people do not want to hear it. Neither do they want to hear the remedy. Repent or you likewise perish. That's the remedy. And people says, no, I will not follow this one person. There's got to be another way to heaven.

There's no other name under heaven whereby men can be saved but the name of Jesus. Jesus picks up on this about this hatred in John 15. Turn with me there, John 15. Just read throughout the gospel of John as we see that scripture interprets scripture.

Then we see Jesus' words connect here. But here's the world's hatred in John 15. Look at verse 18. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world will love its own yet because you are not of the world.

Now here he's not talking to his brothers. He's talking to his disciples, his apostles. But I chose you out of the world. Therefore the world hates you. Now because Christ chooses us out of the world, the world hates us.

And they don't hate us because that we're this great Christian. God forbid. They hate us because if anything they see Jesus Christ in us. May that be so for us. They hate you because of Jesus. But I chose you out of the world.

Therefore the world hates you. Remember what Jesus said. He says in verse 20, remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. A servant is not greater than his master. You know what he's saying?

He explains it. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also that they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my namesake, for Jesus namesake, because they do not know him who sent me.

Verse 22, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. That pretty much gives commentary on that, doesn't it?

The evil world system and all who reject Jesus Christ, the word of God and the son of God, lie in control of the evil one himself who is Satan. That's why Jesus basically told the Pharisees, you are of your father the devil.

First John 5 .19 says this, and notice how many times the apostle John says we. And he's speaking about believers there. We know that we are of God and we as believers. And the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

Verse 20, and we know that the son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him who is true and we are in him and who is true and his son Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life.

That's amazing. Then he closes it with one sentence. He closes this epistle, 1 John, by one sentence and he says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Keep yourselves from idols. What an exhortation.

What an admonition. John 7 verse 8, he says, you go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast. My time has not fully come. Twice there he says it. My time has not fully come. This reveals to us the second reason why Jesus would not go up to the feast in Jerusalem.

The Jews could not kill him before God's perfect timing. God's perfect timing. His plan until in the sovereignty of God. You think of this now. Every step Jesus took, every moment, every hour, every day was all decreed and planned by God the Father, the will of God and Jesus was in perfect direction and perfect step.

He knew the Father that intimately as a man. He was constantly in communion with God the Father. He arose before daylight, hours to spend time. Even Jesus as a man had to do this to know the will of the Father.

How much more should we spend time with God in communion that we may know him and know his direction and his guidance? We are like sheep in need of a shepherd. We need a shepherd to lead us. May this encourage us to do that more and more.

I would like to go to Galatians 4 .4 for an application and put on the application the rest of this time and then we are going to have communion. Galatians 4 .4 says this, but when the fullness of time had come, there it is, the fullness.

You can underscore that word fullness. It's like everything had to be exactly in plan and sequence to God's timetable, not ours. Remember when Isaiah says, his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts and the world was in for a surprise that the Messiah would die on a cross.

No one would have ever thought that. But this was God's plan. This was God's will. This was God's decreed will. God sent forth his son, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law.

Under the law. Again we see God's perfect timetable here in God's sovereignty, in God's perfect time when the exact religious culture, even everything in place politically conditioned were in place in God's sovereignty by God's perfect plan, Jesus entered into this world in which he made.

Then verse 5, Galatians 4 tells us why Jesus was born. This is glorious. Why? It was the Father's will. Verse 5, to redeem those. There it is. That's the word, redeem. The whole plan of God. The whole plan of God.

That's another way the whole counsel of God was redemption. The redemption to buy us back those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons. God sent forth his son, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

For God sent not his world into this world to condemn the world but that they might be saved. That's why he came as a savior. To rescue us. To redeem us. At the right and precise moment to bring all who believe on him and those that trust in him and him alone and nothing else, no one else out from the bondage of the law.

The law has a good purpose as we talked about this morning in Sunday school. It's a tutor. It's a schoolmaster. It shows us our sin but it cannot save us. It should show us our sin. And any wonder we don't receive many conversions nowadays because the law and the gospel is not preached in accordance.

We must see the justice of God and the holiness of God and God's perfect law that we may see our sin that we would go to a savior and say God have mercy upon me. That's the purpose of it. It's a tutor.

It's a schoolmaster. To lead us to Christ. That truth. Jesus spoke this truth quite often. John 5 .30 is an example. He says, I can of myself do nothing. I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, he says, I judge and my judgment is righteous because I do not seek my own will but the will of the father who sent me.

We see this in complete perfection demonstrated. We see this demonstrated in Matthew chapter 26. I believe Brother Zach alluded to this as we opened up with worship before we sung that wonderful hymn, My Savior's Love.

But if you go to Matthew chapter 26 and this is really some hallowed ground that we go to as we see our Lord and Savior on his face before God the father to redeem us, the price that he had to pay to shed his precious blood for our salvation.

Chapter 26 verse 36. We see the prayer in the garden. This is so deep beloved. I want to just read and comment on a few things here but this is another sermon in itself. Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane.

The them there is his disciples and he said to the disciples sit here while I go and pray over there. And he took with him, and here is the inner circle here, him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, which is James and John, and he began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed.

This is hallowed ground beloved. And then he said to them, my soul is exceedingly sorrowful even to death. Stay here and watch with me. Just watch. Watch with me. In verse 39 he went a little further, fell on his face and prayed saying, oh my father if it is possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as you will.

See Jesus' complete commitment, absolute commitment to the will of the father. Verse 40, then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping and said to Peter, what? Could you not watch with me one hour?

And in verse 41, watch and pray. Watch and pray. At least you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak. And again a second time he went away and prayed saying, oh my father if this cup cannot pass away from me unless I drink it your will be done.

And he came and found them asleep again and for their eyes were heavy. And so he left them and went away and prayed the third time saying the same words. And then he came to his disciples and said to them, are you still sleeping and resting?

Think of that, the most important time in the hour of history, the disciples were sleeping. And it makes me think sometimes this could be the most important time of the end. I don't know when the Lord's come, no one knows and if anybody puts a date to it they're false and they're a false teacher.

But let me say this because Jesus said no one knows the day and the hour in which the Lord will come. But I think what's so close was so close. Ravenhill used to say it's not just the last hour, it's the last minute that the stroke is about to hit midnight and here the church is like the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane sleeping.

And we should be watching and praying and working and ready for the Lord to come. And here it was the most important time before Jesus went to the cross the disciples fell asleep and then he says behold the hour is at hand, the son of man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners and then he says rise, let us be going, see my betrayer is at hand.