What Do You Think of Jesus?

If you have your copy of God's Word this morning, I want to invite you to turn to John chapter 7.

And this morning, when the time comes, we'll be reading verses 1 through 13.

John chapter 7, verses 1 to 13. What do you think of Jesus?

What do you think of Jesus? There is no greater question that any individual can answer.

Also there is no question with such great potential for peril if answered incorrectly.

It's the most important question that we could ever seek to answer.

And just think of the ways that people have sought to answer this question. Some people today argue

Jesus was a good moral teacher or a spiritual guide. In fact, almost every religious system will claim

Jesus as their own in some way or another. There's the communist

Jesus. There is the progressive Jesus. There's the

Muslim Jesus and the Mormon Jesus. There's the progressive Jesus. I think I may have said that one already. There's even the patriotic

Jesus who wraps himself in the American flag. See, oftentimes we are not concerned about being conformed to the image of Christ, but rather we want to conform the image of Christ to ourselves.

So when we ask, what do you think of Jesus? Sometimes what we think of Jesus is what we want to think of Jesus, rather than how

Jesus actually is. Many people claim he's not divine.

Some people claim that he wasn't even a man. There are hyper -skeptics in the atheistic world and agnostic world who would argue that Jesus actually did not exist, but rather he is a mythological figure like Hercules.

The God -man Hercules is just their version of what we would call

Jesus the God -man. And that is not in any way analogous, but that's often the argument that's made.

In 2025 Ligonier Ministries again did their theological survey. They do this every two years.

And in the 2025 annual survey, they found that 50 % of the people that were studied agreed with this question.

This is 50 % of people. This is general population. This is not Christians. This is everybody. Not that it's anybody.

50 % of the people said Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God. He was not divine.

Now that may not surprise you because you say, well, that includes everybody. Of course, at least half of people who aren't

Christians would think that way. But the study also can be narrowed down to evangelicals, those who consider themselves to be gospel believers.

The word evangelical means the person of the gospel, the evangelist, the gospel.

And do you know what the evangelical number was for that? 25%.

25 % of people who said they were evangelical said that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not

God. Well, in our text today, we're going to see several responses to this question from the various people who are represented in this text.

We're going to see Jesus' own brothers in this text. We're going to see the

Jewish people in Jerusalem in this text. We're going to see the Jewish leaders in this text.

And we're even going to examine modern critical scholarship.

And we're going to see how this particular text actually addresses all of those and demonstrates that so many have a wrong view of Jesus Christ.

So many have a misunderstanding of who Jesus is.

And when they are asked, what do you think of Jesus? Their answers are terribly and dreadfully wrong.

And we live in a society where that's out of vogue to tell anyone they're wrong. And yet the scripture clearly tells us there are times where we should be honest and recognize that we have been wrong.

So let's look at our text today. We're going to stand and give honor and reverence to the reading of God's word.

Beginning in verse 1 of chapter 7. It says, For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly.

If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For not even his brothers believed in him.

Jesus said to them, My time has not yet come. But your time is always here.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast for my time has not yet fully come.

After saying this, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up.

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 about him.

Let's pray. Father God, we come to you in Jesus name.

We thank you for the opportunity to again study your word together and continue our study of the gospel of John.

And Lord, as we move now into a new chapter, into a new phase in the ministry of Jesus, as we now look at only being months away from the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ in this narrative, and yet many chapters away.

Lord, we pray, by your mercy and by your grace, that you would open our eyes to the truth of this text.

By your spirit, illumine our mind. And Lord, as I pray, every time I stand behind your pulpit,

I say, Lord, keep me from error. Keep my message tied to the text and do not let me stray.

And Lord, may this edify your people. And for those who are not yet your people, who have not yet believed on the

Lord Jesus Christ, may today be the day of salvation. May they turn from their unbelief.

May they recognize their sin and need of a Savior. And may they trust the

Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only Savior. And Lord, we pray all of this in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen. Last week, we concluded

John chapter 6 after an 8 -week study of that chapter.

It is a long discourse of the Lord Jesus Christ. As you know, it's the bread of life discourse.

And so it took time to walk through all of the words of Jesus. But now we have moved to chapter 7, which takes us into another series of events in the life of Christ.

And this chapter will not have as long of discourses of Christ in it as far as length and time.

There's more moving around, more things happening. So we will probably take longer chunks in this particular chapter, longer sections than we did in chapter 6, to move through it a little bit more at a brisk pace.

Not trying to rush, of course, at any time, but making sure that we also don't get lost in the weeds, as we often say.

We know the last chapter took place around the time of Passover. We are told that at the beginning of chapter 6.

Remember, the whole last chapter was two days. You had the day

Jesus fed the 5 ,000. That night He walked on water. The next day He's at the synagogue in Capernaum, giving the bread of life discourse.

And then it ends. We have two days, and they both happened around the time of Passover.

Now Passover would have been around the springtime. That is still the case for us.

If you think about when we celebrate Easter, which is coming up in just a few weeks. Easter is very early this year on the calendar, and it's always in the springtime.

Well, Easter is during the time of Passover. You remember Jesus dies on the day after He celebrated the

Passover meal, and then, of course, He rose on the third day. So that's the springtime, and chapter 6 occurs then.

Well, this particular text, chapter 7, tells us this is during the Feast of Booths.

This occurred in the fall. So between the end of chapter 6 and the beginning of chapter 7, there is about a six -month time gap that John simply does not account for.

This six months of time is accounted for in the other Gospels. Remember, we have four

Gospels. We have the three Gospels known as the Synoptic Gospels, and they tell us a lot more about Jesus' ministry in Galilee.

And that's where He was during that time ministering in Galilee. And this was a time of preparation for the apostles.

We know this was the time when it is recorded that Peter gave his great confession.

Remember when Peter said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. That would have occurred likely within that six -month period.

That was also the time when they had the Mount of Transfiguration experience, where Peter, James, and John went up onto the mountain and saw

Jesus. That would have been in that six -month time period. Neither one of those things is recorded by John in his

Gospel. In regard to this time of ministry, we know that Jesus now is in approximately

His third year of ministry. And we know that because of John's Gospel and how the events that have taken place, even though it's not in chronological order, we know the things that have occurred we can look at and say,

We are now coming to the third year of Jesus' ministry. And the coming

Passover is the time when Jesus will experience the death, burial, and resurrection event.

So this is a time of growing consternation for the leadership.

This is a time of growing drama and anticipation of this event. This is a time of growing conflict between Jesus and the

Jewish leaders. And chapter 7 and chapter 8 actually have that conflict in them.

Jesus is interacting with them, going back and forth with them, and we see this dramatic rise of tension between Jesus and the

Jewish leaders. In fact, chapter 7, verse 1, literally begins by making the point that the

Jews wanted to kill Him. That the Jews wanted to kill Him. So this is in context where we are now in chapter 7.

And we get to verse 1 and it says, After this, this being after the last event John wrote about six months ago, he fed 5 ,000 people and gave the bread of life discourse.

Now, six months later, after this, Jesus went about in Galilee. Or through that six months, better way of saying that.

Through that six months, He was going about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the

Jews were seeking to kill Him. Now, if you're unfamiliar with the geography of Jesus' day, here's a quick map just to remind you that if you think of the area of Israel at the time, and you look at the top, you'll see that's the

Galilean region. That's the north region there to the left side there of the river.

And you see, or the Sea of Galilee there, that's the Galilee area.

Then you have the south, you have the area known as Judea. And in between them is the area known as Samaria.

And you remember when Jesus met the woman at the well, that was where He was. That's the area where the Jewish people and those people did not get along.

Socially, politically, or religiously. They did not like Samaritans.

The Jewish people did not. So, Galilee was a more rural area.

Galilee is Alabama, and Judea is

Washington, D .C. If that gives any kind of an analogy as to the area and the way that the areas were.

Jerusalem was the center of religious thought. It was the center of political power,

Jerusalem and Judea. The southern area was the area where the leadership were homed and housed.

And did most of what they did. And so, Jesus is staying in the northern area during His Galilean ministry.

And in that sense, sort of staying away from the major center of power.

As such, it says, so as not to hasten the event that is going to come.

And that is His death, burial, and resurrection. That is going to take place in God's timing.

And so, Jesus is in Galilee. And it says there, because the Jews were seeking to kill

Him. So now we have an idea where Jesus is. By the way, Nazareth is in Galilee.

Nazareth is in Galilee. And that's where Jesus was from. At least, that's where He grew up.

Like if somebody asked me, where are you from? I say, I'm from Callahan. But I was actually born in Jacksonville.

Jesus was from Nazareth, but He was born in Bethlehem. Later in John chapter 7, one of the

Pharisees is actually going to say, We know He's not the Messiah, because no prophet ever comes from Galilee.

And you think somebody would have known and said, Yeah, but He's actually from Bethlehem, which is in Judea.

Not in Galilee. But no one ever makes that argument on behalf of Jesus.

So, Jesus is currently in Galilee. And based on the text,

He is at home with His family, which would have included His mother. We don't know where His father

Joseph is at this point. But most people, and I would concur with this, believe at this point He has passed away.

He is not mentioned after Jesus' twelfth year. You remember in the twelfth year of Jesus' life, they visit the temple, and as they're coming back,

Joseph thinks Jesus is with Mary. Mary thinks Jesus is with Joseph. And when they get to the first camp of the night, they realize they've left their child, and they have to go back to Jerusalem to get

Him. That's the last we hear of Joseph. That's it. And so somewhere between that, between Jesus' twelfth year and His thirtieth year, we believe likely

Joseph has passed away. This is also reinforced by the fact that when

Jesus dies, He gives Mary to John to care for, which would mean at that point she's probably a widow, because if she had a husband, she wouldn't need to be cared for by another man to take care of her.

So Joseph is no longer in the picture, but what we do see is we see Jesus' brothers.

We see this in verse 2. It says, excuse me, we see that in verse 3.

Verse 2 says, I got a little ahead of myself there, forgive me. It says, This was a time of commemoration of the wilderness wanderings that took place after the exodus, and this was a remembrance of God caring for them during their time in the wilderness, where you remember they didn't live in houses with foundations and roofs.

They lived in booths. Even the very temple of God was in a mobile tabernacle.

It wasn't in a solid state building like it would be later when the temple was built.

So the tabernacle was a booth. The people lived in their booths.

And so the book of Leviticus tells us in Leviticus chapter 23, it says in verse 42,

This is the command of God for this celebration. It says, You shall dwell in booths for seven days.

All native Israelites shall dwell in booths, that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel dwell in booths when

I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God. So this is a command of God. You're going to go and you're going to live in tents.

You're going to live in booths, these non -permanent structures, and you're going to do that to commemorate what

God has done for you in the wilderness. So this is the time that it was happening.

This again would have been around the time of the fall. Now verse 3, So his brothers said to him,

Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works that you are doing.

For no one works in secret, if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.

For not even his brothers believed in him. Now, who are these guys?

Who are the men that are talking to Jesus like this? And I would say somewhat goading

Jesus at this point. I'm going to kind of give my reasoning for that in a moment. But who are these guys who are saying to Jesus, Hey, if you are who you say you are, go show yourself.

Go make yourself known. Go show yourself. You're not going to get anywhere here in Alabama.

If you want to make something of yourself, go to Washington. Go show yourself.

Now the text tells us these are Jesus' brothers. But as many of you probably know, there is a historic doctrine among some

Christian groups that Mary was known as the

Semper Virgo. Semper Virgo is Latin for the perpetual virgin. That is a doctrine that is believed by Roman Catholics, but was not only believed by Roman Catholics.

A lot of people, especially us in the South sometimes, we tend to separate Catholic from Baptist, like there's nothing in between.

It's like you do this or you do that, and there's no nothing. There are other groups.

There's Anglicans, there's Lutherans, there's Presbyterians, there's Methodists. And the doctrines that surround

Mary actually are believed by many people that are not in the

Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church believes in the perpetual virginity of Mary. John Calvin and Martin Luther believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Look it up. You can check my work, but those men believed that Mary was a perpetual virgin. I don't, just to be clear.

I can disagree. See, I can be a Calvinist and disagree with Calvin. It's not like the Roman Catholic Church, where if the

Pope says it, it's dogma. We don't have a Pope, and it certainly ain't John Calvin. Right?

We have the scripture, which are our sole infallible rule of faith and practice. But you ask the question, well, how can someone come to the conclusion that Mary is semper virgo if, in fact, the text says

Jesus had brothers? Well, there's a couple of different ways that they try to justify this doctrine.

One, they will say that the word Adelphoi can also, does not have to mean blood brothers, but can mean extended relatives, such as cousins and other people like that.

And there are places in Greek literature where the term Adelphoi can be used for not just the specific brother.

Right? Even in the church, we use the word brother more loosely when we call each other brother.

Right? So, I mean, the term brother can have a wider meaning. And so the argument here is that when it talks about Jesus's brothers, these are not his physical brothers.

Now, very quickly, if these brothers are the sons of Mary, we know two things.

One, they're younger than Jesus. Why? Because she was a virgin when she had

Jesus. So if they are Mary's sons, then it has to be

Jesus's younger brothers. Right? And if these are the brothers of Jesus, or I'm sorry, if these are

Mary's children, these are not Jesus's full brothers. Right?

Because Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was not conceived by Joseph.

But if these brothers are the sons of Joseph and Mary, then they would be

Jesus's half brothers, as we would describe that term today. Now, who are these guys?

Who are these guys? I believe they are Jesus's half brothers. Some people believe Joseph had another family before he met and married.

That's another argument for the Semper Virgo of Mary. Some believe that Joseph had another family. His wife died.

These are children from another family, which would make them older than Jesus. There's a lot of ways to get around this.

And again, here's why I don't agree. I want to just show you this text. You can go there with me, or you can just listen if you'd like.

But in Mark chapter... I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 13, when

Jesus is being described by people who knew him growing up, this is

Matthew 13, verse 55. This is the way he is described. So we have

Joseph, the carpenter, Mary, his mother. The carpenter's son.

Is this not his mother called Mary? The question that's being asked is, where did he get all this education?

We know his dad was a carpenter. His mother is a local maiden that everyone knows. Everybody knows

Mary, right? And everybody knows his brothers and sisters, and they're just normal folk.

Where did he get all of this education and learning? That's the reason for the question there in Matthew 13.

But notice the way the brothers of Jesus are described. Four men are listed in that text. James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.

And they are listed along with Mary and Joseph. Don't we know the carpenter?

Don't we know his mother Mary? And don't we know his brothers? And here are the four brothers. If they're cousins, they wouldn't have been in the list.

Just to be clear. It wouldn't have made sense to go, let's just talk about his whole extended family.

And if they weren't Mary and Joseph's, I don't think they would have been in the list either. Now that's my opinion. You can take it for what it's worth.

But I think logic indicates that Mary and Joseph, after Jesus was born, had a normal marriage relationship.

That resulted in the normal process of life, which is the production of children.

Probably didn't know you were going to get an argument today against the Semper Virgo. But hey, it's where we are in the text.

And I think sometimes we have to consider why we believe what we believe.

By the way, two of the names in that list, at least two of those names, we know right now they don't believe.

Verse five says they don't believe in him yet. But I like to say yet, because two of the names on that list become very important in the early church.

James is named in that list, the brother of Jesus. The apostle Paul will later indicate he's the one that he went to talk to when he went to Jerusalem.

He said, I went to see the Lord's brother, speaking of James. James is there at the council of Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15, when they're trying to determine how they're to welcome the

Gentiles in, having not been circumcised. What do we do? James is the one who stands up and gives a proclamation.

He is, as it were, a pastor in the church at Jerusalem. James becomes not only a believer, but a leader in the early church.

And I am convinced also that the Judas here that's mentioned is the Jew that wrote the book of Jude in our

Bible. So we would have two books of our Bible that are penned by these brothers. So they don't believe, but we say they don't believe yet.

They don't believe yet. So we can know that where you are now isn't necessarily where you're going to be.

There's a blessing in that, isn't there? Just to know that God can do more with you than you may be able to imagine.

Because God did more with them than this text might lead us to think at the end of verse 5. So, that takes us again to this interaction that they have with Jesus.

The brother said, Leave here, go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing.

For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. Now why are they goading

Jesus to go to Jerusalem? The text does not tell us their motivation.

Other than this, we can assume their motivation was not a good motivation because at this point they did not believe in Jesus as the

Messiah yet. So for whatever reason they're trying to get him to go, we can say it's likely not an altruistic and virtuous reason.

Some people think they had a real nefarious reason. That the reason they were getting, they were trying to get

Jesus to go to Judea was so that he would be killed. Now that's a really negative opinion of his brothers.

If you take that position, that's almost like the brothers of Joseph, right? They're going to tie him up, sell him into slavery and now these brothers say,

Yeah, go to Judea, get yourself killed. I don't think that's necessarily something we have to read into the text.

But I think as brothers often do, I think the brothers here are somewhat being sarcastic with Jesus in the sense that if you are who you say you are, go show yourself.

You keep saying you're the Messiah, you keep doing all these things and guess what? His brothers knew he had done some miracles.

His brothers knew at least he was not a fraud when it came to the miracles.

But you know what they said of him at another point in the scripture? This is actually in Mark's gospel.

In Mark chapter 3, they said he's out of his mind. Now that could have actually been their attempt to save him because Jesus is getting all these questions and all these crowds and people are surrounding him and they're like,

Hey, hey, hey, he's just crazy. He's just crazy. We're going to take him home and watch out.

So again, we don't know their overall attitude toward him at this point, but we do know this.

They knew he wasn't a liar because they've seen him do the things that he's done. And they knew they grew up with him as one who had never sinned.

I can't even imagine. Can you imagine having a sibling who was perfect?

I don't know. I'd hate to think that Mary would be, Why can't you be more like Jesus? That would have been just a stab to their heart.

But you know that's what she had to be thinking. So they say,

You're not getting anywhere here. Go down there and show yourself. I mean, again, what does the text actually say?

His brother said, Leave here, go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you're doing. For no one works in secret if he wants to be known openly.

If you really want to show yourself, you're not going to get anywhere in Galilee. This isn't going to produce what it seems like you want it to produce.

You've got to go to the center of the action. You've got to go where the important things are going on and where the important people are.

If you want to be known openly, if you do these things, show yourself to the world. Now again, we don't know 100 % of their motive, but we know ultimately verse 5 tells us,

For not even his brothers believed in him. And by the way, that's heartbreaking, isn't it?

To live with Jesus however many years it was and still not trust in him as Savior.

But that was the condition they were in. They had seen all that Jesus had done, had lived and heard his words all their lives, and yet they did not believe.

Now Jesus' response to them begins in verse 6. Verse 6, Jesus said to them, My time has not yet come.

Now before we even finish that sentence, I just want to remind you that Christ is telling his brothers something that is very important for all of us to remember.

Christ is telling his brothers that he is not on their timetable. Christ is on the

Father's timetable. They had a certain freedom. That's what he's going to say.

He's going to say, My time has not yet come. Your time is always here. And the implication of that is they had the freedom to go whenever, whatever, and do whatever.

But Christ was on the Father's timeline. You can do whatever you want. You go whenever you want.

You come whenever you want. But I am here with a mission. And my mission was given to me by my

Father and it's his time and not my time. You're not going to goad me into going before the time.

You're not going to bully me or brotherly push me into going before my time.

And it's just a quick application of this just as a thought as I was writing this made me think of this. One of the most difficult parts of ministry is learning to be patient and wait on God.

One of the most difficult parts of ministry is being patient and waiting on God.

God's timing is an expression of his will. In fact,

David Gusick, a friend of mine, said this. He said, Something may be in God's will but not yet in his timing.

It may be in God's will but not yet in his timing. Are we patient to wait for his time?

Or do we run headlong and force, try to force God's hand rather than waiting on him?

And I wrote this thought. I said, Those not satisfied with God's timing will live in constant frustration. Those who are not satisfied with waiting on God will live in constant frustration.

Sometimes I think about that. People come to me. I'm frustrated. I'm dealing with this constant frustration.

Why? Well, this isn't happening or that isn't happening. Are we trusting

God's will and God's timing because God's timing is an expression of his will? And Jesus was submitted to the will of his

Father. It is not yet my time. And then he says in verse 7,

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

Why did Jesus tell his brothers the world cannot hate you? Well, his brothers are still part of the world.

His brothers are still in the world. They are not yet believers. And it should never surprise us when the world behaves like the world.

It should never surprise us when the world agrees with the world. Jesus said the world can't hate you because you're part of it.

Now the world will eventually hate his brothers. The world will eventually hate them because those who stand on the side of Christ will at some point be hated by the world.

Those who stand with Christ will offend the world. And that's what

Jesus says at the latter part of verse 7. He says the world hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

You understand, people didn't hate Jesus because he was healing the sick.

Even though you could argue the Sabbath healing, they hated him for that.

But that wasn't really to deal with the healing. That was to deal with the fact that they had argued that he had broken their law. But what offended people so much was when

Jesus pointed out their sins. Go to Matthew when

Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees. You brood of vipers! You whitewashed tombs!

And what did they want to do? They wanted to capture him. They were seething over him. And they wanted to see him dead.

Not because of his kindness, but because of his willingness to tell them the truth.

No one hates that Jesus is forgiving, gracious, and loving. Even atheists laud that part of Jesus.

What they hate is when he tells them the truth about their sin. That is intolerable.

Jesus says it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. Now comes the part where it gets a little difficult.

And I mentioned earlier about textual critics who like to try to find things to take apart about Jesus and attack

Jesus over. And this is one of the texts where if you go and look at some of the arguments made against Jesus, whether it be theological, ontological, or even regarding his character and nature, this text is sometimes cited.

And the argument is that Jesus is a liar. That's the argument. Jesus is a liar.

And by the way, if Jesus is a liar, what does that mean? He's not a savior. Because what is the prerequisite for Christ's ministry?

When he goes to the cross, he goes to the cross not for his own sin, but for our sin, right? What does the Bible say? Revelation 21 -8.

Every liar will have his place where? In the lake of fire. Right? By the way, you ever told a lie?

Yes, you have. Do this. Have you only told one? No, you have not.

Do this. But Jesus never even told one lie. Had he told a lie, he would be a sinner and disqualified from being a savior.

By the standard of scripture, he would have disqualified himself. So when we deal with this text, just I'm pointing that out because it's often accused that this is a point where Jesus told a lie.

Notice what he says. He says, You go up to the feast. I'm not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet come.

After saying this, he remained in Galilee, but after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private.

And we'll get to verse 11 in a minute. The Jews were looking for him at the feast. So let's go back and sort of walk through the argument.

The argument is Jesus lied to his brothers. Jesus told his brothers, I'm not going to the feast, and then he went.

And there is in that the argument that Jesus lied to his brothers.

However, Jesus in this particular context must be understood in what he was saying, not in the way that we would take what he is saying or the way we might interpret what he was saying.

What was Jesus saying when he said, I will not go up to this feast or I'm not going up to this feast. It is implied within the text what he is saying is

I'm not yet going. I'm not going with you. Notice what they're trying to get him to do.

They're trying to get him to go up and make himself known. They're trying to get him to go up and make a spectacle of himself. They're saying, go up to the feast and show everyone who you are.

And Jesus says, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it the way you're wanting me to do it.

And I'm not going to do it in the way that you are commanding me to do it. In fact, many manuscripts at this particular place actually read rather than saying,

Jesus said, I will not go up this feast. It is I will not yet go up to this feast, indicating he is saying,

I'm not going up in the way that you are telling me to go. So Jesus is not saying,

I'm never going to this feast ever. But he's saying, I'm not going in the way that you are commanding me to go or the way that you're requesting of me to go.

One of the things I, one of the analogies I give in my, when

I do classes on the history of the Bible, Bible interpretation and Bible reliability.

I talk about this. I say, how you approach the text will often determine how you interpret the text.

If you approach the text looking for something to critique and to find wrong, you'll find it.

And if you look, go to the text, trusting that the text is speaking the truth, then you'll often be satisfied with the answer.

And this is, I use this analogy. Some people think this is a weird analogy, but I hope it makes sense to you.

If I came home from work one afternoon and my front door opens and a man

I've never known, never seen, steps out of my house and I know that the only person who is there is my wife.

My initial thought would not be that my wife has done me any harm because I have 27 years of faithful marriage that helps me to know that my wife is faithful to me.

So when I see something that looks a little odd, I can be confident that there's a reason why this guy is here, even though I don't know who he is or why he's there.

You understand the point I'm making? If we come to the text, treating it like we can't trust it, then we're going to find everything in the world to find wrong with it.

But if we say, no, this text is... First of all, remember that this is being written by John who said himself that Jesus was not a sinner.

Is John so ignorant that he would write in a blatant sin for us to see?

No, we'd have to think, one, that John was inept or unable to see the apparent issue.

No, I think the clear answer is that Jesus is speaking in the context of the request.

Go up to Jerusalem and show yourself. I'm not going that way. I'm not going yet. I'm not going the way you want me to. And by the way, when they went, they went as a caravan.

How do we know this? Well, we know this from Luke's gospel where Jesus is left at the temple.

Do you know why Jesus was left at the temple? Because they traveled in groups, and the men were in the front, and the women were in the back.

They traveled in groups. Jesus also didn't go up with the group, but he went by himself.

According to the rest of the text, he went in private. He didn't go up to the festival as part of the group, but he went in secret.

Does this make sense? We're good? Again, man, it's all about apologetics today, why

Mary wasn't a virgin and Jesus wasn't a liar. We just keep going, I guess. But this is the kind of stuff, if you spend any time at all with people who are trying to attack the scripture, if you spend any time at all with people who try to bring out all the things that they want you to believe that are wrong, these are the types of things that if you've never heard these things before, it might catch you off guard.

So it's our job as the elders of the church to teach you these things, to prepare you for these things, and to help you understand the word, even if it takes a little longer than maybe

I thought it would. Let's move quickly now to verse 11.

Verse 11 says, The Jews were looking for him at the feast and saying, Where is he? Where is he?

Now, I believe at this point it's the Jewish leaders, but it could be everyone. Because at this point,

Jesus' reputation has preceded him. Again, his ministry has been going on for a few years. Everywhere he goes, he's healing, and he's feeding, and he is raising the dead.

And they want to know, Hey, this is the time of the Feast of Booths. By the way, I'm going to talk about this more in the weeks ahead. This was a time of great celebration.

There was all kinds of things going on and all kinds of events that were happening, and Jesus isn't here.

Where's he at? They want to know why he's not there. And of course, the

Jewish leaders want to know where he's at because they want him to be caught up in some type of scandal so that they would be able to bring about his end.

Verse 12. And there was much muttering about him. This word muttering, we saw back in chapter 6 when it says the group, the people were murmuring about him.

I think the King James still says murmuring at this point. It's gungutso is that Greek word. It's just that sound of that noise going through the crowd.

People are talking. People are arguing. People are, where's Jesus? Where's Jesus? And some people said he was a good man.

And guess what? That's true. But that's not all he is.

We can say Jesus is a good man. Jesus was the only good man. Jesus is the only morally perfect man who's ever lived.

In fact, when the young ruler came to Jesus and says, good teacher, what did Jesus say? Why do you call me good?

Jesus wasn't denying his own goodness. He was just saying, why would you think anyone is good? This world is full of sinners, not full of good people.

Jesus was the one exception. Jesus was a good man. The problem is that that's all

Jesus is. If all Jesus is is a good man, and he's not

Messiah, and not divine, then you've still got the wrong

Jesus even if you think he was a good man. Muslims say he was a good man, but he was just a man. That's not enough.

But notice the rest of the crowd. Some said he was a good man. Others said he's leading the people astray.

That means he was a wolf in sheep's clothing. How absolutely dreadful to think that of Jesus.

And yet it appears there were those who were saying that. They were saying

Jesus is leading people astray. And notice in verse 13 it says, yet for fear of the

Jews no one spoke of him. I want you to keep this in mind for all of this chapter and even into the next chapter.

Often when it says the Jews, it's actually a placeholder for the Jewish leaders.

Not all Jewish people hated Jesus. Not all Jewish people wanted Jesus dead, but the

Jewish leaders did. And not even all of them. Because we're going to see later in this chapter, Nicodemus is going to rise up again and challenge for Jesus' righteousness and say, hey, we haven't even heard him testify about himself and we're already wanting to pass judgment on him.

So where we find ourselves in this text is we find ourselves in somewhat of a case study.

And this is where we'll draw to a close. We find ourselves in a case study of four different groups.

One, there is his brothers. His brothers saw what he did, knew who he was, at least in the sense of being able to see all that he could do, and yet they did not yet believe in him.

And then there are those who said he was a good man. But as I said a moment ago, saying he's a good man is not enough if that's all he is.

Then there were those who said he was a devil, a threat, one who was a wolf in sheep's clothing, one who was leading people astray, one who deserved to be disposed of.

I remember hearing recently, and this just, it breaks my heart to even repeat, but I heard an atheist talking about Jesus, saying he was the worst person who's ever lived.

He's caused more trouble than anybody because so many people who follow him are such terrible people, and if he were alive today,

I'd kill him again. This is out of the mouth. I mean, I heard it come out of his mouth.

He said, if Jesus were alive today, I'd kill him again. So the hatred for Christ did not end here.

And then, of course, you have modern critics who say he's a liar, and this text is the proof. So this brings us back to my original question.

What do you think of Jesus? This passage is filled with all types of different ways that people thought about Jesus.

His brothers knew who he was, didn't believe in him. The Jewish leaders, he's a false prophet, a false teacher, he's leading people astray.

Some people said he's a good man, maybe the Messiah, maybe not. And some people today say he's nothing but a liar.

It reminds me of Peter when Peter was asked the question, when the disciples were asked, who do you say that I am?

Who do you say that I am? Dr. James Montgomery Boyce was the pastor of 10th

Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He had a radio program, and sometimes he would send his radio, the people in the radio ministry to go out onto the street and ask people questions.

And their most favorite question to ask was, who is Jesus? Who is

Jesus? By the way, if you're looking for a way to just have a conversation with somebody, if you can't get into an evangelistic conversation, you just, you can't ever figure out what to say, just start asking questions and start with that question.

Who is Jesus Christ? Well, they would go out and do that. They would go out and ask, who is Jesus Christ?

And the answers they received revealed the confusion that many have. One young woman responded,

Jesus Christ was a man who thought he was God. Well, if he thought he was

God and he wasn't, and C .S. Lewis was right. C .S. Lewis said, if he thought he was

God and he wasn't, he was a lunatic. Because that's what we say about people who think they're God and they're not. Another one said,

I think that's something you have to decide for yourself. He had a lot of beautiful ideas. But you have to decide for yourself who

Jesus is. Guess what? You do have to decide, but your decision doesn't make Jesus who he is. Your decision about who

Jesus is doesn't make... You have to align yourself with the truth. Truth does not align to you regarding the nature of Jesus Christ.

One person said, Jesus Christ is pure essence of energy. God is energy, electric energy, because that's something that can't be known.

And that's a word salad. What does that even mean? Others said, he's an individual who lived 2 ,000 years ago who was interested in the betterment of all classes of people.

That's that social justice Jesus. Beloved Jesus Christ is the son of the living

God, the divine second person of the Trinity. He came into the world to save sinners.

And the Bible says he never sinned. He lived his entire life and he never broke God's law in thought, word, or deed.

And when he went to the cross, he himself became the punishment for those who would believe on him.

And the Bible says God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God in him.

If that's not the Jesus you know, then by the mercy of God I pray that he would change your heart and that you would know who

Jesus truly is. Let us pray. Father, what we think of Jesus says more about us than any other question.

And I pray, Lord, that we would think rightly of him. May it be now that as we prepare to receive the

Lord's table and remember what the Lord has done, may it be that we are reminded that Jesus Christ is the only

Savior. In him there is no sin, but he willingly took our sin that we could become the righteousness of God in him.