Challenging & Questioning the Christ | Sermon 04/30/2023

Apologia Utah

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We're going to be in quite a big section today. Don't be worried. Some of it we're going to have to do a quick overview on, a lot of narrative here, especially in the latter half.

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We're going to be in verses 14 through 36 of John chapter 7. The title of the sermon today is

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Challenging and Questioning the Christ. Challenging and Questioning the

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Christ. So starting in verse 14 of the gospel, according to John chapter 7, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach.

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The Jews then were astonished, saying, How has this man become learned, having never been educated?

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So Jesus answered them and said, My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

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If anyone is willing to do his will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak for myself.

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He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

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Did not Moses give you the law? And yet none of you carries out the law?

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Why do you seek to kill me? The crowd answered, You have a demon.

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Who seeks to kill you? Jesus answered them, I did one deed, and you all marvel.

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For this reason Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and on the

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Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the

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Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on the

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Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

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So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?

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Look, he is speaking publicly and they are saying nothing to him. The rulers do not really know that this is the

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Christ, do they? However, we know where this man is from. But whenever the

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Christ may come, no one knows where he is from. Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying,

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You both know me and know where I am from, and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know.

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I know him because I am from him, and he sent me. So they were seeking to seize him, and no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come.

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But many of the crowd believed in him, and they were saying, When the Christ comes, will he not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?

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The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize him.

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Therefore Jesus said, For a little while longer I am with you, then I go to be with him who sent me.

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You will seek me, and you will not find me, and where I am you cannot come. And the

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Jews said to one another, Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him?

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He is not intending to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he? What is this statement that he said,

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You will seek me, and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come?

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Thus sending the reading of God's holy and inspired word. Let's pray, church.

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God, I pray that you would bless this time for us.

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Although there has been distraction today, there's been issues with technology and various things.

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Even I myself have experienced spiritual affliction this morning, praying through it,

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Lord. God, I pray if that's the same for any of the people here, God, that you would allow us to have our full selves focused on your word and on you at this moment,

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God. Please, Lord, guard us from the schemes of the enemy.

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Let no weapons formed against us prosper. Help us to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

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Lord, please bless this time. There's a lot of information, but Lord, please teach your people today by your spirit.

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Help me, God, in this moment. Pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.

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You know, when I was a little boy, every morning, every morning,

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I'd wake up and my father would wake up. And before work, he'd go to the cupboard and he would grab a plastic cup that seemed like it was a foot tall,

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I swear. And that plastic cup was stained brown from his coffee.

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And he would pull out his stained plastic cup and he would grab his taster's choice granules, which he's used for 50 years now.

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He loves just the granules. He doesn't like anything brewed. And he would get that ready.

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And then he would grab the kettle. And he would take the kettle and he would turn on the tap and he would run the tap over the hole in the kettle and he would put it on.

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And he turned the switch on the burner. You see the red coil light up, red hot.

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And I just remember that when he did that, it was a matter of time when soon

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I would hear popping and kind of sizzling and, you know, boiling. And there'd be a little bit of movement in the kettle and then it would become more rapid.

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And all of a sudden, this whistling sound would go throughout the whole house.

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And we would hear that steam shoot through that tiny spout. And he would know that his coffee was almost ready to go.

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And he'd turn off the burner and the whistle would die down. But I say that because today we are going to begin to see the tea kettle start its process of shaking.

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We're going to start to see things pick up. We're going to see things move for Jesus in Jerusalem.

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He just spent over a year in Galilee and now he's back in Jerusalem and things are heating up.

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We're going to see Jesus interact with challenges from the crowds.

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We're going to see Jesus interact with challenges from the Jewish authorities. And there's going to be arguments, heated exchanges.

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Even the temple police will get involved in this one today. Things are picking up.

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So we have no time to waste with so much to cover. Let's begin. Verse 14.

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But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach.

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So if you remember from last week, Jesus had delayed. His brothers had asked

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Him to go up to Jerusalem with Him, but He delayed. He demonstrated that He's on God's time, not their time.

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And He came in the middle of the feast. That Greek word, midst, it can mean in the middle.

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It can mean halfway. It could mean just literally that it started. And He came in the middle of it starting.

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But He went to the temple during the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem.

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And He began to teach. To teach at the temple in the middle of a

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Jewish feast is to say, I'm someone worth listening to.

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It's a big deal. Jesus goes to the temple in the middle of the most popular, possibly the most popular feast,

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Jewish feast of the year. And Jesus starts speaking and teaching. He has authority.

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He's demonstrating. The Word made flesh was now speaking the

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Word of God. And it's so ironically amazing to consider that Jesus, God, who is tabernacling among them, is walking by people who are building and sleeping in little mini -tabernacles.

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Right? He's going into Jerusalem. And as far as the eye could see, there's little tents and tabernacles that people have constructed for this feast.

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And He's literally God in the flesh. He's tabernacling among us. And so it might be strange to us that Jesus is teaching openly in the temple when

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He came in secret. Because that's a place where many rabbis would teach.

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But this is no private place. And as we will see, crowds will begin to form.

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But Jesus was only concerned with secrecy in His traveling to Jerusalem, not when

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He got there. Not when He got there. Remember, He wanted no early triumphal entry.

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He wasn't operating on human time or His brother's time, but God's time,

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His time. The divine sequence. Verse 15,

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The Jews then were astonished, saying, How has this man become learned, having never been educated?

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This is much like when Jesus finished the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter 7.

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It said, When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority, not like the scribes.

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This question though from them, How has this man become learned? That's not so much a question, but a challenge to Jesus.

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How has this guy become learned? How did he get educated? Contesting the validity of His teaching.

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Who is this man? And you think about it during the Gospels, Jesus always states things like what?

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Verily I say to you, Truly, truly I say to you,

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You say this, but I say to you. Right? We see those statements of Jesus throughout the

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Gospels. However, scribes and Pharisees and rabbis, when they taught in the temple or in synagogue, you know what they did?

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They listed off authoritative resources or people pointing to a higher authority.

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They would name names all the time. Jesus speaks though as if He is the authority.

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The authority on all these matters. How can

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Jesus know these things without knowing authoritative men as resources?

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This man has never joined a rabbi's school. He's never been tutored by one of the most famous teachers.

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How has Jesus mastered exposition and a knowledge of the

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Scriptures? He wasn't even an elected official. He wasn't a

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Sadducee or part of the class of the Pharisees. He wasn't even a scribe. He has no formal training.

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To them, there is a process to be able to do what

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Jesus is doing. There is a process and He has subverted that. And so the

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Jews marvel at His teaching. They're amazed. And I don't think the word marvel here or astonished is necessarily a positive thing.

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They were jealous. They were concerned. Who is this man? How does

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He know this? How does He have this authority? Who is He? Become learned is grammata oiden.

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That is the root word is no writings. How does He know writings? And more specifically, graphe is

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Scripture. And so there's a relation there. It's like, how does this man know Scripture? How does this man know the

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Scriptures? He doesn't even appeal to a higher authority.

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And that's the key. Knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Those come from God.

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He possesses all of those things perfectly in His being. And He lets mankind enjoy degrees of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

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The highest authority then ever, ever, then and now and forever will be

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God Himself. The highest teaching authority is God. Later in Acts chapter 4, we'll see with Peter and John, something similar was said about them.

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How can these untrained fishermen know these things? How have they come to this teaching?

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Now you and I should learn the word. The writer of Hebrews says we ought to move on from milk, and move on to solid food.

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He says the milk is elementary teachings. And when he lists that, he says things like the resurrection, things like repentance.

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You know, he lists off these things as elementary teachings. He says we've got to press on to solid food.

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You've got to see who Christ is in a deeper way. And to know

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Scripture is power. We see that. We're talking about having what's called a revelational epistemology, right?

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We were talking about that with Twig. We were talking about that on Wednesday when we were going over the book of Acts.

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And so the Word of God is the starting place. It's the foundation for knowledge.

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In fact, I know I could probably get mocked for saying this, but if you know the

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Scriptures, if you know the Scriptures, you are in many ways more knowledgeable than an atheist scholar who doesn't.

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You are. You are. It's the foundation of knowledge. Go to verse 16.

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Jesus responds to their challenge. Jesus answered and said to them,

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My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. Jesus is no rogue.

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He's no Lone Ranger. Even though he could be in danger of error,

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I'm sorry, even though he could never be in danger of error, Jesus establishes his authoritative point of reference.

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The one who sent him. His teaching is anchored in the one true

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God. Now, rabbis would often demonstrate that they've come from some long line of qualified men.

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Or maybe they're related somehow to a prophet in the past, and they would establish that.

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I go all the way back. I'm qualified to speak today. The prophets of old would argue that their words and teachings are from God, and they were.

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But something is even different with Jesus. Unlike them, he makes no appeal to man.

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He establishes his qualifications. Go way back, way, way back, even before the prophets.

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In fact, before the world was, Jesus's authority rests in eternity past with no singular beginning.

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And the prophets had to claim, thus saith the Lord. Right? The prophets had to say, thus saith the

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Lord. While Jesus, as I said, can say, I tell you this. That's all he has to say.

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I'll tell you this truly, truly, I say to you. He doesn't have to say, thus saith the Lord. He says, truly, truly,

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I tell you this verily. That is him making a truth claim. Truly, I tell you.

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And it carries greater weight. He is what the

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Lord says. It's wrapped up in his being. Jesus makes an emphasis on his teaching when he says, my teaching, in verse 16, my teaching.

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Then he says, it's not mine. My teaching is not mine. It's his teaching and it's not his teaching at the same time.

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But then he clarifies, my teaching is his teaching. The Father's.

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It's not his alone. It should probably be said that this is not trying to say that Jesus is going, has a teaching that is, differs from the

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Father in any capacity. If he did, he would be going against probably about a hundred things we've already seen where he's established his oneness with the

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Father. He's saying this to establish his authority as the same authority from the

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Father. His words and teaching are on the very same divine level.

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That's what it is. The way he speaks then in his earthly ministry is formed around his new nature.

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He said, why does God speak like this? The God from all eternity speak like this? Because he also has a human nature at this point in time.

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That's why he speaks like this. Totally God and totally man. Verse 17.

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If anyone is willing to do his will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak of myself.

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So if anyone is willing to do God's will, that is, if you forfeit your will in submission to God's will, then you will know whether Jesus' teaching is from God.

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That's what he's saying. The level of understanding gained from doing

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God's will will be able to ascertain whether Jesus' teaching is from God or himself.

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And look, this again sounds almost contradictory. What? From me or from my father?

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But it's because we already know that Jesus is the I am. We see behind this.

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We know behind the scenes. And the fact is, since we know that Jesus is

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God, sometimes as Christians, when we're reading these statements, we can become

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Gnostics or Docetists. We have this high theology and Christology of Jesus and that he is

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God to the point where sometimes we downplay his humanity. He was totally human as well, right?

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As much as he is totally God, he took on fully what it means to be of the nature of man.

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And that's seen in these sort of statements. And therefore, he must establish with the

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Jews in front of him. Do you get that? For their sake and our sake, Jesus doesn't go in front of them and say,

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I'm God. Here's my teaching. He says, I'm sent from the father to the

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Jews and the crowds in front of him. That's critical. That's important. He can't take them to places that they're not ready yet.

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Okay. We just know behind the scenes. We know the full picture. We know theology. We know hypostatic union.

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We know the Trinity. We know the real Nicene Council. Not the fake one that we hear about all the time.

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Okay. And so for that reason, we look at this and go, this is confusing. No, Jesus is talking to real humans and he looks like a human.

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So he speaks like this. He's God in the flesh. His origin is heavenly.

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He has to demonstrate that. His words are divine and he stands in union with the father. And truly,

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Jesus will never and has never spoken anything from himself that is in isolation from the father or the

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Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit will never tell you something that Jesus hasn't condoned or not said or revealed.

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Nor will Jesus go against the father. The holy persons of the Trinity have one being and one will together.

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As far as Jesus's ability to respond, he is amazing at it. Isn't Jesus just amazing at discourse and argument and debate?

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He's amazing. He literally removes the argumentation and debate from the

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Jews. They tried that before and they left him.

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He shows now understanding comes through a moral position. That is to properly understand

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God and his word, you must do his will. How do you do his will?

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You must be born again. You must be born again. And so it makes sense that when we're out on the street and we're reading the word of God to dead people, they're like, that has no authority in my life.

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Yeah, yeah. You've got to do his will to know that that's God's word. And to do God's will, you must be born again.

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You must have faith. So Jesus isn't hitting at their inability to reason or their inability to think.

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He's hitting at the fact that you're not mine. And because you're not mine, you don't understand me.

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It's a moral issue, not a rational issue going on here. This is a faith commitment.

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And look, this is not to say that we're judges of God. Okay, if I do his will, then

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I'll be able to test Jesus's words. That's not what he's saying. That we get to be the judges over his word or over him.

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The fact is, if you obey God already, you will understand his words and recognize his son.

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Jesus is saying the truth is self -authenticating and truth knowers will recognize the truth giver when he speaks.

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And this is why the appraisal and assessment of God and his truth is utterly false and deficient by one who does not possess

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God or his truth by faith. Utterly deficient. Someone is given his word and they are an atheist.

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They go, they don't even know what to make of it. Their assessment of God is what they call him the sky daddy or just these blasphemous words.

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And so to reiterate what has happened thus far, okay, thus far in this section is this.

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The Jewish authorities have challenged Jesus's ability to teach while he has challenged their ability to comprehend.

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That's what's going on so far. Verse 18, he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true and there is no unrighteousness in him.

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This is why they cannot see that he is speaking from the one who sent him. Because they pride themselves on their own speaking ability.

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In fact, they pride themselves about themselves often. They do these things to gain honor from men.

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They want to look a certain way before men. In fact, that is a temptation to even

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Christian young men who are aspiring to the office of overseer elder and they're given an opportunity to preach at the pulpit or teach a

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Sunday school or they're going out doing street preaching. And they hope that people listen.

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They hope that they're affirmed. It's such a temptation and it takes time. Some men don't have that issue.

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Some have that worked out by Jesus. He'll just cut that off. He'll humble that sort of man.

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He humbled me with that. It's not worth it. It's not worth it.

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Speaking from yourself with willful ignorance to the teaching and words of God, not willing to do the will of God, is to try to speak as your own

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God in this teaching format. And speaking as your own

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God is speaking for your own glory. This is to say one cannot establish the necessary preconditions of intelligibility apart from God.

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Say what does that mean? In short, that means the beginning of all knowledge and wisdom is the fear of the

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Lord. That's it. That's it. Apart from God, sorry, we would be reduced to absurdity.

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And Jesus often tells the Jewish leaders they are seeking their own glory in John chapter 5.

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He said, I do not receive glory from men. And he tells them, if you remember John chapter 5, how do you even believe when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory from the one and only

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God. In John 8, Jesus says, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.

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It is my Father who glorifies me. In John chapter 12, he says they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

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So a true teacher of God seeks the glory of God.

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Not himself. A true teacher from God seeks the glory of God.

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In this context, the word glory, doxa, is also like the word honor. The one who says he's a teacher of God, but seeks to make more honor of himself than God is in fact no true teacher of God at all.

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He is false. And some would say, well, don't these leaders speak the words of God often?

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Don't they recite the words of God? And look, there is a substantial difference in men being able to recite or read the words of God.

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Opposed to knowing them in your being, because God has opened your eyes to be able to receive his teaching.

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And so that means that there can be a secular scholar who knows the contents of the

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Bible very astutely. But then there can be a child who's eight years old, who's been saved by grace, has faith in God, recites

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John 3 .16 out loud with a smile. And that child knows the word of God better than the scholar who knows the

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Bible front to back, but rejects God. Jesus is not like them.

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He is seeking the glory of the one who sent him. He is true. His words are true. And Jesus then reveals something about his character.

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There is no unrighteousness in him. See that? There is no unrighteousness in him.

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He is just and pure. He can be trusted. His motives are not mixed with sin and vain glory.

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But now we're going to see Jesus very tactfully turn the challenge back on them.

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Verse 19, Did not Moses give you the law?

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And yet none of you carries out the law. Why do you seek to kill me? You've been given the law.

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You've been given the words from God. You have supernaturally inscribed stone tablets from God, but you don't even perform the things on them.

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You don't obey the words that were given to you by God. And so Jesus exposes their folly.

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He takes what is so very precious to them, the Mosaic law. They love the book of the law.

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And he puts it back on them and says, you love the law, but you don't even do it. You don't even perform it.

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He points back at them with this ghastly accusation. It's like Haman in the book of Esther who built the gallows for Mordecai, and then he himself would be the one who would hang on the gallows and Mordecai would be freed.

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He's using it back on them. What they are using to charge him with, the law of Moses, will be what he charges them with.

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Those who do God's will observes what God wrote in his law. Those who do not do

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God's will do not carry out the law, and therefore they cannot understand that Jesus speaks from God.

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And one of the foremost ways that they don't obey the law is what?

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He brings it up. You seek to kill me. That's one of the biggest ways they don't obey the law.

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They're seeking to kill him. They want to murder Jesus. In their hearts, they want to go against the sixth commandment and kill

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Jesus. And so at those words, the crowd speaks up and says, you have a demon who seeks to kill you.

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Now, I don't think they mean that he was possibly demon -possessed.

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I think they were using that term in a sort of accusatory, slanderous way.

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You have a demon. You're crazy. You're crazy. Maybe some of them really legitimately thought he had a demon, but they're just saying he's crazy.

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And this won't be the first time in the Gospels that they do this. And even in the

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Synoptic Gospels in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they'll say what? You have partnership with Beelzebub.

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You have partnership with the devil. So here they're saying he's demon -possessed. Later, they'll say he's in full partnership with Satan himself.

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And so this is no longer just simply a challenge between Jesus and the Jewish authorities.

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Now the crowd has gotten in it. And we saw last week that the crowd has mixed opinions of him.

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Remember, some said he was good. Some said that he's deceiving other people. But now they're starting to side with the

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Jewish authorities. It's all starting to become crystal clear. The whole world is against him.

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He even said so. He testifies that the world's deeds are evil, and they hate him for it.

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And so Jesus responds back to them, I did one deed and you marvel.

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What's he talking about? Actually, before that, notice that Jesus doesn't validate their accusation in any way.

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He doesn't even mention their accusation of demon possession. He just goes over it.

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You know, sometimes when you're in a conversation with someone and you're trying to be respectful, they might use ad hominem or pejoratives towards you.

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And they're trying to bait you, right? And sometimes it's good to be like Jesus, where you don't even address that.

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You don't even care about it. Go ahead, say I'm demon possessed. Here's the heart of it. I did one deed and you marveled.

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What's he saying? He's talking about the last time he was in Jerusalem, it says in chapter 5, that he went to the lame man at the pools of Bethesda, the lame man who was paralyzed for 38 years, and he healed him on the

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Sabbath. On the Sabbath. That's what he's talking about. I did one deed. I healed that man in Jerusalem.

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Everyone saw it and you all marvel. Because that's also when their desire, if you look at John 5, that's when their desire to murder him came in at that moment.

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And they were amazed, not in a way that led to the praise of God. I did one deed and you marveled.

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Again, that's not marveled in a good way. He's saying I did one deed and you marveled in a bad way.

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How? Because you did not give glory to God that a man was healed from the power of God.

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You marveled because I did something on the Sabbath. I healed on the Sabbath. They're upset because he did a work, a good work on the

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Sabbath. And that work didn't lead to the praise of God.

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It led to them scoffing at him, planning to kill him.

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They saw a grave sin and no miracle of God in that moment. Don't we do that sometimes, by the way, as reformed people?

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We can see God do wonderful miracles and if it wasn't done in the right perfect way as reformed

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Calvinistic people, we'll scoff and we'll be like, well, they don't have the right theology though. It's like, can't you just give glory to God for once?

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Can't you just praise God that something amazing happened here instead of looking at the fact that they have poor theology or they have secondary differences with us, right?

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We need to rejoice more. Don't be like them in that situation. Go to verses 22 and 23.

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For this reason, Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers.

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And on the Sabbath, you circumcise a man. And if a man receives circumcision on the

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Sabbath so the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on the

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Sabbath? And so he says, Moses wasn't the original party to circumcision.

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The patriarch Abraham was the first one to receive that. And since circumcision was commanded on the eighth day a son was born, inevitably, there would be male babies needing circumcision on the

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Sabbath sometimes. It's just the way it worked out. The eighth day would sometimes land for some young boys on the

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Sabbath. It's a work and yet they still perform it. You see what

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Jesus is doing? You see what he's doing? He said, you do something that you think is good and yet you go against this other law to do it.

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He said, I've made a whole man well. Right? Now this sentence in verse 22 may be a little confusing.

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He says, for this reason or on account of this. And the question is, what is this?

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What is he referring to? He says, for this reason. For what? And I think he's linking the healing work he performs with the true fulfillment of circumcision in the

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Sabbath so that this verse could be understood this way on account of renewal and wholeness like the healing of the lame man, you were given circumcision.

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Because circumcision was a covenant sign that God was going to give

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Abraham and all his descendants a land, a people, and a seed through whom the nations would be blessed.

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That would be Christ. But they rob people of good things. They weigh them down with heavy burdens that they can't keep.

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They've changed the heart of these laws. Jesus is like the fulfillment of these laws is healing and wholeness.

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But you make them slavery. You make the laws of circumcision and Sabbath slavery.

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But the heart of them is wholeness and healing. He says that they are forced to break the

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Sabbath so that the law of Moses would not be broken in respect to circumcision. This happened often.

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But Jesus says he did that one work, the healing of the man, to make him entirely well.

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He made him completely well. And they are angry with him to the point of murder.

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They are worse than hypocrites. Worse than hypocrites. Where is righteousness prohibited on the

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Sabbath? Is it not lawful to do good on the Sabbath? And so Jesus is not saying he breaks nor that they break the law in performing the circumcision on the

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Sabbath. That's not what he's trying to say. They do, of course, break it in other ways.

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It's that they misinterpret the meaning of the law, the heart of it. One does not break the law when he saves his animal on the

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Sabbath. One does not break the law when he saves someone's life on the

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Sabbath. Or in their case, performing a circumcision. And they did the circumcision.

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They did it. They saw it as a higher need. They performed it.

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Gave them the covenant sign on the Sabbath. Cutting the foreskin, doing a work.

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They are doing good things that are required on that day and therefore take a higher priority in obeying

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God's will. One commentator says that at this time in Jewish history, circumcision was viewed as a perfecting ritual.

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One member of the body by this right was perfected in some way and had to be therefore perfected on the eighth day.

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How much more then must an act be undertaken even on the Sabbath if it perfects the whole body or saves a life?

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They think that circumcision on the eighth day perfects the body, but Jesus actually perfected the body.

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Brought wholeness to a paralyzed man, right? He actually did that. This is all to say that healing us and one day giving us glorified bodies, imperishable and undefiled, is the greatest fulfillment of circumcision and covenant membership.

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Now for us, circumcision of the heart as Gentiles, by healing the lame man on the

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Sabbath, we see a hope for eternal Sabbath and the wholeness that God will give us in it.

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I think this section is honestly such a great anticipation of the arguments made by Paul in Galatians, in the letter to the

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Galatians and also parts of Hebrews chapter 4, the believers rest.

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These are anticipating those theologies that will understand about the

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Sabbath and about circumcision. In Galatians chapter 6 verse 2, Paul says, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.

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You see, the law of Christ is freedom filled, correct understanding of the

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Mosaic law. And that's what's at play here. The people's incorrect understanding of the law of Moses opposed to the correct understanding of it, which is the law of Christ, as Paul says.

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And so we are to stop looking at the Bible like a book of rules and see it as a book of life and wholeness.

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And Jesus fulfills it. Verse 24, Jesus gives them two imperatives.

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Do not judge and judge. Two imperatives. Do not judge and judge.

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But he adds qualifiers. Do not judge simply by outward appearance.

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This Greek word appearance literally means face. You shouldn't take things simply at face value.

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Jesus is always quoting even from previous revelation. This goes much with Deuteronomy chapter 18 verse 18.

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It says that you shall appoint for yourself judges and officers in all your towns, which the Lord your

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God is giving you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy 18.

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Of Jesus in Isaiah 11, a prophecy of the Christ, it says of the Christ in Isaiah 11, and he will delight in the fear of the

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Lord, and he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear, but with righteousness, righteousness, he will judge the poor and decide with fairness the afflicted of the earth.

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This is something the Messiah does. He judges with righteous judgment. He calls all of us to judge with righteous judgment.

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And so this is not so much a rebuke at the crowd's ability to reason, as I said, but to go deeper in their understanding.

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And the way they do that is to look to the spiritual. Look to God for the answer by faith.

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They can't judge with righteous judgment because they have no faith. Again, this is a faith issue.

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Their judgment of Jesus is superficial. It is surface level.

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They quickly think of rule -keeping and believe that he is a

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Sabbath breaker and an encourager of Sabbath breaking. They have severely flawed understanding.

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If they had the faith, they'd see he doesn't break either circumcision or Sabbath laws, but he fulfills them.

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They've got to dig deeper. They've got to dig deeper. They're only looking at the surface.

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Judge with righteous judgment. Don't judge by appearance. And we're supposed to do the same thing too.

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This is for us as well. Now there is a most appreciated and loved passage by typically non -Christians.

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Matthew chapter 7 verse 1. Judge not, right? You hear that all the time.

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We're doing evangelism. Judge not. Man, you just slayed me. I'm done.

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I'm packing up. I'm leaving. Judge not, right? It's just ridiculous.

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But judge not in Matthew 7 is about a hypocritical judgmentalism.

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Not examining yourself before you examine others. John 7 here though demands moral and theological discernment within the bounds of a real faith.

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And the context shows this righteous judgment is the ability to not only spot legalism in the church, because that's what the context is, spotting legalism.

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They're talking about doing these things in such a way where he can't heal because he's going against the

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Sabbath. And so judging with righteous judgment is trying to look for legalism and removing it from our midst, not participating in legalism.

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They were so blind that they made a miracle of God, a transgression of the law.

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And you know, we can often elevate convictions to legislation, taking secondary doctrines and raising them to a point of primary importance, causing division in the process, right?

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Judging with righteous judgment is then being balanced to view things scripturally and never forgetting the law of love.

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The law of love. And this is, of course, not exhaustive. This is related even to things like not falsely assuming, going off of truth and not hearsay, not going by simply what you see, right?

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Some guy on the internet is probably listening. He's like, so Jesus wants us to judge? And it's like, yeah, buddy, God wants you to judge.

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But with righteous judgment, don't forget the qualifier. With discernment, with righteousness, without legalism,

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I would imagine the people most excited about using John chapter 7, verse 24 are the ones who need it the most, right?

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So go to verses 25. Now, look, we're going to do a quick overview.

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We don't have time to go into detail on these. Most of this is narrative. And when

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I looked at it, it didn't warrant a separate sermon, okay? But I do want us to not miss this because this is going to be important for us to see for the next sermon that we do.

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So we are moving literally from this section, Jesus's authority to teach. And now in verses 25 through 36, we're going to see the identity of Jesus.

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Again, it's not going to be as in much detail as what I just did. We're going to go real quick, okay?

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It says, 25 to 27 says, So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?

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Look, he is speaking publicly and they are saying nothing to him. The rulers do not really know that this is the

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Christ today. However, we know where this man is from. But whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he is from.

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Okay, so we've had Jewish authorities. We've had a crowd of people. Now we have a new group.

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Some people of Jerusalem, new group. These are probably some locals who are participating in the feast.

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And they've known and heard about Jesus already. They've heard of him. They know him. And they confirm exactly what he said.

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Do you see that? They confirm exactly what he said. They mocked him when he said, some of you are trying to kill me.

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And the Jerusalem locals confirm it. Is this not the man they are seeking to kill?

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He said, thank you. Right? Yes, they are. They are. But they can't believe this.

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They can't believe what's happening right now. Jesus is speaking openly and in front of Jewish authorities, priests,

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Pharisees, Sadducees. And he's charging them, accusing them of wanting to murder him.

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And he's speaking it openly and they can't believe it. Why? Because he's saying these things.

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And normally the Jewish leaders stomp that stuff out. He's accusing them right in front of them.

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And they aren't doing anything about it. They aren't doing anything about it. The word publicly in Greek is actually the word for boldly or confidently.

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And so how does Jesus speak with such fearlessness? Why haven't they arrested him yet?

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And so they think, if you look at that, they think, do the rulers know something we don't?

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Do they know something we don't? Are they not arresting and killing Jesus because they have indeed determined he is the

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Christ? Oh, maybe no one's saying anything because they've kind of observed him and they have determined that he is the

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Christ. That's kind of what they're saying there. In verse 26, this shows how they thought the only way

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Jesus could have gotten to him and gotten away with saying what he did was if the authorities believed that he was the Messiah.

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The people of Jerusalem argue with the possibility of him being the Messiah. Jesus is a man and we know where he's from.

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When the Christ comes, no one will know where he's from. That's what they believed.

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They held a view that indeed believed that the Christ would be flesh and blood.

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They did believe that. But they also thought that his coming and his appearance would be completely unknown.

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That he would be unknown and he would appear only once the redemption of Israel took place.

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Probably a military redemption. And so they think, we know this man.

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He's been in ministry for more than a year. He's come down to Jerusalem before. He's from Nazareth.

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We know this man. But the Messiah who's going to come, no one knows who he is.

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But we know him. And so they use their own knowing of him as the test to say he's not the

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Christ. I guess they missed all the prophecies of Jesus and that a child would be born in Bethlehem.

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We as the readers, of course, know the prologue in John 1. We know where he's from. Eternity past.

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He is from God. He is from heaven. He is God. Now, whether they were saying these things within earshot of Jesus, or he just supernaturally knew what they were saying, he cries out at this moment.

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It says he cries out. Verses 28 and 29. Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, you both know me and know where I am from, and they have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true whom you do not know.

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I know him because I am from him. And he sent me. Now, this crying out is actually a word that was often used for the prophets.

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They would cry out, speaking for God. The first part of that, verse 28, could have been a rhetorical question.

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But it says in the temple, in his father's house, he yells, you think you know my identity and where I'm from?

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I was sent by God to all of you, and God is real, and you do not know him.

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But I do. I know him because I'm sent from him.

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And this is so much more than the prophets who were men who were sent by God.

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This is so much more. Jesus is from God, sent by God, is God. He comes, excuse me, from realms they have never seen before.

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He comes from the invisible God that they have never truly known. Jesus knows the

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Father uniquely. He has triune relationship and closeness with him.

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If they really knew who he was, they wouldn't be rejecting him. If they really knew

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God's word, there would be no question in their minds. But they don't.

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That was enough for the authorities, that crying out like a prophet. Verse 30, so they were seeking to seize him, and no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come.

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How Jesus at that moment evades their seeking of him, it doesn't say.

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They sought to seize him, but in God's pure sovereignty, no man laid his hand on him, for it was not his time to be crucified yet.

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Remember, God's timing, not theirs. He will not let them do what they long to do yet, 31.

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But many of the crowd believed in him, and they were saying, when the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?

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And so it says, many of the crowd believed in him. We don't know if this was a legitimate belief, legitimate faith, or a more shallow one based off of signs and miracles.

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But honestly, their question goes right to signs and miracles. So it's possible that that faith is the latter of the two, a superficial faith.

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The crowd has what one commentator calls messianic delusion. Jesus has literally been doing astounding miracles, signs, wonders, healings, multiplying bread and fish, walking on water.

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But they think, well, will the Messiah do more wonders than this guy?

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It's like saying, yeah, this man is from God, but let's wait for the man of God to come.

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He's right there. He's right there in front of them. The irony is now at an unprecedented level.

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He's doing these miracles from God. And they're like, yeah, but we're waiting for the

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Messiah who will actually do miracles from God. It's unreal. The last thing the

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Pharisees want is the title Messiah being tossed around with the name

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Jesus of Nazareth. They've got to shut this down now, okay? Any signs of potential faith and belief in Jesus are things that the authorities really now have to stomp out quickly.

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So what do you do? The Pharisees had connections with the chief priests, and the chief priests have power.

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So they exercise that power and they get the temple officers involved. You see that?

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Verse 32, the chief priests were even there. And they grabbed their temple officers to seize him.

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It's amazing how much faithful Christianity has to deal with the authorities, right?

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At Apologia in the past seven, eight years, I feel like police encounters are a regular occurrence with abortion mill and evangelism ministries, right?

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But the Roman prefect didn't care that they used the police. So as long as utter chaos didn't ensue in the city, the temple authorities, the chief priests could use them as they wanted at their disposal.

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They could use them as thugs. It didn't matter to the Romans. In all this mess in pursuit of Jesus to silence him, he speaks out to everyone, verses 33 and 34.

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Therefore Jesus said, For a little while longer I am with you, then I go to him who sent me.

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You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come. This is not so much about his origin anymore, but what he came to earth to do.

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His hour is soon, but not yet. And after he has accomplished his mission, he will return back to his father.

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They think they have the power now to command police to subdue him and seize him, but a day is coming when he will be gone and they won't find him.

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The life and ministry of Jesus are fully out of the hands of mere mortals. They have no power here despite thinking they do.

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When he leaves, he will be inaccessible to their bloody hands.

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They won't be able to touch him. After his ascension, they will have wished they could apprehend him, but the cross will be complete by then.

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The damage, or I should say redemption, has already been done. Jesus is like a seed going into the ground that although it rises, it is what he planted on the earth they cannot pull out or stop from growing.

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The kingdom will expand and no matter what they do, persecution, murders, false imprisonments, to him, to believers, whoever, they will not be able to stomp out the kingdom.

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It is the year 2023 A .D. and they have never been able to stop what

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Christ started. Not in the slightest. They think they are from God, but where he's going, they cannot come.

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They will go to a place that is absent from the Father and His goodness. And so his words are less here about destinations and more about a coming judgment for them.

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And our final verses show the Jewish leader's confusion of his words. Where will he go?

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We already know he lives in Galilee. Does he plan to go live somewhere in the empire?

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Live and teach among the Greeks in the dispersion? What's funny is,

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Jesus' teaching will indeed come to the Gentiles just as the Lord God told them through the prophets, right?

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Every nation will be blessed by the Savior. They can't comprehend beyond the material and worldly.

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And for spiritual teachers, they know pretty much nothing about the spiritual realm. For this reason, they think healing a man's entire body is worse than letting a man stay paralyzed in obeying the

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Sabbath. They can see signs and wonders from God, but not realize he's from God.

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That is the self -blinding nature of unbelief. The reality is, they are perplexed by his statements and they're angry about it.

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Some have said they're being sarcastic here. Where does he plan to go? What does he intend to do?

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But they're betraying themselves. They're showing that they have no idea. They have no idea.

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They've never encountered a man like this. And that's because he is no mere man.

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So let's wrap this up, church. I know this was a huge section. I know there was a lot of information.

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I thank you for trying to stay with me this whole time. But in these kind of sections of scripture, we can walk away from this and go, that was, okay, what was

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I supposed to get from that? What was I supposed to remember from that sermon today?

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So let me give you, once again, the main things that I want you to take away from this.

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Jesus came back to Jerusalem after a year being away up north in Galilee doing ministry.

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He came only in divine timing and went to the temple to teach and was confronted by Pharisees, scribes, and chief priests, local

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Jews, crowds of traveling Jews, and all other participants of the Feast of Tabernacles.

01:04:11

It's just a big, big crowd event here. And as soon as he opened his lips, the conflicts and challenges began.

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And what we have seen today is that Jesus has every right and every authority to teach.

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He is God in the flesh and his words are to be heeded. He considers all other revelation, including the

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Old Testament, equally authoritative, and from him and the other two persons of the divine trinity.

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I think one application there is, we are not to be what's called red -letter people.

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You ever heard of red -letter people? They say, you know, I love the Bible, but I'm all about the red letters.

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It's all, I'm all about Jesus's words. Because in some Bible translations, they make

01:05:04

Jesus's words red, okay? But really, they're all God's words. The whole thing should either be red or black, you know, just pick, okay?

01:05:14

He has demonstrated that all of it is authoritative, all things from Genesis to Revelation.

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He quotes from them often. He shows that they are authoritative. Next, we see that when

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Jesus came to fulfill the laws of circumcision and the Sabbath, he didn't simply obey a law for us and that's it.

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By doing what he's done, he has promised to give us the highest benefits of what those laws originally pointed to.

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In the resurrection, you will have wellness and rest from your labors in a way that you cannot currently fathom.

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Absolutely. You will have Sabbath rest that you can't even comprehend now.

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You will have wholeness in your body that you can't comprehend right now.

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He then demonstrated to us that we are to have right judgments, discernment, decision -making, judgment calls that go beyond what we see.

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And it's only through faith that we can properly understand the truth behind all things. It's only being obedient to Christ that a higher level of understanding can come upon you.

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And so the lesson for us there possibly is when we lack discernment, when we lack the ability to judge with righteous judgment, maybe it's because we are backslidden or we keep sinning in a particular area and we can't judge with righteous judgment because the more you sin, the less you know, the less you can see the truth, but he's always good to bring us back.

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Then we saw that some people are going to think Jesus is only a man from Nazareth.

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We are called to share the news that he is so much more than that. Also, I hope that you've noticed throughout this gospel,

01:07:18

Jesus has been so precise to say who he is and he wants those that follow him to rightly comprehend his true identity and nature.

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You see, there are those in our community today that would seek to tell us it doesn't matter who

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Jesus is. It doesn't matter who he is. It doesn't matter how, with what precision

01:07:44

Jesus has exhibited who he is or articulated who he is. It's just by using the name

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Jesus. That's not true. That's not true. He would beg to differ.

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He is very serious about his identity, okay? And lastly, nothing can stop him.

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Nothing can stop him. The authorities didn't stop him. The crowds didn't stop him and the police didn't stop him.

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And when they thought that they stopped him by crucifying him and putting him in a tomb, it only expanded his reach, rule and reign exponentially.

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Just like our Lord, every Christian is a seed. When evildoers put us into the earth, we only grow.

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So brothers and sisters, every time you face people challenging you, like we saw what was happening to Jesus here, turn to his word and his will, discern right judgments.

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And even if they attempt to seize you, they can never stop what

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Jesus has already started. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the word that went out today.

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God, it was a lot of texts, but Lord, I hope that as your people, we can glean from these truths,

01:09:14

Lord, that your word never returns void, even for us as believers. We see in this text,

01:09:22

Lord Jesus, that you have all the authority to be able to do these things. We see that in your obedience, of the law on our behalf, you're gonna give us good things.

01:09:35

You don't simply forgive our sins. You are going to give us an inheritance by your obedience to the cross and of the law.

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And Lord, we see how important it is to understand who you are.

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There were people who thought they knew you were simply Jesus from Nazareth, but that wasn't enough for you.

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You're much more than that. And so Lord, we will proclaim who you are to everyone we meet.

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And nothing will ever stop you. We believe that. Nothing will ever stop your kingdom from expanding and for your return upon the earth one day.