I'm glad that you are able to join us today.
There may be some others who have fallen sick.
We pray for good health and as well as good encouragement in
our time together. We are continuing in our study,
our study in John, in the Gospel of John.
We have been learning from Scripture directly who Jesus is.
Last week we saw how Jesus is the bread of life.
In John chapter 6 after feeding of the 5000, Jesus taught that
He was the bread of life and that people needed to come to
him, eat of His flesh and drink of His blood.
That was a spiritual teaching, but one that many could not
accept. Even those who were Jesus
disciples left him after that point.
But those who believe that Jesus has the words of life decided
that there was no other place to go to, that there was no one
else to run to, and they stayed with Jesus for now.
And today we'll see how Jesus is from God.
Jesus is from God. There are several polarizing
issues in the world today. Just like how water and oil do
not mix and split apart no matter how much you try, there
are issues that 'cause people to go in distinct directions in how
they think and feel about it. Polarizing issues.
If you go online you you just have to see what people say
about things like the war in the Middle East, or about the guns,
firearm policy in the United States, or the import and export
policies in the country, or even things like who is the greatest
of all time in basketball or the best K pop band ever to perform.
You will see people torn on the issue, coming in loud with their
opinions and their argumentation and their reasonings.
Well, as we continue in our study of the Gospel of John
today, we'll see that there was no greater polarizing issue for
the people in Jerusalem than the identity of Jesus Christ and
what he claimed was a polarizing thing.
Listening to Jesus, people were split in all sorts of
directions. Using CS Lewis's words, many saw
Jesus as a lunatic, crazy man. They even thought he was demon
possessed. Others saw Jesus as a liar,
deceiving people, leading people astray from the truth.
But those who saw Jesus as Lord recognize him for who he really
is, believing his words that they would come to him and drink
and live. We'll also see how Jesus made
such wonderful invitations, though he he himself, in his
identity, in his, in his origins, in his teachings, His
claims. They were polarizing, but he
also made wonderful invitations to people to come to him for the
gift of eternal life. But not many would come.
Not everyone received his invitation or his offer.
Why is the question, what is keeping them from simply coming
to Jesus and receive him for who he is and to receive what He
offers? We'll look at the reasons why
people reject Jesus and why people would reject the good
gift of living water that he offers.
In today's sermon. If you're taking notes, we'll
look at 3 reasons they outlined the three parts of the sermon
today. First reason that they were not
hated by the world. Second, they were not willing to
do God's will. And 3rd, they were not making
right judgments. There are reasons why people
reject Jesus when the offer that He makes is so good.
We'll see. The first one, they were not
hated by the world. Let's read verse one to four to
follow along as I read from verse one to four.
After this Jesus went about in Galilee.
He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to
kill him. Now the Jews, now the Jews,
Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brother said to him,
leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples may also 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 to put us in context.
Remember back in John chapter 6, after that strange, seemingly
strange invitation to eat his flesh, drink his blood, many
disciples could not accept. They left him.
They stopped following him. And that was during the Feast of
Passover. Now is time.
Now is the time of the Feast of Booths.
So it's about 6 months later. And during this stretch of time,
Jesus was going about in Galilee, specifically avoiding
Judea because the Jews there were seeking to kill him.
For now, focus on Jesus's brothers here.
They are his younger half brothers, meaning Mary had
biological children after giving birth to Jesus.
And they saw Jesus probably for this stretch of time, going
about in Galilee, realizing that his followers, for some reason,
we're not exploding, right? Jesus losing subscribers, not
getting as many likes as he used to.
And just imagine being Jesus's brothers, growing up with him,
seeing something unique and special about him.
That brother who was never selfish, right?
That brother who was never boasting, that brother who just
love God and love people. And now he was doing great
things. And so they come to Jesus to
offer some of their advice. Essentially, they were saying,
Jesus, what are you doing in the places like in Karawachi?
You know, you need to go to Jakarta to make a name for
yourself. Go, especially during the high
holiday season. Show yourself to the world.
It does look like on the surface, his brothers are
supportive, even excited about Jesus being known by the world.
They want the world to see his miracles, to be in awe of him.
But what's shocking here is how God's word describes his
brothers, verse 5. For not even his brothers
believed in him. They did all that said all that
encouraged Jesus in that way, but it says his brothers did not
believe him. If they said to Jesus, Jesus
just stay home, stop trying to impress people.
We know you're not a big deal. It's not a big deal.
You're not fooling anybody. And because and they said that
because his brothers didn't believe him, we could easily
understand. But they do seem to believe that
he can do miracles, that he can do great things.
They do believe Jesus can be great and get the crowds
following him. But this is still UN belief
according to God's word. So to Jesus brothers their
advice. Jesus declines because he is not
like them at all. They don't understand his
mission and and that's where we begin to understand their
unbelief. See what Jesus says in verse 6.
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 it's works are
evil. You go up to the feast.
I'm not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully
come. But after his brothers had gone
up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in
private. The word for time here is the
word Kairos, meaning the right time or the appropriate time.
Jesus was not talking about the right time to get famous, but he
was actually talking about the right time to die on the cross.
That time would come later when he would enter Jerusalem again,
riding on a donkey in the final week before he would be
crucified, because that was his mission.
That is what he came for and that's something that his
brothers could not believe. Some could argue, well, his
brothers didn't know that about Jesus yet.
Well, even to that we can just look to Apostle Peter, his
example. He believed in Jesus, but he
still could not understand that Jesus had to suffer and die,
even when Jesus told him outright that he will suffer and
die. So our natural worldly
perspective says that having your name be known, flaunted
with great reputation is is better.
The bigger the name on that sign, the better.
Being more famous, better. Making a name for ourselves
better. The world desires this, The
world functions like this. But Jesus is not about that at
all. That's why Jesus says the world
cannot hate you, but it hates me.
Because doing things for your own glory, for your own name in
the eyes of God is evil. But that was not the way of our
Lord and Savior, which is why the Lord hated Jesus and not the
which is why the world hated Jesus in the world did not hate
his brothers. This just cause us to pause and
consider what a faithful life of following Jesus should look
like. If you want to be faithful
disciple of Jesus Christ, what should your life look like?
Because we continue to live in a world that hates Jesus today in
the same way the world hated Jesus back then.
Do we walk and talk and think and function so much like the
world that the world cannot hate us?
Albert Barnes make sure we see this problem.
He says you profess no principles in opposition to the
world, so the world does not envy you.
The world does not stand against you as you possess the same
spirit and principles with the world, they cannot be expected
to hate you. End Quote.
As Christians we must not be the kind of people the world looks
at and says oh you are just like us.
No, we must regularly evaluate our walk, our way of life, our
lifestyle. That we are not like the world
specifically, that we do not seek our own glory, we do not
seek our own fame and reputation and any other self-centered
pursuit that the world encourages.
This kind of selfish, self exalting pride was at the root
of unbelief in Jesus, brothers, and we should be careful to
evaluate our faith or lack of faith by how much we agree with
the ways of the world. Am I like the world or am I like
Christ? That would be especially
spiritually edifying for us as we reflect on that question, am
I like the world or am I like Christ?
There's a good point of and also a good point of discussion with
other Christians this week. Now in verse 10, to be clear,
Jesus did not lie to his brothers when he said I'm not
going up to the feast. But then afterwards he did go
up. We see from Jesus explanation
that He was not following His brother's way, the world's way.
He took orders from God the Father as a perfectly obedient
God the Son. So Jesus would not go up
publicly with fanfare for His own glory, but He would go up in
private, for He had a mission, He had an agenda from the Father
as He went. See what they thought of Him.
Look at verses 11 to 13. The Jews were looking for Him at
the feast, saying Where is He? And there was much muttering
about him among the people. While some said he is a good
man, other said no, he's leading people astray.
Yet for the fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him.
Remember back in verse one, Jews wanted to kill Jesus, so their
search for him here was not like a welcome party.
But it was a wicked manhunt. The rest of the people even got
the hint that it was dangerous to talk about Jesus.
So for their own lives, no one dared to speak louder than a
whisper about him. And to whisper to people that
Jesus was a good man was still not right.
Was it because Jesus was much more than just a good man?
There seems to be no love for Jesus here because a love for
self is the way of the world, and a love for self leaves
nothing but hate for Jesus. And that's why people rejected
him, because they were not hated by the world, they were like the
world. Second reason why people reject
Jesus in his offer, they're not willing to do God's will.
The second point, they're not willing to do God's will.
So as Jesus went to the feast following God's agenda, he went
not to wow people with miracles, but to teach them the truth.
We see this in verses 14 to 16. About the middle of the feast.
Jesus went up to the temple and began teaching.
The Jews therefore marvelled, saying, how is it that this man
has learning when he has never studied?
So Jesus answered them, My teaching is not mine, but his
who sent me. One consistent quality of Jesus
during his ministry on earth was how Jesus taught with authority.
He was unlike all the religious leaders and teachers of that day
because Jesus spoke with the authority of God.
And here again, people could notice the difference and they
marvelled that Jesus could speak like this, but actually they're
marvelling. Their amazement actually was
founded in it was rooted more in condescending looking, looking
down on Jesus. How is it that this man has
learning? How is it possible?
They marvelled, but they began to marvel at how he never went
to rabbi school. He didn't have thesis papers or
his thesis defenses scholarly degrees like they did, but that
was because Jesus is learning was in the seminary of heaven.
He was the divine logos, the word of God we saw in John
chapter one who had come from heaven.
Now in the flesh. In contrast to these pious but
proud, prideful, self-righteous religious people looking down on
Jesus like he is some uneducated fellow.
See Jesus, When people look down on us, we are tempted to
retaliate, to prove ourselves, to show ourselves to be the real
deal. We want to flex our skill sets,
our successes. Well, Jesus seems to go in the
completely opposite direction. And again, he is unlike the
world. The world cannot love Jesus for
who he is and what he does because Jesus humbly points to
the one who sent him, God the Father.
It is Jesus's own teaching because he says it's my
teaching. And though Jesus has every right
to be exalted as the name above all names, he humbly says, My
teaching is from God. Now what was Jesus teaching?
Here we see in verses 17 to 18, If anyone's will is to do God's
will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether
I am speaking on my own authority.
The one who speaks from his own authority seeks his own glory,
but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent Him is true, and
in him there is no falsehood. As he humbly points to God the
Father, He now teaches how mere human beings like us could know
Jesus's teaching is from God and is true.
Jesus doesn't say here that someone needs to attain a
certain moral level or achieve certain theological expertise to
know if Jesus is teaching was from God or not.
No, he simply says you can know simply by committing to do God's
will, God's will, DA Carson explains.
God's will is not simply to be thought about and assessed as if
God is the object. We may politely examine,
dissect, and discuss picking and choosing what we like of Him.
No, it is a faith commitment. It is a commitment believing
Jesus's teaching because believing Jesus teaching is a
matter of obedience. If we choose to do God's will as
we are willing to obey Jesus says, then we will be in a
position to evaluate Jesus's claims and see that they are
true. When we come with that kind of
attitude, we will, and that kind of posture, humble posture, as
Jesus himself exhibited, we will discover that Jesus is teaching
is indeed the very truth of God, and therefore that Jesus is who
he claims to be, that he really is the Son of God, the divine
Son who is one with the Father. So to be a Christian, then, is
not merely by association. It's not just by having parents
who are Christian, or friends who are Christian, or even just
feeling like you're a Christian for the children here, for the
teens. I'll repeat that again.
To be a Christian is not by having parents who are
Christian, or simply friends who are Christian, or going to a
Christian School or just feeling like a Christian.
No, Being a Christian is a matter of your will, a readiness
to obey God, a willingness to lay down our abilities, our
intellects, our feelings, and to give to God all that we have, to
live according to God's pleasure and not our own.
That's what it means to be a Christian.
That's what it means to be his disciple.
Are you willing? To do God's will?
Or do you want to keep doing your own will?
That's how you decide if you're a Christian or not.
That's how you decide if you're able to come to Jesus to accept
his words or not. Along with our own faith
commitment of obedience to God, Jesus says there's another way
to see if what Jesus says is true.
You can think about it this way. We may know someone who is
passionately committed to making himself or herself the centre of
the universe, right? We can, we can see it from from
far away. We can hear it in how they act
and how they speak. It's just to get attention from
people and and just to get you to do what they want you to do.
Now it's clear we don't want to be around such people who want
to be the centre of the universe.
We don't want to be around such people who seek their own his or
her own glory. Once you see their pattern, we
can't trust them. Now, compared to that person,
maybe some of us don't have to imagine very, very hard to to
know that there's such a person that exists now to to that
person. Imagine there's someone who did
everything and said everything in order to bring honour, fame,
attention to God. How much can we trust that
person? We can trust them very well.
We can trust them a lot. Now there is only one who does
that. Jesus.
Jesus wasn't trying to persuade people with gimmicks or or
flattery or with money or with even with free meals.
That wasn't his way. He wasn't he.
He wasn't. He didn't have mixed motives
like many religious leaders that turn ministry into something of
a profitable business for themselves.
No, Jesus spoke out against the evil works of the world, and yet
he humbly came to sinful people to teach them, to invite them,
to lead them. Jesus is the one who perfectly
seeks God's glory, not his own. He is wholeheartedly, completely
committed to God. Exaltation, not self exaltation.
And that is seen ultimately in Jesus's willingness to die on
the cross, in our place, in the place of sinners who care for
nothing other than themselves. Jesus came and he gave up his
life so that we too will no longer love our own glory, but
love the glory of the Father. God the Father didn't have to
force the Son to do this. No, Jesus, He willingly went to
the cross to do the Father's will.
For these reasons, we can trust Jesus.
May we trust Him today. Now let's turn to see who are
not willing to do God's will. Doing God's will.
Another way to think about it was to keep God's law.
See verses 19 to 24. Has not Moses given you the law?
Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?
The crowd answered. You have a demon who is seeking
to kill you. Jesus answered them.
I did one work, and you all marvel at it.
Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from
the fathers. And you circumcise a man on the
Sabbath, if on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that
the law of Moses may not be broken.
Are you angry with me? Because on the Sabbath I made a
man's whole body? Well, the one work that Jesus is
referring to in verse 21 is the work that he did in Jerusalem
back in John chapter 5. It was the work of healing a man
who was an invalid for 38 years, meaning he was he couldn't move
on his own for that long. Jesus came to him, simply spoke
to him, take up your bed and walk and instantly the man was
healed. When the religious leader saw
that the man was walking around and carrying his bed, they
weren't celebrating at this great event that happened in
this man's life after 38 years. Instead, they condemned the man
for breaking the Sabbath because he was carrying walking around,
carrying his bed. And then they turned to Jesus to
condemn Jesus for breaking the Sabbath by healing a man on the
Sabbath. So now here Jesus points out
their hypocrisy. If the 8th day of a Jewish boy's
life happened to be on the Sabbath, they would do the work
of circumcision on the Sabbath. Both circumcision and the
Sabbath were instructed by God's law, and so they would regularly
break Sabbath to uphold circumcision for the boy in
order that that young Jewish boy would have the sign that he was
part of God's family but didn't do.
Didn't Jesus do one greater work than circumcision to make a man
completely whole on the Sabbath so that he could go and then
worship God with God's people in the presence of God at the
temple? But they're angry enough to kill
Jesus, which also, by the way, is clearly not keeping God's
law. So in verse 24, Jesus commands
them do not judge by appearances, but judge with
right judgement. Meaning that their approach to
God's law was superficial, it was only surface level.
It points to how their approach to God was just all appearance,
all about appearances. And we know this because the
religious teachers had twisted God's law to make themselves
look better on the outside compared to everyone else, to
show themselves as law keepers when inside in their hearts
there were law Breakers. But here as well, we see them
twisting God's word to come to the wrong judgement about Jesus,
judging the Son of God as a criminal who should be killed
for doing good, great miraculous things in people's lives that no
one else could do. If their approach to God was by
faith, they were committed to do God's will.
They would be able to see that Jesus was not the law breaker,
but He himself was the law fulfiller.
For all of the law would point to Jesus Christ and what He
would do for law Breakers like us.
The same goes for the rest of the crowds.
Now, not every Jew there was guilty of attempted murder at
this point, but soon enough the crowds would together in one
voice shout out their judgement against Jesus, crying out
crucify, crucify. And so it's not hard to imagine
that they would do such a thing then at Jesus's trial that was
to come, because here they were already thinking Jesus was.
Now you see the words demon possessed so to speak to our non
Christian friends who are here joining us.
We're glad that you're here, but we we are glad that you're here
so you can hear and know that how to make a right judgement
about Jesus. Do not think you can make a
right judgement just on the surface level, just on the
appearance level of Jesus at a distance or from what other
people might have told you. We encourage you to study the
scriptures to get a front row seat to all that Jesus said and
did and taught. Go below the appearances, go
below the surfaces where many people are stuck at, Study
together scriptures with even one of our the members in our
church and then come to a right judgement about Jesus.
I think all of us could agree that would be a fair judgement
to make, to come to a judgement not without reading God's Word
first, but to come to the Scriptures, come to God's Word,
see how God has revealed in His truth for us, have read it,
studied it, and then come to a decision.
This is a call to our Christian friends here as well to never
stop our pursuit of studying God's Word.
Please make sure members especially to take up every
opportunity that we have as a church for to help you get into
God's word and study God's word together with others.
Now the irony in the rest of today's passage is how people
were divided in making a right judgement about Jesus.
They were divided even though Jesus taught go beyond the
surface, go beyond the appearances, judge the right
judgement. The rest of this passage show
how people are divided and they just cannot do that.
The third reason why people reject Jesus and the good gift
of living water that He offers is this, that we're not making
right judgments. See verse 20, verses 25 to 27.
Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is this not the
man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly,
and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities
really know that this is the Christ?
But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ
appears, no one will know where he comes from.
And so those who ask about Jesus in verse 25 are now the of the
people of Jerusalem. They knew better than the
countryside Galileans what was going on in their city with
their religious leaders. The people knew how the leaders
wanted to kill Jesus and they see them doing nothing about it.
So they wonder if Jesus is the Christ, the promised Messiah,
but because of ideas of Christ that they already have, they
quickly dismiss it and they go back to what they think they
know. So Jesus continues to teach the
way that he had been teaching in the temple.
Verses 28 to 32. So Jesus proclaimed as he taught
in the temple, You know me, and you know where I come from, but
I have not come of my own accord.
He who sent me is true, and Him you do not know.
I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent me.
So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on
him, because his hour had not yet come.
Yet many of the people believed in him.
They said, when the Christ appears, will He do more signs
than this man has done? The Pharisees heard the crowd
muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and
Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
Jesus again claims to be divine. In verse 29.
He claims to his Here are his claims again to divine
knowledge, divine origin and divine mission as it has been
seen throughout the Gospel of John where Jesus says things
like I know God and I come from God and I was sent by God.
And whenever Jesus would say things like this, we see the
people responding with aggression and now it is no
different. The people try to have Jesus
arrested. There's a note that many people
believed in Him, yes, but again, we see the basis of their
believing was his miraculous signs.
And we should know by now. If you've been listening
carefully in all of our sermon series thus far, we know by now
that believing because of the signs may be a good start, but
it is not good enough to be genuine, lasting faith in Jesus
Christ. And so the religious
authorities, the chief priests and Pharisees then tried to
officially arrest him, right? The crowd couldn't arrest him
for Jesus. Time had not yet come.
It was not time for him to be arrested and handed over to the
authorities. Jesus was in, was in control
over that time. And so now the chief priests and
Pharisees in verse 32 tried to officially arrest him.
They send officers to him and we'll get back to what these
officers do later in verse 45. We regardless, we see the threat
of aggression and arrest did not affect Jesus at all.
Again, He is sovereign over time.
He continues to do what he came to do at the feast, which is to
teach. See verse 33 to 36.
Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer and then I'm
going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will
not find me where I'm going. Where I am you cannot come.
The Jews said to one another, Where does this man intend to go
that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the
dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?
What does he mean by saying You will not?
You will seek me and you will not find me, and where I am you
cannot come. Jesus here was talking about
returning to heaven, returning to the Father, which we know
about on this side of history, on this side of the cross and
the empty tomb. But before Jesus died on the
cross, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, there
was no way that people here at this time could have understood
what Jesus was talking about. Their confusion is clear, all
the more because they have trouble believing Jesus is from
God. How could they believe that
Jesus would then go back to God the way he came?
But they needed to hear and learn so that they might live.
And so this brings us to the high point of the feast where
Jesus would stand up and declare his invitation.
But first, a little bit of the background of the feast.
We are probably most familiar, most familiar with the Jewish
feast of Passover, but not maybe not so much as the Feast of
Booths or also called the Feast of Tabernacles.
This feast was so important to the Jews that they often refer
to this feast, not Passover, as the Feast.
There was a time to remember God's care for Israel during the
wilderness wanderings. We read earlier from Exodus
chapter 17 how God provided water from the rock as the
people were thirsty, as Jesus, as God LED them through the
wilderness, through the desert and God and and we read how
Moses struck the rock and water flowed out.
And so to celebrate God's faithfulness during the
wilderness time, the people built temporary shelters, which
they called booths or tabernacles.
They built it with organic things like leaves and, and
branches either on their rooftops or in their courtyards.
And they would stay in those and live in, in those booths, those
tabernacles for that week. Not only that, this feast was a
celebration of that year's harvest of crops.
So this was important for a community, an agricultural
community where they farmed for their food and their livelihood.
And so after they put a successful harvest into their
barns and stored that away, they were able to celebrate and give
thanks to God during this this week.
People also use this time to look forward to the coming year
of and use the time to pray. It was a time of prayer for God
to provide again the rains for the following year, for the
following year's crops. And this prayer was dramatized
every morning during the week of this festival.
This this feast, people came down from the temple to the Pool
of Siloam. A priest would fill up a golden
picture with water to the sound of trumpets and to the sound of
a choir singing the words of Scripture with joy.
You will draw water from the wells of salvation.
So just imagine the scene. And then the people went back up
to the temple. And then carrying branches as a
symbol of the boots of God's faithfulness, and then carrying
fruits as a symbol of the harvest that the Lord had
provided through the rains. And they sang, going up, give
thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the Lord, give thanks to the
Lord. And the priests would pour out
that water by the altar, these prayers for rain that were
prayed, that were acted out like this, it reminded them of their
dependence on God, that they were not able to provide for
themselves unless God sent the reins.
The Feast of Tabernacles next year would be a depressing
sight. So with that in mind, with the
backdrop of this feast, read verse 37.
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up
and cried out. If anyone thirsts, let him come
to me and drink. Jesus stood up and he cried out
so the people would hear and know that He is the giver of
water that truly satisfies. Jesus cried out so that the
people would think of a deeper need that they had than their
need for rain, a need for their thirsty souls.
You know, when we are not thirsty, we don't think much
about water, do we? I don't, I forget.
Especially when we can easily just go get a cup of water.
This is why we, myself included, people today need to depend on
things like smartwatches that remind them to drink a certain
amount of water at certain times.
But what about when we are thirsty?
How much do you think about water?
You think about it a lot. You cannot think about anything
else. Just be in the car with me, with
my three kids, when their water bottles are empty.
We're still a long ways from home in traffic.
I'm so thirsty I need water. Can we stop, get some water?
We can't. You can see it when when, when
we're parched, our throats are dry, we can't stop thinking
about water, and we want nothing else.
Now this should be true of our thirst for God, that we cannot
think about anything else. But because of our sin, we have
found ways to somehow distract ourselves from our thirst for
God and try to replace it with. All of our hearts better than we
do, he says through the word. We have to understand this about
ourselves. But if this is you, you are
aware of your thirst today. Jesus says come to me and drink.
To move away from your broken cistern that holds no water,
stop trying to drink from empty broken containers and come to
the never ending well of water that is Jesus Christ.
Who here hears Jesus's invitation?
You may have grown up in a Christian home, you may have
heard Christian teachings, but you have never moved to the
well. Will you come to him today?
Come to him now and drink. Believe in Jesus.
If you do, Jesus says in verse 38, Whoever believes in me, as
the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of
living water. What does that mean?
He explains in verse 39. Now this he said about the
Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive.
For as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not
yet glorified. So having your heart flowing
with rivers of living water as you drink from Jesus, you
believe in Him, means that you have received the Holy Spirit.
In the days of the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was
yet indeed active in working, but in different ways than Jesus
is talking about here. Because in the Old Testament, in
the Old Covenant, the Holy Spirit anointed certain people,
certain prophets, certain kings at certain times to do certain
works on behalf of God's people. But in the new covenant in
Jesus, all of God's people, all believers, would receive the
whole time permanently. This is the new covenant that
Jesus was establishing with those who come to him and drink.
But this new covenant would only come by the spilling of Jesus's
blood, which is why Jesus said at his Last Supper and why we
remembered every Lord's Supper that the new covenant is in his
blood. When it says in verse 39 that
Jesus was not yet glorified, it's referring to this, to Jesus
spilling, shedding his own blood as he was glorified, lifted up,
exalted onto the cross where he died taking upon our shame and
guilt of sin. He died on behalf of His people,
all who would come to him and drink by faith.
So before giving of this Holy Spirit, Jesus needed to finish
his work. He first needed to die for our
sins on the cross. This is our spiritual thirst,
our spiritual need, for all of us have sinned against God.
We could not keep his laws. If anything, the moral laws of
God exposed our evil desire to disobey God.
His law said, do not covet, but because of the greed in our
hearts, we covet and we lie and we cheat and we steal.
Ultimately we break the law of God because we ought to worship
Him and Him alone. But we have given away our
worship, given away our love, our affections to idols, what
belongs to our God, our Creator. We have given it away to other
things, things that we think and in vain we hope that would
satisfy our souls. We also know we have sinned and
fallen short of God's glory. When we see the work of the Holy
Spirit that He does in people's lives, we see in Galatians
chapter 5. And just Please note that
somewhere we see it there, how the evil works of our flesh are
things like sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry,
enmity, jealousy, fits of anger, dissensions, division, envy,
drunkenness. Those are all works, evil works
of the flesh. And God's Word warns us those
who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
But the God's Word continues. But the fruit of the Spirit,
meaning the result of the working of the Holy Spirit in
people's lives is this Lovejoy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
If you're not convinced about your sin in the first list, then
just look at the second list and see how you fall short.
The good news is, as we see our sin, as we see our souls thirst,
God points our eyes in his Word to look to Jesus, who died as a
sacrifice for our sins in our place.
So do you see why Jesus cried out what he cried out here at
the Feast of Tabernacles? He was offering living water to
all those who would come to him. Like Moses struck the rock to
provide water for thirsty Israel, God had Jesus struck on
the cross, pierced for our sins. Blood and water flow down from
His side to satisfy the wrath of God that we should have been
crushed under, that we deserve to pay.
But through Christ's death, Christ's resurrection, and His
ascension, He provided the Holy Spirit for us to receive
permanently in how much we are in need of the Holy Spirit, as
we too are pilgrims on the way in our journey to the promised
land of heaven, where we will be with God in perfect
relationship, without sin, without pain, without tears,
forever For those who drink of Christ, repent of our sins,
believe in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit frees us from the thirst, from the ways
that we try to satisfy our thirst with the world.
And he instead, he satisfies with God and the things of God.
This transformation is how He causes us to be loving to people
who have unlovable disposition. This transformation is how we
how he causes us to be joyful in gloomy situations, to have peace
in uncertain positions, kindness in the face of opposition,
faithful in the face of temptations, to be to have
gentleness in the face of accusations, self-control with
great determination. All of this comes by the power
of the Holy Spirit at work in those who come to Jesus, drink
and live. And this power of the Holy
Spirit impacts and the and the and how it impacts is by
overflowing to the people around us.
This is what we desire to be as the church here, to be a people
captivated, transformed by the Holy Spirit, continue to live
out in the good work that the Holy Spirit is doing in US.
If only the people around Jesus would make a right judgement
about him, they too would be included in this beautiful
transformative work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
But making the wrong judgement based on appearances would keep
them from coming to Jesus to drink.
See verse 40. When they heard these words,
some of the people said this really is the prophet, others
said this is the Christ, but some said it's the Christ that
come from Galilee. Has not the Scripture said that
the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and he comes
from Bethlehem, the village where David was.
So there was a division among the people over him.
Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on
him. We see here the polarizing
effect Jesus had on this crowd. This is what Jesus meant when he
taught another time. I have come to bring not peace
but division because the choice is either to believe and follow
Jesus or to reject him, seeing him as a liar or lunatic or
worshipping him as Lord. There's no in between option.
But the people here are split between Jesus identity.
Some thought he was the prophet that Moses promised, others
thought he was the Christ as told by the scriptures.
Well, Jesus wasn't just one or the other.
He was both the promised prophet and the promised Messiah who has
come to take, who has come to take away the sins of the world.
They were also split on the issue of where he comes from.
How ironic. Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
They could have known if they just simply asked or just did a
little bit more research. But again, they did.
They just stick to their appearances and conclude, I'm
not sure about this man. Doesn't He come from Galilee?
All that was said about Him earlier in John chapter 1 is
true. The world was made through Him,
but they did not know Him. We see that here, how Jesus came
to His own, but His own rejected Him.
We see that here too. Now look at the final verses
starting verse 45. The officers then came to the
chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, Why did you not
bring Him? The officers answered, No one
ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them,
Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or
the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not
know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to him
before and who was one of them, said to them, Does our law judge
a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he
does? They replied, Are you from
Galilee, too? Search and see that no prophet
arises from Galilee. We see the Jewish leaders here
at a worse place than the crowds.
Actually, the crowds seem like they're still trying to figure
Jesus out. The Jewish leaders were
stubbornly set in their conclusions.
They act as we would expect people to act, people who are
set in their mindset, set in their thinking.
They act and respond with anger that others are not following
them, but they're following and trying to think about trying to
follow Jesus. They're insulted by people who
thought differently than them, and so they're mocking them.
They're condemning them for condemning those who differ from
them from being deceived, and they flash their authority
demanding others to submit to them, characteristic behaviour
of those who are stubbornly set in their ways.
In the midst of this unappealing behaviour, we see more
reasonable responses from two sources.
First, the officers. These were the officers back in
verse 32 who were sent to arrest Jesus.
We see what they end up doing here, actually.
So they had the authority and they had the order to arrest
Jesus, but something arrested them.
They could just say all the reason that they can give was no
one ever spoke like this man. There was something again about
Jesus's words, something about Jesus's authority that stopped
them from doing what they needed to do.
They were considering Jesus's words, the beginning of right
judgement. Now also look at the reasonable
response of Nicodemus, one of the leading Pharisees who went
to Jesus at night in John chapter 3.
He has been trying to make a right judgement about Jesus
since then, and now he offers to his Pharisee friends really
logical reasoning derived based on the law that they have
studied together and that they know so much about together.
He asked them cautiously. Does our law to all, to a
roomful of apparent law keepers? Does our law judge a man without
first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?
But the rest of their minds were already set.
They had prejudged Jesus without a proper hearing, without proper
examination, and whoever else thought Jesus was more than a
son of a Carpenter, whoever else thought Jesus was more than just
a man from Galilee was, in their own words, accursed.
They cursed them by the curse of God.
What a pity they could not see past their wrong judgement.
There were the ones accursed, standing against God and the Son
of God, guilty of sin and even desiring death of the Son of
God. We don't ever want Christian
leaders to be like this, who we don't ever want to be Christians
who are like this either, who are stubbornly set in our
thoughts, in our ways, unwilling to learn, unteachable.
But the mark of a faithful Christian, a faithful disciple
of Jesus Christ, is one that humbly bows to the Word of God,
comes to learn and to be taught by the Word of God again and
again, to be formed by God's word and reformed and reformed
by God's word. Instead of being unwilling to
hear God's word, unwilling to do God's will, we must take heed to
Jesus call to be willing to hear God's word, willing to do God's
will, willing to make the right judgement about who he is.
And as we do, we will continue to be amazed, in awe, marvelling
at who Jesus is and what he has done.
If you have found it hard and difficult to be faithful in your
Bible reading, simply do this. How does God's Word point to
Jesus and to this gospel? Wherever you are in the book,
wherever you, wherever you are, even in the Old Testament, all
Scripture points to Christ. God's Word will lead us to
marvel at who Jesus is if we're willing to come humbly before
him. As we close, let's look again to
the cross. You know, how appropriate is it?
We we, we sang earlier how on the mount of crucifixion
fountains open deep and wide through floodgates of God's
mercy flow to vast and gracious tide.
Let's look again to the cross. Then as we close, we see how
Jesus was hated by the world. Yet at the cross we also see how
willing Jesus was to do God's will.
He willingly laid down his life in our place for undeserving
sinners like you and me at the cross.
He experienced our shame, our guilt, our suffering for sin.
He was mocked, He was humiliated.
Others thought he was cursed by God as we hung, as he hung on
that tree. And do you remember the words of
our Jesus? As he said, I thirst at the
cross we see our Saviour coming to us, willing to experience our
dying thirst so that we would be able to come to him and drink
and live. So come to Jesus, drink and
live. Do that today, tomorrow, and for
the rest of your life. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we come to you aware of our thirst.
We pray that only Jesus will satisfy.
Keep our eyes fixed on Christ, fixed upon the cross as Jesus
took upon our thirst in our place, and may our souls be
satisfied again and again and again.
Have your way in us. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. Let's take a moment of time of
to personally reflect on the Word of God.
Please take a brief moment to do so.
Consider what you learn about yourself, but more importantly,
what you learn about God and how your life would be different if
you truly believed in the words that we see in Scripture.