The kids come in here? And they
still out there? Both of the boys have fallen
asleep in the car. Alright, we'll get started. Turn with me to John chapter
7. John 7, and I want to pick up
in verse 8 and work our way down to verse 18. Here in this passage,
we see our Lord faithfully declaring the doctrine of Jehovah God. He came and faithfully preached
the message that he was sent to preach. And we're being taught
by our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, as our prophet, priest, and king. And in this witness that he bears
of faithfully preaching what his father sent him to preach,
we, the church, we learn we have one message. one message to preach. It's the message which our Lord,
the Lord Jesus Christ, has sent us to preach. It's to preach
and declare Him. It's to preach salvation through
Jesus Christ to sinners. And as the Lord grows us, he's
teaching us not to be a hindrance to that and to obscure the light
of Christ so that we don't make it hard for others to hear the
gospel. Because Christ alone is salvation. And we want to do everything
that we can do to help them here, and we help by not getting in
the way ourselves. And the Lord teaches us this. He teaches his pastors this,
and he's teaching me this as well. I've titled this message,
Marveling in Christ. Marveling in Christ. Now, our Lord, we're going to
pick up in verse 8, and He's been speaking with family members
that have been giving Christ their fleshly advice as to what
He should do to make Himself known among the people. They
had an interest in what He would do, and they wanted Him to go
to Jerusalem openly in a very showy way and openly before the
people. But the Lord shuts down this
conversation. He brings it to a close in verse
8, and He proceeds to do what the Father sent Him to do. He remained faithful in the work
that God sent His Christ to do for the people. Verse 8, Our
Lord says, you go up unto this feast. I go not up yet unto this
feast, for my time is not yet full come. And when he had said
these words unto them, he abode still in Galilee, doing exactly
what he said he would do. He said, I'm not going up yet.
But when his brethren were gone up, then went he up also unto
the feast, not openly. not as his family members were
advising him to do, but as it were, in secret, quietly. He went up quietly so as not
to draw attention to himself because it wasn't time yet for
there to be this open debate there with the religious Jews.
Then in Jerusalem, we're told in verse 11, that while this
is going on, this is an eight-day feast. And Christ was there,
he just wasn't there openly. And it shows us just how plain,
how unassuming Christ is. He looked like any other man. and there was nothing about him.
He wasn't taller, his dress wasn't any different, the way he wore
his hair or his beard, no different than any of the other people
so that he could be standing right next to them and they wouldn't
even know it. And it says that the Jews saw him at the feast
and said, where is he? And there was much murmuring,
there was much debate going on, secret debate going on among
the people concerning him. For some said, he's a good man.
Others said, no, but he deceiveth the people. How be it no man
spoke, spake openly of him for fear of the Jews. The Jews there,
what they're referring to, is the ruling Jews. Those people,
not in a governmental sense, making laws, but as religious
leaders, the Jews had an opinion on Christ. And that's what it's
talking about. They didn't want to speak openly
of Christ for fear of the ruling religious Jews. And in verse
14, it says, Now about the midst of the feast,
so this is around day four of the feast, Jesus went up into
the temple and taught. And what we see here with all
this murmuring going on is there's always issues. There's always
things that are important to people in the day that they live. There's always something to discuss.
There's different opinions on things. This is always going
on. This is always happening. And
if you drill into it with people, it probably has some effect on
their opinion of Christ as well. And so there's always issues,
always debates going on all the time. There's much murmuring,
it says, among the people concerning him. They all had different views
of him. And on top of that, the ruling
Jews had a very stern opinion so that any open discussion was
censored. They couldn't even speak of these
things openly for fear. There was a fear of what might
happen to them. And one thing that we see here
is that in the midst of all this, Christ, at the appointed time,
he goes up into the temple and he speaks. He teaches the people
openly, clearly. He teaches the people openly
in the public religious center there. He went and taught the
people. And so We see there that the
ruling Jews made it so that these things couldn't be talked about
openly, and there was a fear of what might happen to them.
And at the same time, Christ goes to the temple and speaks
openly and teaches the people. And it says to me that we don't
want to do anything to obscure the open declaration of Jesus
Christ and him crucified. We don't want to do anything
in our lives that takes away from that message or makes it
hard for people to hear Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Because
there is no other salvation and there is no other message that
the church has been given. to preach and declare clearly
than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so through all the debates
that go on in men's lives, whatever it is, whatever age you're living
in and whatever's being talked about, whatever the issues are,
we have one message. And there's only one thing that
is good and needful for the people to hear. It's the message of
Jesus Christ. Just preach Christ. And that comes to me. I'm first
speaking this message to myself as a pastor, as your pastor. That's for me to hear. And then also there's, it's for
you to hear as a church, because that is our calling. He is our one message. Jesus Christ and him crucified
because nothing else matters. In all situations, in good times,
Preach Christ. In bad times, preach Christ. In seasons of debate and tumultuousness,
preach Christ. That's the only thing that's
going to benefit the people. And Paul, in light of this, he
went to the Corinthians. And in 1 Corinthians 2-2, he
said, I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And what that says, well, first
of all, he preached Christ because that's the wholeness, that's
the sufficiency of what our God is revealing to us in the whole
scripture. That's what he's teaching his
people, is the salvation that he's provided for his people,
and that salvation is found in one, one only, Jesus Christ. And that means that I can stand
here before you, in weakness, in fear, in much trembling. I can have all kinds of fears
and worries in myself, but so long as my message is Jesus Christ. and Him crucified, the people
will be blessed. The Lord's people will be blessed
and hear exactly what they need to hear. And any blessing that
you receive, though I be weak, though I be fearful and come
in much trembling, any blessing you receive, it's by demonstration
of the Spirit and God's power. And you've been blessed by the
power of God. through the message that he sent
his preachers to declare, to declare the Lord Jesus Christ's
salvation by him. And so the pastor especially,
I don't want to do anything that makes it difficult for you, my
brethren, the sheep of God, to hear Christ, to hear exactly
what you need to hear. There's nothing that I, can let
influence that message. It's the Lord Jesus Christ and
Him alone. And so we don't want anything,
we don't want to say anything that clouds that message or keeps
you from hearing Christ and Him crucified. That means that the
Lord, the Lord is the one who teaches his people this. He teaches
all his people this, including his pastor. And that means that
there is a stripping down. There's, I don't want to have
different aspects to me. That's not why I'm sent. I'm
sent with one message. And that means that all other
aspects about me fade away and have no bearing or to have no
bearing on the preaching of Christ, and that's humbling because we
all have many things to us, but the Lord brings his people low
so that all you see is Christ, and that's all I want you to
see is Christ, not me getting in the way in any way. We want
Christ to shine forth brilliantly, brilliantly. I want him to be
marvelous in your eyes. because He alone is salvation. He is salvation. And that's what
we see here in the next verse. Let's read the end of verse 14
and then 15. Jesus went up into the temple
and taught, and the Jews marveled. saying, how knoweth this man
letters? How does this man have learning
having never learned? He hasn't been to the synagogues
and the places where the rabbis teach their people. He's never
been here. He's some little podunk from Galilee. He has no learning
with us. And we see that they marvel because
they heard without any distraction, with all the opinions that they
had, they all faded away when all they saw was Christ teaching
the people. It was just the Lord Jesus Christ
teaching the people. Now, first of all, he can do
this without having ever learned from them because he is the very
wisdom of God. And that's why we preach him,
because he is the wisdom of God. He's the one who reveals God
to his people. He's the one that gives us light
and understanding and a knowledge of who the true and living God
is. And then secondly, we see him
shining forth brightly in the midst of all the things that
were going on. And that just reaffirms for us.
It doesn't matter what's going on in the world. It doesn't matter
what the things are that are being talked about. Just preach
Christ, because He just goes right through all of the noise,
all the distractions, all the fuzziness and the haze of life
that people get themselves upset about. He cuts through that and
is alone. the word that we need to hear,
salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ through his blood. And so when
that was done, the Jews marveled, they marveled. And so when we
declare the message of Jesus Christ and him crucified, he'll
set everything right. He comes forth as a saver of
life to some and a saver of death to others, but it's him doing
it. He knows exactly how to lay that
word. He knows exactly how to apply
it to the hearts of each of the hearers. And he blesses and comforts
his people with his word of truth. And so when Christ came, he taught
the people the truth of the scriptures. He says there in verse 16, Jesus
answered them, my doctrine, my teaching is not mine, but his
that sent me. And so we see here's the Lord
himself. And he's preaching that one. He's faithfully preaching the
message that God sent him to preach. And he taught the people
the scriptures and he taught them the scriptures such that
their blindness would be removed. And that tells me he preached. What the scriptures are teaching
the people, that we ourselves are sinners and that Christ himself
is all our salvation. We need the salvation that is
given to the people through Christ and Christ alone. He shed his
blood to put away the sins of his people. He's the one that
removes that blindness from our heart, just in preaching him.
just preached the truth of Christ, and he removes the blindness
from the heart so that the hearer beholds the brilliance and the
glory, the marvelousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then we hear
and know he's the one who came to reconcile the people to the
Father. And so even though we know that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God, in him dwelleth the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, Here he's speaking as the servant of Jehovah
and that's for we the church to see. The humility of our Lord,
the service that our Lord gave to his people, the service that
he gave to the Father in humbling himself and not glorifying himself,
but glorifying the Father in all things. He became a servant. He became the lowest. He washed
the feet of the disciples. He became the lowest of his people
that we would know how we are to be, how we're to live. That
if our Lord humbled himself so to do the will of Jehovah God
in all things, and to not make anything of himself, but to do
exactly what the Father sent him to do, then how much more
are we to do the same, and to declare him And that means in
all things, not doing things that distract from that one message
in any way. And so we see His humility and
grace and stand in awe of it. I stand in awe to see how faithful
my Lord is and how gracious He is for us to do that for us because
it worked salvation for us. So the doctrine of God to declare
salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ, to make him known to sinners
who cannot be saved any other way. That's why Jehovah sent
him. That's why the Lord God sent
Christ, was to save his people. Thou shalt call his name Jesus,
for he shall save his people from their sins. And so that's
what all of Scripture is declaring throughout this whole word. When
we open this up, It's declaring redemption by the Lord Jesus
Christ. It doesn't matter what people
want to hear. It doesn't matter if you want
people to be more moral or to be better church members. It's
not about teaching people morality. and teaching them how to be good
church members and how to be good citizens, that's not the
message. You preach Christ and he'll take
care of all of that. He'll lay everything to our heart
that we need to hear when he himself is exalted. We can speak
of many good things and tell a lot of good stories from this
word and miss Christ entirely. miss him entirely and so he's
were to preach salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ it says in
Psalm 111 verse 9 he sent redemption unto his people he hath commanded
his covenant forever holy and reverend is his name The redemption
that we declare is Christ who came and gave his life, shed
his blood, is the Lamb of God who sacrificed himself to put
away our sin. The covenant being spoken of
is the everlasting covenant of grace fulfilled in the Lord Jesus
Christ for his people. And this glorifies and honors
the righteousness of our God If our focus is on our righteousness
and doing things better and doing what we need to do in works of
the law or whatever that focus is, when it comes on ourselves,
We're then talking about our righteousness. We want to exalt
Christ for the people to see that he is the righteousness
of God and that in him we are righteous because he fulfilled
all the law perfectly for his people. And believing in him,
believing God and God's account of the Lord Jesus Christ, that
glorifies the Father. That declares, Lord, you're true.
My works are nothing. My works are filthy. My works
are polluted with sin. But all my righteousness is in
the one whom you've provided, the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, when we see redemption
spoken of throughout the scriptures and When Christ was born, there
was a woman, a prophetess, in the temple named Anna. And when
Christ was born and he was brought into the temple, it says that
she likewise, or she, in that instant, she gave thanks likewise
unto the Lord and spake of Christ to all them that looked for redemption
in Jerusalem. The people of God are looking
for, they were looking for that redemption to behold when Christ
would come. And now He is come. And we rejoice
and are glad in His salvation, in His redemption word. And so
if Christ was faithful to declare Jehovah God's word, and His words
declare salvation for His people, then we are to preach the same
thing. We're to preach ruined by the fall. We're to preach
redemption by the blood of Christ. We're to preach regeneration
by the Holy Spirit. Because the doctrine of God reveals
Christ to us. Reveals Christ to us. I've said
a lot about preaching, that's our message. And the message
is that we are ruined. We fell in Adam. We are sinners. We have no light in us, no ability
to save ourselves. And while we were sinners, dead
in trespasses and sins, we read that in Romans 5.8, God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. He laid down his life for his
people before we ever did anything. or could earn any righteousness
of her own. And then we see that man was
trying to atone for his sins. He was trying to do works and
make things right between he and God, but he couldn't. He
did them in darkness. What he did was polluted and
filthy by his own works. Even the Jews, they were following
the law and they were making animal sacrifices, shedding blood
to atone for their sins. and not seeing that these were
a picture pointing to the coming Lamb of God, pointing to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so with all their works under
the law, they could not put away their sin. They could do no lasting
sacrifice that could remove the stain and the guilt of sin. But
that's why Christ came. Only the blood of Christ cleanses
us from the guilt and the stain of sin. We read in Hebrews 9,
verses 12 through 15, neither by the blood of goats and calves,
but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall
the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, dead
religious works to serve the living God? And for this cause
he is the mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death,
for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the First Testament,
under the law, they which are called might receive the promise
of eternal inheritance." So we see that that we were ruined
by the fall, and that we are redeemed, not by our works, but
by the blood of Christ. And then Christ, having obtained
our redemption, having purchased his own, graciously sends the
Holy Spirit to make all this known in the hearts of his people.
He gives the spirit to regenerate us, to apply that blood to our
hearts, to our consciences, to lift that veil of darkness off
our eyes, that we may see and behold the marvelous, glorious
light of the Lord Jesus Christ, the salvation of God's people,
that we might know the grace of God toward us and the inheritance
which he's richly blessed us with in His Son Jesus Christ
because He's pleased to make this known to us. He doesn't
leave His people in the dark to it. He calls us out, gives
us faith and hope and no other hope but in the Lord Jesus Christ. We're born again by His Spirit,
regenerated. And so these are all declared
in the preaching of Christ. that men may marvel at the hearing
of Christ, that we may learn what he has accomplished, that
he may continually lay that to our heart and comfort us because
we are such forgetful hearers. And we get caught up in the things
of the world, but by His grace, He renews and refreshes us and
brings us to see He's everything, and He's all that I need. And
He wipes away all the other nonsense and the noise, and we are blessed
in that full, complete salvation that's in Christ alone. And so
this is the message that we glory in, that Christ is our Lord and
Savior. And this is the message that
we take. He says in Matthew 5, verses 14 through 16, he tells
us, ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill
cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle. and put it under a bushel, but
they put it on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all
that are in the house. Let your light so shine before
men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father
which is in heaven." Our God shines forth the light brightly
in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world,
and we'll see that more in the next message, but he's the candle
that shines bright. And God has set that candle on
a candlestick, which is the church. And the church is to hold forth
that candle, that bright light. That's all we're to do is hold
that bright light that the world may see, that they may know Him
who is marvelous in our eyes, that He's all our hope and the
one in whom we glory, that they too may hear and know and see
and believe the salvation that God has provided for His people
in Christ. And so that's what we preach,
Jesus Christ in Him crucified. That is our message, the message
of redemption. And so we're to minister Christ
to the hearers. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1.23,
but we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block
and unto the Greeks foolishness. So Christ is the stumbling block,
but let us not be the stumbling block. Let us not be the cause
of why people can't or won't hear the gospel of salvation. Let them hear Christ and let
us not get in the way. Our prayer is, Lord, let me be
plain. Let me be unnoticed and not get
in the way that they may hear your son and believe that they
may see the Lord Jesus Christ that let him bring low them that
are high and let him raise up them that are low. Let it all
be of the Lord Jesus Christ and let them marvel in our savior. Let them rejoice in him and Let
us not get in the way. And so our Lord, by his grace,
is the one who works this testimony in his children and makes them
witnesses of Christ, makes them faithful witnesses of this message
of Christ. And so our Lord confirms this
in verses 17 and 18. If any man will do his will,
This is John 7, 17, and 18. If any man will do his will,
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether
I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh
his own glory, but he that seeketh his glory that sent him. The
same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Now, it's Christ Jesus
is the man who perfectly did this. He is that perfect man
who perfectly did the will of his father. And he says in John
6.38, I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but
the will of him that sent me. And so he came and he fulfilled
all the will and purpose of God, and he makes known the doctrine
of God. That he was sent of him, of God,
and that he fulfilled all righteousness. Believe on him. Trust him. You'll
never be ashamed or confounded believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. You have salvation. You have
life in the Lord Jesus Christ. You that believe on him. He's
the one that God has sent, and he accomplished our redemption,
and this is revealed to our hearts by the Spirit of God. He says
in John 6, 40, this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone
which seeth the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life. And I will raise him up at the
last day. Let this be our message alone,
that all men may marvel at the Lord Jesus Christ, especially
them that are given life by him. Let's close in prayer, brethren.
Our gracious Lord, we thank you, Father, for the glory of your
Son, that you bless your people to let him shine forth that we
may hear of his salvation, of your accomplished salvation in
your son, Jesus Christ, and have revealed to your people that
there is no other salvation but the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Lord, help us to decrease and
let the Lord Jesus Christ increase more and more in us that others
may see Christ openly Him teaching them, and us not getting in the
way, that men may marvel in the salvation of God, that they may
marvel to hear and to learn that it's not our works, but that
you've provided everything in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord,
bring this sweet, marvelous, wonderful message home to the
hearts of your people, that we may always hear Christ and always
and only rejoice in him. It's in the Lord Jesus Christ
that we pray these things. Amen.