This message is from the teaching
ministry of James Tippins, pastor of Grace Truth Church. More information
can be found online at gracetruth.org and anchoringfaith.org. A people
for His glory, by His grace. As we finished out John 6 last
week, there are several theological things that I want us to continue
to have in our minds. One specifically, in verse 70
of John 6, it says, did I not choose you, the twelve, and yet
one of you is a devil." He spoke of Judas, the son of
Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray
Him. Jesus, as God, unconditionally
elects as He chooses. Jesus elects some unto life and
others unto death. Judas was not chosen to receive
life. Judas was chosen by God before
the foundations of the world to be the betrayer, to be the
one through whose evil God would bring about his greatest good,
the redemption of his people, of whom Judas was not. We have
a problem in our day, as with any day and many problems, where
people like to decide who is and who is not the children of
God, who are and who are not the children of God. And we have
this standard by which we measure each other in our world, but
we dare not measure ourself by these same standards because
we would fail the test miserably. Some people say, well, I know
that so-and-so is a believer. Look how sweet they are. Well,
if sweetness got you to heaven, there'd be a lot of sweet people
without Christ in heaven. Some people would say, well,
I know that these people are Christians because look how loving they
are. Is not sweetness, kindness and love an indicator of the
work of God? Yes, it is most definitely, but
it's not proof of the work of God. Well, I would suggest to you
that some of the largest billionaires in our society today have great
love for people. and they're philanthropists at
heart and they give all the money that they have made to countless
causes to help and feed and take care and clothe and educate people. These are good things, but they
are not righteous works. Some people would say, well,
I know that these people are Christians, for they are pastors
and they teach the Bible. They are theologians. They have
zeal. Paul had zeal, was an object
of wrath. Paul had knowledge. Nicodemus
had the greatest of knowledge of all the Pharisees. And Jesus
said that he could not see nor enter into the kingdom. The greatest
of zeal does not put us in right standing with God. I've even
heard people argue with me that, well, I know my great uncle,
he was a great man of God. He founded this church. You know,
what does it mean to found the church? I thought Jesus founded
the church. What it means to found the church is that, oh,
well, we gave the land and we gave the deposit. No, you paid
for the property, but you not found the church. And if truth
be known, God paid for the property through you. For if God had not given you
the gift of your wealth and your land, you would have not had,
you would have not been the one chosen. But it is not an indicator
of great zeal and passion and wealth and giving and benevolence.
These are not proofs of the work of God in our lives. Now, surely
they will be there. They will not be permanent. They
will not be perfect, but they will be there for the true Christian.
As Paul would say, not let these things be named of you. What? Of course, joking, and cursing,
and worldliness, and crudeness, and gossip, and slander, and
deceit, and adultery, and thievery. Don't let this be named among
you. Don't be these people, for you are the chosen of God. See? Not, you will be the chosen if
you don't do these. No, that's not it. But that's what we do, because
in our hearts and minds, we would rather see the list of things
that we think we can accomplish. Like, what must we be doing to
do the works of God? Believe in the one whom He has
sent. But John would go on to say in his first epistle, if
you do not love the brothers and the sisters, the love of
God is not in you. You lie and you do not practice the truth,
that you walk in darkness if you do not love. James, that's
the point of his letter, is that there was lovelessness in the
people of Christ through which church discipline, what? Fleshes
out the true believer and the non-believer. The true believer
repents and stays in unity with the church. The non-believer
runs away and disappears because they cannot stand to face whatever
frustration might be there. It is why divorce is so rampant
in our culture. It is why it is almost normative for people
just to dismiss each other. Just, I'm done with you. Just
as Christ should have dismissed each of us when He looked at
the infinite glory of His holiness and thought, why should I die
for such evil? For it is the will of my Father
to save His people. and I must perish on their behalf."
Wow! Some people though, and you may
not have heard this, especially if you're not from this area,
some people count themselves in Christ because they have been
part of Christian families over and over again. It is amazing
to me when people, especially at funerals, they will say, oh,
Brother Johnny here was such a godly man, he's part of a great
heritage of Christian family. Really? How do we know that? Has there been a proclamation
of the gospel throughout their lives? Has there been a steadfast
resolve of just continuing to hold fast to the confession of
our hope? No. Then why pray tell that we put
by proximity the assurance of one man's glory? It's glorification
by the fact that he's part of some other people. Some people
are going to argue that because I am a Christian and my wife
is a Christian that our children will be Christians. That is not
the case. It is not promised to us that
our children will be regenerated. But I will tell you this, I stand
on the promises of God that if I teach my child the Gospel,
He will surely do what He wants to with it. He will surely do
what He wills with it. And it will surely be for His
glory. And it will surely be righteous and just and perfect
and holy. so that I can rest in that. As
much as I would like my way, God's way is much superior than
mine. Well, nothing's different in that and in the sense that
we see the Scripture here in John chapter 7. There has been,
just for a way of you understanding where we are in the historical
narrative, six months from the dialogue that he had in the teaching
in Galilee and now here to the Feast of Booths, there's been
six months between these things. See, a lot of times we read the
Bible and go, okay, then this happened and then he walked over
here and then did this and a couple of days later did this. No. If it wants
us to be close in proximity, it'll say in the next day. If
it says, and then, or later on, you have to look at the narrative.
You have to look at the timeline. I mean, the Jews loved feasts,
but they didn't do the Passover and then the booths and then
everything. I mean, it wasn't just like party all year. They
had to work. So we know in the sense of time, you can calculate
that it's about six months has passed since the Passover that
Jesus actually did in where? Galilee, not Jerusalem, not Judea. Why? We'll see in a minute. And
now the Feast of Booths or the Feast of Tabernacles. Here, Jesus
stayed in Galilee. This is where he sort of spent
most of his ministry. As a matter of fact, the majority
of the people who followed him were Galileans. They weren't
Judeans. They were Galileans. They were
from the region of Galilee. Jesus did most of his teaching
ministry in Galilee. He performed more miracles in
Galilee than he ever did in Judea because the hostility of Judea,
which was the political center and the religious center of Jerusalem,
was Judea. It's where the temple was, Jerusalem. And Jesus knew that they were
going to kill Him as soon as they got their hands upon Him.
So He stayed out of that region. More particularly, He spent a
lot of time teaching the Jews and the multitudes and then also
seeing the Gentiles come to faith than did Jews. Jesus went about
in Galilee. That's what it says there in
your text. That means He spent a year. Matter of fact, He did.
He spent a whole year in the region of Galilee. And He would
not go to Judea, because it says right there, because the Jews
were seeking to kill Him. Now some people say, well, what's
wrong with Jesus? Is He scared? Does it look like Jesus is scared?
Does it ever show that Jesus is fearful of facing the consequences
of His purpose? Never! There's never a time in
scripture where we can say, well, Jesus is afraid, so we stand.
No, Jesus' purpose to do what he did on what account? The will
of the Father. Jesus did all that he did by
the will of the Father. And in John chapter 2, when he
went to the wedding at Cana, what did his mother do? His mother,
who was somehow responsible for the family there, some part of
the family of that wedding, came to Jesus and says, what can we
do, Jesus? Can you do something about this? And performed no
miracles up to this point. And Jesus says, this has nothing
to do with me, my time has not yet come. In other words, it's
not, you're not going to tell me, mother, when and what I should
do. Because I act only at the will
of the Father. Just like at the age of 12 that we see where they
were there at the feast, and they left, and Jesus was left
behind for several days, and they're like, where's Jesus?
Oh, I don't know. Well, great, we gotta go back and get him,
you know? It's not leaving your wallet
at a restaurant, but you left your kid. for a few days. And they find Jesus in the temple
teaching. And what does He say? Did you
not know I was to be about my Father's business? So that attitude
of Christ to be obedient to the Father's will has always been. And you must understand too that
this shows us not only that Jesus does what the Father tells Him
to do, because He's told us that in John 5 very explicitly. He
does that which the Father... He does the will of the Father,
not His own will. So when Jesus doesn't go to Judea, it's not
because He is fearful of being killed, it's because He knows
that when He goes there, He will be killed, and the Father has
not told Him it is time for Him to go there and be killed. But when He says later, My time
has not come, He's not talking about His death either, just
like He wasn't talking about His death at the wedding at Cana.
It was not His time to be told what to do, and He's going to
say the same thing in a few minutes. But here Jesus stayed in Galilee,
because of the disdain of the Jews of Judea. Now think about
what's happened here. I mean, things move a little
bit quicker in our culture. I can say something right now
and a million people can know about it before I step out of
this podium. It can ruin your life. Sound bites can kill you,
politically, socially. But imagine in the day of Jesus
where everybody traversed on foot, I mean, maybe they had
some animals that they rode as well, but most of the nomadic
type of travel was not automobiles. And they all came there to what?
Capernaum and to Galilee. And they came to Galilee for
the Passover, and Jesus is speaking to thousands of people, many
who had been following Him for months and months and months,
maybe longer, and He teaches the John 6 teaching to them.
He teaches them the doctrines of grace. He teaches them unconditional
election, limited atonement. He teaches them total depravity. He teaches them that He alone
preserves His people. He will never cast them out.
He teaches them all of the truth of the gospel that we know as
the teaching of grace. That's what doctrines of grace
is. That's what it means. The teaching
of the grace of God, which is the gospel of our salvation. And he teaches it in such a way
that these people are upset by what he says, especially that
they hear what he says and they think they understand it, but
then they misinterpret it because they want Jesus to be first their
king in Capernaum. And then in the region of Galilee,
they want him to be sort of their spiritual leader. And he keeps
telling them they cannot appease the purposes and the perfection
of God, except that he alone be their salvation. He must be the bread of their
life. They must feast upon His body and the work that He would
do. And they can't stand it. And
then they're baffled, and so Jesus tells them, the reason
you don't understand is because you cannot see. You have not
been granted repentance. You have not been given to me
by the Father, for no one can come to believe in me except
the Father gives Him to me, you see. That's the exact words of
Christ four times in John 6. You cannot see. You cannot believe. And so then when he hits the
nail on the head of being very, very focused on how one truly
is saved, which is by the absolute perfect will and grace of God,
and only through Jesus alone, all of them leave. And of course,
he's asked the twelve, do you want to leave? And Peter says,
to whom shall we go? For you have the words of eternal life. So then Jesus, after that, stayed
in the region of Galilee. because that's where God sent
Him. He would not go about in Judea. We see that Jesus is divine.
We see that Jesus does the will of God the Father, but here He
would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill
Him. He elected, not only is He fully God, but here we see
that Jesus Christ as God elects, chooses, desires, wills to continue
to hold Himself, might not be the right word I'm choosing, confine himself to his human
limitations. Yes, Jesus could have gone into
Judea and they put hands on him and he disappeared. Jesus could
have gone into Judea and floated up on a cloud and burnt a few
people. Get away from me, it's not my time. But this isn't how
God the Father worked in redemption. Because these people's hatred
for Christ is really a hatred for God. And friends, don't misunderstand
this. We live so far away from this
type of culture. We live so far removed from Judaism
that we don't really grasp the focus of this Gospel. John's
Gospel is the most Jewish writing of the entire New Testament.
Everything is centered on the feasts of the Jews and the teaching
of the Scripture. and Jesus being the actual anti-type,
the answer to it all. And here, the Jews were seeking
to kill Him. John 5, 18. Why? This is why
the Jews sought to kill Him, because not only was He breaking
the Sabbath, the Scripture says, but He considered Himself equal
with God. They hadn't forgotten that. So
as Jesus goes here, and then He goes now into Capernaum, and
then into Galilee, and thousands of people leave Galilee and go
back into their home area, guess what's happened? They've done
just what we do. They've shared it, and posted
it, and liked it, and poked it, and tweeted it, and Instagrammed
it, and it's everywhere. Can you believe this man that
we thought was going to be our Savior taught us this garbage? Do you believe He taught us this
garbage? And the Jews hear it. When I say the Jews, the Jews
of Judea, the Sanhedrin, Saul, they hear it. They're like, oh,
we've got to get rid of this guy. If he just, you know what,
if he comes to town during this feast, this is it. And it was
it. It is it. We're only in chapter
7. Friends, the last half of John's Gospel is only one week. First half is three years. Last
half is one week. This is it. And they heard about
it. Jesus' family heard about it.
Would you like to be the family of Jesus? Hey, wouldn't it be
cool? Who's the family of Jesus? Well, Joseph and Mary married.
They were betrothed, and after Jesus' birth, whatever time frame
they had, they were actually legally married after that, and
they have children of their own. Brothers and sisters Jesus has
in the flesh. What we would call half-brothers,
half-sisters. An extended family. I mean, this
is, he's 33 years old. So he could easily have 15 to
20 siblings. And maybe some nieces and nephews
and some cousins in them and all that kind of stuff you talk
about around here, you know. Here's Jesus and His family.
And now verse 2, the feast, the Jews' feast of the booths was
at hand. Now what is the feast of booths?
The feast of tabernacles. Remember the tabernacle? Do you
know what it was? It was like a circus. And I remember being
a kid, I used to love to go to the circus. The circus used to
come to town, and it was actually a really big to-do. You got to
see elephants, and you got to see tigers, and lions, and never
bears, but all sorts of incredible animals that you could never
see anywhere. There wasn't any zoo, really, growing up as a child,
but the circus would come to town, and you could go see a
circus. I mean, there'd be three or four
tents, and the center tent would be the big tent, and there'd
be all, and I'll never forget, As an older child, being around
an area where the circus was being taken down, and all the
work that was involved to put up and take down those tents.
Now, I'm not saying that the tabernacle was a circus, but
in labor, it was much the same. Men would have to open up the
tarps, would have to roll it all out, would have to tie off
the wall. And if you've never seen a picture
of the tabernacle, friends, This isn't like going camping with
your knapsack and a couple of buddies and putting up a few
tents. This thing was enormous. Just the wall structure, which
was canvas and the ropes, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
ropes and stakes into the ground and the way they had to tie them
and loop them back in. And then all of the cloth that
had to go around the pillars and the way they had to, it was
enormous. The reason there were millions
of people in the wilderness is because it took half a million
people to carry the tabernacle around. And they had to put that
up everywhere they went so they could worship God. And for 40 years, the Jews worshiped
God in the wilderness. Why 40 years? Because God wanted
to kill the unbelieving generations. He wanted them to die of old
age before He would ever give them the land that He promised,
because they doubted Him. Sent spies into the land, and
two spies, one of which is Joshua, comes back and says, let's get
it. It's ours. And the rest of them go, oh my
gosh, they'll step on us like grasshoppers. They're huge people.
The wilderness is fine. They grumbled against God. But
even in that, God provided for them. He provided for them food,
manna. We've already dealt with that
in John 6, right? He provided for them power, guidance, promise. He provided for them a place
to worship. And during that 40 years, to
remember the tabernacle, to remember being intimate with God, to remember
the worship of God's provision of worship, rather. They would
have this feast of booths, and those who traveled would bring
little straw thatch-type huts with them. They would build them,
and they would just tabernacle. They would tent and camp all
around the area of Judea. And those who lived in Judea
would leave their homes and build tabernacles, little tents, little
huts, little booths in their yards. And they would lay there
during that feast. They would sleep in these things.
They would remember the days of the wilderness and they would
rejoice in God's provision for bringing them through it. And
then they would worship God together. And they would feast. What is another thing that they
looked for in the wilderness? Manna was given to them from
heaven, but there was a very scarce source of water. Matter
of fact, it is the water and Moses' anger over the Israelites
in the giving of water that caused Moses to be told by God he would
never enter in and his body, he would die, he would be buried
in the desert. At one time, God told Moses to
strike the rock with his staff, and water would flow from a rock.
Water just flew, just came from a rock. And another time, God told Moses
to speak to the rock, and Moses was irritated, so he whacked
the rock with his stick. He disobeyed God. Water came
from the rock, and the people were given water in order to
live. But Moses, because he disobeyed
God, was told he could not enter in the Promised Land. That's
harsh. It is not harsh. You know why
we think it's harsh? Because we're all guilty of sin
and we want to be handled gently. If you're holy, I said speak
and you struck, you die. Don't touch the Ark of the Covenant,
but it was fallen down, you die. There's no good intention that
overcomes holy commands. and the Feast of Booths was at
hand, and these straw huts were everywhere, and they were remembering
the Lord's provision. More importantly, they were remembering
the Lord's presence. So here is the family of Jesus,
His brothers, sisters, earthly father and mother, and all of
His families and all of their families, and they're going to
Judea. for this feast. And his brothers,
verse 3, So his brothers said to him, Leave here and go to
Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you were doing. Who are these brothers? Well,
the text here makes it seem as though these were his real brothers.
These were the people of his household. These were the people
of his kin. These aren't Brothers as in just other Jews. These
are people who as a family, they would go worship together. They
would tabernacle together, see. Households. When I say households,
I'm not saying those who live in the same dwelling, but households. Adult children move out, etc.,
but we're all of the same house. Jesus' brothers are saying, go.
these immediate family members, these kinsmen waiting to go to
the feasts. Okay, they encouraged Jesus to get to Judea quickly.
You need to go. Stop hovering around Galilee,
man. You've been hanging around here and you've been doing a
lot of stuff. And the people of Judea had seen
the miracles of Jesus. The people of Judea had seen
and heard the teaching of Jesus. They were angry with Him. They
hated Him. The people of Judea who had been in Galilee had heard
the teaching of Jesus and saw the miracles. So they weren't
saying they haven't seen your good work. They were just saying,
you know what? Go show yourself to them. Because six months ago,
Jesus, you really, you really put a nail in the coffin or the
cross. You really messed up Jesus. because
you had this huge following, and then you teach them this
crazy stuff about your body, and they all leave, and now they're
mad. They're fueling the fire against you with the leaders
of Judea, in Judea. The Jews are gonna kill you,
Jesus, but here we're at this feast, and everybody's focused
on the intimacy with God, and the presence of God, and if you
go and you show them these miracles, if you give them what they ask
for, you see, that's what it really boils down to. Because
what do they ask? What sign do you bring that we
may believe? Show us something else. Jesus
even rebuked them when they said, teacher, oh, honorable teacher,
when did you get here? He says, do not labor for the
food that perishes, but labor for the bread that endures to
eternal life. I am that bread that comes down from heaven.
You don't come after me because of me. You come after me because
you want what I can give to you. They wanted Jesus to go to Judea
and stop hovering around Galilee so He could appease the masses. They're thinking, man, this has
really gotten out of hand. If you go to them and give them what
they want, just perform some miracles, show them your power
again. And they'll see it. And the Jews, the leaders, they'll
take a back seat because this will be a real spiritual awakening.
This will be a revival. This will be a movement of the
Spirit of God. This will be awesome. People will believe in you everywhere.
Remember what we learned? One of the key themes of John
6 is that people wanted to believe in Christ on their terms. People
wanted to believe in Christ in their ideals. People wanted to
believe in Christ with their view of who He should be, not
who He was. The majority of Jesus' disciples
were actually in Galilee. They weren't in Judea. And these
guys are thinking, well, if we all go to Judea, look at the
following that you'll have there. Look at all the Galilean disciples
that'll be in Judea. Look at the mass of... In other
words, Jesus, this is the preaching event of your career. This is
an opportunity for you to get center stage. Not just for the
crowd, but for the purpose and the meaning of the spiritual
essence of Judaism. You'll be the preacher of all
preachers. We'll have to hire you some bodyguards. We'll have to hire you a marketing
guy. We'll have to hire you a PR firm. By the way, pastors with
PR firms and marketing people should be spanked. That's ridiculous. It's absurd. Soapbox back. We see that they wanted Jesus
to go and fix this mass deflection that happened six months ago,
and maybe this was the perfect time for Him to do it. This is
what they're arguing. Have you ever thought about that? So you've
got to put the Scripture in context. What is being said here? What
has John showed us already in this narrative, and now what
is he showing us here? A very short, simple conversation
with the family of Jesus. They're trying to get Him to
undo the damage that He so foolishly did in their minds. The feast is at hand. Go there. They're going to love you. Not
only are they going to love you, they will follow you. And the
crowd will be so big, the religious leaders will just say, you know
what? We're not going to mess with this guy. He's beloved.
They're going to worship you. But because they walked away,
Jesus, you're really in danger. You're ruining your opportunity
for greatness. You know what's funny about that?
I've actually had people, and I believe they meant well, in
their flesh, and they'd say, James, you know, if you would
just get off of trying to be an expositor, if you would just quit preaching
verse by verse and all that, your church would grow. People
wouldn't hate you so much. What would Jesus say to that?
Get behind me, Satan. If he would just never ever mention
the doctrines of grace again, you'd have a large following
and you could build a great ministry. What is a great ministry of people
who follow you and not Christ? It's called a cult. And there
are many in the Baptist denomination, in the Methodist denomination,
in the Presbyterian denomination, in the non-denomination denomination. And the list goes on. There are
many in the Calvinist groups, in the non-Calvinist groups,
in the fundamental groups. There's many cults who think
they're in Christ who are not in Christ. Let's see how one crowd wanted
to come to Jesus on their own way. And the other crowd wanted
to secure Jesus' ministry in their own way. Everybody's looking
out for Jesus, see. Are they? No. What do we do as
humans who are unregenerate? We look out for ourselves. We
look out to make sure that we're not hurt, and we're not offended,
and that we're happy, and that we're focused, and that we're
fed, and we don't really worry about everybody else, and we
love everybody until something comes in the way of our desire. And then we what? It's like a
bulldog with a stake on the ground. Don't get between it. Friends, we can't tell Christ
who He should be. And do you know that's exactly
what the culture of the American church has done? Since the fifties,
that I can see historically in the writings of the original
people who've taught this, They have created a new Jesus that
is no Jesus at all. Yahweh saves, that's what Jesus
means. Yeshua. Joshua. And they have created numerous,
it's even before that, but they've created numerous ways to come
to Christ. Why is it that churches seem
to be in what? Competition with each other.
Isn't that stupid? How can you be in competition
with the same Master? How? Because you've created a different
Jesus. My Jesus is better than your Jesus. My ministry is greater
than your ministry. Listen, if our ministry... Some
people, when they hear the teaching of Scripture, and they talk to
me about a sermon that they've heard of mine, I hear two things
often. Well, I hear a lot of things,
but two things that resonate continually. One is, I've never
heard that in my entire life. And then that usually expounds
on to, how do you know you're right, etc., etc., etc. Well,
I don't know that I'm right. I know that Jesus is right. The
Scripture is correct in its sentence structure. And the other one
is, I've actually heard this, my pastor preached that same
sermon just a few weeks ago, almost identically. Isn't that neat? Now, I wish
I heard the second more often. Why? Because if you teach John
6, it should be the exact same sense in which the sermon is
preached. Because the Bible has meant what
it's meant since the day John put it on paper, and the meaning
has never changed. If you have 10 apples and you
add 10 apples to it, you've got 20 apples. I don't care if that
was 20,000 years ago or 20,000 years from now, it's 20 apples. And the Word of God does not
change. But when we change and create
a new God, a caricature of a new Christ, we have to preach a different
message. Go to Jerusalem. You will be
Jesus, the King of Jerusalem, spiritually. Come out of the
sticks. and start preaching in the bricks.
You ever heard that? That's what they wanted Jesus
to do. Man, you could be so much. You could do so much if you just
get out of Galilee and come to Judea. You can fix all of this.
You don't have to die, Peter will say later. And here is their excuse as to
why they say these things. "'For no one works in secret
if he seeks to be known openly.'" See, there is a problem. They
thought Jesus wanted to be known openly. But yet, everything we
see of the three years prior to this and all the synoptics
show Jesus saying what? Do not tell anybody. what I've
revealed to you." Now, why would He say that? It makes sense that
Jesus would want to evangelize, but Jesus evangelized those whom
He was supposed to evangelize. And when Jesus evangelized the
masses, if the Father did not grant them repentance and give
them to Christ, they couldn't understand Him anyway. Jesus
said over and over again, I did not come to do My will, but the
will of the One who sent Me. from which I came, to which I
shall return. I come down from heaven. And
I, as the messenger to Mary, His name shall be Emmanuel, God
with us, and He shall save His people from their sins." It's
a very particular mission to seek and save the lost. It is
a very specific thing that Jesus accomplished, not that He tried.
He finished the work of salvation. It is done. They thought He wanted
to be known openly. Why not? Doesn't every pastor
want to be known openly? Doesn't every teacher want to
have that one thing that everybody hears and spreads all over the
internet? No, they do not. But you know,
we live in a culture where many men get up every day and that
is their heartbeat. I need to make sure people know
who I am. It is not far from any of us. So we cannot beat our chest and
say, oh, it is not I, for it will be I tomorrow. But by the mercy of God, may
He protect us and lead us not into that temptation. And when
He does, will He cut our knees off that we might not stand? We follow Christ. You don't follow
me. You follow Christ, you follow
the scripture. You follow me, you're gonna hit
your head. You're going to hit your head,
you're going to fall, you're going to see me someday, and
you're going to go, well, he's not Jesus. No, I'm not Jesus.
Praise God, because you'd all be in trouble. You'd have no
hope. But we can point each other to
Christ, we can teach the Scripture, and by the Lord's mercy, Christ
can be exalted. What is the testimony of those
disciples of John the Baptist? They went to him and said, oh
no, all of our people are going to Jesus. We've got to do something. We built this ministry and look,
they're leaving. What does John say? I must decrease that he
may increase. The bridegroom gets the bride. No one works in secret if he
seeks to be known. If you do these things, show
yourself to the world. Interesting. Let everybody see
you, Jesus. Go and do all of this great stuff
that you can do so well. Show them your true self. But
see, Jesus was going to show them His true self. He was going
to hang on a cross and die. That's His true self. The Lamb
of God saves His people from their sins. They couldn't imagine that. This
isn't our spiritual leader. This isn't our king. This isn't
our Messiah. This isn't the one who was sent
by God. He's crazy. Many would say he
had a demon. So far to say that the Pharisees
said that the work that he did was by the power of the enemy,
which Jesus said was the unpardonable sin. They desired, these brothers,
this family of Jesus, desired to see manipulation of people's
minds rather than the regeneration of their souls and hearts. Let
me say that again. His brothers would rather see
the manipulation of people's lives and minds than the regeneration
of their heart and soul and mind. Isn't that so true of today? Isn't it so true of so many teachings
that come across our ears every moment that we're to do this
and to do that and to go here and to go there and to give this
and to give that and to say this and to say that and before long
we've got the complete list of what it means to be a Christian
and we're going in that direction, speaking in that direction, giving
in that direction, acting in that direction so well that we
are so secure in Christ that we don't know what to do. but
yet we have no hope. We would rather see people live
as though they were saved rather than see them born again. In
our culture, it's evidenced by the lack of church discipline
by so many so-called churches. They'd rather people who've fallen
to sin just, you know, just keep it to themselves. Just keep it
to yourself. Is that loving? You pick up a
drink, it's sitting on a coffee table and a little kid goes to
pick it up, but it's a vat of poison that we sprayed for the
bugs, and you go, oh no, I don't want to offend his mama. Just
let him drink it. I couldn't stop him. No, you
will jump up, you will look like Bruce Lee coming across the sky
with ninja powers. You'll kick that thing out of
that child's hands and you'll probably punch him in his nose
on the way because he might have put something in his mouth. You're
gonna spit it out. You'll put it up on his heels, you'll swing
him around like he's a wrestling doll or something. All the kids
are laughing now. You're listening, good. Why would you go to such crazy
extremes? You don't want that child to die. Now, why do we
not go to such crazy extremes to teach people the truth about
Christ? Why would we rather them act Christ-like than be Christ-like? And you know the only thing that
manipulates people's behavior? Adoration, power, and fear. If I can have power and offer
it to you, I can get I can get you to do something. If I can make you love Me more
than you love yourself, I can get you to do something. If I
can scare you into following My directions, I can get you
to do something. Neither of those are true of
the Gospel, except maybe we can say that we follow after Christ
because we love Him, but we know that we don't love Christ, He
loves us first. So the love of Christ for us is what compels
us. Isn't that what Paul says? Yes. That's not what's compelling
his brothers. His brothers were unregenerate, but they grew up
in the household of Jesus. Now there's a little bit of an
apologetic for you. Well, see, I bet you Jesus' house,
I bet you they prayed every five, ten minutes. I bet you they were
the most godly people. No, they weren't. They were trying
to tell Jesus He didn't have to do what God sent Him to do.
They were convincing Him through reason that He could change the
world if He just listened to their wisdom. Jesus rebukes them
so hard right now. You don't see it yet. Because
you probably haven't read through this as often as I have. In context, you probably just
missed it. But you'll see it today and you'll never look at
it again differently. In John 2, the last few verses
of John 2, it says, for many believed in his name. Now he
was in Jerusalem for the Passover and many believed in his name
because of the what? Signs, when they saw the signs that he was
doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to him,
for he knew, what? Because he knew all people and
no one needed to bear witness about man, for he himself knew
what was in the heart of man. Many believed, quote, quote,
quote, this is non-salvific belief. This is unregenerate belief. This is, I know Jesus, man, look
at the miracles, I believe in Him now, woo-hoo! And Jesus says,
that's not belief, it's not saving faith. So Jesus did not entrust Himself
to them. Jesus did not give Himself to them. Jesus did not expose
Himself to them. They didn't have true faith. Jesus didn't try to prove anything
here to them. In this household here, many
saw, many believed, but this was not the faith that was given
by God. These brothers wanted more of these, quote, converts
that had just walked away, and they felt like Jesus could get
them back, and plus some, if He just went and did it. So He
went and did what they wanted Him to do, perform some miracles,
and get them enamored with His power. This is the epidemic of our day.
Worldly conversions, worldly disciples, Just like these brethren,
those that practice it today, listen to me, are of the world. I don't care what label they
carry or what gospel they may 80% get right, they are of the
world. People who teach, listen to what
I'm about to say. People who teach that you can be born again
by praying to accept Jesus into your heart are of the world. People who teach you that you
can make a decision to be saved are of the world. This is not a theological academy
issue. This is not an academic issue. This is an issue of utter importance,
for it is the gospel of grace. It would be different if we didn't
have the New Testament that taught us anything different. People
would rather See, a gathering of unregenerate souls with a
little bit of Jesus in it, holding their hands up, singing spiritual
songs, having Bibles, saying, Amen, shaking their head in agreement
to nothing, to rhymes and soundbites and political arguments and the
like, to nothing. rather than see the hard gospel
but true power of God come into the hearts and minds of unregenerate
men, women, and children and lead them to eternal life by
the divine power of Christ. One is loving, one is deeply
wicked. And before you get all guilty,
we are all guilty of that at some time in our lives. So everybody can pop their own
hand and say, praise the Lord for His glorious grace, that
He called me out of unbelief into life. Because that's what
He did. He didn't just teach us some
new theology. He called us out of unbelief
into life when we saw the truth of the gospel of grace. They loved the totality of the
religious world that they lived in. They loved the religious
of their day. They loved to fit in with the
quote, in crowd spiritually of Judea. And they wanted to see
Jesus as the political and religious centerpiece of Israel. They were
unconverted no matter their relationship with Jesus. As the Scripture said that a
prophet had no honor in his own hometown. Friends, let me tell
you something. Our own household, sometimes God will use other
people to bring the gospel to our household. I was rebuked some years ago
because a student under my care was saved, quote, quote, at school
by a teacher. And I was brought into an office
and I was told that it was a shame that that salvation wasn't on
my belt. And if I had done my job, that
would have been for our credit. Our credit meaning the church's
credit. So we could stand up and say, that's the kind of stuff we live
in in our world, beloved. You might say, well, you keep
calling him unconverted. I'm not making that up. Look at verse
5. 4. Not even his brothers believed
him. Not even his brothers believed. They were Jews. They were living
with Jesus. They saw. A lot of people saw.
This shows you just how deep depravity is. It shows us just
how unable man are. No man can come to faith except
God birthed him anew. Faith is not an act of will by
an unconverted person. Faith is a gift of a regenerated
person that God has saved already. Pastors that may or may not ever
hear this sermon who would disagree with me, put up your study Bibles
and study your Bibles. Quit going to Google and think
that you know the truth of Christ. Open the Word of God and watch
the Holy Spirit of God wreck you for everything you are so
that you might teach the truth and all your friends run for
the hills. That's what happened to Jesus. I tell you what, listen
y'all, people are scared to have me in front of their children. Teaching. I've been told that. And I don't have anything to
say except what I say to you. They'd rather than watch rated
R movies than hear me preach. Why? Because unconverted people
don't want converted children. They want religious children.
Beloved, you don't have to manipulate your children at home into grasping
philosophically the perfection of Christ. Just teach them the
Word of God. Teach them all of it. Teach them
the Gospel, teach them the New Testament, and teach them the
Old Testament. Let them see the stories. I've got a four-year-old, by
the Lord's grace thus far, can articulate the Gospel without
even using the verbiage of theology. And she'll tell you that God
is the most powerful God. How does she know that? The Bible
has told her. And I pray with everything of
my being that not just her, but that all my children would come
to the knowledge of the truth. But it's not going to be because
I twisted it in them. It's not going to be because
I manipulate. It's certainly not going to be because I put
them in a Sunday school class and said, Oh Lord, I hope somebody teaches
them about Zacchaeus. And they come home and say, he's
a wee little man. Now, I'm not saying those songs are bad, they
teach that. But I mean, that's not teaching Scripture is the
point I'm saying. It's like showing your kids pictures of hamburgers
and saying, did you enjoy your dinner? Teach them the Bible. Well, I wish I'd have done that
when they were younger. Do it now. They're not going to be saved
through osmosis. The world could not receive Him. The world did not receive Him,
but all who did received Him. Those who believed in His name,
He gave the right to become the children of God, who were born
not of the will of the mind, nor the will of the flesh, nor
of blood, but by the will of the Father, by the will of God.
The only revealing that Jesus would do in Judea is His death
on the cross. And that did not fit their standard
of ministry. Friends, it doesn't fit the standard
of ministry to forgive each other. It doesn't fit the standard of
ministry to teach the Scriptures. It doesn't fit the standard of
ministry of our culture to not have programs coming out the
wazoo so that we can invite unregenerate people to entice them to do something
different on the Lord's Day except to be together with people that
love them and love the Lord and want to learn the Scripture. These brothers of Jesus knew
His power, but they did not know His person and they could not
see His purpose. They could not see Jesus at all. And he says
to them in verse 6, I need to move along. He says to them in
verse 6, my time is not yet come. They're saying, go up to Jerusalem,
go up to Judea and do your thing. You'll be awesome. You'll fix
all this. And Jesus says, it's not my time
to go to Judea. That's what He's saying there. It's not my time
to go. You don't tell me when I go to Judea. That's what He's
saying. Because I answer to a higher authority than you. Don't give
me the wisdom of your worldliness and your religion. I don't want
to hear what you did last week, or two decades ago, or 60 years
ago, or what your daddy did, or what great-great-granddaddy-PhD-doctor-reverend-high-priestess did a million years ago. I don't
want to hear about the heritage of your fake ministry, and your
fake religion, and your fake worship, and your fake God. Because
you see, the God of Jesus' brothers is Satan. And I didn't say it, God did.
When He's talking to the Jews who they placate to and follow
and believe everything they say, when they say, well, our father
is Abraham, and He says, you know, if Abraham were your father,
then you would have seen me, you would have rejoiced. For
Abraham longed for my day and rejoiced in it. How dare you?
You know, remember that? And what does Jesus say to them?
Your father, you do the will of your father. If you could see me, if God were
your Father, you'd see me and you'd believe in me. But your
Father is Satan. The God you worship is Satan.
Judaism doesn't worship the true God of heaven. It worships the
enemy, a false god. 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 9. God sends a strong delusion in
order for all those religious people to think they're worshiping
the true Christ and the true God of the Bible, but they're
not. And He does it with all signs
and all wonders. Jesus says, I'm not going up
there yet, it's not my time. It was not the appropriate time
of Him because the Father would give Him the time. He was not
afraid of His death. He wasn't talking about His death. He just wasn't
allowed to go to Judea yet. As a matter of fact, we'll see
next week. It was the fact that He wasn't going with them. He
was going to go alone. And He was going to sneak in.
He wasn't going to make a public entrance. He's going to be discovered there.
He's going to be arrested there. He's going to be betrayed. They couldn't
find Him, see. So they had to pay Judas to get Him. And he
gladly did it. He was not afraid of death, but
he was not told by the Father to go to Judea. His walkings,
his ministry, even his meetings were divinely orchestrated. Everything
that Jesus did was by the will of the Father alone. Nothing
he did was out of the will of God. It was all for God's purpose. Jesus is not subject to the advice
or wisdom of the world, neither is the Gospel, neither is the
interpretation of Scripture. But He says to them, they can
go where they want to go. Jesus said to them, My time has
not come, but your time is always here. Go on. I don't care what
you do. You're not a part of, listen
to this, My Father's plan. That's hard. You're not a part
of My Father's plan. If that doesn't teach sovereignty,
And if that doesn't teach the Lord does what He pleases, when
He pleases, I don't know what else does. Well, it does teach
it. And there are stronger texts
than that. But I mean, this is just in a conversation. Jesus said, you
do what you want to do. It's not going to affect the
outcome of what I am and what I do. They're not in danger. The world cannot hate you. They're
not in danger, but Christ is in danger. They are of the world.
You do what you desire, so no consequence to what the Father
is planning for me. Do not wait on my behalf. You go on up. I
will not be coming with you right now. That's what Jesus says to
them. God will cause what He desires and desires what He has
decreed. They wanted Jesus to be in their group of acceptance.
They wanted to be able to go as a family. Instead of being
counted in Christ, they wanted Christ to be counted in them. And he says in verse 7, the world
cannot hate you. Why? John 15, Jesus says, if you are
of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because
you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you. And he tells his brothers, the
world does not hate you, it cannot hate you. The world cannot hate
you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works
are evil. Because the world does not hate
its own kind. So many professing Christians
like, we want the world to love us. The world's not going to
love us because the gospel message that we preach is a message of
grace whereby Jesus Christ, the sovereign God of the universe
became a man and he lived perfectly obedient to God, the father who
rules and governs all things with his mighty hand and declares
all men to be holy for he is holy. And then he lived in a
life of obedience. Then he died on the cross perfectly
as a substitution for the people of God. And when we tell the
world that the unregenerate world hates God and everything about
him, even if they have a caricature of who he is and love some semblance
of an idol that they call God or that they call Christ, it's
not true. And so the world will hate us
because we deliver a message of grace, not a message of works. Necessarily people will say,
well, some people hate Christians because they deliver a message of hate.
Christians don't deliver a message of hate. People who deliver a
message of hate are not Christians. And if the Bible was obeyed by
the churches, their congregations would bring them under discipline
and they would either stop that stuff or be kicked out to be
proven they were not in Christ. We don't deliver a message of
hate. That's not the gospel. It's a message of grace. The world does not hate its kind,
but it hates Christ because He testifies of the true nature
of the world. Now keep in mind that what I'm
about to read to you very quickly, while the testimony of the wicked
world, I'm just going to give you some text out of John's Gospel,
chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 5. I don't have a whole lot of
time to go over all of it, but Jesus is talking to and about
the Jews each and every time. I started to say this earlier,
and I lost my train of thought following that rabbit that ran across.
Oftentimes we think that when we hear wickedness and evil,
that we're just talking about people who live in debauchery
and corruption, professing unbelief all the time. We're talking about
the religious who walk really morally, who profess a false
Christ too. Peace with the world is placating
to the world. That's what Jesus' brothers wanted. That's the gospel
of culture, not the gospel of truth. They desire Jesus to do
the same. See, believers who pacify carnal
religion by ignoring truth and subjecting the Scripture to a
lesser authority, friends, this is not the sign of a believer.
This is the first and primary foundation of an unregenerate
mind, to push the Scripture away and say, well, you know, this
is what I think, and the Bible's not necessarily authoritative. That is the sign of unregenerate
mind. I don't care if it's an ordained
pastor. I don't care if he's got 16 degrees. I don't care
if he's from a long lineage of ministries or a missionary and
he loves people and he hugs on people and he feeds people. Great!
And all that is worthy of destruction in the end. It's worthy of condemnation. So those who are of the world
are God's enemies. They're hosts of a God, even
though they seemingly desire Christ in some sense or in some
sort of faith. An atheist and a false convert
are equally under the same condemnation. Do you hear that? The world cannot know Christ
except the Father. Give them out of the world and give them
to Christ, out of the domain of darkness to the light of the
kingdom of His Son. He was in the world and the world
did not know Him, even though it was made through Him. They
could not hear the Word. They could not see the Word.
They could not recognize the Word. They were blind and they
were leading others to nothing, worthlessness. Jesus has a testimony
of the wickedness of the world. In John 2, he found the temple,
those who were selling oxen. He makes a cord, a whip out of
cords, and he whips them and turns them away, and he says,
you're making my father's house a house of trade. In John 3,
he tells Nicodemus, and this is the judgment, the light has
come to the world, but people love the darkness rather than
the light because their works are evil. For everyone who does
wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light
lest his works should be exposed. And John 5, He says, you search
the Scriptures because in them you have eternal life, but it's
they that speak of Me. The Word of God is not in you.
You do not know the Father. His life is not in you. His Word
is not in you. This is the wickedness that Jesus
is talking about. And then in verse 8, He closes
it all out by saying this, you go on up to the feast. You go
on up to the feast. I'm not going yet. for my time
has not yet come. It is not time for me to go.
So Jesus reiterates, you go on, you're not of me, so there's
no reason for you to go with me. And I'm certainly not of
you, so you go on and you be with your people, and you do
your thing, and I will do the Father's bidding. And your going has no bearing
on my purposes. God the Father will instruct me when my time
has come. And then it says, verse 9, Jesus remained in Galilee,
There's one thing that we can take home from this sermon, there's
a lot of things, but there's one thing we can take home in closing,
that Jesus will always perfectly fulfill the plan of the Father. And nothing this world offers
will stop it. This world, and listen, all the
false gospels in the world, all the false churches in the world,
all the false pastors in the world, all the false converts
in the world, all of the lies, it will not stop the plan of
God in Christ, it will not cover up the Word of God in truth,
it will not make Christ beholding to the wickedness and the darkness
of the world. For John has already shown us
in the prologue and everything he's shown us already in the
ministry of Jesus that the darkness will not overcome the light.
God does not call us to make a ministry out of exposing darkness. We expose darkness out of the
ministry of proclaiming light. Wine all you want. That's the
God-honest truth. God has never saved one stitch
of a soul who heard what was wrong. But all who have been
born again have heard what was right. He fulfills the Father's plan
and purpose. so we can confidently depend on the work of Christ,
the Word of Christ, the Word of Christ, the life of Christ,
the sacrifice of Christ. It is ours in Christ. We are
God's beloved because of Christ. What else is there that should
take our eyes off of Him? Nothing. Be blessed, beloved. Let's pray. Lord, thank You so much. How
these little narratives, Father, can sometimes just be overlooked.
It's so easy, and in considering this and trusting in You to lead
me on what to preach as I pray for You to lead me on what to
preach. Lord, I thank You, God, that we took some time out to
see just the truths here. Not in simple bullet point, but
Lord, expounding upon the essence of what You've revealed to us
in Scripture as it compounds week to week, month to month,
year to year. Father, out of 55 sermons, we've
heard a lot about the glory that is revealed to us in Christ alone. May we never lose sight of it.
Drive us to Your Word. Drive us to prayer. Drive us
to share the hope that we have with others around us. Teach
us the Scripture that we might correct those around us who are
in error, and that we might proclaim the truth before them. Lord, I pray continually for
our church. I pray continually that you would
reach the lost around us. You would call your people home.
That we would be able to face and endure, God. Would you give
us the grace to maintain and endure in these times of trials.
This life that we live. It is not easy because we are
not of the world and the world does not know us and the world
does not love us. Help us not to Lay aside the
hard truth for the sake of a false peace. In Jesus' name, amen.