Jesus, the Teacher: Need direction, wisdom, or help? Do you want to know the truth about life and death, heaven and hell, or anything that truly matters? Learn from Jesus; he is a brilliant teacher. To be a disciple means to learn and apply the teachings of Jesus and help others do the same. Recorded on Oct 22, 2023, on John 7:1-24 by Pastor David Parks.
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Finding Life in Jesus’ Name is a sermon series on the gospel according to John in the Bible. Have you ever felt unsatisfied with your life? Or, even when things were going well, something was still missing? Many people sense there must be something more. But what?? John, one of the closest friends of Jesus, believed that Jesus came into the world so that we may have life and have it to the full. Jesus turned John’s life upside down, and John claims this new life — marked by God’s power, presence, and purpose — is available for all who believe.
Sermon Transcript
Well, all year, we’re going through the gospel according to John in a series called Finding Life in Jesus’ Name. And today, we’re in John chapter 7, considering the teaching ministry of Jesus. Jesus was simply a brilliant teacher. People were constantly amazed by his teaching. It had a surprising authority to it, as if he had the authority of God himself — even though, as we saw last week, it was sometimes hard to understand or even offensive. And how many teachers are there who have people trying to listen to them and learn from them 2,000 years later? But here’s what separates the fans of Jesus from the true followers of Jesus: the follower of Jesus seeks to learn from Jesus, our rabbi/teacher, about who he is and how to follow him, no matter their circumstances, no matter whether it’s easy or hard. A fan will only stick around, provided there’s some benefit for them. But a true follower/disciple will stick with Jesus even when his teaching corrects/rebukes our opinions/preferences/path. For, as Peter said last week, where else would we go? Only Jesus has the words of eternal life. If you have a Bible/app, please take it and open it to John 7:1.
John 7:1–5 (NIV), “1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.” Ok, let’s pause here. So, it was sometime after the famous/infamous sermon at Capernaum where Jesus told people they needed to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and many of those who had been following him misunderstood him, were offended by him, and decided to walk away from Jesus. And I would imagine it would be tempting for Jesus to become discouraged at this point. John points out that he knew if he went to the southern region of Judea, where the city of Jerusalem is, the Jewish leaders there wanted to kill him. But here in the northern region of Galilee, he had just experienced a mass rejection. This is the context of our scene. So when Jesus’ brothers (or actually his half brothers) urge him to go to Judea, to attend the Festival of Tabernacles and go public with his ministry, Jesus has a tough choice: Do I stay in a place where I was largely rejected, or go to a place where people want me dead? John also adds this note that even his own brothers did not believe in him. And clearly, they don’t understand what Jesus is doing or how he would accomplish his mission. Now later, after the resurrection, they would come to believe in him, including his brother James, who wrote the letter of James in the Bible and served as a leader of the early church in Jerusalem, but not yet here. And I’m sure this must have been another potential source of discouragement for him. But what will Jesus do?
John 7:6-13 (NIV), “6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee. 10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, “Where is he?” 12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.” So, Jesus’ response to his brothers’ urging is that he would not follow their timeline for his ministry. Jesus never allowed anyone other than his Father in heaven to dictate who he was or what he was about, including the timing of his ministry. So later, according to God’s wisdom/timing, Jesus went up to Jerusalem, where it seemed that all the people at the Festival were talking about him. John says there was widespread whispering about him. Last week, I said if Jesus had a PR team, they would’ve quit after Capernaum. But they might’ve signed back onto the team with this level of buzz. Jerusalem was packed with people for the festival, and everyone was talking about Jesus. But we see the division of the crowd. Some people thought Jesus was a good man, while others thought he was a deceiver, but everyone knew what the religious and political leaders thought about him. And there was tremendous social pressure not to take a public stance on the matter. Doesn’t that kind of sound like our culture today? Some people believe in Jesus, while others reject him, but everyone’s kind of fine unless you want to take a public stance or make a public statement about it. But again, Jesus isn’t intimidated by any of this.
John 7:14-18 (NIV), “14 Not until halfway through the festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” 16 Jesus answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.” Let’s pause one more time. Instead of being intimidated by the attention and the opposition, when the set time had fully come, “…suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple;” (Mal 3:1). And what does Jesus do there? Does he do what his brothers suggest? And perform some great miracle to maybe win back some of those who abandoned him in Capernaum? No. Jesus has come to be the Rabbi/teacher of Israel and to teach his people. And see how the people responded to his teaching! They were amazed! In our passage next week, the temple guards sent to arrest Jesus were so stunned by his teaching they forgot to arrest him. They say, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (Jn 7:46). In fact, people were confused as to how Jesus could be such a good teacher when he didn’t have formal training. Unlike the Apostle Paul, who was trained by one of the most famous Rabbis of their day, a man named Gamaliel, Jesus wasn’t formally trained as a Pharisee, Scribe, or Teacher of the Law. He wasn’t officially a priest or a member of the Jewish Ruling Council. Most probably knew that Jesus had learned the family business of carpentry in Nazareth. And maybe he could have been expected to be an expert at that, but at what point could he have learned to teach from the Hebrew scriptures with such power and authority — even more than the so-called experts?!? Jesus responds by saying, listen, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me.” In other words, I was taught by my Father in heaven, so what I am teaching you is absolutely true and will result in the glory of God. This is perfectly in line with how Jesus saw all of his life/ministry. Back in chapter 5, Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (Jn 5:19). Later, in chapter 12, Jesus will say, “For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.” (Jn 12:49). If Jesus is telling the truth, as we believe that he is, then when Jesus speaks, it is God himself who is teaching us. And anyone who chooses to do the will of God will see whether the teaching of Jesus is true or not. But Jesus knows people. And he knows that there are some listening who have not only rejected him and his teaching but are actively looking for ways to silence him. So his teaching is encouraging and empowering, freeing us from the weight of sin and death and training us in the way of righteousness. But also, his teaching can offer correction or even a rebuke if you are going the wrong way. We’ll finish this passage with a correction but also an opportunity to come back to the right path.
John 7:19-24 (NIV), “19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” 20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?” 21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” This is God’s word. So Jesus says the quiet part out loud and just exposes the hypocrisy of those who are trying to kill him. You don’t perfectly keep the law, so why are you trying to kill me? The crowd doesn’t fully understand. “Who is trying to kill you?” Perhaps they’ve been intimidated by the Jewish leaders but haven’t realized the extent of their plans to get rid of Jesus once and for all. At any rate, Jesus alludes to the miracle he performed at Bethesda and healing the man who couldn’t walk. The problem with that miracle was not that Jesus healed the guy but that he did so on the Sabbath. The Sabbath day went from Friday evening to Saturday evening and was supposed to be a full 24-hour period to cease, to stop working, to worship God, and to enjoy all the blessings of God together as a people. Jesus’s work of healing and restoring this man back to health and purpose and community, and even the fact that the man was carrying the mat that he had laid on for so many years, was seen as work and, therefore, was a violation of the Sabbath commandment. Jesus argues that their understanding of the Sabbath is totally backward. They are using the Sabbath as a means to show off their own self-righteousness, but they don’t even practice it consistently or in a way that reflects God’s intention behind the law. Jesus says, you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath (because at that time, it was supposed to be on the eighth day after they were born), so why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? It makes no sense! But their narrow understanding of this law resulted in their lack of love toward the man who was lame and needed healing. And their lack of glory given to the God who healed. Of course, this wasn’t the only thing that Jesus had said/done that had made people upset. We already mentioned the Capernaum sermon about eating the bread of life. And earlier, Jesus had clearly taught that God was his own Father, which they rightly perceived as Jesus making himself equal with God. But to all this, Jesus offers this correction, “Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” I believe this refers to his earlier statement that those who seek to do the will of God will judge that what he is saying, hard as it might be to understand or believe, is actually true. But this is always the challenge with Jesus. As we saw last week, there are some seriously hard sayings of Jesus and teachings in the Bible. This was as true for the crowd in Jerusalem that day as it is for us today. But listening to and learning obedience to the teaching of Jesus is one of the core commitments of a follower of Jesus today. Jesus will later say in John’s gospel, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching.“ (Jn 14:23-24). Or even later, after the resurrection, when Jesus sends out his disciples in Matthew 28, he says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:18-20). How can we, as followers of Jesus, do this? How can we learn from Jesus, our great teacher, today? I’ll give you two thoughts on this. First, our ministry doesn’t end with conversion. It really matters that people have the opportunity to hear the gospel and respond in repentance and faith. It really matters that people come to faith in Jesus and become Christians and get baptized as a sign of this new life/relationship with God. But that’s not where our work in making disciples ends. That’s only the beginning! Becoming a Christian is the starting line, not the finish line. The whole of the Christian life, the whole of the race, is about learning to obey the commands/teaching of Jesus and then joining this redemptive work of helping other people come to faith and grow in their faith, as well. Second, maturity as a follower/learner of Jesus comes first from both meditating on God’s word and from putting into practice what you learn. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you know in terms of theological information; maturity comes from knowing and being able to do what God says to do. The Apostle Paul wrote on the importance of this in 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (NIV), “16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Or listen to James, the brother of Jesus, who later would write, “James 1:22 (NIV): Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” Now, this is not complicated, but as the people in Capernaum or in Jerusalem that day found out, it’s certainly not always easy. Sometimes, the teaching of Jesus is hard to understand. Sometimes, it goes directly against our will/way. Sometimes, we need a correction/rebuke. But if Jesus is who he claims to be, if he is the eternal Son, sent from heaven, if he is the only one who has ever seen the Father, and therefore, the only one who can reveal to us the true nature of reality and the intention of our creator for us, the people of his creation. So we must listen to him. We must learn from him and seek to put his teaching into practice in our actual lives. It must have authority over our will/way. He is our Rabbi/master/teacher. But just remember who it is that we are learning from. Listen to the calling of Jesus, our great teacher from Mt 11, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Let us pray.