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Thank you Lord for this time together. Thank you for brother Daniel, for the investment he has made in preparing this morning. Lord, I ask that you would just speak to us this morning. May we want to open our hearts to receive what you have for us. I ask that you would just, Daniel would guide him by your holy spirit as he speaks to us this morning. We thank you for it. In the name of Jesus our Savior. Amen. My family, my little youngest boy who also had a birthday last week is turning one and he is starting to have teeth. So just in case you're all wondering, my wife is home with Jesse who has a fever and Robbie, who we thought would probably not do well sitting up here by Mary. So that's where my family is today. So always sad to not have them here. But I also was sitting out in the back today looking over my notes and Sunday school let out and Hudson came up and he sat down next to me and was talking to me and I asked him, do you want a long sermon or a short sermon today? And he said he wanted a long sermon. So you know, 12:30 he comes, you know who to talk to. He also was learning to wink today. So he winked at me. So I think he might be joking when he said that. So Hudson, I will just say this is probably not going to be the longest sermon. So but we are going to be looking at John chapter 7 and in this passage there's a lot of little nuggets of truth there. We could dig into it in a very granular approach. And that is not how I'm going to be approaching it today. I'm going to be looking at a about 37 verses and we're going to be pulling from this passage 4 Responses to Christ that we see demonstrated in this passage and looking at and really four responses that we don't want to have to Christ. And so, and we're going to be, as we look at those responses, we're going to be asking three questions and we're going to try to ask them for each response. And the first question is, well, we're going to first identify the response and we're going to discuss that. But then we're going to ask how did Jesus respond to the responses? What was Jesus response to these people when they responded this way? Secondly, we're going to have self reflection and ask are there times that we have the response that the negative or the not good response that the people had to Jesus? And then finally we're going to ask the question when we embody Christ, we're going to acknowledge that people may respond the same way to us. And so asking like. And just reflecting on Jesus responses to the response. I know this is a lot of responses and respons back and forth, but we're going to reflect on that and look at and just, you know, ask, you know, what can we learn from how Jesus responded to them? So that is how we're going to look at that. And then just concluding with some thoughts in general about Jesus's responses. So as always, I always feel like I'm very reading heavy as far as reading the Scriptures and I don't know a way around that. I feel strongly we need to read the Scriptures, but then I end up spending a lot of time up here reading. So and reading is not something that I. Verbal reading is not something that I love to do. So but we are going to do that because I have not figured out another way to do it. After this, Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews feast of the booth was at hand. So his brothers said to him, leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world. For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it, that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come. After saying this, he remained in Judea or in Galilee, but after his brothers had gone to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but in private. So some context here is this feast that we're talking about. There's a couple different feasts in John, and we've talked about the Passover, which was a feast. This is the Feast of Booths or the feast of the Tabernacle. And this is the fall celebration or thankfulness of harvest. So after the harvest was made, it was the celebration that they had after that giving thanks to God. And it's called the Feast of the Booths because during harvest they would build these little shelters in the field and you know, for protection while they harvest the field. And so then my assumption here, from what I can read, is when they would also, you know, when they were coming up to Jerusalem, they would build these little booths, you know, in remembrance of that. But Also as shelters to stay in. So that's a little context. So this was. And it was from Sabbath to Sabbath. So when it talks about the center of this feast, it could mean that middle day or it could mean any day that was not the Sabbath. So and that's probably important just to kind of think they probably were not, you know, doing anything on the Sabbath. So they were traveling up before that. And then, you know, the kind of the feast or the gathering, the celebration would have been that middle time of the week where they were. And, you know, this was probably a good time. They were looking forward to this. I don't know a ton about the life of the Jews at this time, but my guess is it's a time where there was not just an abundance of everything that you looked forward to harvest, that these, you know, these feasts were, you know, a big part of your social life. It was something that you looked forward to. They weren't, you know, running out to Chick fil a to get ice cream cones every Monday night. It was, you know, it was, you know, these gatherings were a big, big thing, and they looked forward to it. So the disciples wanted to go, and Jesus brothers said, you know, hey, you know, let's go up there. And they're kind of calling Jesus out here. They're saying, you know, your time is at hand. And one other thing to notice here, it says, you disciples. And when we read Scripture, it's easy to get confused on what disciples we're talking about. Disciples, in a very broad term, is anyone who is following Jesus. And so there are lots of times when it's just referring to your followers. Then we also have the 12 disciples. Later on in the passage, it talks about your 12 disciples. Just don't lose sight of that. Who they are talking about. His brothers are saying that your disciples, you have a big following. Now, I get the sense here that they are encouraging him, strike while the iron is hot, Build up this following, go to this big gathering, and what's your problem? Get going. They're trying to motivate him. They're kind of calling Jesus out, which is something that brothers do at times. And sometimes, rightly or wrongly, I have a couple brothers or three brothers. And we speak hard truth to each other, and that's great, but sometimes it's not. It's not always with wisdom. And that is what we're seeing here. So the first response we see is dedicated but misunderstood, with a hint of personal agenda. And I think that's what we see, how we see Jesus's brothers at this time responding to Jesus, there's no question they love, they care for Jesus, but they, you know, they, they missed the mark on this one. And if you think about it, it's probably stemming from a personal agenda of wanting to see their cause pushed up into, you know, and, you know, gain momentum and their status. And also at this time, they don't have a clear understanding of what Jesus true mission on earth is. So how did Jesus respond to this? And we see that he speaks truth and he also does not force his mission, his approach onto them. And we see this in two things. In his response, he simply says, my time has not come. And then he goes on and says, but you go up, you go up to the feast, you can go have a good time. I not going to hold you back. He doesn't say, well, I can't go. So, you know, you just stay here and commiserate with me. He allows them or gives them room to go up and go to the feast. And I actually think this is one that strikes home this idea of we all interact with people who are very dedicated to us. It may even be in our church or in the broader body of Christ. You know, people who are not in our church but are seeking to follow Christ. And there are times when they are, you know, trying to speak truth into our lives and we have to look and respond in Christlike way, way to them. And I think it's very instructive to see how Jesus responds. He speaks truth to them. He doesn't allow his agenda to be pushed over. He doesn't say, well, I wasn't really planning on going down there and rallying the troops, but I guess if you want me to, we can have a little rally. No. He says, no, my time hasn't come, but you guys go do your thing. And in that, I think he leads them as a true leader does, and gives them room to grow and to learn. And he does not force his approach on them. So that is the first interaction we see. And the second is going to be in verses 11 through, I guess, 23. And I think I could pick this out. I have two things here that I'm going to be looking at. One is responding with logic to Jesus and the other is responding in confusion. And while these are very opposite, it often feels a little bit like. But in some of these stories, there's a little bit of logic and a little bit of confusion. So I separated them out and I'm using one passage here to demonstrate one. And then the passage right Below it will be looking at confusion. So I'm going to read verses 11 through 23. The Jews were looking for him at the feast, saying, where is he? And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, he is a good man, others said, no, he is leading the people astray. Yet for the fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly to him. I'm just going to point out here we see logic going on here, that they're worried about what is going to happen to them. So they let their logical brain say, well, we're just going to stay silent even though it seems like truth. We're not going to say anything because we don't want to get in trouble with the Jews. So they used reason to make a decision here. That's not actually the main part of the passage that we're looking at, but it is interesting to see how that can happen at times. And I think it's instructive to us. First reading on. In verse 14, about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach. The Jews, therefore marveled, saying, how is it that this man has learning when he has never studied? So. So Jesus answered them, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking of my own authority. The one who speaks of his own authority seeks his own glory. But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Ye. Yet none of you keep the law. Why do you seek to kill me? The crowd answered him, you have a demon who is seeking to kill you. Jesus answered, I did one work, and you all marveled at it. Moses gave you circumcision. Not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers. And you circumcised a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man received circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken. Are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's body, whole body? Well, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. So we have to read a little bit into this. So Jesus is addressing the question here of, you know, why do the Jews want to kill him? And so, and he's defending it. And we see that, you know, they're asking, you know, they're looking and seeing, okay, Jesus has done some good things. So is he right? Is he wrong? But he also has done some things that have violated our law. And it's inferred here that they are calling him out for healing the man on the Sabbath, which we know that Jesus did. And so Jesus response to this is, you know, they're engaging with this on kind of a theological or logical question. And Jesus responds to this with giving them a very logical argument. He says, you know, if we, you know, if I, you know, you guys are obeying this law, but you're also, when it suits your purpose, when you know it would violate another law, you're willing to do work of circumcision on the Sabbath. And, you know, we know that Jesus, the work that he did to heal the man, you know, was. He spoke. You know, it wasn't like he was out there, you know, doing any work. And so he's calling them out and using this logic or reasoning. And I think the things that I want to point out on this is if we look at how Jesus interacted with them, logic or reason from a worldly perspective, and if we use logic or reason from a worldly perspective, and, you know, there and then, I also want to point out, you know, their logic is, well, he does good and then he does bad. Well, the logic that they came up with was he has a demon, which again, is faulty logic. But. But so they're presenting Jesus with faulty logic. His response to this is. To speak simple truth. And he does respond with logic, but he also does not get into lengthy debates or anything like that. He simply speaks simple truth and. But engages with it and argues his case. And so a couple things I want to point out on that is, Jesus does engage. And I think as Christians, sometimes we kind of end up just walking away and not engaging. And there are times for that, but there are also times when we can use logic and engage. And. But I also want to point out that without an understanding of who God is, all logic just falls apart. And recently I was reading some early or some writings and excerpts from some early philosophers that kind of have formed how we engage with logic when we're thinking. And one of those is a philosopher named John Locke. And he's an interesting person because he kind of spent most of his life avoiding discussing religion. And as he developed his ideas on philosophy, he kept running up into this question of what is truth? And toward the end of his life, he wrote a book that he kind of engages with this question. And I'm not really sure where he ended up on his faith at the end, but he made a statement that Goes something like this. Logic has to be founded on a belief in absolutes from a divine creator. And I'm struck by that, because when we try to just use logic to define logic, it does not work because you just go into circles. Eventually we have to come back to the fact that there is a God and that he has absolutes that define what is right and what is wrong. And without that, it all falls apart. So just to summarize this part, the Jews wanted to engage in logical debates with Jesus about what he was doing, was it right, was it wrong? And we do see Jesus engaging with this and being willing to explain and to at some level debate the reasoning behind what he was doing and calling out the hypocrisy or the faulty part of their logic. But we also see him saying, you're missing the mark. You don't understand. You're not starting at the right point. You have to start with believing that I am the Son of God and the Father sent me. So the third way that we see people respond to Jesus is with confusion. And I have a little exercise that I want to do here, and this came to me. When I think of confusion, I don't know why, or chaos. I always think of the jungle jam skit that some of our youth did at campout one year. And there's a little clip in that where all of the animals are talking at one time. And then somebody shouts out, you know, stop, stop, stop. And they. They settle everything down, but. And they're all saying something, but they're all saying it at the wrong time. And you just. It doesn't make any sense. And that is the feeling that I get for this next part of the, you know, of this passage. And oftentimes the world around us is engaged in just confusion. They're throwing these little bubbles of truth and mistruth and throwing it all together, and. And it gets very confusing. And so as we read this, that's kind of where my mind goes with this. Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is this not the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But. But we know where this man comes from. And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. So Jesus proclaimed and taught in the temple. You know me, and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know, I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him. And because his hour had not come yet, many of the people believed in him. They said, when the Christ appears, he will do more signs than this man has done. So I want to do a little exercise here. I need three volunteers and three volunteers who can read a verse and read it loudly. Kendall, Ashton, one more. Ivan. Okay, so I am going to assign you all verses. Kendall, verse 25. Ashton, verse 26. Ivan, verse 27. Raise your hand of chapter John, chapter 7. Thank you for following along, Kendall. All ready. Okay, so what I want you to all do is I'm going to count to three, and I want you all to start reading at the same time as loudly as you can. One, two, three. Thank you. So how many of you got much from those three verses? I think that you all get my point, that it was confusion and chaos. And oftentimes in the world around us, we see confusion and chaos. We see truth and mistruth kind of all jumbled together. Questions that don't have aren't no answers or answers that, you know people who are asking questions without seeking the answers. And then mixed into that, we have people who are truly asking questions, but it's all mixed into confusion. And we see Jesus response to this. First off, he proclaims. And when I get the idea of proclaims, this would be like me saying, okay, everybody stop talking. And then going on and saying, you know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true and you do not know him. I know him, for I come from him and he sent me. And as I read that, that is very clear, it's very concise, and it simply speaks simple truth. And so I think what I want to bring out on this is Jesus response to, to confusion is to speak clear, simple truth. And. As we think about the three questions or the three things we're going to be exploring, how did Jesus respond? He spoke clear, simple truth, self reflection. I think this is one that again, as churches and people of Christ, there can be a tendency to allow confusion to speak. And we have all these different voices speaking, we're all speaking at the same time. And when that happens, we need to come back to clear simple truths and just speak truth to it. We don't run away from confusion always, we address it, but in a very bold, simple way. So the final way that we see or response to Christ is with force and physical persecution and I want to say I would assume that this is one that the self reflection of. Are we responding in this way? I would hope to say that we are. And I would assume that we are not engaged in physically persecuting, you know, the body of Christ or even more passively persecuting each other. But I do think this is one that we, as we look at, how do we respond when others are doing it to us is one that we can reflect on as well. So for context, I want to start back and I'm going to actually go back to the first verse that I read and the context helps us make more sense. After this, Jesus went about in Galilee and he would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. And so at this time, you know, this is a real thing. He is being sought after to be killed at this time. And then moving on to verse 32, the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him and the chiefs, chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. And Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer. And then I am going to him who sent me and that him is God, he's going to heaven. You will seek me and you will not find me where I am. You cannot come. The Jews said to one another, where, where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, you will seek me and you will not find me where I am, you cannot come? So a couple things that I want to just briefly, just for context, I feel like we can't read this passage and not just point out and that is the people, the Jews who he is speaking to completely miss the point of what he is saying here. He obviously is talking about he is going up to heaven to be with his father after he is killed and raised again. And so they immediately like, well, is he just going to go off into Rome and preach this word to all the Greeks? And I think they're saying this a little bit tongue in cheek. So just so you know, I don't know if you notice in your Bibles, the dispersion is actually capitalized. So it's an actual thing. And what they're referring to is the Romans had this thing that they would do when they would capture a group of people, rather than let them stay in their homes, they would disperse them throughout the Roman Empire so that they would be less likely to rebel. And so you had these little pockets of Jewish people all throughout the Roman Empire. And so I think they were kind of saying this, like, well, he's not going to go travel to these other little pockets of the Jews. And then even where, worst case scenario, witness to the Greeks. Now the irony of that is what happened with the Gospel. That is exactly what happened. So again, they really missed the whole point here. And there's a little bit of irony in their response. But as we look at Jesus response to the two persecution and those who, who are looking to harm him, his first response we see in verse one, and that was he avoids those who want to kill him. And I think that is something that is not a bad response. If there are those that are trying to persecute us and harm us, well, unless we have a clear, you know, reason to stay away from him, don't antagonize them. And again, there are times we're called to go and preach and go and share, but we also see Jesus avoiding those who want to kill him. And secondly, when he did feel that leading from the Spirit, when he was told by his Father to go, he trusted his Father's protection and timing. And we see that in this passage he was protected, they did not arrest him and he went on, it was not his time. Now we also obviously know what did happen and he was crucified, he was killed. But I think two really important things to take from that is just as though as people, as we embody Christ, others may respond to us, seeking to persecute us. And in those, I think we can learn from how Jesus responded. And then finally I want to just base this and ground this in a final statement or question as far as how do we respond to Jesus? And I was struck with or just drawn to probably some of the most famous verses in the New Testament. And that is Peter's response to Jesus. And I just want to read those last those verses in closing. When Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say that the Son of Man is? And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. He said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter replied, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. People will say God is all kinds of things, but to truly understand who he is, we have to acknowledge that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God. If that is our belief and we choose to follow him. There is no personal agenda. We do not need to reason our way to truth. God is truth. There is no confusion. He brings clarity to the chaos and even when persecution arises there is no bad end because we know that we can stand on our faith and have life beyond this life. I want to read verse 37 as a final just something final to leave with you. If anyone first thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the scriptures say, out of his heart will flow living water. Stand with me for a closing prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of your son. Lord, thank you that you are truth and that we can turn to you. There's no question, there's no ambiguity in what is truth. I just pray that we would look at these scriptures and emulate how you responded in each of these difficult situations, Lord. And I just pray that we could take that and apply it to our lives in your name. Amen.