Latest / Finding Jesus Again / Episode 13; All who are Thirsty
Transcript
- John Smithson: Welcome to Finding Jesus again. Today is episode thirteen. We are going to be studying John chapter seven. So let's begin. John chapter seven, verse one. After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. So again we have the religious leaders who are seeking to kill Jesus because of the things that he's saying and because the miracles that he's performing. They are afraid that he is going to strip them. of their power and authority and they're losing their influence over the people. And so they're seeking to kill him. And also because they feel like he is saying things that are contrary to their law, to the law of Moses. So it may not just all be because they wanted the power. It some of it could literally be the zeal for the law and the zeal for their religion. But the simple fact is they were so indoctrinated with the law and their religion that they were not open to see the truth. And I think that's an important point for us to to maybe start off with today is that we always need to be open for truth. We always need to be open to receive or hear or learn something that might be different than what we've been taught or different than what we have ⁓ always believed. It's okay to to to learn. It's okay to grow. And we always need to be open for that. It's a it's a continual growth process and he's always teaching us. So let's move on. That's verse one. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of Boose, was near. The feast is a festival or a feast that commemorated the time after they left Egypt, they lived in the wilderness for forty years, and during that forty years God sustained them. He fed them with food from heaven, he gave them water from a rock, he kept them and he sustained them. And so it is a celebration of that. It's also a celebration of when the Messiah re will return. So that is what the Feast of Booth's about. I do want to mention real quick something that's going to be very relevant about the Feast of Booth, and that is that there was this daily procession every morning during the seven day festival, and it was led by a temple priest, and they would go down to the pool of Salom and the priest would fill a golden pitcher with water. They would do this every day. The procession returned through the temple's water gate to the sounding of shofars, and the priest would then ascend the altar and he would pour the water until a silver bow could be Simultaneously with wine being poured into another bow. Now the meaning of this is this was a prayer for rains to sustain their harvest. So they were praying for water to sustain their harvest. And spiritually it symbolizes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It was a huge celebration. Okay, let's read on now that we understand a little bit about the feast of Boose. So his brothers said to him, Move on from here and go into Judea, so that your disciples also may see your works which you are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself is striving to be known publicly. If you're doing these things, show yourself to the world, for not even his brothers believed in him. So his brothers, as brothers often do, were taunting Jesus in this passage, saying, Look, if you really are who you say you are, why don't you just go on over into Judea and just show ⁓ who you are? You know, it it begins here by saying that Jesus wasn't going to go into Judea because they were seeking to kill him. And his brothers knew they were seeking to kill him, but here they are taunting him and saying, Look, if you really are who you're saying you are, why don't you just go on over into Judea and show everybody? And so obviously they didn't believe who he was. And I could kind of understand. It's like if your brother spoke up and said, Hey guys, I got something to tell ya. I'm the Messiah. They probably struggled with that. And you know, when you when you make changes in your life, the people who are closest to you who know you the best, who grow up with you who sit around a table with you, who play in the yard with you, those are the people sometimes it's hardest to convince that you've made a change to. There's a scripture that says that a a prophet is is not honored in his own country. And it's because people who know who you are, they know where you come from, they know who your mom is, they know who your dad is, they know your your financial situation or the income of your household. But it's very difficult to to overcome that. But it is very interesting that his brothers were taunting him to to go into a place where he could possibly be killed. So let's read on. Verse six. So Jesus said to them, My time is not yet here, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that his deeds are evil. Go up to the feast yourselves. I'm not going to go to this feast because my time is not fully arrived. Now having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. So so Jesus wasn't afraid of the Jewish leaders, but basically he just understood that his time had not yet arrived. Jesus knew he was going to give his life. Jesus knew that he was going to to lay down his life for our sins, but it wasn't going to be in anyone's timing but his and God's timing. God knew exactly what he was doing. Verse 10. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he himself also went up, not publicly, but as though in secret. So He did end up going to Galilee, but he didn't make a grand spectacle of it. He did it in secret. But when it was in the middle of the feast, Jesus went up to the temple area and began to teach. The Jews then were astonished, saying, How has this man become learned not having been educated? So Jesus answered them and said, My teaching is not my own, but he who sent me. If anyone is willing to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I'm speaking from myself. The one who speaks from himself seeks his own glory and But he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. And so Jesus is saying that I'm not just teaching my own words, but I'm teaching the words of God. Jesus was teaching what God was giving him to teach. Jesus was saying what God told him to say. Did Moses not give you the law? Jesus is talking here, and yet none of you carries out the law. Why are you seeking to kill me? The crowd answered, You have a demon. Who's kill who is seeking to kill you? Jesus answered them, I did one deed, and you're all astonished. And he's talking about when he healed the man on the Sabbath. For this reason Moses has given you circumcision, not that it was from Moses, but from the fathers. And even on a Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on a Sabbath, so that the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry at me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath? Do not judge by the outward appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. And so he's saying, like, Why are you angry at me? If there was a man that needed to be circumcised on the Sabbath so that he could keep the law, you would circumcise him, so you could keep the law. You're mad at me because I healed a man and now he can walk. I mean it's just it it it's just astonishing that they were more concerned about their religion and about keeping their tradition and about defending their religion than they were about actually seeing people and lives changed. And I think that's again, that's something that we need to be very careful of. What if a homeless man interrupted your church service because he was in dire need of God? You know, right in the middle of worship, he came in and he ran up to the altar. Would you just continue on with the worship? Would you would you continue on with your format? Or would you change up the format to meet the needs of this man who so desperately needed Jesus? That's just a very small example. But what if there was someone who needed God And it interrupted the flow of how we did things. Are we willing to make those changes in order to minister to those people? You know, we can't get so caught up in in our religious dogma. We can't get so caught up in our in our way of doing things that it becomes more important than ministering to people. And that's why Jesus is teaching us here. He's saying to them, He said, Look, God gave us the law, but it's not more important than people. I have come as fulfillment of the law. To deliver the people. And if that happens on a Sabbath, that's okay. Then he goes on to say, do not judge by the outward appearance, but judge with righteous judgment. Don't judge by just looking on the outside at things, but judge with righteous judgment. Judge from the inside. Like what is God trying to do here? What is God trying to say? Sometimes we have to step back from ourselves and step back from the norm and see what God might be trying to do in a situation. Let's read on verse twenty five. So some of the people of Jerusalem are saying, Is this man not the one whom you're seeking to kill? And yet look, he's speaking publicly and they're saying nothing to him. There's you know, the the people are going, look, hey, this is the guy that that you are wanting to kill. How come you're not doing something about it? The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they? They're saying, Look, we know this guy. We know he he's from Nazareth, he's from Galilee. We know him, we know where he's from. We know his dad's a carpenter, we know who his mom is, we know who his brothers are. Some of us grew up with him. So this can't be the Messiah. Verse twenty eight. Then Jesus cried out in the temple teaching us, saying, You both know me and you know where I'm from, and I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know. I do know him because I am from him and he sent me. So they were seeking to arrest him, and yet no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. But many of the crowd believed him, and they were saying, When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than these signs which this man has done, will he? thirty two. Now the Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. Therefore Jesus said, For a little while longer I am going to be with you, and then I'm going to go to him who sent me. You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come. The Jews then said one to another, where does this man intend to go that he will not find him? He does not intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does he? What is this statement that he said you will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you cannot come? And of course he's talking about the day when he will give his life and he will go back to heaven to be with God. Verse thirty seven. Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. I'm going to kind of jump back here. Remember what I talked about in the beginning about the the feast of Boose and how Every day they would go and they would take water and they would pour water onto the altar mixed with wine and how that water represented them asking for the blessings of God on their lives and on their crops and on their harvest and the pouring out of God's spirit into their lives. And now Jesus stands up and he makes this declaration if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. If you're doing this water ritual because you're asking God for blessings, but I'm telling you that if you're thirsty, come to me. and drink. The one who believes in me, as the scripture says, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. But this he said in reference to the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Some of the people therefore, after they heard these words, were saying, This is truly the prophet. Others were saying this is the Christ, but others were saying, Surely the Christ is not coming from Galilee, is he? Has the scripture not said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David and from Bethlehem? The village where David was, so a dissension occurred in the crowd because of him, and some of them wanted to arrest him, but again no one laid hands on him. The prophecies clearly say that the Messiah will come from the line of David. This guy's from Galilee. Well, you know, if we read the other gospels, we find out that Jesus is from the house of David. His lineage it can be traced back to the house of David from his father Joseph. And that's why they had to go back to Bethlehem for the census and Because Bethlehem was where they were from, which was where David was from. So he did fulfill the prophecy. Verse forty five. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and he said to them, What why did you not bring him? The officers answered, Never has a man spoken in this way. The Pharisees then replied to them, You have been led astray, too, have you? Not one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in him, has he? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, the one who came to him before, being one of them, We read about Nicodemus a couple of chapters ago. He said to them, Our law does not judge the person unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it? They answered and said to him, You are not from Galilee as well, are you? Kind of a slam at at at Nicodemus, like you're you're not one of them, are you? Examine the scriptures and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee, and everyone went to his home. So this entire chapter is really based around the fact that Jesus is proclaiming who he is and it's showing the the struggle that the Jewish people are having in receiving him and believing him. And of course we see that the Pharisees and the religious leaders are trying to kill him. His personal family are struggling to believe in him. And the common people are starting to believe, but there's still this this kind of inner struggle, is he really the Messiah? And it really dates back to the fact in the very beginning of John, When we when we read that first principle or that first promise, when Jesus said, Whosoever believes in me shall have eternal life. He says that those who believe and receive, and so we have to believe who he is, believe that he is the Messiah. We have to make that decision for ourselves. Is he just a great prophet? Is he just a great teacher? Is he just a great man? Or is he truly the Son of God? The basic most fundamental principle of of being a believer is that we must believe in who he is and receive him into our lives.