Sunday Gathering - John 7 : 10-24 - Andy Holingum - Sermon Only

Amen. Good morning, everybody. So we are back in John this morning, having had a few weeks off.

Well, it seems like a few weeks anyway. So we're in John chapter 7. If you've got a Bible,

I encourage you to try and follow it. As Mike said, the passage is a little challenging

to get to grips with. So we're going to read it first and then go through it a little bit

verse by verse to try and understand it and unpack it for us today in 2026.

but just by way of context you remember hopefully some of the stuff that we've talked about in

recent weeks if we go back to John chapter 5 we talked about Jesus healing that guy on the sabbath

the man that had been paralyzed for over 30 years and as a result of that the Jewish leaders of his

day grumbling that he healed somebody on the sabbath and we'll come back to that in today's

passage and then a little bit after that we get into John chapter 6 because we're looking at the

gospel of John and his account of the life of Jesus and in John chapter 6 we came across the

feeding of the 5,000 years quite well-known miracle five loaves two fish and feeding all

those people and having loads left over and we talked about that and then straight after that

we got the story of the disciples crossing the sea of Galilee in the boat and Jesus coming walking

across the water to them in the middle of the night and the challenges around that that

presented and we went through that and then when they land on this other side of the sea of

Galilee we saw how Jesus taught the people of the time and how actually his teachings became hard

for them and a lot of his disciples fell away and decided that they couldn't follow Jesus and so we

get to John chapter 7 which Johnny talked us through a few weeks ago and at this point we

start we encounter this feast of tabernacles or feast of booths nothing to do with our worship

leader this morning. But we're going to encounter this today. And actually, the whole of chapter

seven is actually about what happens when Jesus goes to this feast. But let me just read from

verse, I'm going to start reading in verse 10. So what's happened at the beginning of chapter seven

is Jesus is saying, I'm not going to Jerusalem and Judea because they're going to try and kill me.

But then his brothers say, why don't you go to Jerusalem and do your miracles there?

even though at the same time his brothers don't believe he is who he's saying he is so it's kind

of interesting dynamic going on there so but Jesus tells his brothers he's not going to go

up to Jerusalem to this feast so his brothers leave and go off and the thinking Jesus is staying

behind in Galilee so in verse 10 of John chapter 7 we read this however after his brothers had

left for the feast he went also not publicly but in secret now at the feast the Jews were

watching for him and asking where is that man by jews here it means the jewish leaders who were

plotting to to kill him because they don't like what he's doing they say where is that man among

the crowds however there was a widespread whispering about him some said well he's a good

man others replied no he deceives people but no one would say anything publicly about him for fear

of the jews not until halfway through the feast did jesus go up to the temple courts and begin

to teach. The Jews were amazed and asked, how did this man get such learning without having studied?

If only that could be true of all of us, right? That would be great, wouldn't it? Jesus answered,

my teaching is not my own, it comes from him who sent me. If anyone chooses to do God's will,

he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. He who speaks

on his own does so to gain honor for himself but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him

is a man of truth there is nothing false about him has not moses given you the law yet not one

of you keeps the law why are you trying to kill me you were demon possessed the crowd answered

who's trying to kill you jesus said to them i did one miracle and he's referring back to that healing

of the guy on the sabbath that had been paralyzed for 30 odd years i did one miracle and you

were all astonished yet because moses gave you circumcision though actually it didn't come from

moses but from the patriarchs that's abraham isaac and jacob you circumcise a child on the sabbath

now if a child can be circumcised on the sabbath so the law of moses may not be broken why are you

angry with me for healing the whole man on the sabbath stop judging by mere appearances and make

a right judgment okay right then so so what's he's talking about so as i said his brothers

have tried to persuade him to go he say i'm not going and then actually as we read there jesus

goes in secret to this feast of tabernacles or this feast of tabernacles also known it is known

as the feast of booze or the feast of ingathering was one of three great pilgrimage festivals of

the jewish year so it's good to have a little bit of background so we kind of understand a little

bit more of what Jesus is talking about here and what John is telling us and this festival ran from

the 15th to the 22nd of the seventh month of the Jewish calendar and every male was required to

attend and during the festival they lived in booths hence the feast of booths which were made

out of palm trees our boughs and branches and leaves of palm trees and sacrifices were offered

every day for the eight days and I think I worked out there was 199 animals were sacrificed

and a whole mass of grain offerings as well and on the last day the eighth day there was a big

celebration everyone came together and we'll come back to that again in a minute and the it was it

was a thanksgiving for the provision of god you know a little bit like we used to have harvest

time thanksgiving in this country you know thanking god for the provision of the year this

was thanking god for providing for them for the year but it also had a historical context because

they were looking back to when the people of Israel were going through the wilderness and

God had brought them out of Egypt and they spent those 40 years living in booths in the wilderness

you're very popular today living going through the world as 40 and God provided for them so again

it's hard for us to grasp that because we're not great on celebrating our history and owning our

history and rejoicing over stuff from thousands of years ago but in their culture in that time

in that society it was a big part of what they all did and a big part of their national

identity and so yeah so we get to verse 10 and Jesus goes secretly so let's just go through this

verse 11 to 13 so the Jews who don't wrong chapter let me flip the page verse 11 to 13 now at the

feast the Jews were watching for him and asking where is that man among the crowds there was a

widespread whispering about him some said he's a good man others replied no he deceives people

but no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews so as Jesus goes up to this

festival the Jewish leaders are on the lookout for him because they want to get him they were

they're looking to trap him ultimately they're looking to kill him because they're not happy

with what he's doing and yet even amongst the crowds there's this strange split view

about what they think about jesus some say he's a good man some say he's a deceiver and it's the

same is true today isn't it there are lots of different views about jesus and we've talked

about this before already as we've gone through john it's interesting here with two almost opposing

views see jesus is and should be divisive sometimes we water him down to be so nice

gentle jesus meek and mild and we misinterpret what that means and we water him down but jesus

actually is divisive and has that effect on people and it's also interesting that some say he's a

good man some say he's a deceiver but i hope we've learned already that he's neither right if you

remember i think chris was speaking it must have been chris because there was a c.s lewis quote

when you know c.s lewis describes how jesus does not give us the option of thinking of him as

just a good man or of thinking of him as a deceiver he is either truly the son of god that

has invaded this planet 2 000 years ago or is something far far far worse he doesn't leave open

those options that are in the middle and yet at this point in time the crowd are thinking well

what is he who is he what's he like but also we read that no one speaks up for him for fear of

the authority so the crowd are mumbling and whispering about about him but no one dares say

anything publicly for fear of the authorities and i just observed that in every generation

the people of god have to learn this in their own setting will we speak up for jesus or will we not

for fear of our family for fear of our schoolmates for fear of peer pressure for fear of

our neighborhood and yes even for fear of the society in which we live or for fear of our

government and every generation of the church has to answer this question will we do that will we

speak up it's also interesting uh to note that you know they won't speak up and yet this feast

we're going to read later on in chapter seven not today but jesus we read that on the last and

greatest day of the feast that eighth day jesus stands up and says if anyone is thirsty let him

come to me and drink and streams of living water will flow out of him by this he meant the holy

spirit which he will pour out roll forward a few a couple a bit of time into acts chapter two and

that holy spirit is poured out and we move from from a from a people that will not speak up for

fear of the authorities to discovering men and women that have encountered this holy spirit that

Jesus has poured out standing up with boldness and proclaiming Jesus is the saviour of the world

such a transformation brought about by the move of the Holy Spirit we got all of that to look

forward to so then carrying on verse 14 not until halfway through the feast did Jesus go up to the

temple courts and begin to teach the Jews were amazed and asked how did this man get such learning

without having studied so he's gone up to this festival secretly and then halfway through so

he gets like day four and he kind of steps out and he doesn't just do it subtly he goes right

to the place where the hubbub is where it's all happening and he goes to the temple and he stands

up and he starts to teach he stops being in secret and comes at front and center of everybody's

attention and starts to teach and there's this immediate reaction to jesus that the people are

amazed at what it is he has to say you see normally to stand up and teach in the temple

you would have to have served under a rabbi for 10 years you would have done all sorts of learning

but jesus has done none of this and here he is teaching not just with such knowledge not just

head knowledge but teaching with authority and teaching in a way that these guys have never

heard before and yet you know he's not even been to university he's not done the course on how to

communicate with passion he's not done the course on how you do this interaction when you're trying

to get a message across none of it and yet here he is teaching with such wisdom and with such

authority because he is God the source of all truth that is Jesus who we worship and so they're

asking these questions how can he do that how can he stand here and say this what isn't he just some

carpenter guy from from from some back of beyond how can he stand in the temple in Jerusalem in

the center in front of it and bring such wisdom and authority and actually you know we have the

same question today in our world how can this Jesus be true how can this Jesus be someone who

speaks with such authority. Now for that generation that we're reading in John chapter 6, it's a

religious question because they are a religious society and Jesus is challenging their religion

massively. For us it's not a religious question in our society, it's a question of ownership.

If what Jesus is saying is true, then he owns you and he owns me and that is a big issue for us

because we don't want to be owned we want our own way right so it's a it's a massive issue today

just as it was then although the reason for it is slightly different in our culture and in our

society carrying on verse 16 jesus answered so he's answering him he's getting the message that

they're kind of asking these questions how can you do this so he answers them jesus answered my

teaching is not my own it comes from him who sent me if anyone chooses to do God's will he will find

out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own he who speaks on his own does so

to gain honor for himself but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth

there is nothing false about him so jesus states his case for why he is able to speak with authority

into people's lives of why he has this wisdom about life and what it is about and why he's

able to do this and three things that he pulled that he brings together here in these couple of

verses first of all from scripture so he says my teaching is not my own it comes from him who sent

me so he's saying from scripture he's saying i'm not making this up what i am bringing what jesus

is bringing is not some new teaching what jesus is bringing is not something new but is merely a

continuation of what god has already said in the past and he's talking to an audience who will know

the old testament who will know what god has said theoretically in the past and what jesus is saying

I'm not bringing anything new I'm bringing what the one who sent me has already said because Jesus

has been sent by his father by God and he's saying I am simply bringing the same message that God has

always said so that my father has always said to her you go back through the pages of the old

testament you discover as we were singing earlier and as John read earlier for us there's a message

of grace and of mercy and redemption and of love and God's desire for a people of his own that

comes through the pages of the Old Testament

and what Jesus is saying, that is my

message, there's nothing new

about what I'm bringing, look at

scriptures, look at the Old Testament

and what God says through it, look at the promises

and prophecies pointing to the

Messiah coming and see that it's

about me and he's saying I'm not bringing

anything new, I'm pointing

to my Father, I'm bringing his

message, I'm bringing

his message and I'm only speaking

what God the Father has

already said through those scriptures. You see, if we study this book, if we take time out to read

it and digest it, and sometimes, like in this passage this morning, it's hard, right, to do that,

but if we take time out to study it, then we will begin to see the voice and the authority of God

through Jesus in scripture from beginning to end, because this gives us the ultimate authority of

who God is and what he is about and if anybody says to you this is what God says this is what

God about the only way you know that's true is by digesting what is in here and we hold this up as

the yardstick the plumb line the thing that keeps us true to what we're doing and so we grapple with

it I think Spurgeon was a Baptist minister in the 19th century and he said this quote in the bible

we have the perfect library

and he who studies it thoroughly

will be a better scholar

than if he had devoured

the Alexandrian library

entire

the Alexandrian library was one of the

old wonders of the world

that had 700,000 books

so he's saying the person that studies

this will be a better scholar

than if he read all of those

we might adapt his quote today

and say instead in the bible

we have the perfect library

And he who studies it thoroughly will be a better scholar

than if he knew everything in ChatGPT and Copilot and Gemini.

Yeah?

Seriously, that's what he's saying.

Because it's in here, all right?

And grappling with it is just so important.

So Jesus is saying, I'm only bringing what is already in here.

I'm not bringing something new.

Second thing Jesus says, why he speaks with authority and wisdom,

is by action.

He says, I'll just flip the page again, excuse me.

He says, if anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out.

In other words, Jesus ties his teaching and his authority to lived experience.

It's not theoretical what Jesus is talking about.

It's not, oh, that's a nice thing, but in the meantime, I'm just going to get on with real life.

He's saying the words of Jesus are absolutely relevant to you and to me

every hour of every day of the whole of our lives.

no matter what situations we are going through.

If you were here last week,

you heard a brilliant story from Janet

sat at the front here

about the reality of that

and the relevance of Jesus

through lived experience

which involves pain and hurt

and upset and anger

and yet there is a God who is true

who supports and sustains

and has a plan and a purpose

and Janet expressed that far better

than I will this morning.

But Jesus is tying his words

to lived experience.

he's not talking about some theory that's removed from reality he's basically saying try me

test me out there's a psalm that says taste and see that the Lord is good and Jesus is saying

come on then try me out and then you will discover that what I am saying is true and then you will

discover this is why i speak with authority see if we choose to pray if we choose to read the

scriptures if we choose to pursue god's plan for our life jesus is saying then we will discover

jesus you are right way beyond my wildest dreams and he will get a hold of us and we will get a

hold of him and and it doesn't happen straight away right it takes time for light to dawn you

Because we're all impatient, we want it to happen like that.

And we want to go home and just flip the pages and think, oh yeah, and the light bulbs come on.

Those moments happen from time to time.

But other times it's like a toddler learning to walk.

We're reading the Bible and trying to get to know Jesus.

And we fall over and we collapse and people need to encourage us again and pick us up and say,

yeah, come on, you can do it. Come on, come on, come on, you can do it.

Just like a toddler learning to walk.

And so Jesus ties his teaching to real life.

and that's why he speaks with authority and the third reason he gives us is by his own personal

witness he says this he who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself but he who works for

the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth you see Jesus motives in doing this are

selfless he's doing his father's work his father has sent him God the father has sent him and he's

doing his work. He's not working for himself. His motives are selfless. He's putting himself at risk

as he stands up and teaches others. We've already read at the beginning he didn't want to go there

because they're going to kill him. And he knows that's going to happen. He knows that's part of

the plan. But he puts himself up front and he puts himself at risk. But more than that, when he is

teaching he is always pointing back to his father he is here to bring glory to god the father that's

what he is about he's always pointing people to his father and his teaching points us to god it

doesn't point us to himself you see the son has come to bring glory to the father and not to

himself and when we worship jesus and when we sing our songs to jesus jesus saying father can you hear

that they love you they worship you he is pointing us to his father and so his teaching brings glory

to the one who sent him and not to himself and this is really important because humanly speaking

we struggle with this massively right so so so so when i'm teaching even when we're going through

this passage this morning and i'm here i should be hopefully trying in some way to point people to

Jesus and not to me, right? By how I'm doing this. If you think I'm pointing it to me, come and let

me know because I need to deal with it, right? But we should be following pastors and leaders

and teachers that are men and women who are pointing us to Jesus and not pointing us to

themselves, right? And sometimes that is not the case because their character or whatever else,

they're drawing people to themselves. And that is a sad thing. I remember in our previous church,

working with the pastor there he always said we're trying to build church away from ourselves

as the leaders so that if we go the church carries on and we're pointing people to Jesus and you know

it's the same here you know Nick and Erica are away so we can talk about him right so so but

they're trying to build something that is away from themselves and not about themselves but it

is about Jesus and pointing people to Jesus so that when we're not here the church carries on

in Jesus name because we love him and it's about him and we're pointing people to him

yeah and you know it's a massive thing because we live in a world where the entertainment industry

is massive and it's completely the opposite everything you and I watch on telly so much

or on social media is all about people raising their profile that's a phrase isn't it got a rate

if you want to get on at work got to raise your profile you know we heard that a few times and

But this is completely the opposite way around.

Jesus is completely the opposite way around.

And in the church, it needs to be completely the opposite way around.

It's not about ourselves.

It's about pointing people to Jesus,

who is pointing people back to the Father.

Let's carry on.

Verse 19 and 20.

Has not Moses given you the law, yet not one of you keeps the law?

Why are you trying to kill me?

And so the crowd, who don't realize that, say,

You are demon-possessed, the crowd answered.

Who's trying to kill you?

So Jesus knows the religious pride that the people have in the law of Moses,

that they think they're so good because they're following it.

And yet he points out none of them is able to keep it in its entirety.

And yet not everyone in the crowd understands that,

so they cry out, he's demon-possessed.

And then in verse 21 we read this,

Jesus said to them, I did one miracle, and you're all astonished.

Yeah, because Moses gave you circumcision,

though actually it was from the patriarchs,

you circumcised a child on the Sabbath,

So if the boy is born and he's eight days old on the Sabbath,

they circumcise him on the Sabbath.

And so he says, now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath

so the law of Moses isn't broken,

why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath?

He calls out their pride in the law of Moses,

but their hypocrisy in doing something on the one hand

that is in obedience to God,

but then getting angry with Jesus for healing somebody completely.

on the Sabbath, and he exposes their religiosity and hypocrisy, and we need Jesus to continue to

do that today, right, to expose our own religiosity and hypocrisy, and in some ways, you know, we are,

all of us are like the Jews of his day, you know, we're not, we don't have pride necessarily in how

we do religion, although that can pop up from time to time, but we have things in our own lives that

we're proud about, and that we like to stick to, thank you very much, you know, we have things in

their own lives that result in us spending time covering up and wearing masks and hiding things.

And then Jesus comes along and he starts to expose that. And he starts to say, you know,

you don't have to live like that. You don't have to have that cover up. And he cuts through that

and offers a better way of life. You see, this was a nation that was proud of its ancestry,

proud of the way it did things, proud of how it followed the law of Moses. And yet in doing that,

they had lost sight of the very God that was behind that law in the first place what a tragedy

what a tragedy you know and how often in clinging to the things that we like in our life and in our

lifestyle and our lifestyle choices do we hold on to them and actually as a result we're kind of

hiding God from ourselves and we're missing what he's able to do so Jesus will cut through that

if we let him and if we have ears to hear but finally verse 24 a couple of things to say about

this he says at the end stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment you see

jesus is saying that merely following the law of god but missing the reality of a loving merciful

god behind that is completely missing the point you know it's nuts if we get so hooked up about

how we do church about how we we must have our 30 minutes of worship no offense and we must have

this and we must have that and it's got to be like this and then we get argy-bargy about it you know

we're in danger of losing the whole point there is a loving merciful God behind all of this which is

why we're here in the first place and that's what these guys have done and Jesus is calling that out

and so he's saying stop judging by superficial things stop judging at face value stop judging

at just looking at something and think oh that's wrong that's not right but actually start to think

about what is behind that and it's interesting Jesus not only taught this here but he modeled

it himself who we saw earlier in chapter four when he encountered the Samaritan woman there's all

sorts of face value issues in that interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well. There's

issues of race and nationalism, you know, Jews and Samaritans don't talk to each other. There's

issues of gender and sexuality, man and woman don't talk to each other in that situation.

There's issues around her lifestyle choices. All of those things are obvious and face value stuff

that Jesus could have dived into, but he doesn't. He looks for the root issue that's going on there

in that case about her identity we're going to see in the next chapter when we get to chapter

eight about the the woman that the the religious leaders drag before him and say we found her

caught in adultery the law says we should stone him what do you say talk about a face value judgment

right face value judgment and jesus is saying don't do that so you know jesus is thinking

look and be on that you know where's the man for crying out loud in this situation who else amongst

you is a sinner oh he's not looking at face value he's getting he's thinking behind that beyond that

and he's encouraging us to do the same and actually asking us to do the same in that example

sin is sin there's no there's no hierarchy stop looking things at face value and even in his

parables he does exactly the same thing he uses them to teach people to stop thinking at looking

at situations at face value and get beyond that you know the parable of the good samaritan again

is another story but thinking about beyond tribalism thinking beyond being just proud

about the group of people you're a part of and getting beyond that and realizing everyone is

our neighbor i'm working that out and this is this is challenging right because you know we like the

Jesus bit that says nice things, I mean like the Jesus

bit with the Holy Spirit

feeling and the emotional stuff

but this is heart stuff that Jesus is touching

on here in our lives

this is crunch stuff

that you and I have got to learn to stop

being men and women who just look at things at face

value and start to see beyond

that, I don't know if we

often put that in the Christian gospel but Jesus

is bringing it out here for us to see

of letting go, of

letting go of things like

as I say use the word tribalism but you know mixing with people that are not like me or not

like you learning to do that you see for me I was the realization recently I talked to Angie about

this that when I was growing up for a variety of factors I kind of came away with a sense of I just

mix with people that are like me which in my case was you know white middle class going to

further education etc etc but not only do you just mix with those people you avoid others you don't

trust other people that aren't like you. And I can't even now explain about how that

was arrived at, but that was the reality. You see, then the problem is you become a

Christian. And then the problem is God adds you to the church. And then the problem is

you read the churches about men and women from every tribe and nation and tongue and

skin colour and dialect and social standing and earning capability and blah, blah, blah,

blah blah blah and oh my word i'm suddenly in a full room full of people that are completely

different from me and jesus is saying you gotta love him and it's the same for all of us you know

it's a beautiful thing about the church you know if we could really nail this what a model it would

be in society today about how to get on with people that are just not like us and work that

because jesus is is telling us and all of that comes from you know not looking at things at face

value but thinking beyond learning not to judge others um you see when you're in pastoral things

you always learn pretty quickly that when someone comes to you the issue is never the issue

what's at face value is never really what's going on but so when somebody comes to edge on a thursday

and they've got a question about benefits you know and we're able to answer that then we discover

pretty soon oh there's also this or oh there's also that and could you help me with this problem

and could you help me fill this form out?

What is presented is seldom the issue

and we need to be men and women who learn what it is

not to judge at face value

but get beyond that.

And I guess one of the most practical places

where we can all put this into action

is in the area of gossip, right?

We all do it.

We all get sucked in.

Let's not pretend we don't.

But this is such...

Gossip is always based on face value.

It's never based on what's really going on.

It's always based on face value.

and it's such a wildfire that can spread and cause so much damage and yet if we get beyond

thinking at face value then the way to think through that for gossip is when you hear stuff

think is it loving is it true is it necessary if you can't answer yes to all those three questions

squash it easily done i hope all right getting to think beyond face value i think is something

jesus calls us all to and to work at that together let's pray lord jesus we just want to thank you

for your word today that is alive and active but more than that jesus we want to thank you for you

lord we want to thank you for what you've taught us about yourself we want to thank you jesus

that all you say and do points to the father and there's that we're your people this morning in

your church here today lord we want to pray oh god come and have your way in our lives you know

where we're at Lord with these things we've been talking about

you know where we're at Lord with

judging at face value or not

you know where we are, we're bringing honour to ourselves

or not and we just pray Lord God

how we need your help

in Jesus name, Amen

Amen, Mike