but I have not come on 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, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him, and they said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? And the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him. And the chief priests and the Pharisees sent out officers to arrest him. And then Jesus said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come. And the Jews said to one another, 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 to teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, you will seek me and you will not find me? And where I am, you cannot come. This is the word of the Lord. We invite our children up. Good morning. It's good to see you all. Are you still awake? Good. I'm glad to hear that. I hope you keep staying awake this morning. I don't know how far you are in your catechism. I don't know if you've gotten past this point and you just don't remember it, but I'm gonna assume that you don't know the answers to some of these questions. Is that okay? Is that a deal? All right, well, I'm gonna ask you some questions and I'm gonna give you the answers, but you can take a guess, okay? Do you remember who our first parents were? Ooh, let's see. Martha. Adam and Eve, good job. All right, now some harder questions. What was the sin of our first parents? What do you think, Moses? Word for word, good job, buddy. Eating the forbidden fruit. Why did they eat the forbidden fruit? What do you think, Henry? Take a guess. You wanna think about it? You wanna ask for help? Okay. Anybody else wanna take a guess? Moses, you wanna take a guess? Yeah, we're gonna get to that. But it wasn't Satan's fault. Satan didn't force the fruit on them. All right, you know what the answer is? Repeat after me. Because they did not believe what God had said. Yeah, they didn't believe what God had said. They trusted in something else. Now, who tempted them to this sin? Andrew? Satan. Yeah, the devil tempted Eve, and then she gave the fruit to whom? Silas. Silas? Yeah, you got it, buddy. All right, now, here's an important question. What happened to our first parents when they had sinned? Do you remember what they were before? It was two H's, they were? They were holy and happy, but instead of being holy and happy, they became what? Close, and that's pretty much it, yeah. Sinful and miserable, or sad. Sad's a simple word. But they became sinful and miserable. What if, here, okay, you ready for this one? This is the last one. What effect did the sin of Adam have on all mankind? You may know that one. All right, repeat after me, you ready? All mankind is born, oh, you gotta repeat after me, you can't say it while I'm saying it, you don't know what I'm gonna say. All mankind is born. All mankind is born. In a state of sin and misery. In a state of sin and misery. Sounds pretty awful, doesn't it? Yeah, well, here's what I want you to do today. I want you to ask your parents, don't forget, because I know you've been forgetting. Yeah, you know. Don't forget, ask your parents to pray for you tonight or this afternoon. Ask them to pray for you today. Ask them that they would pray for you that you would know how we can be made holy and happy again. Okay? Is that a deal? All right, you guys can go back and sit with your people. All right, have your Bibles open, if they're not already, to John chapter seven, verses 25 through 36. And let's go to the Lord in prayer together, asking that he would bless this time of the preaching of God's word. Lord, I echo the prayer of your prophet, that I rejoice greatly in you, in the Lord, in my Lord, that my soul shall exult, shall take victory in my God, because, Lord, you have clothed me with garments of salvation. You have covered all those who are yours this morning in garments of salvation, robes of righteousness, like a bridegroom and a bride, adorned with headdress, jewels, Lord, cause your word to go out, to be rained down upon this people here, the people that are listening online, even in my own heart and my own soul, and allow this word to sprout up. Let righteousness and praise sprout up before the people here, before the people listening online, before all the nations. Lord, help your speaker today to speak with authority, a supernatural, Holy Spirit-filled authority, and let your word be proclaimed faithfully. All right, thank you for all these things. Thank you for the opportunity to do this. What a joy. May it be a joy. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Have I ever told you about the time that I had to go to the hospital because I thought that I knew better than my parents and a dog bit part of my face off? Have I ever told you this story? I'm assuming not by the blank stares that I'm getting. Let me briefly tell you this story. When I was in my, I think I was in my late teens or maybe 20, I was coming home on a break from college and we had a beagle, a big, fat, overweight, not very healthy, very old beagle that had gotten into my parents' house and he went into the dining room which you have to go down a couple of stairs to get there. And he couldn't come up the stairs because he was so fat and old and he had arthritis. And I came in and my parents didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to get the dog out of the house. And I said, well, I'll just pick him up. I can carry him out of the house. No problem, right? You already know the end of the story, so you know where this is going. Um, and they told me, they said, no, he, he's really in a lot of pain. You can't pick him up. That'll really hurt him a lot. And he'll, he might hurt you, you know, not on purpose, but. because he thinks you're hurting him." And I said, no, I know better. I know my dog. He'll be fine. He's never hurt me before in his life. He's never growled at me. He'll be fine. I'll do it. They warned me, and I just continued to think in my mind, yes, look, I know better than you guys. I know, I know, I know. But you know what? I did not know better. I picked up the dog. He did exactly what they said. He bit me on my face. It was painful. I had to go to the hospital, get a lot of stitches, and I learned a pretty important lesson that day. That there are many times that we think we know better when we actually do not. Now, hopefully, I have learned from that experience, and that as I've gotten older, I've learned not to pick up old arthritic dogs, to carry them. Just figure out another way to get them out. I hope that you too have some similar stories where you have learned as you've grown older, you've learned that you don't know as well as you think you do, and you've grown in humility a bit. Hopefully, we learn lessons like that. But my question for you this morning is, do we outgrow this tendency to think that we know better? And especially, do we outgrow the tendency to think that we know better than God? That's the problem here this morning in the text. That's the condition that you and I share with these people. I'm here to stand before you and tell you that your pastor is in many ways guilty of doing the same sin that the Jewish people and the Jewish leaders are committing. And you too are guilty of that as well. You see, The problem, this problem of thinking that they know better, is what Jesus faces with this next group of people, which is a different group of people, okay? We've been dealing with the visiting crowds that have come for the Feast of Booths, right? That's the context of John 7. It's the Feast of Booths, probably the most well-attended festival in all of first century Judaism, where they're coming into Jerusalem, lots of crowds, but now Jesus comes to this part where he's dealing with the Jews that live in Jerusalem. These are not the people that have traveled, these are the people that live there, that are aware of all the different teachers that come through, that hear the regular teaching, that are regularly there at the temple. And we see that in the text here. And they think that they know better, they think they know better from what they observe about Jesus and what they know about him, or what they think they know. Look at verse 25. Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this 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 we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. They have a knowledge from what they see. They see the teaching of Jesus. They hear the teaching of Jesus. They grasp it to some extent. And they're talking about the teaching that we heard two weeks ago in the sermon. We read two weeks ago in the previous verses that Jesus was saying the authorities had broken the law by seeking to kill him. And he called them, the crowds and the leaders, to a right judgment, right? Don't judge, look at verse 24, do not judge by appearances, by what you see, but judge with right judgment. So that's why we get in verse 25, the therefore, therefore the people of Jerusalem, therefore said this, based on this teaching. they totally miss the main point of his teaching, and they do the exact opposite of what they should be doing, which is they misjudge him, just like the previous group did. They think that they know him from what they see in his teaching, but they see the authority's response. They recognize that the authorities, the Jewish leaders, have a lack of response, really. There's a lack of speaking and a lack of action. Do they not know? Is this not the man that they seek to kill that he just accused them of doing? Why did they let him just continue to teach openly? Why are they not saying anything to him? Do they believe that He really is the Christ? Now, I don't think that's a genuine question. Now, there are some authorities who do believe. We'll read that in John, we've already read that in John 3 with Nicodemus. We'll get to the end of chapter 7 and Nicodemus will reappear again in this story and we'll see him pushing back on the rest of the authorities. I think Nicodemus genuinely, I think that he genuinely had a belief. The text is, we're not sure about that. He's there in John 3, he's here in John 7. He'll come back after Jesus' death and helps to bury him. But there seems to be some belief there. We read later on in John that there are other authorities that believe, but for fear of the people. They don't openly acknowledge him. They fear the people more than they fear God. as we'll read later in John's Gospel. Now, understand this, that just because they stay silent, maybe people like Nicodemus, maybe other authorities, maybe Joseph of Arimathea, don't know, just because they stay silent doesn't really mean a whole lot. There are times to stay silent, okay? There are times when it's best to keep our mouths closed and to not say anything. That's true, that's probably true more times than not. But, when it comes to Jesus, When it comes to who He is, who you believe He is, who you say that He is, that is not a time to stay silent. Not acting, when it comes to Jesus, not acting does not mean that you believe in Him. Just because you sit in here on a Sunday morning, never say anything, never talk to anybody, you never proclaim Christ, just because you're here doesn't mean that you're a Christian. Just because you don't engage in open, gross sin that's apparent doesn't mean that you are following him. Just because the authorities are not openly speaking about him certainly does not mean that they believe in him. So many of them don't. Here's the thing, you can think that you know Jesus and you can be wrong about it, and that's scary. And it's a right fear. But Jesus is not some, it's not like the Gnostics would say where it's this some very unknowable or it's only the secret knowledge that only some can obtain. Jesus has very clearly taught you, you who are here, who he is. It's plain for you to read. It's plain for you to listen to. It was plain for the Jewish people to hear. You can think you know Jesus and be wrong. Beware of basing your understanding, here's where you mess up, beware of basing your understanding of Jesus, or really for that matter, your understanding of people, or of life, or of death, or whatever, on anything, something other than scripture. Beware of that. Beware of saying, yes, I have a relationship with Jesus. I know him. I don't know what the Bible says about him. Do you really understand? That's what these crowds are doing. These crowds, that's what they do here because they have this preconceived notion of the Messiah. And frankly, it's not based on what it should be. Because they see, they have knowledge from what they see, right? They see his teaching, they see the authority's response, and then they see where he's from. And they say, we know him, right? They're gonna go on to argue at the end of the chapter, chapter seven, about the birthplace of the Messiah, and where Jesus is from. But they assume that he is from Nazareth, which is in the middle of Galilee, he's a Galilean, which is partly true. but they judge him as not being the Messiah based on this incomplete understanding. And it's not right. And I would ask us, do we too miss the most important part of where Jesus is from? Because you can get all these things right and miss the most important thing of where he's from. Do we lack the humility to recognize that we do not know as much as we think we do? Do we base our knowing simply on what we can observe? Because Jesus knows something that is different from what these people know. Look at verse 28. So Jesus proclaimed as he 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 notice what Jesus knows, and where His knowledge comes from. His knowledge comes from knowing the Father. Jesus knows the people. We've seen that time and time again, and we'll see it time and time again. Jesus knows them. He is aware of their knowledge. He is aware of how it lacks. He knows that they don't know the Father. And that's the most important thing here in this text. He knows that they don't know the Father. If they knew the Father, then they would know the Son. Now, here's the thing. Those of us who have relationships with people who are outside the faith, our friends who are Jehovah's Witnesses or Muslims or Mormons, I'm glad that you have relationships with these people. You should. There's a lot of them in our area. They don't know the truth. They need to know the truth. You are here in this area so that you can proclaim that truth to them. But here's the thing about their understanding of God, because many of them would say, Yeah, we, especially if you've talked with a Jehovah's Witness, yeah, we worship, we understand God the Father, right? We understand God. We just disagree about Jesus. Same thing with Muslims. They'll tell you the same thing. Yeah, we basically worship the same God, the God of Abraham, right? But we just disagree on the role of Jesus. That's not correct. That's not right. We do not simply disagree about Jesus. because these people misunderstand God the Father too. Here's the thing, you cannot separate God the Father from his sending of God the Son. You can't do it. You miss God the Father if you miss Jesus. You fundamentally misrepresent God apart from Jesus. So when we're having those conversations, recognize that. No, you don't know God the Father. No, we don't worship the same God. Because an essential part of who God is is the Son. If I can give you an example, an illustration, it's like walking in to Fellowship Sunday, right, Fellowship Lunch, and you have a big container, and you tell me you've brought a big container of banana pudding, and that's fantastic. I'm excited to eat it. I'm gonna eat a lot of it because it's really good, and I open it up, and there's not a single slice of banana in it. Let me tell you, friend, you've not brought banana pudding. you brought vanilla pudding with wafers. And that is fundamentally different than banana pudding. It's not the same. That's a little silly, but it's not the same. It really isn't. And far exponentially more is God, right? God is, the God without Christ is not God. It's a fundamentally different idea that you have. As we're gonna read later in John's gospel, Jesus is the key. Jesus is the only way to the Father. There is no other way. There is no other way. Jesus knows the Father. This is where he comes from. This is the most important part of where he comes from. Jesus' identity is not that he's from Nazareth, not that he's from Galilee, and not that he's even been born in Bethlehem, as the scriptures foretold. Those are important, but that's not the core. The core is Jesus comes from the Father. That is where he is from. Look at John 1 again. I'm just gonna read a few verses to remind you of what John told us in the beginning. Look at John 1, 1 and 2. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. Look at verse 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace And truth, look at verse 18, no one has ever seen God, the only God who was at the Father's side. He has made him known. That's important for you to recognize how key Jesus Christ is in knowing the Father. Because I would ask you, what about you? What is your understanding? Is it true what I shared with the children earlier? that we are all born into a state of sin and misery. Is that true? It is true that we are all creatures of God. We are all created beings. We are all made in the image of God. That's true. Even the worst sinner who hates God and who is openly hostile, the worst person you can think of, A lot of times I think of just myself. But you think of the worst person that you know of, that person is made in the image of God. However, we are not born into his family. When we are born into this earth, we're made in the image of God, but we are not a part of his family. Jesus, by contrast, has always been a part of the family of God. He has always known the Father. He is eternally the Son. But you and I, we must be adopted. We must be adopted into this family. We're not simply born naturally. into the family of God. So either we are adopted into his family or we reject him and refuse to recognize the one true God, much like the chief priests and the Pharisees here. Look what they do in verse 30. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. So the chief priests and Pharisees have knowledge from what they hear. And they think they know better from what they hear. They hear the crowd muttering. And so they think they know what's best. Before they heard the crowd muttering, some believed, some sort of believed, some didn't. They hear the people now muttering and are asking, well, this seems like this might be the guy. And so they think they know what's best. In their case, it's we've got to arrest this guy. We're gonna arrest him because they hear the crowd being stirred up, and they don't know the half of it. Because when we get to chapter eight, talk about being stirred up, Jesus is really gonna, he's gonna go back over everything we talked about in chapter seven, and he's gonna make it explicit. This is who I am. This, let me tell you. You thought that you knew, let me tell you. And it's gonna stir him up, and you're gonna see it. We're not there yet. They hear the crowd muttering, they also hear the crowd believing. Now we don't know how they believed or to what extent, it just says many of the people believed in him. But there at least is some initial trust that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Messiah, the one sent from God the Father. Because the Pharisees know the law well, okay, don't discount that, they know the law well, the problem is they don't know the law giver. Because of that, they default to arrest Jesus. They default to seeking his murder. They default to sin, just like you and just like me. We think, we know better, we act on impulse, we act on emotion, and we find that our emotions, which are just indicators of what we really desire, right? When I get angry about something, most of the time it's because I want something, I'm not getting it. It tells me, it's not a good, It's not a good thing to follow, but it is a good indicator. And we find that our emotions and our desires don't line up with what God wants, and what do we do in that situation? We know what unbelievers do, but Christian, even in your situation, even in my situation, what do we do sometimes? Instead of repenting, like the Pharisees should do, we barrel ahead with our foolish actions. That's what we do, just like the Pharisees. But God is sovereign, not the Pharisees, not us, only God, which means that as much as they would want to arrest Him, they can't until it's His time. because God is in control over that. They hear and they recognize what they think they need to do, but they don't know His time. Jesus' life will not be taken from Him. He will lay it down. He will choose to go to the cross because Jesus knows His time and Jesus knows His purpose. Look at verse 33. Jesus then said, I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am, you cannot come. The Jews said to one another, 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, and where I am, you cannot come? See, Jesus knows His time, and He's gonna elaborate on this more in the future, but understand, as we talked about a little bit two weeks ago, death is not the end for Jesus. He knows where He is from, the Father. He knows to where He is going, the Father. He knows that His time is not yet, but it is coming soon. And He will have a glorious, glorious return to the Father. But not all will. Not everyone will. Again, because Jesus knows his time, he also knows these people. He knows these leaders. The leaders think that they know Jesus, they think that they can find him out, but they are wrong. And there will come a time in your life too when you who do not know Jesus may seek him but you will not find him. That is a scary warning for all of you today who are not believers. There may come a time, well there will come a time. There absolutely will come a time when you may seek Him, but will not find Him. What we read in Isaiah 55 this morning in our first service, remember Isaiah's call to the people of Judah. who similarly many of them did not listen. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. That's the call today for you too. Isaiah hit the nail on the head. That's it. That's the call to repentance. Isaiah did not understand fully who Christ was, but he saw a coming servant. We read it in Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 42. We read of the coming servant and he knew that one would come who would bear the sins and the transgressions, who would atone, who would carry all that. And so he tells the people of Judah, Seek the Lord. And I would say to you this morning, if you're not a believer, if you're listening online, now is the time. Seek the Lord now. Because Jesus knows you too. And Jesus knows His purposes. He knows His purpose better than the leaders, better than the crowds, better than His disciples, better than us here today, frankly. He has been sent by the Father, He will return to the Father, and He will come again. But what is the purpose in all this? Well, the leaders don't know his purpose, but they ask a pretty good question, or a pretty good set of questions. They ask, what does he mean? What does he mean by saying this? Does he intend to do this? Where does he intend to go? Well, they don't know. I think at least at some level they've come to the point to where they realize they don't know. They thought that they did, but they don't. Is he gonna go to the scattered tribes around the world, the 10 lost tribes of Israel who were scattered when they were taken away into slavery by Assyria and intermarried with all the people and who knows what tribe we're from anymore? Is he gonna go to these people who are really not, we don't really consider them Jews anymore because they're scattered among the Greeks and they're part of the Hellenistic culture Yeah, he will. Will he go to the Gentiles? Yeah, the answer is yes, his disciples will. He's going to send them out into Jerusalem, into Judea, into Samaria, into all the world. And you know that because if you're sitting here this morning, you're part of that. At least, I think most of us are Gentiles here. We're living proof that Jesus' word and his gospel did go out into all the world because of the faithfulness of his people. but the leaders here don't know. So what does Jesus mean? What does Jesus mean when he says these things? Because that's the question for every one of us here today. Again, as I mentioned earlier, what did Jesus' words mean for us who were born in a state of misery and of sin? For those who are born of this world, who are enemies of God, who are lost, and who are needing a family, needing a great father who will take us to Himself. What do these words mean? See, I'm afraid that for some of you, and maybe some of you listening online, you won't find Him. That's my legitimate fear. And that is my prayer, is that you will. I'm afraid some of you won't, though. You will not be able to come where He is gone. So can I plead with you again today? Please be reconciled to God. Christian, if you are in Christ, you have no fear. You should have no fear that you will be a part of that. But you too, You too need to be reconciled to God. Come to Him again, reach out to Him. He sent His Son into this world so that all those believing in Him would receive eternal life as adopted sons in His family. You can be a part of that. That is the purpose of Jesus coming into this world. So believe. Now, Pastor Clare's been, or he started his teaching in the first service on the Puritans, and let me just tell you, I didn't get to hear it because I was out sick, but I'm looking forward to hearing more of it because the Puritans, in many ways, are far better than us, and certainly far better than me, at meditating on these truths, these truths of the gospel, and creating these wonderful quotes that you can just read and listen to, and think about, and meditate on, and just feast on these. Let me share one with you by Thomas Watson. Listen to what he says here. The wonder of God's love in adopting us will appear the more if we consider this, that God should adopt us when he had a son of his own. Men adopt because they want children and desire to have some to bear their name, but that God should adopt us when he had a son of his own? The Lord Jesus? That's a wonder of love. Christ is called God's dear son, a son more worthy than the angels. Now, since God had a son of his own, and such a son, how wonderful God's love in adopting us. We needed a father. but he did not need sons. Isn't that incredible? Not Watson, but just that truth. God didn't need you. God didn't need a family. God had a family. God had a perfect son and he chose. What love, what a wonder. You cannot find him. You cannot know Him, you cannot be with Him apart from new birth and adoption from the Father through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. So take a moment, church, and those of you who are not sure if you're believers or not, take a moment to pray to Him right now and tell Him who desires you that you desire Him. Let's pray. Thank you again for this time we've had to meditate on your word and I pray that you would be glorified in our response to it right now as we pray to you. That you would be glorified as we spend time in prayer and in song. As we go to fellowship together in lunch, Lord, in a few moments, I pray that these words, Lord, these haunting words that you gave to the chief priests and the Pharisees, that they would not fall on deaf ears like they did there. Lord, I pray that the people here would hear these things and would say, oh, I want to be with Jesus. I want to trust Him, I want to follow Him, I want to be with Him, I want to know Him. I've thought that I know, I thought that I knew Him, I thought that I knew what was right, I thought I knew that I was a good person, and I realize now that I'm not. That I too, just like the rest of the world, was born in a state of sin and misery, and I need a new birth, I need adoption, I need Christ to save me. I pray that for the believers here, that they would recognize that again, that we would recognize that we never outgrow our need for Christ. We never outgrow our need to come to Him in prayer and say, Lord, I need you again. Lord, I've forsaken you in so many ways. Lord, I've failed in so many ways this week, and past several weeks, and past months, past years, and I need you again. please forgive me, please come and abide with me, please continue to hold out your steadfast love for me. Lord, I pray that you would remind us of these things. And as we sing together, Lord, may these words sink into our hearts and into our minds, and may we go forth from here and live a life of obedience to Christ. It's in his name we pray, amen.