Sermon Tone Analysis

Nothing in your life is outside the purview of God’s control.

Not only is everything within His purview, everything is under his active and ongoing control.

Paul writes in , God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Nothing in your life is outside the purview of God’s control.

Not only is everything within His purview, everything is under his active and ongoing control.

Paul writes in , God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Nothing in your life is outside the purview of God’s control.

Not only is everything within His purview, everything is under his active and ongoing control.

Paul writes in , God “works all things according to the counsel of his will.

The Context

Jewish confusion (7:25-26).

Just moments before (7:20) the crowd treats Jesus as if He is out of His mind, thinking that they were trying to kill Him.

These people on the other hand know the truth.

They realize that this is the man that they were seeking to kill and yet now they weren’t doing anything about Him.

This is where their confusion begins.

First, they are trying to kill Him, and now they are letting Him publicly teach in the temple.

They conclude that possibly the religious leaders had found out some more information about Jesus being the Messiah, and that is why they were leaving Him alone.

No one will know where he comes from (7:27).

In this statement they are not saying that the lineage or the birthplace of the Messiah was unknown, but instead that the Messiah would be unknown until fully revealed.

“[I]t was well known that the Messiah was to be of the lineage of David and that his birthplace was to be Bethlehem (42; /).

The Jerusalemites thought they knew where Jesus came from, for he was commonly thought to be from Nazareth (1:45; 18:5, 7; 19:19), the village in which he grew up, but not where he was born.”[1]

Jesus on the other hand was known and had been known.

According to a Jewish saying (‘Sanhedr.’

97 a) “three things come wholly unexpected, Messiah, a god-send and a scorpion.”[2]

They knew where He was from and in their minds that didn’t fit their expectations of the coming of the Messiah.

Based on some OT passages, they concluded that the Messiah would be unknown until He appeared to redeem Israel.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

().

“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

().

And he said unto me, Like as thou canst neither seek out nor know the things that are in the deep of the sea: even so can no man upon earth see my Son, or those that be with him, but in the daytime.

( KJV Apoc).

Trypho, the Jewish opponent of the second-century apologist Justin Martyr, said, “But Christ—if He has indeed been born, and exists anywhere—is unknown, and does not even know Himself, and has no power until Elias come to anoint Him, and make Him manifest to all.”[3]

Jesus responds about his origination (7:28-29).

That first statement, “You both know Me and know where I am from,” is viewed in some other versions as a sarcastic question.

“You know ME?

And know where I am FROM?”

I don’t think he’s agreeing with them as to where he has come from.

A few reasons.

(1) He makes where he comes from more about a person than a place.

He doesn’t talk about a place but instead that he came from the Father.

Clearly, they don’t get that.

(2) They also don’t know where he came from geographically.

In verses 41 & 42, they say, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee?”

They don’t’ realize or remember that he was born in Bethlehem

“He who sent me is true” (7:28) provokes them.

“True” can refer to the idea of correctness and dependability.

If this is the case, the term would be communicating that God’s communication is accurate and true, and his integrity is dependable.

God speaks truth and as a result He is trustworthy, and therefore we can depend on him.

While this concept of truth is accurate of God, this is probably not the nuance being used here in John.

Instead, John emphasizes that God is genuine and real.

He is the true thing, the real thing, the “real deal.”

This statement inflames the religious leaders.

Piper.

You, the most religious, the most privileged, the most well-taught people in the world, the people with the very oracles of God, the Jewish Scriptures — you do not know God.

This is why you want to kill me.

I know God.

I am from God. God sent me.

And since you don’t know him, you can’t recognize me.[4]

The Jews prided themselves in thinking they had the corner of the market in regard to access and knowledge of God.

Jesus simply tells them that they’re a sham.

This didn’t go over well.

Message Outline

Purpose Statement.

Every aspect of our lives falls within the purview of God’s divine, beautiful, and exclusively Christocentric redemptive plan.

God’s plan is exclusively Christocentric.

Jesus informs the religious elite that since they don’t know him, they don’t know God.

This is a common theme in John’s gospel.

that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.

Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

().

But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.

If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

().

It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— ().

They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father.

If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

().

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here.

I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.

().

There is no acceptable or effective way to God other than through Jesus.

While it may appear gracious and winsome to not be definitive about Christ, to acknowledge him as “your way,” to believe and proclaim that there are many paths to God; it is not gracious.

It not only affirms another’s destructive and damned path; it makes Jesus out to be a liar.

Jesus said he was the only path to God.

Either he is the only true path, or he is a liar and not a path to God at all.

Everyone’s eternity hinges on their understanding of Jesus.

God’s plan is divinely and sovereignly orchestrated.

Multiple times throughout the text we see God’s sovereignty displayed.

1.

I have not come of my own accord (7:28-29).

In no way do we diminish the Son’s co-equal attribute of sovereignty in acknowledging this, but even the son submitted and obeyed the sovereign will and plan of the Father.

He was sent by the Father.

2. No one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come (7:30).

We can only speculate as to the human reason for this reality.

Maybe Jesus’ followers hid him.

Maybe he was lost in the crowd.

Who knows?

From the divine perspective, Jesus was not seized because God had so chosen.

3. Pharisees sent officers to arrest him (7:32, 45).

We are not told immediately why the officers did not bring Jesus, but a couple paragraphs later we are informed.

When the officers go back to the chief priests and pharisees (7:45), John informs us that the officers did not obey the command of their leaders because they were mesmerized by Jesus’ teaching.

4. Jesus would god on his own (the Father’s) time (7:33).

Jesus told the leaders, “I will be with you a little longer and then I am going to him who sent me.”

What boldness and confidence in the Father, amid demands for him to be arrested.