The Divine Time Table

When Roni was living in Peru as a missionary with the IMB, she lived for a time in a remote mountain village, some five hours away from the nearest city. There were only two options for traveling to that city. The first was hire a taxi to drive the five hours each way, and that’s not cheap. The other, and much more economical option is to take a Combi. Oh, sweet combis. Imagine our church van, a fifteen-passenger van, retrofitted to fit 26 people. Yes…26 people. Roni had to go to Ayacucho for supplies one day, but the morning she was going to leave, her stomach was very upset. Naturally, when you have 26 people in a combi, going to the bathroom happens in groups. They stop, the guys go to one side, the women to the other…and there aren’t any restrooms. Roni wasn’t about to do that with an upset stomach, so she decided to wait until the next day they had a combi going. And praise the Lord she did! The combi she was originally planning on taking went off the side of the road and fell about the equivalent of a half a city block. While there was only one broken bone along with a bunch of bumps and bruises, I am very glad that she was not on it.

In the same way, God’s timing is perfect, just right, not too soon, not too late. Before Jesus became flesh (), God had never existed within or been affected by time. So, during his time on earth, everything Jesus did was exact, down to each and every second of each and every day.

We must rest on the fact that God’s timing is perfect, and His ways are higher than ours, as He Himself is not constrained to the limitations of time as we are.

I. Jesus Is Abiding His Time –

a. Jesus spent the better portion of the year ministering in Galilee. The events of occurred around The Passover, which was in the spring. The Feast of Booths is in the fall.

i. This year, 2019

1. Passover – April 19-27

2. Feast of Booths – October 13-20

b. The regions in this area were separated by Rome, so therefore Judea and Galilee were under different Roman jurisdictions. This provided some protections to a person, in this case Jesus, being that those in Judea were less likely to traverse to Galilee to get Him, lest they cause trouble with Rome.

c. The Jews in Galilee did want to kill him. –

i. (Here, as in most passages, “The Jews” refers to the leaders of the Jews, i.e. the Pharisees, Scribes, etc.)

II. Jesus’ Brother’s Unbelief –

a. Jesus’s brothers do NOT believe that Jesus is the Messiah (v.5). They don’t believe Him at all.

i. Brothers – James, Joses, Simon, Jude (, , etc.)

b. Jesus has an apparently successful, yet someone secretive, ministry in Galilee. His brothers want Him to reveal it to the world, so that those who do believe in Him will know and see!

c. v.4 – Jesus deliberately does not want to be so public,

i. telling people He’s performed miracles on to not speak of Him.

1.

2.

ii. Being that much in the open would lead too many people down paths of destruction. Jesus knows the hearts of man () and what they want to do with Him ( – Kill Him, and – force Him to be king).

III. God’s Perfect Timing –

a. Before Jesus became the God-man, the incarnate, God had never before existed in or been confined by “time” as we know it. The triune Godhead has always existed in eternity.

b. Jesus’ Time - Jesus knows, and has always known, the timeline of His life. He says here, as he did in , that it is not His time yet to go to the cross with His life.

i. If Jesus went openly to Judea, the ruling authorities would have been all over Him.

ii. Jesus knows that His time is not yet there

c. His Brothers’ Time –

i. Jesus states, “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.”

1. Their time is always there because they are not only in the world, but still “of the world” at this point, as they do not believe yet in Jesus (, ). (This does change, however, ).

a.

b.

2. The world cannot hate His brothers because they don’t believe, and a house divided against itself cannot stand ().

3. Jesus, the Word of God (), is exposing the sin of the Jews!

a.

b.

c. , …basically all of verses 1-36.

4. Application Point- We are called to expose sin – , and introduce the cure to the sin problem, Jesus Christ.

d. Going up to the feast

i. Jesus tells His brothers to head on up to the feast, as they will be welcomed and, as Jews, expected to be there.

ii. Jesus does not go up at this time because His plans, His itinerary, is set forth by God the Father. And it is NOT His time.

e. Going up in secret

i. Jesus went to the Feast of Booths in Judea secretly, as He must obey the laws (which He did perfectly, might I add).

IV. So What? (I was once told that putting this in perspective for us, today, some 2,000 years later, means answering the question “So what?” about the passage.

a. We need to trust that God’s timing is perfect. His ways are above our ways (), and there are times when what we are going through won’t make sense, any sense at all. But we can trust that God will use even suffering for our good and his glory.

i. Tell of my sister Kristen’s car accident and how God used it to bring me to Him.

V. Invitation

a. Just as the world hated Jesus because He testified about it that it’s works are evil (), when we read God’s Word, or listen to it preached or taught, His Word will convict us of our sin, exposing our sin to us and bringing us to a point where we must respond, and we all respond, in repentance or resentment. I pray the former versus the latter. Remember…

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ii.