Faith in the Face of Rejection part 1

Introduction

It would be hard to argue against the notion that we live in a time when the Christian worldview is steadily on the decline in America. Even before COVID-19, the church throughout America has seen the number of people committed to church attendance dwindling, churches closing at a faster rate than at any time in our history, and the number of baptisms decreasing every year.

From a cultural perspective, the Christian worldview is losing the so-called “cultural wars” because of the increasingly strong voices of secularists, atheists, the LGBTQ movement, and progressivism stooped in a socialist worldview which sees religion as nothing more than the “opiate of the people.”

I believe we are drawing closer and closer to a time when the title “Evangelical Christian” will be mentioned in the same way people mention “Nazis” and “white supremacists”; namely people would should be shut out of decent society.

From a individual perspective, the temptation for many professed Christians will be to hide their faith in order to avoid social persecution, judgment, and rejection. This, they will justify behind the guise of wanting to live one’s best life, not wanting to get into conflict with people, and/or just wanting to mind one’s own business.

Yet, for those who desire to stand on the firm foundation of the Solid Rock that is Jesus Christ, and not the shifting sand of the society at large, we must continually return to God’s Word to give us guidance of how to respond to the seasons in which we live. The great blessing for us is this: God’s Word is not silent when it comes to such a time as this.

Chapters 7-8 of John’s Gospel show the rising rejection of Jesus and His teachings. Throughout this section we will see numerous reasons why people rejected both Him and His message, that would ultimately lead to His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion.

Within each of these examples, we will see that the same types of rejections continue to exist today. Thus, this section has much to teach us about how the church is to respond when the Gospel of Jesus Christ is rejected today.

The key question we will consider throughout these chapters is: How do we hold tightly to our faith in the face of rejection?

Exegesis of John 7:1-13

Verse 1

Jesus stayed in Galilee for another six months after the Bread of Life discourse we looked at in chapter 6. The reason is stated clearly in this verse: because in Judea the Jewish religious leadership wanted to kill Him.

Jesus isn’t avoiding Judea because He is scared of dying. He is avoiding Judea because, as we will repeatedly see in this section, Jesus priority was God’s timing.

The term “the Jews” is used throughout John’s Gospel typically to refer to the Jewish religious establishment, not necessarily the ethnic identification of the Jewish people.

Verses 2-5

The Feast of Booths, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, was one of the three annual pilgrimage festivals in which all who were able would travel to Jerusalem to celebrate the eight day festival.

There was a dual purpose in the celebration. It was a time to give thanks to God for the harvest and a time to remember God’s provision for His people during their forty years in the wilderness.

It was the most popular of the Jewish festivals.

It would take place sometime in September or October. During the festival, the people would build temporary shelters and live in them, remembering their ancestors living in the wilderness after the Exodus.

The high points of the festival were events, the water-drawing rite and the lamp-lighting rite, both of which Jesus used as opportunities to reveal who He was to the people. We will look at each when we get there in this study.

Jesus brothers here are his half-brothers, likely children of Joseph and Mary that they had after Mary gave birth to Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel tells us their names:

Matthew 13:55 ESV

Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

Jesus brothers encourage him to use the festival as a time to reveal Himself to the people.

We learn in verse 5 that they didn’t do this because they were believers at this time. (Later, we know that at least James and Judas became Christians, as James became the leader of the Jerusalem church and the epistle of Jude was written by Judas.)

While John doesn’t try to uncover their motives, it is clear they are using conventional wisdom.

Jesus had just lost a large number of followers, as we saw in John 6:66. So, earthly wisdom would say that going to Jerusalem when a large number of people would be there would be a great way to possibly woo followers back, and maybe even get some new ones.

But, why would they care about that if they didn’t believe? It is likely because having a brother of great importance would raise the social level of the entire family. Thus, they stood to benefit if the people believed Jesus was the Messiah.

Rejection #1: If you want me to believe, prove it according to my satisfaction.

Of course, Jesus brothers don’t say these words directly, but they are making a similar point that the people in chapter 6 made. Namely, if you want people to believe, you need to prove it to them.

Today, this is especially prevalent in a culture that emphasizes supposed “scientific proofs” and “believing the experts.” Christians have done much to try and prove the trustworthiness of God’s Word to people through innumerable books, countless sermons and lessons, evangelism courses, and the entire discipline of Apologetics. All of these are valuable and have had an impact on many lives, yet, strangely enough, we are still losing ground. Why? Jesus answer is instructive.

Verses 6-9

Jesus uses a phrase that will be repeated in different ways throughout this section, “My time has not yet come...”

Jesus wasn’t concerned with earthly wisdom, mankind’s timelines, or even large groups of people following Him. Jesus was far more interested in God’s perfect timing.

Galatians 4:4 ESV

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

God had ordained the exact time that Jesus would fulfill His divine purposes. That was Jesus only real concern.

Thus, Jesus says numerous important things here we should take note of:

For his brothers, it was always the right time to go to the festival, because no one was looking to kill them. But, according to God’s timeline, this was not the time for Jesus to get into a public confrontation with the religious leaders who wanted to kill Him. That time would come later, but now wasn’t that time.

God’s timing matters more than man’s timing.

We must hold tightly to God’s sovereignty over all things. Jesus did, and left us an example to do the same. Thus, Jesus knew that God’s timing was the only time that really mattered. This is true of His divine Gospel purposes, but also the timing for His brothers coming to faith. It was all about God’s timing.

To personalize this for today, we need to remember that we are called to share the truth of God’s Word, but God’s timing of revealing His truth is God’s business. We just need to trust that timing is perfect.

The people wanted to kill Jesus because His message convicted them of sin. While they would hide behind numerous false charges, ultimately their blood lust was based on His message that they needed to repent and be saved.

People reject Jesus because they love their sin not because we cannot prove Jesus to them.

That’s the dirty little secret. For many people, we could present all the proofs in the world but it wouldn’t matter. They would still rejected Jesus. Why? Because they don’t want to turn from their sins.

JC Ryle: “Teach abstract doctrines only, and few will find any fault. Denounce the fashionable sins of the day, and call on men to repent and walk consistently with God, and thousands at once will be offended.”

Use the tools you have to share the truth of God’s Word with people, but realize that many will still reject the truth because they love their sin more than they love Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t say he will never go to the festival. Jesus will go whenever and wherever God calls Him to go. His point is that He is not going to go with them and He is not going there to prove His Messianic claims through a miraculous act. Doing so would likely woo many to Him, but would also circumvent the greater mission of the cross, which was more necessary.

Nothing in this life matters more than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The message of the church has never changed since the beginning of the church age:

Romans 3:23–24 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

The message people need to believe is that we are sinners who need a Savior and Jesus is that Savior because He redeemed His people for their sins. Nothing matters more than this. Nothing.

Verse 10

Some mistakenly read this as Jesus changing His mind or lying to His brothers. Neither is correct. As I stated earlier, Jesus tells them, in essence, He’s not going with them and He’s not going their way.

He goes to Jerusalem privately, not publicly.

Verses 11-13

In the meantime, Jerusalem is all abuzz. The religious leaders are looking for Him in order to kill Him. Why?

John 5:18 ESV

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

The people were quietly arguing about Him.

He is a good man...

He is leading the people astray...

Rejection #2: Jesus is a good man.

We will deal with the religious leaders multiple rejections later in this study.

While this one might not seem so bad, and it’s super common today. Yet, it’s extremely dangerous:

Simply believing that Jesus is a good moral teacher cannot save anyone. When we speak of having faith in Jesus, it means that we believe all that He taught and all that He did; the most important of which being that He died to pay for the sins of everyone who would put their faith in Him and the He rose again, conquering the grave and even now is advocating for His people in the presence of the Father. This belief changes one’s entire life. Simply believing that Jesus was a good man doesn’t.

When we consider all that Jesus said about Himself, we cannot drawn the conclusion that He was simply a good man. As C.S. Lewis points out in Mere Christianity (I’ll paraphrase), Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. Those are the only choices He’s left us with.

Rejection #3: Jesus is a false prophet.

Some believed that religious leader’s point-of-view that Jesus was leading the people astray. Which, was partly true. He was leading them astray from the traditions of the religious leaders to what God’s will truly was.

But, looking at this we might say, “Well, who in America says Jesus is a false prophet? Even the Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet.”

While the last rejection is a social and intellectual rejection, this is a spiritual rejection. Jesus is a false prophet to anyone that believes that Jesus is something less than the eternal Son of God, fully God and fully man, God with us, who became like us in order to identify with us and die our death on the cross, and who was raised from the dead with a glorified body and is now exalted at the right hand of the Father.

Many religions and cultic groups believe that Jesus is less than what Scripture teaches He is. And they will even use and misuse Scripture in an attempt to prove their viewpoints. Believe it or not, our job isn’t to fight against them through our own plausible arguments. Instead, we must continually turn to the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and His revelation of Himself in God’s Word, the Bible. We must protect our hearts, minds and spiritual lives with the great weapon of prayer. And we must commit to being an active part of a church that teaches the truth about who Jesus really is, surrounding ourselves with a community of believers who will sharpen and strengthen one another as we grow in our faith in the face of rejection.