SPEAKER_01: Let me add my welcome to Duncan's.
SPEAKER_01: My name's Mark.
SPEAKER_01: I'm one of the leaders here at the church.
SPEAKER_01: Please open up John 7 if or look it up on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: If you need a hard copy uh of a Bible, you can grab one from the from the front.
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to uh be looking at those 10 or 12 uh verses that uh that Alice read for us uh from verse 40 uh down to 52 as we continue in our in our John series.
SPEAKER_01: So it'd be good to kind of have that open in front of you.
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that uh that we do all the time, maybe kind of instinctively without knowing it, is uh we uh we jump to conclusions, we make assumptions about people.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever done that?
SPEAKER_01: I know I do that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh I've even had assumptions made about me.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we make assumptions all the time, we uh go to snap judgments uh about people or about types of people, uh really without very much evidence.
SPEAKER_01: I think of uh some perhaps common ones.
SPEAKER_01: Uh what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: We we assume that all politicians are liars.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're studying history and politics or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we assume that politicians tend to be liars and self-serving.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we what's another one?
SPEAKER_01: Uh people like to assume that billionaires are bad.
SPEAKER_01: That if you're a billionaire, you're an ungenerous, miserly person.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we assume uh perhaps that uh that uh we have interpreted correctly the tone and text or of the email or text that we've received.
SPEAKER_01: You ever do that?
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever get an email or text and go, I can't believe that they said it like that?
SPEAKER_01: And then you talk to them about it, or maybe you don't, but you might talk to them about it and you think, oh, that's not what they intended at all.
SPEAKER_01: We assume the tone of a text or an email.
SPEAKER_01: Some people assume that all poor people are lazy.
SPEAKER_01: Uh some people assume perhaps that God couldn't possibly love you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we assume that one person's side of the story is the true account of a dispute without hearing the other side.
SPEAKER_01: Assumptions can be dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: They lead us to judgment where perhaps judgment is unwarranted.
SPEAKER_01: They lead us to hatred and to division when we should be pursuing unity and love.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes assumptions even lead us to cowardice when we should be pursuing courage.
SPEAKER_01: Like I say, maybe you've had the experience of people making assumptions about you.
SPEAKER_01: People have looked at you, your background or your ethnicity, or your educational level, and they have made assumptions that you haven't particularly appreciated.
SPEAKER_01: You would rather they came and had a conversation about you and judged your character and your competency level rather than just running to a judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Or what's worse, perhaps, you have been the other party in the disagreement, and people have listened to the first person and made conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: And you're standing there and you think, well, if somebody would come and ask me, then perhaps we'd realize that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been on the receiving end of that?
SPEAKER_01: It's very unpleasant to have people make assumptions about you.
SPEAKER_01: Assumptions can create division, they can collide the truth, they can be a breeding ground for division and for hatred.
SPEAKER_01: And people make assumptions about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: People make assumptions about Jesus all the time.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you here are making assumptions about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: One of the chief assumptions about Jesus is that people, uh, rather than looking at everything that he said, they focus in on one aspect of him.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, usually what happens is they focus on something, uh, something nice and inoffensive and good.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Jesus said, Love your neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: And they absolutize that over everything.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's that's the sum total of what he's about.
SPEAKER_01: Make assumptions about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We make assumptions about God that he is perhaps uncaring and vengeful and spiteful.
SPEAKER_01: We assume that he can't or won't or doesn't uh love us.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, if he did, he wouldn't have allowed that thing in our past to happen to us.
SPEAKER_01: And so we make assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: In John 7, there are lots of assumptions swirling around about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The crowd is operating uh out of their ignorance and so jumping to conclusions about who Jesus is.
SPEAKER_01: Some assume that because the religious leaders haven't gone and arrested him, that actually maybe he must be the Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So if you were to look up at uh at verse 25, just a little way up from our reading, uh, it says, Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is this not the man whom they seek to kill?
SPEAKER_01: And yet here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, Well, I thought they wanted him dead, but actually he's teaching publicly, so maybe they know something that we don't.
SPEAKER_01: They're jumping to conclusions, they're making assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: The assumptions about Jesus create confusion.
SPEAKER_01: Look down at verse 40, the very first verse of what we were looking at.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when they heard these words, some people said, This really is the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the the prophets, you can see it's capital P.
SPEAKER_01: This is a reference to a character that was promised to arrive back uh in Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_01: Moses said there'd be a prophet like me who would come.
SPEAKER_01: And so they're thinking, okay, maybe that guy's arrived in in Jesus, and in some senses he is that that prophet.
SPEAKER_01: But uh in in the ancient Jewish mind that was separated out from the Christ, so there's this confusion, this really is the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: Others said this is the Christ, but some said, well, could he possibly be the Christ if he came from Galilee?
SPEAKER_01: Because the scripture says that he should come from Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_01: And so they make assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: They kind of think, well, why not go and ask him?
SPEAKER_01: Why not go to Jesus and go, I know you're from Galilee, but where were you born?
SPEAKER_01: And we all know, if you know that if you've been to a carl service, oh little town of Bethlehem, right?
SPEAKER_01: But nobody went and asked him.
SPEAKER_01: So they're just operating out of ignorance and making assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: I think probably there are still people today who would rather not ask the questions because they don't want uh to deal with the implications of the answers.
SPEAKER_01: And so they continue making assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: They continue actually in their ignorance rather than going like these guys and saying, Well, where were you born?
SPEAKER_01: Are you oh you are from Bethlehem?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01: They would actually rather not ask the question.
SPEAKER_01: There's a willfulness, do you see?
SPEAKER_01: There's a willfulness in the human heart that doesn't want the questions answered because of what it might lead us to.
SPEAKER_01: And so we make assumptions, make assumptions that the Bible is just a made-up set of fairy stories to help the kids go to sleep out of a long camel ride out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: We assume that it was written by uh men hundreds of years later.
SPEAKER_01: Ian McKellen is right in the Da Vinci Code movie.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It was old Council of Nicaea, and so you think, there we go.
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that side of the argument that fits with my priors, and so I'm going to believe that.
SPEAKER_01: We make assumptions, we jump to conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: Say, well, there's no real evidence that Jesus even existed, let alone rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And then you kind of say, Well, have you actually looked at into these things?
SPEAKER_01: Have you uh studied the sources?
SPEAKER_01: Have you read the scriptures?
SPEAKER_01: Have you uh looked at the extra biblical evidence?
SPEAKER_01: Have you considered those things?
SPEAKER_01: Oh well, well, no, but so they jumped to conclusions.
SPEAKER_01: There are assumptions in this passage modeled by the Pharisees, the religious leaders, uh, that lead to unbelief, division, and even murderous hatred.
SPEAKER_01: It's clear by the end of uh this chapter, by the end of chapter seven, that the pressure is beginning to get to the Pharisees, the the religious leaders, uh, that they're they're sensing the um the power of this man to persuade the crowd they can feel their own power on the crowd loosening.
SPEAKER_01: The pressure's beginning to get to them, and under that pressure, they're beginning to crack.
SPEAKER_01: It's funny that they're beginning to crack because Jesus promised living water.
SPEAKER_01: He promised living water to the soul that would come to him, just in the verses on up that we looked at last week.
SPEAKER_01: But in their rejecting of him, they're drying out and they're hardening and they're cracking.
SPEAKER_01: And you can see in these verses some of the assumptions that they're making.
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, how the Pharisees are responding is so similar in many ways to the way people act today when they feel threatened, when they feel that like their power is being undermined, when they come up against disagreement.
SPEAKER_01: It's worth just taking a moment just to note the different assumptions that they make that lead them to division and to hatred, because I think they apply to many of our situations and spheres of life today.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing that they assume is that they assume that everyone else is wrong and that they're right.
SPEAKER_01: They assume that everyone else is wrong and that they are right.
SPEAKER_01: They had sent uh a bunch of temple officers, temple guards, uh, to arrest Jesus and to bring Jesus to them, but they come back empty-handed, and we'll look at uh why they come back empty-handed in just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: It was because of the stunning power of his teaching.
SPEAKER_01: The guards, as well as many in the crowd, are astounded by Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And so they come back to the Pharisees and say, Well, nobody ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: But what's the uh response of the Pharisees?
SPEAKER_01: It's down there in uh in verse 46.
SPEAKER_01: The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived?
SPEAKER_01: They assume that both the crowd and the guards have been deceived.
SPEAKER_01: But rather than hearing the response of the guards, and let's just like the guards were not um like hired thugs.
SPEAKER_01: The guards came from the tribe of Levi, which is the educated priestly class.
SPEAKER_01: They worked and lived in the temple.
SPEAKER_01: They just happened to be the kind of younger, maybe more kind of heavy set guys, but they were educated.
SPEAKER_01: And so rather than the Pharisees going, actually, these guys are coming back and saying that this guy's pretty astounding.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should hear from him?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should ask some questions?
SPEAKER_01: No, instead of doing that, they assume that the whole army is out of step at them.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: Rather than investigating more, they just assume that the crowd is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Now, why is the crowd wrong?
SPEAKER_01: Well, they tell us in verse 46 uh, have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
SPEAKER_01: But this crowd that does not know the law.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, We are educated experts.
SPEAKER_01: These uneducated uh rubs, they haven't, they haven't even they haven't even got a degree.
SPEAKER_01: How could they possibly know?
SPEAKER_01: They dismiss them out of hand because of educational snobbery.
SPEAKER_01: They assume that they are wrong and that the Pharisees are right.
SPEAKER_01: One of the signs of someone who is ideological and divisive is a person who cannot be taught anything, who always assumes that the other person is wrong and that they're right.
SPEAKER_01: A kind of puffed out the chest.
SPEAKER_01: It enables you to dismiss people that you uh regard as beneath you.
SPEAKER_01: But it's an assumption that actually cuts you off from any growth, any change, any maturing, any potential greater and deeper unity with people who you disagree with.
SPEAKER_01: And let's just remember, uh this is the religious leaders, right?
SPEAKER_01: And I know that I'm speaking now to very many Christians and other Christians.
SPEAKER_01: We're not immune from this way of thinking.
SPEAKER_01: Of writing people off, of making assumptions, of thinking that we're always right and the other person is wrong.
SPEAKER_01: It goes deeper though with the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, the Pharisees not only assume that the crowd is wrong and that they're right, they assume that the other side is evil.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see that move?
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the move from thinking that somebody is wrong, the person that you disagree with is wrong, to now seeing that the person that you disagree with is bad.
SPEAKER_01: You see how that move uh is happening in different spheres of our cultural discourse, that as points of disagreement and points of friction come up, there is this move, uh, particularly perhaps with uh with Christians, as we kind of bump up against the uh the cultural preferences and the cultural worldview, that actually we're we're moving from being seen as just uh being seen as wrong to now being seen as bad.
SPEAKER_01: And Christians can do it too.
SPEAKER_01: But notice what it is that the Pharisees say.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees not just say that they the crowd is uneducated in verse 49, but this crowd that does not know the law is what?
SPEAKER_01: Is accursed, under accurse.
SPEAKER_01: They are evil.
SPEAKER_01: This is the next step.
SPEAKER_01: After we've assumed that somebody is deeply mistaken or wrong, it is easy then to cast them as being wicked, to cast them as being bad, as having malevolent intent.
SPEAKER_01: They aren't just ignorant, they're evil.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the Pharisees' assessment of the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: They don't just know, uh, they don't just, they're not just ignorant of the law, but they're actually accursed.
SPEAKER_01: And this is a stunning degree of blindness from the Pharisees here, because uh the Pharisees were supposed to be the shepherds of the people.
SPEAKER_01: Their primary duty of care was to who?
SPEAKER_01: It was to the crowd.
SPEAKER_01: And so now we have the the cultural elites, the educated ones, looking at the the hoi poloi, looking at the common man, the common woman, and saying, well, actually, they're all they're all not just idiots, they're all bad.
SPEAKER_01: It's very easy then to uh to write them off.
SPEAKER_01: It's very easy then to operate without reference to them, then.
SPEAKER_01: That if somebody is bad, you want to ignore them.
SPEAKER_01: You want to work around them.
SPEAKER_01: This is how things deteriorate in a community.
SPEAKER_01: When we think that somebody is wrong, then we think that somebody is bad, and so we stop engaging uh with them on the merits of an issue and start disparaging and attacking a person.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, isn't that what isn't that what happens?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is this I'm basically right now I am describing Twitter, right?
SPEAKER_01: Could because people don't tend to, you know, that cartoon of uh of the guy sitting up late at night and his wife comes in and says, aren't you coming to bed, dear?
SPEAKER_01: No, somebody is wrong on the internet.
SPEAKER_01: You ever you ever have that?
SPEAKER_01: You say, No, somebody's wrong on the internet, I have to correct them.
SPEAKER_01: But what ends up happening is we go from engaging on the merits of an argument to simply what you call ad hominem, personal attacks.
SPEAKER_01: You're this, you're that, you're phobic, you're a Nazi, you're a bigot.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you paint somebody as evil, you can claim the victory, right?
SPEAKER_01: Beware religious leaders.
SPEAKER_01: And again, I don't stand in judgment over the culture of the Christians can be just as bad.
SPEAKER_01: Beware religious leaders and others who despise and shun those who they are supposed to protect and guide.
SPEAKER_01: The third assumption that the Pharisees uh make, or the third thing that they are guilty of, is the Pharisees reject everything that doesn't fit with their prior assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: Have a look at this little uh interchange with Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_01: We met Nicodemus back in John 3, he's the one who came to Jesus at night, had the conversation about the uh about being born again, had the conversation about uh, you know, that's where God for God so loved the world, John 3.16, it's all in that interchange with Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_01: And clearly there's something working with Nicodemus, and Nicodemus wants to kind of pull the guys back.
SPEAKER_01: And so Nicodemus, who had gone to him before and who was one of them, that is one of the Jewish ruling council, said to them, Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?
SPEAKER_01: They replied, Are you from Galilee too?
SPEAKER_01: Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's going on here?
SPEAKER_01: Well, this is uh what people today would call confirmation bias.
SPEAKER_01: I guess we all have it at some level, but it can lead to a kind of willful blindness and a refusal to see other people's points of view.
SPEAKER_01: Nicodemus essentially stands up in the council and he doesn't make a full-throated defense of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I had a conversation with this guy.
SPEAKER_01: I agree that nobody's ever spoken like him.
SPEAKER_01: The things that he said to me about being born again, his knowledge of the Old Testament, about being born of water and this way.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't do any of that.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't give a full-throated defense of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: All he does is make a procedural point that in order to come to a judgment, you need to first have a conversation with the guy.
SPEAKER_01: Rather than just jumping to arresting him, let's have a forum, have a discussion, let's have a debate, and then let's make an informed decision about how to move forward.
SPEAKER_01: Let's have Jesus come and explain themselves, explain himself.
SPEAKER_01: But the rest of the council are having none of it.
SPEAKER_01: And so they call Nicodemus biased, because he comes from Galilee as well.
SPEAKER_01: He comes from the same region.
SPEAKER_01: And so they say, and so when they say to him, search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee, they're not saying to him, Off you go, Nicodemus, head up to Galilee, make an investigation.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's much more barbed than that.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, they're like saying, Nicodemus, do you even know your Bible?
SPEAKER_01: No prophet comes from Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: No prophet comes from there.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: That's not even true.
SPEAKER_01: Elijah, Jonah, and Nahum.
SPEAKER_01: You may not know those names.
SPEAKER_01: You might only know Jonah of big fish of fame.
SPEAKER_01: Those three, where do they come from?
SPEAKER_01: Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: So what are the Pharisees doing?
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees ignorant?
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees uh don't know their Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Or are they cherry-picking things that suit their prior conclusions?
SPEAKER_01: Are they accepting that which fits with their worldview and rejecting that which doesn't?
SPEAKER_01: Again, this is something that we all do to some extent, and it takes a it takes a degree of intellectual integrity, it takes a degree of courage to say, actually, this doesn't fit with my assumptions about the world or about who I am or about how society works or about relationships.
SPEAKER_01: This doesn't fit with that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I'm gonna try and Look at it and examine it because maybe I've got something to learn.
SPEAKER_01: But it is the Pharisees are operating under under confirmation bias.
SPEAKER_01: Does it fit?
SPEAKER_01: Then we'll have it.
SPEAKER_01: Does it not fit?
SPEAKER_01: Then we'll reject it.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: These three prophets were from Galilee.
SPEAKER_01: What the Pharisees are saying isn't even true.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelief in Jesus isn't rational.
SPEAKER_01: Unbelief isn't rational.
SPEAKER_01: We throw up things so that we don't have to investigate.
SPEAKER_01: We throw up more questions as a defense mechanism.
SPEAKER_01: The unbelief of the Pharisees isn't due to a lack of education or a lack of investigation.
SPEAKER_01: They simply hated the idea of Jesus being the Christ, of Jesus being God's King, because they didn't want to relinquish their power.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want the implications of that for their life.
SPEAKER_01: And so everything that suggested that they should listen to Jesus was simply dismissed out of hand.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes in in informal conversations with folks either after church, if I've been speaking at an event at a university, and somebody who isn't a Christian, if you're not a Christian here this morning, I am so glad that you're here.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be really boring if everybody here just agreed with everything that I said.
SPEAKER_01: But isn't there a degree of intellectual integrity and a degree of courage to say, do you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I am going to investigate these things as dispassionately as I can possibly muster.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really going to look, I'm not just going to throw up the questions as a defense mechanism.
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually going to try and work them through to whatever the conclusions lead you to.
SPEAKER_01: And if you conclude Jesus never rose from the dead, you know, because Christianity stands and falls in the resurrection, for example, you conclude Jesus never rose from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: God bless you.
SPEAKER_01: I think you're wrong.
SPEAKER_01: We can disagree on that, but at least you've looked.
SPEAKER_01: A bit like kids trying a new food.
SPEAKER_01: My daughter is just convinced that she won't like sweet corn.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: She said, I know I don't like sweet corn.
SPEAKER_01: Well, have you ever tried it?
SPEAKER_01: No, but I don't like it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it quite works like that.
SPEAKER_01: Now you might not like sweet corn, but but every now and again she at least tries the food and then goes, no, I don't like it.
SPEAKER_01: Well I said, well, at least you tried it.
SPEAKER_01: At least you had the courage to say, do you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually going to investigate this.
SPEAKER_01: I think oftentimes people stay away from Christianity because at some unacknowledged level they just don't want it to be true.
SPEAKER_01: This is kind of flippant, so uh forgive me and take the point.
SPEAKER_01: You might say that the the two central tenets of atheism are there is no God and I hate him.
SPEAKER_01: That there's actually a desire not to look at a desire for it not to be true.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's maybe what's going on with some of the religious leaders here.
SPEAKER_01: The sad irony of all of this in this passage is laden with irony, is that the uh is that the Pharisees claim that the officers are blinded by deception, that the crowd is blinded by a curse, and that Nicodemus is blinded by his own bias, when in reality they are the ones who are deceived and cursed and biased.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees are hardening and cracking when they should be drinking from the fount of living water and allowing that to soften the landscape of their soul.
SPEAKER_01: Those are some of the assumptions that are being made by the religious leaders now.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly and finally, you're welcome, two-pointer today.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly and finally, how does Jesus uh confound our assumptions?
SPEAKER_01: You remember the report of the officers, no one ever spoke like he did.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus confounds people's assumptions, both in this passage and just over and over and over again in the Gospels, and indeed that might be part of your story of faith.
SPEAKER_01: How does Jesus confound our assumptions?
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's two ways.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the first what the first one is shorter than the second.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone assumes that the Pharisees are in charge, but they're not.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone assumes that the Pharisees are in charge when actually there are hints in this passage that Jesus is in ultimate control of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: The Pharisees clearly consider themselves as being in control.
SPEAKER_01: That's why they're dispatching battalions of officers to arrest Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The crowd also assumes that the Pharisees are in control.
SPEAKER_01: Remember verse 25.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is this not the man whom they seek to kill?
SPEAKER_01: And yet here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Can it be that the authorities really know that he is the Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Do you see?
SPEAKER_01: It's, oh no, they assume that the Pharisees are in charge and that the Pharisees are doing nothing for a reason.
SPEAKER_01: But what we see, what's really going on, is Jesus' ultimate control of the situation.
SPEAKER_01: Cast your eye to verse 30.
SPEAKER_01: Where it says, so they, that's the religious leaders, it's the guards, so they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because his hour had not yet come.
SPEAKER_01: No one arrests Jesus because it's not the appointed time for him to be arrested.
SPEAKER_01: The hour in John's gospel, just to remind you, is the is the hour of Jesus' death, where he will be arrested and taken to the cross, crucified, buried, and again, and then raised on the third day.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus at this point is like, no, it's not time.
SPEAKER_01: It's not happening.
SPEAKER_01: And we see that at a number of points throughout the Gospels.
SPEAKER_01: There's uh there's uh there's another time where they they try to make him king by force and and he slips through their grasp.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he is in ultimate sovereign control of what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: And so he'll say in just a couple of chapters' time in John chapter 10, he'll say, No one takes my life from me.
SPEAKER_01: I lay it down of my own accord.
SPEAKER_01: The arrest and crucifixion of Jesus gave the religious leaders the illusion of control, uh, just as it perhaps gives the illusion of victory.
SPEAKER_01: But they were both wrong.
SPEAKER_01: We assume oftentimes that we're in control, that we're the master of our own destiny, the captain of our own ship, but that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: Goodness me, if the last two years have taught us everything, and so that's not true.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe it is that you know acutely the out-of-controlledness of your life and of your world.
SPEAKER_01: And so, where do you grasp?
SPEAKER_01: Where do you run to?
SPEAKER_01: Do you try and rest control a back for your back for yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you run to the one who has a sovereign, complete, perfect, and good control of all times and all places and all peoples?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus confines our assumptions by showing us where the power and the authority truly lies.
SPEAKER_01: The second way that he confines our assumptions, and we've alluded to it a number of times, is he confines our assumptions by the way he speaks.
SPEAKER_01: The whole center, the whole fulcrum of this passage, around which the passage turns, is the assessment of the guards in verse 46.
SPEAKER_01: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_01: The officers answered, no one ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: The word translated here, one, is the word anthropos, where you get anthropology from.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're an anthropological student, uh, which literally means no human being ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: Do you hear the irony that John is putting in there of the guard's assessment, of the officer's assessment?
SPEAKER_01: Because they're right.
SPEAKER_01: No human being has ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: And this is no mere human being.
SPEAKER_01: What's interesting here is that what stopped them in their tracks was not Jesus' power.
SPEAKER_01: It was not a miracle.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not that uh he performed some heroic act or that he, you know, he blasted the guards back with the death rays from his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: No, Jesus didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's a different chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Um still away, good.
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, what stopped them in their tracks is that no one ever taught like him.
SPEAKER_01: There are many proofs and evidences for Jesus' divinity.
SPEAKER_01: He showed his authority over sickness by healing people, he showed his authority over nature and creation by calming the storm.
SPEAKER_01: He even showed his authority over death by raising Lazarus from the dead in John chapter 11.
SPEAKER_01: But often overlooked is the sheer power and authority of the way that he spoke.
SPEAKER_01: The other gospel accounts say similar things that cry is constantly astounded.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody ever spoke like this guy.
SPEAKER_01: The authority and the power of the way this guy speaks is just an order of magnitude different to anything else we have ever encountered, that it's so arresting and compelling and intriguing.
SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't just the way that he spoke, was it?
SPEAKER_01: It's the content of what he's saying is so utterly unique.
SPEAKER_01: Think back to the conversation with with Nicodemus and John and John 3.
SPEAKER_01: And we don't have time to go back into it, but some of the things that Jesus says there are astounding.
SPEAKER_01: He compares himself to the to the bronze serpent that that Moses raised up in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't go back and read John 3, if you're not familiar with that, but really he's saying, I'm the serpent that you look at in order to live.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I'm the son, come from heaven, who will perish in order that you would have eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Or he says to the woman in John 4, he says, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_01: Come to me, and I'll give you water that will well up inside your soul as a spring to eternal life.
SPEAKER_01: Not only that, but he says, she says to the woman at the well, he says, Don't go to any special place in order to worship God.
SPEAKER_01: There are no special places anymore.
SPEAKER_01: You come to me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the place where you meet God.
SPEAKER_01: What an astounding thing to say.
SPEAKER_01: No other religious leader has said that.
SPEAKER_01: He fed the crowd, but not only did he feed the crowd, he then taught them what it meant.
SPEAKER_01: He just said, Do you know what?
SPEAKER_01: You've had the fill of the loaves, but what you're missing is that I'm the bread that's come from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the bread, not just the manna in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: That all pointed to me.
SPEAKER_01: You need to come and feed on me.
SPEAKER_01: Who said that?
SPEAKER_01: An utterly astounding thing to say.
SPEAKER_01: To say nothing of what we looked at last week, that you can now come to Jesus and that your soul in some way can drink from him.
SPEAKER_01: Utterly astounding.
SPEAKER_01: No one ever spoke like this man.
SPEAKER_01: In 2004, uh Bono, uh that great uh Irish prophet was uh was doing an interview with a uh with a French newspaper, and he was asked uh about his belief in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And the the French journalist said, Look, isn't a belief in Jesus as as God just far-fetched?
SPEAKER_01: Uh let me read to you his response.
SPEAKER_01: He says, No, it's not far-fetched to me.
SPEAKER_01: Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this.
SPEAKER_01: He's a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot uh to say along the lines of the other great prophets like Elijah or Muhammad or Buddha or Confucius, but actually, Christ doesn't allow you that.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't let you off the hook with that.
SPEAKER_01: Christ says, No, no, no, I'm not saying that I'm a teacher.
SPEAKER_01: Don't call me a teacher.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that I'm a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying I'm the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying I'm God incarnate.
SPEAKER_01: And people say, no, no, no, please just be a prophet.
SPEAKER_01: A prophet we can take.
SPEAKER_01: You're a bit eccentric.
SPEAKER_01: We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey.
SPEAKER_01: We can handle that, but don't mention the M word, because you know, we're gonna have to kill you for that.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, No, no, I know you're expecting me to come back uh with an army and to free you all from these creeps, but I actually am the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: And at this point, everyone starts looking at their shoes and says, Oh my god, he's going to keep on saying this.
SPEAKER_01: So what you're left with is either Christ was who he said he was, the Messiah, or a complete nutcase.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Charles Manson is uh a murderer in California.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'm not joking here.
SPEAKER_01: The idea of the entire course of civilization for over half the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside down by a nutcase.
SPEAKER_01: That for me is far-fetched.
SPEAKER_01: You might you may or not may not be intellectually persuaded by Bono.
SPEAKER_01: You may or may not be persuaded by his music.
SPEAKER_01: Uh to be intuitive to be intellectually persuaded by Bono's argument is one thing, but belief in Jesus is more than that.
SPEAKER_01: It's more than being persuaded that he is in fact God, because the devil believes that.
SPEAKER_01: You know that the devil believes all of the true things about Jesus, that he is the Messiah, that he's not a nutcase, that he's actually God.
SPEAKER_01: No, remember what he said last week.
SPEAKER_01: If anyone thirsts, come to me and drink.
SPEAKER_01: This is the last and most confounding assumption of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: People assume that religion is about right doctrine, believing the correct things, that it is an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
SPEAKER_01: Being a Christian is not an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_01: There are questions and there are answers to those questions.
SPEAKER_01: There are reasons for faith, good historical evidences of faith, but you can dismiss them all.
SPEAKER_01: You can dismiss them all because you don't want to believe it.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to give up that control of your life.
SPEAKER_01: You want to continue to be the master of your own ship.
SPEAKER_01: Religion isn't about an intellectual exercise.
SPEAKER_01: And it's also not about moral goodness.
SPEAKER_01: People think that Christianity is about cleaning up your act a little bit morally, getting some help emotionally, psychospiritually, in order to be a quote-unquote better person.
SPEAKER_01: But Jesus confounds those assumptions.
SPEAKER_01: No, the essence of Christianity is neither of those things.
SPEAKER_01: The essence of Christianity is coming to Jesus and finding your soul satisfied by him.
SPEAKER_01: That actually realizing that you have longings, thirsts, desires in your heart that nothing in this world is meeting.
SPEAKER_01: And that only Jesus can give you them.
SPEAKER_01: Only Jesus can meet the deepest longings of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: That longing for approval, that longing for meaning, that longing for satisfaction, that longing for an identity that cannot be taken away by suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Only Jesus can give you that.
SPEAKER_01: And the essence of Christianity is realizing that and moving towards him, spiritually speaking, in belief and trusting that he will give you that and growing in that.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it is that you've been making assumptions about Jesus for years and years.
SPEAKER_01: You've been making assumptions about what Christians believe for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: And you're here this morning because you're trying to have that intellectual integrity, that courage to investigate.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_01: If it is that you would like to speak about your questions, have some honest inquiry.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to facilitate that.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to meet up one-to-one, read the Bible with you, get you connected to a small group.
SPEAKER_01: You just need to go to the connect table and say, hey, Mark or the guy at the front was saying about inquiring more.
SPEAKER_01: Can I do that with someone?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you connect it up, we'll do that.
SPEAKER_01: It's good to ask your questions.
SPEAKER_01: You people come with legitimate questions.
SPEAKER_01: Legitimate skepticism.
SPEAKER_01: So it's good to engage with that.
SPEAKER_01: Each one of us has made snap judgments in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We may also have been the victim of them and know how unpleasant and how wrong they are.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that we do it too.
SPEAKER_01: It's easy for us, isn't it, to sit in judgment over others, just like the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: But let's make sure we hear the assessment of the guards.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus speaks in an utterly unique and compelling way.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it divides people, it divided the crowd, and it divides people still.
SPEAKER_01: But you know the one thing that Jesus never did?
SPEAKER_01: He never wrote someone off because they were lesser than him.
SPEAKER_01: He never wrote someone off because they were sinful or imperfect.
SPEAKER_01: His perfect knowledge meant that his assessments were always good and right and filled with love and compassion.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of Christ, that's the kind of king, that's the kind of messiah that we need, and perhaps even at some soul level want, who would lead us and guide us with perfect insight, who would never be motivated by personal gain or hostility.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, instead of ending his enemies like the religious leaders want to do, Jesus dies for his.
SPEAKER_01: This is the meaning of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Don't make assumptions about it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't assume that it's simply a good moral example or metaphor about selflessness, about sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: No, it is the means by which we are brought from death to life.
SPEAKER_01: It is the means by which our addiction to me and myself and my is dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: It is the means by which God turns enemies into friends.
SPEAKER_01: And so the invitation is clear.
SPEAKER_01: The invitation is to come and to ask your questions.
SPEAKER_01: Don't continue in the assumptions of ignorance.
SPEAKER_01: But moreover, the invitation again is to come and to drink, to find life, forgiveness, satisfaction, meaning, and identity in the one who spoke like no other human being.
SPEAKER_00: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.