In the history of the world, brothers and sisters, there has been no greater polarizing person nor has the world tried to understand more the person and the work of Jesus. No one has been debated over and discussed more than the one who was born in Bethlehem. Jesus, you do understand, is polarizing. He's polarizing. He even himself said it in Matthew 10, 35, through 36. He says, for I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a person's enemies will be those of his own household. If that is not a statement about Jesus coming and being polarizing, I don't know what is. Not only was Jesus polarizing, but in the gospels, people sought to perceive Jesus, to understand him, to figure him out and his teachings, and they came to various conclusions around who Jesus was and what they perceived and who they perceived Jesus to be. You remember when the disciples, when Jesus comes to disciples and he asks them, who do people say that I am? Well in Matthew 16 and 14, they respond, well Jesus some say John the Baptist and others say Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. You see that people have trouble perceiving who Jesus was, people struggle to make sense of Jesus. And if you read the gospels, it is easy to see why. Jesus, he said some things, he said some things that made some people love him and others hate him. Take for instance the feeding of the 5,000, the account we have just spent some time looking over and on that occasion Jesus had perhaps risen to his highest level of popularity. The crowds, they loved him and they were following after him, but as we've learned or talked about over the last two weeks, these crowds, those who were following Jesus, were following him for all of the wrong reasons. They were seeking the bread of this life rather than the bread that leads to eternal life. But Jesus knew already what was in the hearts of the crowd. And at the end of chapter 6, we see Jesus, what we see Jesus doing is he is thinning out the crowds. He's thinning them out. He turns the commitment level up a notch to expose their hearts. Those who were in it for the bread and the fish found out that following Jesus wasn't as easy as they thought it was going to be. And so they left and they walked away. You see, there's Jesus, Jesus is polarizing. He is difficult to perceive because he says hard things. He makes you choose. He starts challenging your paradigms. This polarization produces a variety of responses. We see in the gospel of those people who encountered Jesus a variety of responses. And we see several of those responses play out here at the beginning of John chapter 7. According to the text, Jesus has spent a great deal of time in and around Galilee. At the start of our text in verse 1 it says after this, well, it wasn't directly after there had been many who left Jesus and it was just now the 12 following him. But it was some months that Jesus was going around Galilee, no doubt preaching and teaching and healing. It's been a lot of time in Galilee but many were beginning to travel to Judea to attend the feast of booths or perhaps you know it as the feast of Tabernacle. The time where the Jewish people would celebrate God's faithfulness to them while they were in the wilderness. It was a very popular feast. And it is during this time that John introduces us to this first group that had trouble perceiving who Jesus was. John introduces us to the skeptics, to the skeptics. Where does Jesus find his greatest skeptics? Well, he finds them among those who are most familiar to him, his family, his family. Jesus brothers come to him and they say, hey, Jesus, if you really are who you say you are, then you need to take this thing to the next level. You need to blow up a little bit, Jesus. You need to start capitalizing on these miraculous powers that you have. They tell him that he needs to take his talents to Judea where there are more people and where he is sure to gain a large number of followers. All Jesus would need to do was to perform some of these signs and these wonders that he's already been doing and he would be well on his way to establishing power and authority in Jerusalem. It's time to blow up, Jesus. Listen, I think the case can be made that Jesus' biological brothers, because that is who John's talking about here, his biological brothers saw something special in Jesus. They knew that he was perhaps different and special, why else would they make such a suggestion to him to go and blow up in Judea despite their egging him on to pursue more fame? They still had doubts. They were skeptical. John, 7.4 versus 4.5, they say that Jesus for no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly, if you do these things show yourself to the world, for not even his brothers John adding the commentary for not even his brothers believed in him. They could not understand why his brothers could not understand why he would just not capitalize on this fame by going to Jerusalem and to Judea and blowing up. It wasn't making sense and so they were skeptical and that skepticism gave rise to some unbelief, those closest to Jesus could not perceive who he was or what he came to do. We see this, we see this all throughout the Gospels, skepticism leading to unbelief. You do remember that those coming and saying to Jesus, isn't that Joseph and Mary's boy? Isn't he from Nazareth? Nothing good can come out of Nazareth. Jesus had many skeptics in his day. They didn't believe who Jesus was or who he claimed to be because Jesus didn't fit the mold of who they thought he should be. His brothers thought he should blow up. Those who knew him best didn't think he could be who he said he was. It's in the skepticism, that skepticism still runs rampant today. Isn't Jesus just a good teacher? It couldn't really be the son of God. He couldn't be God incarnate. Jesus was all powerful. How come he doesn't just save and everyone can't be the only way? Yes, of the claims of Jesus and who he claims to be. Maybe you're listening this morning and some of the same questions have flooded your mind as you have encountered Jesus. You're skeptical of him because he doesn't fit who you think he should be. Oh, I urge you this morning to keep listening, to keep seeking, to keep listening to what Jesus says. Don't let your skepticism lead you to unbelief, or we get introduced to these skeptics. But then we're introduced, John introduces us to the conflicted, to the conflicted. When Jesus delays in going up to the feet, John tells us that there were many people looking for him in Jerusalem. How they were at the feet, some of them perhaps wanted to see some more miracles. They remembered when Jesus was at the last piece and he had performed all of those signs of wonders and they wanted to see more tricks, perhaps. Others had questions. They were confused about who Jesus was and who he was claiming to be until they wanted to ask him some questions. However their desire was for seeing Jesus, he was no doubt the topic of the conversation. There was a buzz amongst the crowd about who this Jesus was and where was he, and how can we ask him more questions. What we learned, there was also a bit of uncertainty about him. John 7 verse 12, and there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said he is a good man, others said, no, no, no, he's leading the people astray. They could not the crowd, they could not make up their mind about Jesus. Some thought, man, Jesus, look, listen, y'all, he's healing the sick. He is feeding the hungry, he seems like he knows the scriptures and he knows what he's talking about. He's doing some good things, perhaps we should accept him. Welcome him into the fold. Some thought him to be a good man. But others thought he was doing too much. He's doing too much. They believed him to be a troublemaker and even worse a deceiver seeking to draw others away from the faith. They would say, we used to be a unified people. But here this Jesus comes along and he's shaking the trees, we're no longer as unified as we used to be, dividing us. You see the crowd as they are murmuring about who this Jesus was, they were conflicted, sitting on the fence, trying to decide if following Jesus was a good thing. You see, but the problem was that while they sat on that fence, they had already made up their minds. There is no fence sitting when it comes to the kingdom of God. You are either for Jesus or you are against him. Don't think that the people who thought Jesus to be a good man were okay. Thinking Jesus is a good man is not going to get it done. No, no. You do remember, you do remember the rich young ruler who went up to Jesus. Do you remember what he called Jesus? How he addressed Jesus? Good teacher. He called Jesus, good teacher. He thought him to be a good man, but then after being challenged to follow Jesus to sell everything that he had and give everything to the poor, he walked away because it was too hard. He thought Jesus to be a good man. But in sisters, there are many in our day and time who are conflicted about Jesus. They too, like those in the crowd, think him to be a good man. They believe Jesus to be a great example of moral character that they can follow. Oh, they don't have any issues with Jesus. They call Jesus their homeboy. They wear shirts with Jesus is my homeboy or God is dope. They have no issues with that. They call him Lord, follow after him and his commands, they just can't do it. So they sit on the fence, all the while declaring their decision, to afraid you do understand, to afraid of what others would say, how they would be perceived. That is often the issue with the conflicted. It's not that they don't believe that Jesus is saying what Jesus is saying could be true or that Jesus is a man who is perhaps even worthy of following. They don't have any big issue with Jesus. They are just afraid of what others will think. Look at verse 13, yet for fear of the Jews, speaking of the crowd, no one spoke openly of him. They murmured among themselves about who this Jesus was. They were conflicted but refused to talk openly about Jesus because they did not want to choose the Jews to think that they were even considering following this man. They are in certainty elicited fear, enough fear to cause them not to follow after Jesus. So how insidious is fear? City is enough to keep us from the truth, to keep us from belief and not just any fear. It's not just any fear. It's the fear of man. The fear of man, look at Proverbs 29 and 25, the fear of man lays a snare. This fear of man became a snare to many of the Jews who didn't have a real problem with Jesus but they couldn't push past their fear of what the religious leaders would do to them. John 12 and 42 gives this example, nevertheless many even of the authorities believed in him but for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. Listen, if you are fearful this morning about trusting and following after Jesus because of what others will think of you or perhaps perhaps what they might even do to you, I know that's not a real threat here in our country but that is true of other countries and cultures where to name Jesus is actually to pronounce a death sentence over your head. I'm not glossing over the fear, the fear is real. The fear is real. But can I encourage you with a word from Jesus? In Matthew 10, 32, Jesus says, so everyone who acknowledges me before man. I also will acknowledge before my father who is in heaven, oh, don't fear, don't fear, don't let the fear of man cause you to miss seeing Jesus for who he is. Don't be like this crowd who remain conflicted for fear of the Jews, fear of the Jews. Which gives us insight into the next group, John highlights for us, the religious, the religious. John in the text mentions the Jews but we need to know that he is specifically thinking about the religious leaders, the religious leaders. And during the cease, Jesus encounters them in the synagogue and as he begins to teach the leaders begin to marvel, they are astounded. They cannot understand how Jesus could know so much and how he could explain the scriptures so well without having attended the schools that they attended. Get this, don't think that they marveled and they were amazed because they were impressed. They were more likely shocked and bothered by what Jesus was teaching in the way he taught. He spoke with authority and was speaking on behalf of God and you know what it did, it angered them. It angered them. It made them furious. And this response you do see was in keeping with what had been building ever since John chapter 5 with Jesus. When he healed the paralytic man on the Sabbath and the Jews sought then to kill him, a miracle that he mentions in our text in this passage, the religious elite were furious. They were irate with Jesus because he wasn't abiding by their laws, laws which they themselves were hypocritical about. Notice what Jesus says in John 7 and 19, has not Moses given you the law, yet none of you keeps the law, why do you seek to kill me and their self-righteous monitoring of the law? They themselves, they themselves you do understand couldn't keep it. Moses is giving you the law, yet none of you keeps the law and there it is when the religious encounter Jesus, he challenges their legalistic ideas. He confronts them with their false notions of what it means to be godly or what it means to be right with God and instead of accepting Jesus and his teaching they got in sense with Jesus and plotted to put him to death. This is the religious you do understand of our day. They have a perception of what it means to be godly or what it means to be right with God and often, often it looks like living up to the standard they have set. It includes the addition of regulations and stipulations that Jesus nor the scriptures include but rather than following after Jesus and his teachings, they don't mention Jesus at all but require men and women to follow their teaching because they of course know the way to God better than Jesus, this is how the religious perceived Jesus and they ultimately do away with Jesus by preaching themselves, by preaching themselves. These are the three groups, the three groups that John highlights for us that sought to perceive Jesus, the skeptics, the conflicted and the religious and each group elicited a response but none of their responses was belief in Jesus, their perception led them to unbelief. One could perceive who he was or what he was seeking to communicate and sadly, but perhaps providentially and yes providentially and according to the knowledge of God, this was in fulfillment of what the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 6 and 9 and he said go and say to this people keep on hearing but do not understand, keep on seeing but do not perceive. These men and women could not perceive Jesus nor could they hear Jesus because their eyes were blinded and their ears were closed for if their ears had been opened and their eyes and they were given eyes to see they would have clearly perceived who Jesus was because he spoke plainly to them while others might have not fully grasped who Jesus was and what he had come to do Jesus was clear what he had come to do and what his purpose was and he was not moved nor was he dismayed by the responses of the people regarding who they thought he was and we see that displayed in our text for you to understand that Jesus had an agenda and he was under authority. He had an agenda and he was under an authority. Jesus was the father's agenda. It was the father's agenda it was not his own and so he moved according to the plans and the desires of his heavenly father and so when his brothers come to him and want him to go up to the feast in Judea and to gather more followers listen to Jesus's response verses 6 and 8. Jesus said to them, my time has not yet come 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. You go up to the feast I am not going up to this feast for my time has not yet fully come. Jesus's timetable was not according to the plans the world or others had for him. The plan was indeed for Jesus to enter into Jerusalem during a feast but it was to the feast of past overs where he would be the one where he would go and lay down his life. Not the feast of books, not the feast of tabernacles. Jesus's plan had been laid out and we saw this back in chapter 2 at the wedding at Canaan when Jesus's mother comes to him to help with the situation with the wine. Jesus says my time has not yet come. He was far from finished with the work he had been sent to accomplish. His hour had not yet come for him to go up to Jerusalem. So Jesus confronts his disciples skepticism, their unbelief, their desire for him to blow up. He confronts it with an assurance of his timing and purpose. Contrasting it with the subjective, worldly nature of their timing and purpose. You see when Jesus called on his brothers to capitalize on when Jesus's brothers called on him to capitalize on his fame, they assumed that Jesus was just like them. That's what they assumed. They assumed he was a mere man with no purpose or no agenda. And Jesus says, sorry brothers, I am not like you. You can go as you please and the world does not think much about you and neither do you. But the purpose, Jesus says, for which I was sent, it is ordained by God. And the message that I have come to bring means that the world is going to hate me. I am different from you brothers. I've got an agenda in the message that I'm proclaiming. It's going to cause the world to hate me. They don't hate you. You know, people get pressed thinking that they have to defend Jesus. Brothers and sisters, Jesus is not thrown off by the haters. He's not thrown off by him. He is not pressed when people walk away from him or revile him. He knew it would happen. Jesus came exposing the evil that was in the hearts of man and the world instead of receiving the forgiveness that Jesus offers continued to run in an evil and the evil opposite direction of him. Jesus isn't thrown off. He's not thrown off by the haters. He knew, he knew, he exposed the evil and he knew it would cause people to hate him. That is why people hate him today because he calls what they do evil and they can't take being challenged over sin. And so people would rather hate him and follow him. Oh, they don't hate Jesus as blatantly as we might think. But it's subtly, subtly, we see it in media, we see it in movies, we see people demonstrating that they don't love Jesus, that they actually hate Jesus. Because Jesus exposes their evil. Jesus had an agenda when it challenged his brother's perception. But he was also, Jesus was also under authority. When the religious leaders marvel over Jesus' teaching, he responds by saying, in verse 16, my teaching is not mine but his who sent me. Jesus didn't need to be schooled in their religious institutions. The rabbis, the leaders, they went to their schools and they were taught by their rabbis and when they referenced their rabbis and what their rabbis said. But when Jesus began to teach, he was speaking with authority straight from the source because Jesus always spoke as one that was sent from the father. He was a prophet in this regard, the true prophet of Israel, the prophet whom Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 18. Deuteronomy 18 and 15, it says, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you. From your brothers, it is to him you shall listen. Speaking of Jesus, speaking of Jesus who was being communicated in Deuteronomy 18, 15, it was Jesus the one who would, the prophet who would be raised up and that they were to listen to what they did not listen, did they? They did not perceive who was the one teaching in that synagogue. And Jesus was being clear about who he was and what he came to do but they could not perceive it because you do understand that Jesus was showing them the way. He was showing them the way to the father when he was there teaching in the synagogue that is what he was doing. The way to the father was through him, verse 17 and 18, if anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and in him there is no falsehood. What is Jesus saying here? What is he saying? He's saying you want to know, you want to do God's will then believe in the one in whom he sent. That's the will of the father that you would trust his son and you know Jesus is who the father sent because he sought the will and the glory of the father and not his own. That's how you know if Jesus is who he says he is. You do understand that is how you know if a church is true or not. Are they preaching the glory of themselves or are they preaching the glory of God? If they are preaching the glory of their own of themselves but if they are not preaching the glory of Christ then you need to run. They are preaching their own glory and they are not preaching the glory of God through the person in work of Jesus then run. But if they are preaching the glory of God through the person in work of Jesus Christ then stay and build and grow. Question for us this morning is how do you perceive Jesus? How do you perceive Him? Perhaps you are a skeptic and you still have questions about Him. You are suspicious and it's leading to unbelief. Maybe you are conflicted or perhaps you are even religious. I urge you to listen to Jesus. See in Him the one who came within an agenda and with authority, the authority to save sinners and to make them right with the father. So I pray you have eyes to see Him, ears to hear Him and hearts to receive Him this morning. How do you perceive Jesus? I hope you see Him as the Savior of the world, the one in whom you need to place your hope and trust. Let's pray.