Who is Jesus

Well our passage this morning is John chapter 7. So if you have your Bible I want to encourage you to turn there with me to John chapter 7. We're going to explore the whole passage today You'll notice again that it's a long passage. It's 52 verses. So again, we're not going to read all of it We're going to look at parts of it as we explore this passage today throughout the course of the sermon I'm going to read some of the more salient Aspects of this particular passage to you as we move through it today But you have to understand this passage in light of what happened last week Last week we saw that Jesus was preaching a sermon essentially he was speaking to a group of 15,000 maybe upwards around 20,000 people who had been recipients of the bread and the fish that Jesus had provided on the hill that one day the feeding of the 5,000 and what Jesus was doing as he was explaining that feeding to them about what it all pointed to And about the fact that it was not pointing to that Jesus is just the provider of bread But that he is the bread and we see this theme going over on over and over and over in John's gospel All of kind of the tangible things you can put your hands on and taste that Jesus talks about He says they actually point to me on the fulfillment the fulfillment of those particular things And so as Jesus is bringing this to bear upon these people It's striking at them and it is piercing them at the level of their souls and many of them rejected In fact this huge crowd dwindles down to about 12 by the time it's all said and done And even one of the 12 turns out to be apostate turns out to be someone who's going to eventually deny Jesus himself So you see this happening in John's gospel that people are fascinated with Jesus Christ They're absolutely engaged by him because of all of the things that he does But then when he starts opening his mouth and starts speaking about himself they get irritated with him And then eventually at least to the point where they become out and out hateful towards Jesus so much so that in six months after this passage That we're going to read this morning Jesus is placed on the cross So that's the context that this all happens here That as Jesus's ministry becomes increasingly public there is an increasing level of opposition This just starts to bubble up here in John So everything thus far and everything that we're going to look at in this passage today is causing us to come to terms with an absolutely vital question and that question is who is Jesus Not who is Jesus to you or how does Jesus make you feel But who is Jesus in terms of how he reveals himself to be through his work Who is Jesus who is this guy that so many people seem utterly confused about Why is it that he gets so underneath the skin of some people that they want him executed We have to deal with that question It's the single most important question that we can come to grips with in the course of our human life Jesus says some remarkably odd things in this passage Says a lot of odd things throughout the course of the entire gospel of John one of the things he says in verse 37 Is this he says if anyone thirsts Let him come to me and drink I've never heard anybody say that about himself before No people don't speak like that, but Jesus does and so I think it is causing us to have to jump in to figure out who Jesus actually is So we're going to explore that together this morning When I first moved to Mississippi the first time I moved to Mississippi back in 2002 When I lived in Jackson I was astonished by how often I was asked Where I came from and who I was related to People in Mississippi seem to really want to know who's your daddy That meant that meant a lot and and I can in many ways understand why that's the case because Where you are from and who you are related to who your daddy really is Says a whole lot about who you are as a person It it has a lot to say about your makeup and what things you have imbibed and maybe what some of the characteristics of your life are like because Why you are the way you are is all put together largely because of those things And Jesus is going to spell out in many respects how that is also true for him So if you look at verse 14 of this passage you'll see kind of where he's going with it John writes this he says About the middle of the feast and we're going to talk about the feast in a minute about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching The Jews therefore marveled saying how is it that this man has learning when he's never studied So Jesus answered them My teaching is not mine But his who sent me and Jesus is saying that he is the way that he is Because he comes from the father See he knows who his father is and he reflects his father as he goes about speaking and living and engaging with people There's there's Something that he's been trying to drill into us from the very beginning of this gospel But he and the father are one They're two persons, but they're one you cannot separate them And so what he says is what the father says it carries that same authority it carries that same weight And so even though Jesus they're questioning here where Jesus went to school I mean essentially where did you where did he get all of this That he's able to bring to bear on us and even though he did not go to the top seminary He didn't need to because the seminary taught everything about him It taught everything about his father He was schooled by his father And so that's what he's bringing out to bear that he comes from heaven and he comes from his father And things get a little bit clearer when you look at verse 25 John says this in verse 25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said Is not this the man who they seek to kill And here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ But we know where this man comes from and when the Christ appears no one will know where he comes from So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple You know me and you know where I come from But I have not come of my own accord He who sent me is true And him you do not know I know him for I come from him and he sent me So Jesus is saying that he was not only schooled in heaven but that he comes from heaven He may have been born in Bethlehem raised in Nazareth Here he is in Jerusalem But he comes from heaven and so just like being from Mississippi or from New York Or from Argentina or Uganda or Bangladesh all affects the cultural norms that you've been by Effects the language that you speak and the accent that you speak it with Jesus is saying the same thing. He's saying My home is from heaven. That's the language that I speak That's the culture that I have been by and that is a culture that is not ingrained with sin It's not ingrained with decay It's ingrained with grace and truth and perfect love and perfect holiness and that's who I am That is when you prick me that is underneath my skin It is something heavenly and that is what Jesus is bringing to bear upon these people They're totally confused by it And then it gets even more so the cases you look down a little bit further if you look at verse 33 Listen to what Jesus has to say here in verse 33 Jesus says I will be with you a little longer and then I am going to him who sent me You will seek me and you will not find me Where I am you cannot come That you said to one another Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him Does he intend to go to the dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks What does he mean by saying you will seek me and you will not find me and where I am you cannot come This is getting even clearer as we go along he's saying that He not only went to school in heaven. He's not only from heaven. He's not only sent by the Father But that he's also bound for heaven That he's actually after he is crucified and after he's resurrected again He's going to ascend into heaven and he's going to sit at the right hand of his Father And he's going to plea the case of his people. He's going to intercede on their behalf He's going to declare their innocence because he took their guilt upon himself That's what Jesus has come to do that's what he's all about and so they're he's literally literally from another world And that's what he's bringing to bear upon these people and they just don't get it I mean, it's just bizarre and it would be to you if if someone came to you and we're Speaking the things that Jesus was speaking it would be that way to you. It would be confusing In verse 40 they're confused about it Some people think he's a prophet and some people think he's a Messiah And in verse 12 you look a little bit up towards the top Jesus writes this or John writes this He says that some said that he was a good man That Jesus was a good moral teacher and others said no. He's leading people astray So people can't decide if he's a good man or he's a flame and heretic and he's to be run out of town and executed That there's this mass confusion about him. There's a significant group that would like to see him executed Three times in this passage if you read all of John 7 you'll notice three times in this passage that there are attempts to arrest Jesus And to have him executed to have him crucified for the things that he's saying And as you go more and more into John you're going to see that that hostility just begins to bubble up It becomes more and more that way And let me suggest to you the reason why I think this is the case The reason why People want to execute Jesus and do away with him and begin to hate him so much Is because when he comes to people He pierces them right at the level of their pride He's striking At our pridefulness and our self-absorption every time he comes face to face with somebody and obviously the people don't like that It's way too personal it's way too up close and it seems way too intolerant for them I mean look at what he does if you look at verse 7 He's talking to his brothers and he says that One of the things that he's come to do is to testify about the world That it's works are evil And in a few weeks we're going to look in John chapter 8 Where people are saying that their their father is Abraham They are the godly religious ones. They're the ones in church every Sunday They're the ones out doing the right thing and they've totally missed Jesus And he says that because of that your father is the devil That is not the way that you make a lot of friends in this life That's not the way that you do it and and Jesus is speaking that Boldly to people confronting them at the level of their pride I think that's what he's doing to us to some extent here as well He's he's trying to spotlight this because when Jesus in the world intersect There's always going to be a clash There's always going to be a clash when holiness and sinfulness come face to face with one another Because when Jesus confronts the world and he confronts you and he confronts me he confronts our pride I don't know if you've noticed this already but every time that he comes in contact with somebody every time that he engages Relationally with someone in John's gospel He is Chipping away at their pride and self-absorption When Jesus heals someone in this gospel he's showing that not only Does he have the power to heal and that power rests only in him But he's also revealing to people that nothing within them has the power to do it They have no resources within themselves to bring healing And of course he's also pointing to something greater than the healing that he's the one that can only provide healing for our souls And so it strikes at our pride when we want to stand on our own merits When Jesus walks on the waters we saw a couple weeks ago and he jumps into the boat of his disciples And he calms that storm he's showing that He's the only one that has the power to deliver from danger He's the only one that rules over the forces of the weather He's the one that has the power to do that and it confronts them at the level of their pride because they are utterly powerless They're rolling and rolling and rolling and going nowhere and he just by the power of his word has the power to stop it It strikes at their pride when he encounters the woman at the well the woman at the well Has been living a life of total unhinged sexual and relational rebellion And he's spotlighting that to her He's saying you have been looking for life and vitality through your relationships through getting sexually gratified And Jesus is saying I'm the one that comes to provide the living water for you I am the one that has come to provide cleansing and hope and healing and renewal That you're looking for in all this nonsense that you're never going to get I come to provide that so come to me When he talks to Nicodemus he's talking to a well-educated upwardly mobile Moral good citizen highly respected in the community And he says to Nicodemus of all people if anyone had the cause to rest on their pride it was him And he says you are utterly hopeless Unless my spirit comes to you and breathes new life into your soul You are hopeless without me and you cannot Bring the spirit to you. He comes to you You don't have the power to do that He's always confronting people at the point that people's pride and most people are hating him for it They're hating him for it. They want to run him out of town And that's why most people who actually know much about Christianity They just want to brush it aside They hated they want to push to the outset out skirts of society Christopher Hitchens a very well-known author I don't know if any of you have read him, but he wrote a book entitled God is not great How religion poisons everything And this book by the way you should know rose to number two on the Amazon bestseller list So this was not some obscure book And what he wrote is that Christianity is violent, irrational, intolerant Allied terracism and tribalism and bigotry Invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry contemptuous of women and coercive towards children How's that for a badge of honor of Christianity He says that because it's struck at his identity It's struck at the level of his beliefs And he hates it for that. He hates Christianity for that Not to mention he's totally misinterpreted on just about every single possible level But he's done so because it's struck at the level of his pride In a world where sex and relationships and marriage and fatherhood And integrity and all those things only have meaning To the degree that they provide us pleasure That they serve our self-absorbed desires For Christianity to speak into those things seems wildly arrogant and naive And so people hate it for that And then there's a flip side to this pride, isn't there? The flip side of pride is avoiding all that bad stuff And not having that view of Christianity and not just going off and doing however you please And looking to how moral and good and how good your conservative family values are And so you can rest upon that and that can be the source of your comfort and your identity And Jesus says in his word and in the gospel that building your life upon your morality Seeking hope and vitality through that It's just another way to puff up your pride It's it's doing the same thing the person who could care less about God and does whatever he please does It's all looking to define yourself and all looking to find hope and satisfaction and pleasure And either your morality or your immorality And it's just pride it's pride at the end of the day So the person who imbibes those things where that becomes just part and parcel of their life If they're going to be interested in Christianity at all the kind of Christianity That they're going to be interested in is a Christianity light A non-threatening Christianity It's the kind of Christianity that theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said is a Christianity with a God without wrath Bringing men without sin Into a kingdom without judgment Through the ministrations of Christ without a cross That's what Michael Horton calls Christless Christianity There's a whole bunch of it everywhere And we just suck it up We'll gobble it up because that's how our nature is inclined That's where we just honestly want to gravitate towards But Jesus is confronting us with the real Christianity and with the real self with really who he is Because Christianity Exposes and chips away at our pride That's what happens when you come face to face and you come to terms with who Jesus actually is Whenever I come face to face with Jesus Christ whenever I see him as he is as he reveals himself to me in the world in his word. I am totally exposed I am totally opened up And he's putting a big light upon the things of my life That I'm getting life from and getting hope from that are apart from him Good things that have become ultimate things evil things that just give me instant pleasure That's what he's exposing to me and he's saying that's what you're building your life upon But I come to provide living water I come to provide hope I come to provide fulfillment and forgiveness and grace and the righteousness that you need In order to navigate this life in an order to stand before me And when he does is he exposes it that it is in my life Everywhere Pride is everywhere in your life. It's everywhere There's no area of your life that has not been in some way touched by pride And that's what Jesus is trying to expose here It's your fundamental problem and it's my fundamental problem That's part of what's in our heart whenever we're seeking pleasure or meaning or significance Without Christ and his gospel being our fundamental reference point You can just count on the fact that you're swallowing pride right out of the camp It's part of who you become and it's everyone's problem all the time So there you go aren't you glad you came to church this Sunday You came to church you wanted to hear about Jesus and Jesus came and talked to you and he said you're prideful And your preacher's prideful too Well We're gonna keep going because there's some good stuff along the way the stuff that heals your soul the stuff that provides a balm and a healing to it And you got to understand your pride and light of the grace of God to you in the gospel And if you don't see it, it's just it's just gonna devour you So let's look at what Jesus has to say as we go on here I mentioned a little bit earlier. There's a feast going on And what this is is the feast of booths you see that in verse two And in other places you'll notice that it's called the feast of tabernacles or if you have a calendar and you look kind of to September or October you'll notice that there's this Jewish holiday called second And that is what this holiday actually is it's the feast of booths and what the feast of booths actually was was like this giant week-long camping trip For all the people all over Israel would come to Jerusalem and they would have kind of this harvest festival Thing that looked a little bit like a tailgate party and also a religious Renewal time of joy and celebration That's what's going on here and the people would go to Jerusalem They would build these booth-like shelters and they put these palm branches on top and what it was is to remember The Wilderness wondering how Jesus how God had provided for his people as they were out in the wilderness after the Exodus How he had provided mana from heaven and how he had provided water for the people How he had sustained his people in the midst of a place where they couldn't grow anything They couldn't get anything and how Jesus had been faithful to his people even back then And so it's the time of celebration and joy And so during this festival what would happen is the priest would come and he would draw Water out of the pool of Psyloam in Jerusalem And then he would leave this processional back towards the temple So all the people thousands of people would follow the priest as he goes back towards the temple And they would be singing the Psalms they would be singing Psalm 113 through 118 and they would culminate in singing Psalm 118 1825 which says save us we pray oh Lord oh Lord we pray give us success And as it got to the temple the the priest would take The water that he had drawn and he would pour it out on the altar He would pour it out on the ground by the altar and then the people would sing these words from Isaiah 12 verse 3 They would sing with joy You will draw water from the wells of salvation So that's what's going on and in the midst of that in the midst of this climactic moment in the Course and in the culture and the religious experience of these Israelites Jesus stands up in front of all of those people and says what he says in verse 37 look at it with me He says this if any one thirst Let him come to me and drink Whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water Now this he said about the spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive For as yet the spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet been glorified What a strange thing to say and to do to to stand up in front of The church thousands of people and have this Outcry this outburst that Jesus says Reese pointy all the attention back to him and he's saying I'm the living water when I was Living in San Diego I Was preaching at a church the pastor was gone so I went to go Stand in for him and I preached at this church and it was a cold rainy awful day in San Diego was a very very rare kind of day It was just a just a dreary day and so I was preaching at this church and in walks This guy in the middle of the sermon and he sits right there. He sits right in front of me at the front of the church And he had been out in the rain and he looked like the reincarnation of John the Baptist I mean he was a freakishly large man with real Kind of straggly looking hair and uncapped and kind of dirty and he had this big huge ugly beige raincoat that looked like a superman cape I mean he was just this huge man that comes and he's all wet and he's sitting right in front of me And so I finished the sermon and we sing the final song And I'm getting ready to give the benediction and up stands John the Baptist and he comes and he stands right here in front And he just cries out something weird and incoherent to all the people And everybody's just kind of wondering what's going to happen next and he comes and he sits right back down And I give the benediction and we all go home and everybody just has a weird Sunday. That's what it was like Well Jesus is kind of doing this here Jesus is doing a very similar thing. He's he's Crying out he's saying something about himself. It's absolutely vital that the people latch onto that they grasp and that they understand and what he's saying is that this whole ceremony this whole feast Everything that you saw about pouring water on the ground That's all about me He's saying that Exodus That was all about me. I'm the one who leads you out of bondage He's saying the water That's about my my spirit the holy spirit That is poured out of me and it just goes and it goes and it goes and it goes all over the place He's saying that's what that is about so come to me He's saying come to me because the salvation that your ancestors experienced from the Egyptians Is nothing like the salvation that I bring to you in the gospel You need to come to me that vision that you read about that you know about from Ezekiel 47 He's saying that's all about me. There's this picture in Ezekiel 47 where the water is flowing out of the temple It's just flowing out of the temple goes to the east and to the west and to the north and to the south it goes in every which direction and it just Grews and grows and grows and it engulfs everything. There's nothing that's untouched by the water And he's saying that's the water that I provide for you when the Holy Spirit comes It's just gonna devour you. It's just gonna be poured out and dumped upon you And you need that Holy Spirit if you're gonna have life in me if you're gonna have salvation That's what all of those ceremonies pointed to they pointed right to me And y'all this is a major major shift In the way in what you and I are prone to think and to believe Because over and over again and John and over and over again in all the gospels We're seeing that Jesus is exposing how we're seeking to Feed our appetite and quench our thirst With just a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo That that's what we're naturally inclined to do and that we think we're full even though we're starving See the connection between this and last week That We think we're so full of goodness Because we're law abiding God fearing Moral citizens trying to do the right thing And that's the part that we allow people to see of us. We hide those shameful parts We we want to hide the parts of our lives that that are ugly and sinful and broken and messed up We want to put a fig leaf around it just like Adam and Eve did

And Jesus is exposing that We can run and hide maybe from others But we cannot run and hide from Christ and he's going to expose that in us And he wants to expose that because when we allow ourselves to just Go off and pretend that the sin isn't there Pretend that the brokenness isn't there We're not only deceiving other people, but we're deceiving ourselves We're building our life upon a false Identity and and we're covering up our weaknesses and we're failing to bring those weaknesses to him and to his people But ultimately to him who can renew us and restore us and pour out forgiving cleansing healing waters upon us And so we deal with our weakness so often by preaching the law to ourselves completely detached from the gospel And it turns Christianity into a bunch of rules It turns Christianity to a rigid formulation of a bunch of rules Rather than repentance that comes out of a posture having been a recipient of God's grace and his living waters to us That's what he's trying to get us to see He's asking you a question How is that Following all the rules thing working out for you Is that working out okay? Are you are you kind of like hitting at least about a 95% in that Because Jesus is showing us You're not and if you think you are there's there's a level of deception going on there that's acute It's it's deep and he's wanting you to see he's the living water That's what he's trying to get you to me to see he's trying to see that we're actually thirsty And they were actually dirty and we're actually broken and we're empty and dehydrated And he's showing us that he's the temple and out of that temple flows a living water It's refreshing and cleansing and filling and renewing And it flows to all of his people It's to all who will receive him He's the one from whom the Holy Spirit is poured out So he's telling you you're not okay that you're broken But he is the one who comes to bring that healing and refreshment and forgiveness He pours the water into the cracks of your life and and brings healing to that Do you believe that this morning? If so there are a couple things that you need to see before we go just a couple things I want you to hang your hat on before we leave here today Here's the first the first thing you need to do In response to this is to obey your thirst Some kind of a commercial I think God's calling you to obey your thirst you are thirsty And what that means is that you need to recognize and I need to recognize Just how deeply our pride is is just woven into our lives And how we've been building our lives upon a false sense of security in so many ways And deceiving ourselves into believing that we're actually full and healthy when we're not What it means is that you need to recognize the parts of your life That are so messed up That you don't want anyone in the world to know about That you would just die if someone knew about it And you need to see it and you need to see the light of Christ shining on those things Exposing it Because when you see that you you come to grips with your thirst You come to realize your emptiness your starvation And it drives you to see him And you stop excusing it anymore And you stop defending it and you stop comparing yourself to other people so that You can feel better about yourself in light of their weaknesses See that's what all these people who just wanted to do away with Jesus were doing They were dismissing Their depravity And they were also dismissing the grace that was only available to them in the gospel They're pushing it away. They didn't want it because they didn't want their pride exposed But you know what Jesus didn't come to call the righteous Jesus didn't come to call the righteous to repentance. He came to call sinners to repentance Do you see yourself as that? That's what he wants you to see. He wants you to see that you're not Full and satisfied He wants you to see that you're empty and broken And once you see that you can become full and satisfied when his Holy Spirit is just dumped down into your life When that becomes the root of your identity When that becomes the source of your power and strength and contentment Enjoy in the course of this life And so the key is just to acknowledge it to obey your thirst to acknowledge your thirst And to stop turning inward and start turning outward toward him To turn to him to rest upon him to rest upon his merits and not your merits And Christian you need to know that in the gospel You have the safety to do that The gospel is a wonderfully safe place to be to be able to say Jesus here I am Here I am I I come to you with nothing in my hands except for a load of sin Except for a load of garbage and brokenness And so I need you to heal me I need you to forgive me I need you to give me grace upon grace that you say that you give to your people that you're all about That's what obeying your thirst looks like So you have the safety to do that because Christ is in you the hope of glory You have the safety to do that because when the Father said to the Son You are my beloved Son and you I am well pleased He says it to you as well because you're in him you own that So he's calling you take your weakness take your failures take your filth to him and watch his spirit restore you And renew you And when that becomes the reality of your life All that other stuff that you're chasing after to build up your pride Becomes peripheral to you it becomes much much less attractive So that's the first thing he's saying obey your thirst Here's the last thing and the last thing comes in verse 38 look at it with me Jesus says whoever believes in me as the scripture has said Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water That's an amazing promise It's an amazing promise to you because what Jesus has just promised to you Is that if you entrust yourself to him He gives you his holy spirit That Presbyterians can actually be holy spirit build people That that he comes and he dwells inside us he's poured out upon us He applies what Jesus did in his death to you Which means that you don't go around as a defeated person with this posture of guilt and defeat in your life because your the victory has been won by him and that's been applied to you When he rose again all of that condemnation Went away because it was poured out on Jesus Christ so you don't stand condemned You stand forgiven you you stand as someone who is beloved of the Father You stand as a person the Holy Spirit is applying to you that intercession the Holy Spirit intercedes for us We don't know what to pray for The Holy Spirit is playing our client our case we have that promise and so In all of the Toils and Snares that you go through in life And all of your dirtiness and sin And all of the brokenness that you experience at the hands of other people You could have that confidence that the Holy Spirit is come to you and he's come to you in nothing but grace In nothing but love That's what you have So you don't need to chase after all the other junk to make you feel better Because you've been given that Holy Spirit and you know what he also says He not only says that he himself that Christ is the temple and out of the temple out of Christ flows the Holy Spirit But when you look at what Paul has to say he says that you're the temple too There's a real sense in which we are the temple and out of us out of his people flows the Holy Spirit So we've been given the Holy Spirit and we have been given the grace and the power to bring that the The compassion and the grace and the beauty of the Holy Spirit to other people We can bring that to one another We can breathe be agents of healing Of restoration of grace of love and the local church And it does away with the backbiting and the divisiveness and the gossip and all the other nonsense That people hate the church for that's what a Holy Spirit filled church looks like And his first Presbyterian church becomes more and more like that every day

We're going to have a huge space problem in this place Because people are thirsty and people are hungry and they don't even know what they're thirsty and hungry for But when the Holy Spirit emanates from our lives There's something beautiful about that and there's something attractive about that And that's what we want people to see here and that's what you want people to see in your life Not to make yourself look great, but to make Jesus look great And when you make Jesus look great and you're delighting yourself and him you're delighting yourself and him You're satisfied That's what Jesus wants for your soul So come to him and rest in him and delight yourself in him and embrace him Don't leave here without doing that today Let's pray Father when we survey the wondrous cross It calls us to pour contempt on our pride because the cross Exposes our pride it exposes Every level of sin within our life every level of rebellion and indifference to you and lack of conformity to you and full conformity to something else But the cross also speaks something beautiful to us and it speaks to the fact that we stand forgiven and declared righteous and Our sins are cast off as far as the east is from the west and you've given us your Holy Spirit And so Father because that's the case we pray that we would just live out of that posture That we would realize our thirst and that our thirst would lead us to him Would lead us to you as the one Who pours out that nice cool refreshing Holy Spirit living water upon our lives Do that in us as individuals and as a church and let this church be a place that's radiating the Holy Spirit That's expressing his beauty in all spheres of our lives And pray this in Jesus' name and for his sake Amen