Sermon Tone Analysis

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A Line in the Sand

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!!   John 7:40-44

 

 

A small-town police officer was sitting in his car on a Saturday morning when a motorist sped past him down Main Street.

He quickly pulls the car over.

“Officer,” the man began, “I can explain…”

“Quiet!” snapped the officer.

“We don’t ‘tolerate’ reckless driving in this town!

I’m going to let you cool your heels in jail until the chief gets back.”

“But, officer, you don’t under…”

“And I said to keep quiet!” he barked, reaching for his nightstick to convince the man he meant what he said.

A few hours later the officer looked in on his prisoner and said, “Lucky for you that the chief’s at his daughter’s wedding.

He’ll be in a good mood when he gets back.”

“Don’t count on it,” replied the fellow in the cell.

“I’m the groom.”

Have you ever been quick to judge?

John chapter seven tells us about Jesus going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Jewish holiday festival known as the Feast of Booths, also called the Feast of In-gatherings and Feast of Tabernacles.

Together with Passover and Pentecost, the Feast of Booths is one of the three major annual festivals that every Jewish male was required to attend.

The Feast of Booths celebrated God’s provision for Israel during the forty years in the desert.

Goodspeed translates it “the Jewish camping festival,” because the people all made shelters out of interwoven branches and leaves and slept outside under the shelters for seven nights to remind them how their ancestors slept under the stars for forty years in the desert.

And each day of the festival there was a parade as the priest carried a golden pitcher of water from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple to pour out as a thank offering to God who had given water from the rock to the children of Israel in the desert.

It was called the Feast of In-gatherings because it was a time to celebrate the harvest.

It took place in mid October after the fields were harvested.

So it was an exciting time of the year.

Tens of thousands of Jews from all over the world have converged on Jerusalem, and as they build their shelters, as they go to the temple during the week, as they visit the shops downtown, as they sit around their campfires at night...Jesus is the hot topic of discussion.

I want you to pick up with me towards the end of the chapter.

On the last day of the feast, after Jesus has preached some powerful lessons, we read:

*John 7:40 (NIV)* */On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."

41 Others said, "He is the Christ."

Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? 42 Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David’s family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus.

/*

I want you to notice the text says the people argued and debated, and when it was all said and done, the people were divided over Jesus.

And this gives Jesus no satisfaction.

John records a prayer of Jesus in chapter 17, in which Jesus prays for the unity of all believers.

Jesus wants people to unite because of Him.

But Jesus knew not everyone would accept His teachings.

That’s why Jesus said on another occasion, */Matt 10:34 (NIV) "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth.

I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

35 For I have come to turn "`a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law--36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

/*

“Thus the people were divided because of Jesus.”

And you know it’s still that way today.

People are divided because of Jesus.

Some accept Him as Lord and Savior; some don’t.

Others pick and choose what they accept from Jesus.

And millions who do believe in him are divided still.

What is it about Jesus that divides the people?

Why could tens of thousands of Jews who heard about his miracles and were astonished by teachings at the temple not agree?

How could these people gathered together for a week of worship and thanksgiving to God reject His own Son in their midst?

I believe there are some telling clues in the text.

One reason why the people were divided was because of the...

*1.

FINGER POINTING OF JESUS.*

Jesus’ half brothers were poking fun at him, nagging him and taunting him, saying he ought to go up to Jerusalem and preach to the big crowds instead of in little boats and on little hills around Galilee.

But Jesus tells them, */John 7:7 (NIV) “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.”

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One reason why people are divided over Jesus is because Jesus makes them deal with sin.

Jesus uncovers and confronts sin.

I mean when Jesus preached you could hear snap, crackle, pop all over the crowd because toes were being stepped on.

Apparently Jesus did not read How To Win Friends and Influence People.

Jesus was not schooled in the fine arts of political correctness.

He did not have his disciples editing his speeches to remove from them anything the audience might find offensive.

I love how on one occasion after Jesus preached, the disciples came up and said to Jesus, */“Don’t you know the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?” (Matt.

15:12)./*

Of course he did!

I find it quite interesting at this time of year all the posturing that goes on between those that are looking to be elected to an office.

They want to be politically correct.

They want to appeal to all ethnic groups.

They want to make themselves look good.

However, they begin to mud sling and loose sight of what it is that they are to do.

Serve the people.

They even might stretch some truth along the way.

But Jesus spoke the truth.

He bought the truth and sold it not, as the Scriptures command.

And if people could not accept Jesus it was because they could not accept the truth about their own sinfulness.

Like the guy who enjoyed smoking tobacco until they came out with the surgeon general’s health warning on the packages.

He determined he had to do one of two things quit smoking or quit reading, so he opted for the logical decision to quit reading.

You just watch, a man will do almost anything to keep from saying sorry and admit that he was wrong.

It’s human nature.

And Jesus divides people because he confronts us with our sin.

But look with me at *verses 12-13*, because there is a second clue in the text teaching us why the people were divided and that is because of...

 

*2.

FEAR OF GOING AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT.*

*/John 7:12 (NIV) Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him.

Some said, "He is a good man."

Others replied, "No, he deceives the people."

13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews/*.

Did you get that?

Rather than step out and act upon their convictions, the people kept quiet and remained divided in their opinions because they were afraid of the religious establishment.

You see the people knew that the leaders of the Jews were looking for Jesus and wanted to kill him, *verses 25-26* tell us they did.

And though they apparently did not agree with their leaders they would not go against them.

That is why we have developed a new posture of post-modernism.

Post modernism states that all truth is relative.

In fact it says that what is true to one person may not be truth to another.

We each develop our own truth for our lives.

There is no absolute truth.

Can you catch the irony in that statement?

By saying that there is no absolute truth, they have just contradicted what they believe.

This is man’s way.

Where would the world be without a Martin Luther who had the courage to nail 95 theses to his church door in Wittenberg.

95 points where he believed the religious establishment was in error with a call to see if the Bible says it isn’t so.

Where would we be without the Wycliffes and the Tyndales?

Men willing to die to put the Bible in the language and hands of the people?

And I’ll tell you that churches of Christ in the United States were born out of a conviction that a divided Christendom can unite when truth is trumpeted over tradition, when faith overcomes fear of going against the religious establishment.

Do we still believe it today?

Or are we content to remain divided because we now fear our own unprofessed religious establishment?

Failure to accept correction for sin, fear of the religious establishment cause people still today to be divided because of Jesus.