Discernment from Devotion
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
In the opening chapter of his Gospel, you remember John the Apostle penned down under inspiration these words, in chapter 1, verses 10 and 11 concerning Christ: "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him." And so, throughout his Gospel, John sets forth both the tragedy of unbelief along with the triumphs of belief. He wrote the Gospel—you know the purpose—to show who Jesus is and to what end in view, so that, he says in chapter 20, verse 31, "That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, He is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name."
And so, to have saving faith, to truly have saving faith, it is crucial, critical that you understand correctly, biblically, who Jesus actually is. To have that kind of discernment. In our text, Jesus is at the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem, six months before He would be arrested and crucified. Before He showed Himself publicly at the feast, the crowds were debating, as we read earlier, with some saying, in verse 12, "He's a good man," but others were also saying, "No, no, on the contrary, He leads people astray." John wants us to see that neither of those are viable options.
Jesus could not have been merely a good man and said the things that He said. I mean, think about it—if a mere man claimed that he could give living water so that the one who drank would never thirst again, or if he claimed to be the bread of life so that whoever ate of him would never hunger and would have eternal life, or if he had claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life, and said he was the only way that people could come to God, you would not say he's a good man. You would say he's an insane person, self-absorbed. And at the same time, Jesus was obviously too good to be a deliberate deceiver.
So John wants us to see who Jesus is—that Jesus is indeed the Christ, that He is the eternal Son of God, God the Son in human flesh. He wants us to see Jesus' glory so that we might believe in Him as our Lord and our God. But John knows full well that believing in Jesus isn't an automatic response to Him. There's always division. Some believe, some are indifferent, others reject Him vehemently. And so here, John shows us the reaction of the Jewish leaders and the crowds to Jesus when He went into the temple in the midst of the feast and began to teach.
And although Jesus was sent from God, taught God's truth, sought God's glory, and did miraculous works, people rejected Him because they valued the wrong things. They were not willing to obey. They were legalistic hypocrites. They were under, really, the influence of the prince of this world, and they were judging by outward appearances. Or to put it succinctly, although Jesus is the true and righteous One, people reject Him because of their sin. We will see that shortly.
The context, you remember, as we approach this text in chapter 7, verse 14 and following, is that Jesus leaves Galilee after six months of training with the twelve, spending a concentrated time with them. The transfiguration took place during that period, and yes, of course, there was some public ministry, miracles, teaching, and preaching. But primarily, His emphasis was really with the twelve to give time in order to prepare them for what is ahead.
In the midst of the feast now, He goes to Jerusalem, we're told here, and began to teach. Remember from last time, He didn't go when everyone else went to the Feast of Tabernacles. He didn't join with His brothers. He didn't follow with them or go with them with His own entourage. He waited until the middle of the week because He knew that the religious leaders wanted to kill Him. Verse 1 says they were seeking to kill Him. And when the feast was just beginning, they were looking for Him, you remember. They were waiting to capture Him early on, and so He did not go publicly.
Verse 11 says, "The Jews were seeking Him at the feast, saying, 'Where is He? Where is He?'" And Jesus knew that. So He waited. He waited until midweek, and then He went to the feast. When everything settled in, when the people were there and it was a whole lot harder to really seize Him, He showed up. He went. You remember verse 10, it says, "He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as in secret." At the right moment, He walks into the temple.
The time of the Feast of Tabernacles commemorates the wilderness wandering when they dwelled in booths. You remember that from last Lord's Day, we talked about that—for forty years, they commemorated that time by this feast. And so He goes into the temple. He faces the world that hates Him. He faces Jerusalem. He faces the leaders who are determined to execute Him.
Jerusalem now, you can imagine, is filled with masses of people, pilgrims who have come from everywhere. Those in the diaspora also had all come back for one of the three feasts that take place in Jerusalem. So they had to be in Jerusalem. They all converged in Jerusalem at the temple. In the middle of the week, He shows up. And of course, this catches the rulers, the religious leaders, off guard because they don't think He's there. It's unexpected because they were looking for Him. They thought He'd come from the beginning. And so, "Where is He? Where is He?" He's not here. And Jesus, in the middle of the week, shows up. In some ways, they're neutralized by the crowd and the public exposure that Jesus already has. His time is so precise that back in verse 6, He wouldn't go a few days earlier because He said, "My time is not yet here." Verse 8, "My time has not yet been fulfilled."
You remember from last Lord's Day, we were reminded that He was operating on a divine timetable. He was on a divine schedule. Now the people know that the Pharisees and Sadducees are against Jesus, and so they wouldn't dare talk about Jesus openly. You talk about Him in whispered tones. The word "grumbling" in verse 12 actually means bound up in it—behind-the-scenes talk.
And of course, you remember there was a lot of confusion—His own family, His own brothers, the crowds, the people in the temple—confusion. The crowds know these religious rulers are against Jesus. He's banned. We don't talk about Him. He's off-limits. But when they do talk about Him, there's more confusion. Some say, "He's good, He's a good man." Others say, "No, no, don't kid yourself, He's a deceiver. He's there to lead the people astray."
And they not only had that, but if you read on in the chapter—we'll get there, Lord willing—you'll see there were some folk theology myths that they had: that the Prophet was different than the Messiah, that when Messiah appears, no one knows where He comes from. I don't know where they got that from, by the way. But some of them actually think Jesus was born in Galilee because He lives there. And so they go, "Well, He can't be the Messiah because the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem." Confusion upon confusion. And you can kind of tell that perhaps John is smiling as he writes that. So there's plenty of confusion, confusion all around.
About the middle of the feast, Jesus goes up to the temple. The temple complex is not just like a little tiny building—no, it's a massive building. It is a humongous building. You have huge porticoes and huge areas where you can stand where a rabbi would teach, and they would teach. Rabbis would go to the temple in this courtyard, which is a massive area, and they would find that location in the temple courtyard and they would stand there and begin to teach the multitude. So Jesus did exactly that. He took the role of the rabbi or the teacher. He found a place there in that temple and began to teach.
And Jesus uses the element of surprise. No one knows He's there. So He goes up, takes His position as a rabbi, as the Rabbi, the Teacher, and He begins to teach. And as you read there in verse 15, apparently some of the leaders come, and they hear Jesus teach, and it's the first time for them that they've heard Him teach. Probably He did most of His teaching in Galilee, not in Jerusalem. So these guys who are living in Jerusalem only have seen His miracles, have never heard Him actually teach, and it really surprises them—so much so, verse 15 tells us that they were ‘thavmázo.’ They were marveling. They were astonished. They were dumbfounded. They were shocked.
Because when Jesus teaches, it is learned. It is powerful. And when they say, "how has this man become learned, not having been educated?" they're referring here to the ability to teach, the ability to discourse, to explain, to reason like a rabbi would. But He's not like the rabbis. Not like the rabbis. The teachings of the day included rabbis who would quote other rabbis. That was the way they taught. Nothing changed. "Rabbi Gamaliel said that Rabbi Ben Akiva, and Rabbi Ben Akiva said Rabbi Hillel, and Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakai said," and you had to quote a string of rabbis to give you one sentence of supposed truth.
Jesus doesn't quote anyone. He doesn't. He simply speaks. He teaches. Somebody said, and I quote, "The rabbis taught from authorities; Jesus taught with authority." They quoted each other. Jesus was not quoting anyone. He was the embodiment of truth. He was Truth Himself. The Truth. When they taught in the synagogues, in the temple, the rabbis would cite the proper rabbinic authorities. But now, here's this nobody, this carpenter from the insignificant town of Nazareth, teaching the people without citing a single esteemed rabbi.
He would say, you remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard it said, but I say to you." "You have heard it said, but I say to you." Again and again and again. Matthew concludes the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 7, verses 28 and 29, noting, "When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were ‘thavmázo,’” astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
So here's Jesus teaching. Confusion in the temple, confusion all around. Everyone's confused. The brothers are confused. The crowd is confused. The Judeans are confused. The religious leaders are confused. And what Jesus is now going to explain is why they're confused.
Let's look at the great cause of the confusion. And let me say this: this applies to us today if we're confused. If we don't understand the truth, it's going to be the same cause. Same cause. Look now at the great cause of the confusion. Look with me down at verse 19. We're going to skip verses 16 to 18 in case you're wondering why we skipped them. We're going to come back to them under the heading "The Cure." The cure. But let's look at the cause.
Verses 19 to 24: "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you does the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?" The crowd answered, "You have a demon. Who seeks to kill You?" Jesus answered them, "I did one work, and you all marvel. For this reason Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses but from the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
Jesus says, listen, you claim adherence to the truth of Moses, but you actually don't obey Moses. You don't obey the law of Moses. How so? You're trying to kill Me. You're trying to kill Me. I think there's a law against that, right? Murder is a breaking of the law. There's a hypocrisy at work here. Here are people saying, well, we follow Moses. We adhere to Moses' law. We are loyal to the law. But in reality, they are disobeying the law.
Now, there are some in the crowd who either don't know about the plot to kill Jesus, or they're lying or pretending they don't know. But either way, they say, You're mad. You're demon-possessed. You've got some kind of a persecution complex. Jesus just ignores the insult completely. He ignores it completely, and He knows they're trying to kill Him. So what He does is He refers back to what happened.
What did happen? Well, He tells us here, and you remember, I trust, several months earlier, He was at the pool of Bethesda, and there was a lame man. Remember that? Back in John chapter 5. And He made the lame man walk on the Sabbath, and they just couldn't let that go. They just couldn't. They're just so fixated on it, and the Jewish leaders were furious at Him. You remember healing on the Sabbath, and because of that, in their mind, they disqualified Him from being the Messiah and determined that He must be counterfeit. He must be false. He must be fake.
Now watch this. In the law of Moses, a male child who's born has to be circumcised eight days after his birth, right? And if those eight days later land the child on the Sabbath, you have a dilemma now. What do you do? What do you do? Do you circumcise the child or don't you? Well, isn't that breaking the Sabbath? Well, the rabbis decided circumcision was more important than the Sabbath, so they allowed for Sabbath circumcision for a host of good reasons. They didn't postpone it. They didn't say, well, you can't do it on the Sabbath. Well, they did it on the Sabbath, and that was their decision.
And Jesus uses this, and He says, now if that's true for circumcision, how much more should it be true for healing a lame man on the Sabbath? To break the Sabbath, He says, to circumcise a child, you won't delay it by one day, and because I heal a man on the Sabbath, you say I'm wrong. I'm counterfeit.
What's the point? These people cannot apply the Law of God consistently. They are discerning badly. They are judging wrongly. They're judging superficially. How so? Look at verse 24: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." They're being dishonest. They're only doing what appears to the eye. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount? You know, they stand on the corners of the street, in the busiest spot, and when everybody's looking, it's so that they can appear to be pious. They're being dishonest. They're only doing what appears to the eyes. They're getting it wrong because they are really fundamentally disobedient, and that exposes a flawed, defective heart.
Now, here's the great cause. You say, what's the great cause of confusion? Well, sin. Sin. That's why they're getting it wrong. Now, let me say this, and we need to follow closely at this point. Getting it wrong in your mind begins with getting it wrong in your actions. Wrong thinking comes from wrong living. I know that's putting things a little bit upside down. I'll explain. False beliefs come from your false behavior. These people are disobeying the Law of Moses. That's why they can't rightly discern the Law of Moses. They're not obeying what they do have, and that exposes their flawed heart. That's why they can't apply it correctly to how Jesus treated the Law.
You see, here's the point. Hardness of heart is not an information problem. It is not an intellectual slowness. It is not, beloved, a mental aptitude. Hardness of heart is a chosen stubbornness, a refusal to submit, an attitude of selfishness that expresses itself in a behavior that becomes so embedded that it will impact how I think. Because I don't want to change my behavior. That's why Jesus said to the people who are going to understand—He said the people who are going to understand are going to have hearts of little children. People who say, I don't know, but I really want to obey.
Why are the brothers confused? Why is the crowd confused? Why are the Jewish leaders confused? Because they are disobedient to the truth they already have. That's the cause of the confusion. Now, all of this leads Jesus to unlocking the answer for us positively. He's going to give us the great cure for the confusion, and it's obviously the flip side.
So look with me now to the great cure for confusion, and this is really the heart of the text. Verses 16, 17, and 18: "So Jesus answered them and said, 'My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the One who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.'"
Here are all these people watching Jesus with folded arms, and they're going, well, why should we believe You, Jesus of Nazareth? How can we discern if You are indeed the Messiah? The Judeans are saying, where did You get Your doctrine from? You're not quoting any rabbis.
Now, Jesus' answer is, My teaching is sent from Heaven just like Me. My teaching is sent from Heaven just like Me. Now, if He had said,” oh, I am self-taught,” if He had said, “oh, I don't need a teacher,” He would have been discredited immediately. But He made sure to say, I'm not seeking My own fame. I'm not seeking My own glory. I'm not a false teacher. I'm not a self-seeking teacher.
Multitudes, multitudes, beloved, fill pulpits all across this nation, all around the world like Diotrephes, who, craving the honor of men, loving to have the place of preeminence, exalt themselves. Such men are crafty, self-serving, users of men. Our Lord Jesus was not such a teacher and preacher. And those who serve Him, those who are devoted followers of Him, those who are undershepherds of the Chief Shepherd, are not such.
2 Corinthians 4—listen to the words of Paul, an undershepherd of Christ, a slave of Christ, "Therefore,” - verse 1, “since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame." Now, watch this. "Not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled for those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Now, watch this too. Verse 5: "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus. For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves."
The man who is called of God is deeply aware of his Savior's majesty and his own infirmity. He sees in himself nothing but weakness, unworthiness, insufficiency, and he knows that he is less than nothing. Ephesians 3:8—To me," Paul writes, "'the very least of all saints, this grace was given to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ.'" And in 1 Corinthians 15:9, he says, "For I am the least of the apostles and not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.”
But that man who knows that he is not motivated by Christ, that he is not led by the Spirit of Christ, that he has no regard for the glory of Christ, tries to cover his defects by exalting his own name. Like the scribes and Pharisees of old, he seeks the praise of men. God's servants, however, do not exalt themselves. They exalt the Triune God, uplifting the crucified Christ, crying, "Behold the Lamb of God. Follow Him."
Every false messiah seeks his own glory—everyone his own gain, his own elevation. Back to our text, look at verse 18: "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory." Again, it's going back to the fact that he's not speaking from himself for his own glory's sake. He's not coming up with this to draw attention to himself. "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the One who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him."
Question: How do you tell a true teacher? Because he seeks only the glory of God. Jesus only sought the glory of God. It's part of His humiliation—laid aside what He was entitled to, and He came all the way down, became a slave, down lowly enough all the way to the death on Calvary's cross.
Who’s the true Savior? He’s the One. He’s the One who washes the dirty feet of His disciples. He’s the One who came not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give His life for ransom for many. He’s the One who humbles Himself in love. He’s the One who bears the burdens of sin. He’s the One who seeks no profit, has no place to lay His head, takes nothing, gives everything. He’s the One who renders all the glory, defers all the glory, all the honor to the Father, not Himself. He’s the One. He’s the One.
Keep in mind also, as mentioned earlier, this was an age where you always cited a rabbinic authority for every statement you made, but Jesus makes these statements, doesn’t cite a single rabbi. Who does He say the source of His message is? He tells you in verse 17, it’s from God. And in verse 16, He says, “My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me.”
Now, how do we verify that? How do we verify that? Here, beloved, it all comes together. This is it. This is it. Verse 17 is the key verse. Jesus says, I’m speaking from God, you should trust Me. I am the Messiah. I am not seeking My own glory. I’m seeking the glory of My Father, so My message is true.
So you’re in that crowd, you’re standing there hearing this, and you say, well, how do I know that? How do I know You’re speaking from Your Father? How do I know that? Verse 17 is the key verse. And if you forget everything else in this message this morning, you must remember verse 17, underline it, memorize it, take it with you because verse 17 is the key.
Jesus says this: If you want to know if what I’m saying is truly from God the Father or I’m just coming up with it Myself, here’s how you will know. Leon Morris said this: His hearers had raised the question of His competence as a teacher, He raises the question of their competence as hearers. Look at verse 17. This is our Lord’s answer: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself.”
Discernment from devotion. You see it? Discernment from devotion. He’s saying, if you desire to perform God’s desire, His will, if you desire to please God, you will know whether I am from God or I am an imposter. Now, is that what you were expecting? Let me tell you, it’s not what I was expecting initially.
We think if we want to know something, we do what? More research, more research. You study harder, you investigate more. If you want to know something, you need higher quality information, right? Better facts, more evidence, sound reasons. We figure it’s a mental process we’re after. Jesus here says, no, it’s a moral process. It’s not a mental process, it’s a moral process. It’s a heart issue.
He tells us this kind of knowledge, this kind of discernment, to cut through the confusion and cure it with true discernment, comes to the one who chooses to please God. Insight, explanation, understanding comes through an attitude leading to an action. When He talks about an action or doing, it’s always an attitude leading to that action.
The golden rule for understanding spiritually, Oswald Chambers says, is not intellect but obedience. F. W. Robertson: Obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge. Again, this is not mere, shallow, outward obedience, mechanical. This is a heart attitude that expresses itself in action. J. C. Ryle: Honest obedience to God’s will is one way to obtain clear spiritual knowledge.
Discernment from devotion. You see, we don’t believe this in our age, do we? Jesus is teaching us the order of knowledge, true knowledge, is obedience followed by discernment. Explanation comes through submission.
Now, of course, knowledge does also lead to obedience. It also runs in that direction. You've got to know something so you can do it. But the Bible teaches us in many places that after we commit to obeying God, we receive what? More discernment, more understanding. We read that several times in Psalm 25. Turn with me there. I just want to show us one place where we read that exact principle, that truth—that after we commit to obeying God, we receive more understanding.
Psalm 25, look at verse 9: "May He lead the humble in justice, and may He teach the humble His way." You've got to be humble first, then you get the teaching, right? Later on in the Psalm, look at verse 12: "Who is the man who fears Yahweh? He will instruct him in the way he should choose." Look at verse 14: "The secret of Yahweh is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant." You fear Him first, and then what do you get? The secret of the Lord, right? He will make you know His covenant. He will give you greater knowledge.
And we all remember Proverbs, don't we? Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of Yahweh,” - what?- “is the beginning of knowledge." Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom." What do you have to do first? Here's what Jesus is saying: orient your heart rightly to God, then you'll learn. That's what He's saying. Orient your heart rightly to God, and then you'll learn. It doesn't say, well, you first get this information and get these facts and you memorize them, and then the fear of the Lord will result. No, you fear the Lord, and then you get the knowledge. Do God's will, and then you'll understand God's truth.
A. W. Tozer - and the reasons I'm referring to Ryle and Tozer and others is because I stand with good company - A. W. Tozer said this about this verse: "The willing and the doing come before the knowing. Truth is a strict master and demands obedience before it unveils its riches to the seeking soul." You see, you can have a well-educated mind that can be advanced in learning, and it's no guarantee that you will be wise or discerning. Some of history's greatest criminals, some of history's worst villains, have been highly intelligent and highly educated people.
And you know, Satan also offers knowledge, doesn't he? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil—except you get it through how? Disobedience. But Jesus offers knowledge as a result of obedience. First, you take the yoke of being submitted and responsible, and then you get the joy of knowing God's truth. G. Campbell Morgan said once, and I quote: "When men are wholly, completely consecrated to the will of God, and they want to do that above everything else, then they find out that Christ's teaching is divine, that it is the teaching of God," end of quote.
You say, why would this be the case? Why would obedience come before discernment? A few reasons, and one of them is this: The kind of knowledge that Jesus is talking about here is not just a factual, conceptual knowledge. Mark it down. The kind of knowledge that our Lord is talking about here is not just a factual, conceptual knowledge. It's the sort of knowledge you gain in a relationship of trust and obedience.
Spurgeon said this about the same verse: "If any man will know the will of Christ, let him do that will. When a young man is put to learn a trade, he does so by working at it, and we learn the truth that our Lord teaches by obeying His commands." And I love this: "Holiness," he says, "is the royal road to scriptural knowledge. We know as much as we do," end of quote.
You see, Christianity, beloved, is far more of an apprenticeship than it is a scholarship. And I'm all for scholarship. It is far more of a learning by doing than merely learning. Yeah, I learn, but so what if I don't live it? If I don't do it from the heart? I'm thankful to God that we have no problem in this assembly with book learning, with theology, with doctrine. We love it. We encourage it. We teach it. But. But obedience—more specifically, to put it biblically, an attitude of obedience—is what leads to truth and more truth. An attitude of obedience. One author said, "Spiritual understanding is not produced solely by learning facts or procedures but rather it depends on obedience to known truth," end of quote.
And think about this. You also see this in everyday life, don't we? Have you ever noticed when somebody takes on more responsibility, they always know more than they did previously? You move positions, and your perspective changes dramatically. You're an employee, and you have all sorts of complaints and questions and doubts about the business and about budget waste here and there. The manager is incompetent, and you complain about this and have an opinion about that. And then, all of a sudden, you're promoted, and you enter a more senior position. What happens? Suddenly, a lot more makes sense. Oh, wow. Oh, oh, oh, that's why. Oh, I guess that does make sense now, doesn't it? Why? You submitted to take on more responsibility. More things made sense.
The same thing happens when a church member takes on more responsibility and moves into a position of leadership. Before, there were all sorts of, "Well, why do we do it like that? Why don't we do it like this? If I was responsible, I would do this. It's kind of silly that they would do that. It really doesn't make sense, and no one is asking me." And finally, they do ask you, and you're in that place of responsibility. And suddenly, guess what happens? Oh, wow. All that stuff I have to be mindful of. And I have to look at it this way, and I have to see it this way. And oh, I understand. That makes sense now. What happened? You took on obedience. You took on submission. And from that, all sorts of insight happened.
How many of you parents were once a child? And when you were a child, yes, you thought as a child, and you spoke as a child. And one of the things you did was, "Well, I don't know why my parents... That doesn't make sense. They don't understand. And one day when I become a parent, I won't do this silly stuff they did." And then you became a parent, and suddenly—oh, you mean the bed doesn't make itself? They're going to have to eat every day? What about a break? And suddenly, everything opens up. Take on responsibility. Take on submission. And from that posture, from that attitude, from that maturity comes what? Insight. Discernment.
Hebrews 5:14, "Solid food is for the mature who" - now watch this, because of what, practice, obedience, exercise, use, obedience, practice - “who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil." Do you see it? Discernment comes by training, by obedience, by action. You cannot learn discernment as a spectator sport. You cannot learn good judgment from a distance. The solid food of deep doctrine is only for those who have practiced using their senses to discern good and evil by getting into the arena of obedience and obeying, doing it. They practiced obeying. That's why they're now mentally and spiritually ready for more advanced truth. There's more disclosure made to them.
Your stance towards God and truth affects your knowledge. Your heart attitude affects your discernment. The way your heart is pointed, beloved, is the rudder that directs the rest of you, including your mind. Let me ask you, what about your orientation this morning? Are you pointed towards obeying God? And we're talking about attitude. Is that the bent of your heart and mind? Because if you do, the rest of you follows, including your mind, including your rationality. Point your heart toward obeying God, and the mind and the understanding and the discernment follow. Obedience leads to discernment—obedience from the heart.
Again, I want to emphasize this in verse 17, the key verse. You see that verb "know"? There are two Greek verbs translated "know." This one here is ‘ginosko.’ This verb, this knowledge involves—and this is key—experiential knowledge. Not merely the accumulation of known facts, information, or stored data in your mind; it's experiential knowledge. Knowledge possessed through the intellectual process of learning is one thing, but knowledge gained by experience, by an active relationship between the one who knows and the person or thing known, is far superior to the former.
Experiential knowledge. ‘Ginosko’ describes this latter quality of knowledge, and it is what every Christ-follower should desire as their personal, permanent possession concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That experiential knowledge—not just head knowledge, but experiential knowledge. And in many places in the New Testament, we find this word, ‘ginosko,’ used referring not just to knowledge in a secular sense, but in a spiritual sense.
I love what Puritan Stephen Charnock said here, and I quote: "A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant." One of the most terrifying uses of ‘ginosko,’ and he continues, “is found in Jesus' solemn command in Matthew 7:23: "And then I will declare to them, 'I never ‘ginosko’ you. I never knew you. I have no experiential knowledge with you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Let me ask you this morning, do you ‘ginosko’ Jesus? Do you have an experiential knowledge of Jesus—not just head knowledge? Do you really know Him? Your answer will determine your eternal destiny. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality when it comes to this question.
Can I make it simple? Coming to Christ is not motivated by your desire to get what you want. Coming to Christ is not motivated by your desire to get what you want from Him. It is motivated by your desire to do for God what He commands, what He requires. The reason to come to Jesus Christ is because you have a desire to do God's will. "Hallowed be Your name. Your will be done.” Your will be done.
What were the first words that came out of Paul on the conversion road to Damascus? What would You have me do, Lord? What would You have me do? And if you have a desire to do God's will, you have to come to Christ, because there's no one else to come to. "He is the way, the truth, and the life." And this is where salvation begins.
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment. The sinner is weary, laden with sin, weary of his sin, his fallenness, his wretchedness, the consequences of it. And he wants to be set free. And he becomes a seeker, and he's not looking for personal fulfillment. He's not looking for personal benefits and personal stuff. That's what the crowd was looking for that eventually left Jesus back in chapter six. Remember them?
But what the repentant sinner wants is to do God's will. This is the step in the direction of confessing Jesus as what? As ‘Kyrios’—Lord—coming out from under the mastery of sin, the dominion of sin, to the mastery of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what draws people to the gospel, what draws people to Jesus Christ, is the desire to please Him, the desire to do His will, to do the will of God.
God exists. God is sovereign. He's my Judge. He's the Judge. I'm going to stand before Him one day. I'm alienated from God. I'm an enemy of God. I need to submit to this God. And I'm tired of the power that sin exerted in my life and the devastation and the ruins of that sin. I want deliverance. I want to be set free. I want a new Master. That's what he's talking about.
And, beloved, truth is not decided by a debate, but rather, you come to know the truth when God reveals the truth to you. And He reveals it to you only when you seek to do His will. Jesus, for who He is, does not hinge on having enough evidence, but rather on having enough obedience from the heart. If a person is willing to obey God, he will know that Jesus was sent by God and speaks God's truth. As Augustine put it, "Do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand." In other words, if you come to the Bible as a scoffer, you will walk away as a scoffer.
Jesus never committed Himself to scoffers, to unbelief. And you remember what He says in John 14:21? "He who has My commandments” - and what? - “keeps them,” - keeps them, does them, practices them, obeys them - “he is the one who loves Me, and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father.” Now watch this, “and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." More revelation. More knowledge. More discernment. The opposite is also true. If you don't obey Christ, He won't disclose Himself to you.
This is how faith acts. This is how faith acts. What is saving faith? It is the desire to put your trust in Jesus Christ, the desire to do the will of God. And if you want to know if Christ is who He claims to be, here's the test: Do you have a genuine desire to carry out the revealed will of God in your life? And what is the will of God? That you believe in His Son. And so you obey that. You obey that. Do you want to go on the narrow road, through the narrow gate, walk the narrow way? That's the issue.
And if you want to know who Jesus is and whether He is the True and Righteous One sent by God, you have to be willing to obey God's will as revealed in His Word and do it from the heart. Soren Kierkegaard wrote once, and I quote, "It is difficult for us to believe because it is difficult for us to obey." It's true. And if you're willing to obey, God will show you that Jesus is God's True and Righteous One, and He is worthy of all your trust. And so I invite you to come all the way to Him and to know Him experientially today and give your life to Him.
And, beloved, sometimes you find a Christian stuck in a rut of stagnation. They feel that they have learned all there is to learn, and they're no longer excited, joyful about the faith, and they're like on cruise control, going through the motions. And there is no zeal. There is no passion for the Word of God, for the things of God, and they're just on cruise control.
And they're sort of like the rich young ruler. You mention a Christian duty, which is supposed to be a delight, and they're like, "All this I've kept from my youth." The problem is not that they've learned all there is to learn. The problem is that they've become dull and hard to the truth they already have—dull and hard to the truth they already have with a slack and careless attitude toward obedience from the heart.
And many of these struggling, dear Christians try to address their boredom with the truth by dressing up the truth. They find some new podcast, some new exciting voice, some new exciting take on the truth, some new angle. Or they just go hunting for the more esoteric, obscure, and strange. They think, oh, that's meaty stuff. And they go into these weird angles where they have just a fragment of a Bible verse to back it up, and it's taken out of context. Or maybe some of them think, if I could just read the Bible in a different way, maybe I need to get a new Bible version, a new Bible app, or maybe a new pastor.
But you see, the hunt will go on and on. The hunt will go ever on. And do you know why? Because what they're experiencing is a dullness that is not caused by the kind of information, the truth, they're getting. It is caused, rather, by their attitude toward that truth. Let that same person change their attitude towards doing God's will. Let them make small but significant changes where they become fascinated with pleasing God in every area of life. Let that same person resolve, by the grace of God, you know, I'm going to become practical and detailed in pleasing my God.
"If anyone is willing to do His will," my Lord says, and I am willing to do His will. I want to please Him. I want to live for Him. And don't just say this generally, oh yes, I'm going to please God this week, in all sorts of various ways. Costco style. Wholesale. No, no. I'm going to do it in measurable, practical ways. Maybe for one month I'm going to choose the top three areas in my life. Maybe there are 27, and I can't tackle them all at once, but I'm going to choose, by the grace of God, to zero in on three areas that I've been convicted in, and I'm going to work on them every day with the help of the Spirit until the Spirit of God brings about the change.
Maybe there's a hundred spiritual habits you want to get a hold of, but you say, I'm going to work on these two spiritual habits, and I'm going to keep on doing them until they become part of me, part of my life. I'm going to master four Proverbs which I want to obey. Stop talking about vaguely obeying God, and get as practical as disciplines, routines, and actions—things to stop, and things to start, and things to put off, and things to put on. I'm using biblical language, people of God. Let me tell you what happens to that Christian. I've seen it, and I've seen it in our midst. That person suddenly feels all the truth is fresh. That person suddenly appreciates all truth in new ways. That person suddenly sees insight in truth formerly taken for granted. That person suddenly feels a whole world is opening up.
You come to church, and you're like, oh, I'm listening to this from the pulpit, and it's making sense now. It feels like a revival, like an awakening. What happened? It wasn't a mental event. It wasn't a mental event. It was a moral event. It was a moral event. The person desired to do God's will. They changed their posture toward authority. They combined it with specific disciplines. John 7:17 came true in their life. By desiring to please God, they came to know, to really know the doctrine. This is how you get verse 24 that speaks of righteous judgment, discerning truly.
This is how you can make it in a world of fake news, conspiracy theories, urban legends, biased media, manipulative advertising, political propaganda, false teaching, and erroneous doctrine. This is how you make it. Must we study? Yes. Yes, you must study. Must we choose our sources carefully? Yes, you must choose. You must grow your powers of discernment. Is God not sovereign over it? Yes, God must sovereignly draw you and teach you and open your eyes, without which nothing will happen. So you pray, "give me light," as you study.
But here, friends, we have perhaps the deepest root of true human knowledge. Ready for it? The fear of the Lord. If you want to know the truth, you must be rightly oriented to the Truth-Giver, God Himself. If you want to know, you must desire to please the Giver of all knowledge. And that's the secret.
Let's pray.
We praise You, Lord Jesus, for being the Christ of God, the God-sent God who has declared to us the ways of God, and how privileged we are to have You teaching us the true nature of human knowledge. Help us not to forget this. In an information age where we talk about ourselves as processing and having inputs and outputs, we're not robots. We're loving beings that must rightly love in order to rightly know. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So please, Lord, write these words upon the tablets of our hearts and change us from within with these words.
And we pray for the person who is outside of Christ, who does not know You, like the crowds, like the half-brothers of Jesus, like the religious leaders. Oh God, open their eyes. Draw them all the way to You, that they may come to behold, having believed, that they are able to see and behold our glorious Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. It is in His name we ask these things and for His glory. Amen.
And so, to have saving faith, to truly have saving faith, it is crucial, critical that you understand correctly, biblically, who Jesus actually is. To have that kind of discernment. In our text, Jesus is at the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem, six months before He would be arrested and crucified. Before He showed Himself publicly at the feast, the crowds were debating, as we read earlier, with some saying, in verse 12, "He's a good man," but others were also saying, "No, no, on the contrary, He leads people astray." John wants us to see that neither of those are viable options.
Jesus could not have been merely a good man and said the things that He said. I mean, think about it—if a mere man claimed that he could give living water so that the one who drank would never thirst again, or if he claimed to be the bread of life so that whoever ate of him would never hunger and would have eternal life, or if he had claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life, and said he was the only way that people could come to God, you would not say he's a good man. You would say he's an insane person, self-absorbed. And at the same time, Jesus was obviously too good to be a deliberate deceiver.
So John wants us to see who Jesus is—that Jesus is indeed the Christ, that He is the eternal Son of God, God the Son in human flesh. He wants us to see Jesus' glory so that we might believe in Him as our Lord and our God. But John knows full well that believing in Jesus isn't an automatic response to Him. There's always division. Some believe, some are indifferent, others reject Him vehemently. And so here, John shows us the reaction of the Jewish leaders and the crowds to Jesus when He went into the temple in the midst of the feast and began to teach.
And although Jesus was sent from God, taught God's truth, sought God's glory, and did miraculous works, people rejected Him because they valued the wrong things. They were not willing to obey. They were legalistic hypocrites. They were under, really, the influence of the prince of this world, and they were judging by outward appearances. Or to put it succinctly, although Jesus is the true and righteous One, people reject Him because of their sin. We will see that shortly.
The context, you remember, as we approach this text in chapter 7, verse 14 and following, is that Jesus leaves Galilee after six months of training with the twelve, spending a concentrated time with them. The transfiguration took place during that period, and yes, of course, there was some public ministry, miracles, teaching, and preaching. But primarily, His emphasis was really with the twelve to give time in order to prepare them for what is ahead.
In the midst of the feast now, He goes to Jerusalem, we're told here, and began to teach. Remember from last time, He didn't go when everyone else went to the Feast of Tabernacles. He didn't join with His brothers. He didn't follow with them or go with them with His own entourage. He waited until the middle of the week because He knew that the religious leaders wanted to kill Him. Verse 1 says they were seeking to kill Him. And when the feast was just beginning, they were looking for Him, you remember. They were waiting to capture Him early on, and so He did not go publicly.
Verse 11 says, "The Jews were seeking Him at the feast, saying, 'Where is He? Where is He?'" And Jesus knew that. So He waited. He waited until midweek, and then He went to the feast. When everything settled in, when the people were there and it was a whole lot harder to really seize Him, He showed up. He went. You remember verse 10, it says, "He Himself also went up, not publicly, but as in secret." At the right moment, He walks into the temple.
The time of the Feast of Tabernacles commemorates the wilderness wandering when they dwelled in booths. You remember that from last Lord's Day, we talked about that—for forty years, they commemorated that time by this feast. And so He goes into the temple. He faces the world that hates Him. He faces Jerusalem. He faces the leaders who are determined to execute Him.
Jerusalem now, you can imagine, is filled with masses of people, pilgrims who have come from everywhere. Those in the diaspora also had all come back for one of the three feasts that take place in Jerusalem. So they had to be in Jerusalem. They all converged in Jerusalem at the temple. In the middle of the week, He shows up. And of course, this catches the rulers, the religious leaders, off guard because they don't think He's there. It's unexpected because they were looking for Him. They thought He'd come from the beginning. And so, "Where is He? Where is He?" He's not here. And Jesus, in the middle of the week, shows up. In some ways, they're neutralized by the crowd and the public exposure that Jesus already has. His time is so precise that back in verse 6, He wouldn't go a few days earlier because He said, "My time is not yet here." Verse 8, "My time has not yet been fulfilled."
You remember from last Lord's Day, we were reminded that He was operating on a divine timetable. He was on a divine schedule. Now the people know that the Pharisees and Sadducees are against Jesus, and so they wouldn't dare talk about Jesus openly. You talk about Him in whispered tones. The word "grumbling" in verse 12 actually means bound up in it—behind-the-scenes talk.
And of course, you remember there was a lot of confusion—His own family, His own brothers, the crowds, the people in the temple—confusion. The crowds know these religious rulers are against Jesus. He's banned. We don't talk about Him. He's off-limits. But when they do talk about Him, there's more confusion. Some say, "He's good, He's a good man." Others say, "No, no, don't kid yourself, He's a deceiver. He's there to lead the people astray."
And they not only had that, but if you read on in the chapter—we'll get there, Lord willing—you'll see there were some folk theology myths that they had: that the Prophet was different than the Messiah, that when Messiah appears, no one knows where He comes from. I don't know where they got that from, by the way. But some of them actually think Jesus was born in Galilee because He lives there. And so they go, "Well, He can't be the Messiah because the Messiah must be born in Bethlehem." Confusion upon confusion. And you can kind of tell that perhaps John is smiling as he writes that. So there's plenty of confusion, confusion all around.
About the middle of the feast, Jesus goes up to the temple. The temple complex is not just like a little tiny building—no, it's a massive building. It is a humongous building. You have huge porticoes and huge areas where you can stand where a rabbi would teach, and they would teach. Rabbis would go to the temple in this courtyard, which is a massive area, and they would find that location in the temple courtyard and they would stand there and begin to teach the multitude. So Jesus did exactly that. He took the role of the rabbi or the teacher. He found a place there in that temple and began to teach.
And Jesus uses the element of surprise. No one knows He's there. So He goes up, takes His position as a rabbi, as the Rabbi, the Teacher, and He begins to teach. And as you read there in verse 15, apparently some of the leaders come, and they hear Jesus teach, and it's the first time for them that they've heard Him teach. Probably He did most of His teaching in Galilee, not in Jerusalem. So these guys who are living in Jerusalem only have seen His miracles, have never heard Him actually teach, and it really surprises them—so much so, verse 15 tells us that they were ‘thavmázo.’ They were marveling. They were astonished. They were dumbfounded. They were shocked.
Because when Jesus teaches, it is learned. It is powerful. And when they say, "how has this man become learned, not having been educated?" they're referring here to the ability to teach, the ability to discourse, to explain, to reason like a rabbi would. But He's not like the rabbis. Not like the rabbis. The teachings of the day included rabbis who would quote other rabbis. That was the way they taught. Nothing changed. "Rabbi Gamaliel said that Rabbi Ben Akiva, and Rabbi Ben Akiva said Rabbi Hillel, and Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakai said," and you had to quote a string of rabbis to give you one sentence of supposed truth.
Jesus doesn't quote anyone. He doesn't. He simply speaks. He teaches. Somebody said, and I quote, "The rabbis taught from authorities; Jesus taught with authority." They quoted each other. Jesus was not quoting anyone. He was the embodiment of truth. He was Truth Himself. The Truth. When they taught in the synagogues, in the temple, the rabbis would cite the proper rabbinic authorities. But now, here's this nobody, this carpenter from the insignificant town of Nazareth, teaching the people without citing a single esteemed rabbi.
He would say, you remember, in the Sermon on the Mount, "You have heard it said, but I say to you." "You have heard it said, but I say to you." Again and again and again. Matthew concludes the Sermon on the Mount, in chapter 7, verses 28 and 29, noting, "When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were ‘thavmázo,’” astonished at His teaching, for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.
So here's Jesus teaching. Confusion in the temple, confusion all around. Everyone's confused. The brothers are confused. The crowd is confused. The Judeans are confused. The religious leaders are confused. And what Jesus is now going to explain is why they're confused.
Let's look at the great cause of the confusion. And let me say this: this applies to us today if we're confused. If we don't understand the truth, it's going to be the same cause. Same cause. Look now at the great cause of the confusion. Look with me down at verse 19. We're going to skip verses 16 to 18 in case you're wondering why we skipped them. We're going to come back to them under the heading "The Cure." The cure. But let's look at the cause.
Verses 19 to 24: "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you does the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?" The crowd answered, "You have a demon. Who seeks to kill You?" Jesus answered them, "I did one work, and you all marvel. For this reason Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses but from the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath? Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
Jesus says, listen, you claim adherence to the truth of Moses, but you actually don't obey Moses. You don't obey the law of Moses. How so? You're trying to kill Me. You're trying to kill Me. I think there's a law against that, right? Murder is a breaking of the law. There's a hypocrisy at work here. Here are people saying, well, we follow Moses. We adhere to Moses' law. We are loyal to the law. But in reality, they are disobeying the law.
Now, there are some in the crowd who either don't know about the plot to kill Jesus, or they're lying or pretending they don't know. But either way, they say, You're mad. You're demon-possessed. You've got some kind of a persecution complex. Jesus just ignores the insult completely. He ignores it completely, and He knows they're trying to kill Him. So what He does is He refers back to what happened.
What did happen? Well, He tells us here, and you remember, I trust, several months earlier, He was at the pool of Bethesda, and there was a lame man. Remember that? Back in John chapter 5. And He made the lame man walk on the Sabbath, and they just couldn't let that go. They just couldn't. They're just so fixated on it, and the Jewish leaders were furious at Him. You remember healing on the Sabbath, and because of that, in their mind, they disqualified Him from being the Messiah and determined that He must be counterfeit. He must be false. He must be fake.
Now watch this. In the law of Moses, a male child who's born has to be circumcised eight days after his birth, right? And if those eight days later land the child on the Sabbath, you have a dilemma now. What do you do? What do you do? Do you circumcise the child or don't you? Well, isn't that breaking the Sabbath? Well, the rabbis decided circumcision was more important than the Sabbath, so they allowed for Sabbath circumcision for a host of good reasons. They didn't postpone it. They didn't say, well, you can't do it on the Sabbath. Well, they did it on the Sabbath, and that was their decision.
And Jesus uses this, and He says, now if that's true for circumcision, how much more should it be true for healing a lame man on the Sabbath? To break the Sabbath, He says, to circumcise a child, you won't delay it by one day, and because I heal a man on the Sabbath, you say I'm wrong. I'm counterfeit.
What's the point? These people cannot apply the Law of God consistently. They are discerning badly. They are judging wrongly. They're judging superficially. How so? Look at verse 24: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." They're being dishonest. They're only doing what appears to the eye. Remember in the Sermon on the Mount? You know, they stand on the corners of the street, in the busiest spot, and when everybody's looking, it's so that they can appear to be pious. They're being dishonest. They're only doing what appears to the eyes. They're getting it wrong because they are really fundamentally disobedient, and that exposes a flawed, defective heart.
Now, here's the great cause. You say, what's the great cause of confusion? Well, sin. Sin. That's why they're getting it wrong. Now, let me say this, and we need to follow closely at this point. Getting it wrong in your mind begins with getting it wrong in your actions. Wrong thinking comes from wrong living. I know that's putting things a little bit upside down. I'll explain. False beliefs come from your false behavior. These people are disobeying the Law of Moses. That's why they can't rightly discern the Law of Moses. They're not obeying what they do have, and that exposes their flawed heart. That's why they can't apply it correctly to how Jesus treated the Law.
You see, here's the point. Hardness of heart is not an information problem. It is not an intellectual slowness. It is not, beloved, a mental aptitude. Hardness of heart is a chosen stubbornness, a refusal to submit, an attitude of selfishness that expresses itself in a behavior that becomes so embedded that it will impact how I think. Because I don't want to change my behavior. That's why Jesus said to the people who are going to understand—He said the people who are going to understand are going to have hearts of little children. People who say, I don't know, but I really want to obey.
Why are the brothers confused? Why is the crowd confused? Why are the Jewish leaders confused? Because they are disobedient to the truth they already have. That's the cause of the confusion. Now, all of this leads Jesus to unlocking the answer for us positively. He's going to give us the great cure for the confusion, and it's obviously the flip side.
So look with me now to the great cure for confusion, and this is really the heart of the text. Verses 16, 17, and 18: "So Jesus answered them and said, 'My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the One who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him.'"
Here are all these people watching Jesus with folded arms, and they're going, well, why should we believe You, Jesus of Nazareth? How can we discern if You are indeed the Messiah? The Judeans are saying, where did You get Your doctrine from? You're not quoting any rabbis.
Now, Jesus' answer is, My teaching is sent from Heaven just like Me. My teaching is sent from Heaven just like Me. Now, if He had said,” oh, I am self-taught,” if He had said, “oh, I don't need a teacher,” He would have been discredited immediately. But He made sure to say, I'm not seeking My own fame. I'm not seeking My own glory. I'm not a false teacher. I'm not a self-seeking teacher.
Multitudes, multitudes, beloved, fill pulpits all across this nation, all around the world like Diotrephes, who, craving the honor of men, loving to have the place of preeminence, exalt themselves. Such men are crafty, self-serving, users of men. Our Lord Jesus was not such a teacher and preacher. And those who serve Him, those who are devoted followers of Him, those who are undershepherds of the Chief Shepherd, are not such.
2 Corinthians 4—listen to the words of Paul, an undershepherd of Christ, a slave of Christ, "Therefore,” - verse 1, “since we have this ministry, as we received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame." Now, watch this. "Not walking in craftiness or adulterating the word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled for those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Now, watch this too. Verse 5: "For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus. For God, who said, 'Light shall shine out of darkness,' is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves."
The man who is called of God is deeply aware of his Savior's majesty and his own infirmity. He sees in himself nothing but weakness, unworthiness, insufficiency, and he knows that he is less than nothing. Ephesians 3:8—To me," Paul writes, "'the very least of all saints, this grace was given to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the unfathomable riches of Christ.'" And in 1 Corinthians 15:9, he says, "For I am the least of the apostles and not worthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God.”
But that man who knows that he is not motivated by Christ, that he is not led by the Spirit of Christ, that he has no regard for the glory of Christ, tries to cover his defects by exalting his own name. Like the scribes and Pharisees of old, he seeks the praise of men. God's servants, however, do not exalt themselves. They exalt the Triune God, uplifting the crucified Christ, crying, "Behold the Lamb of God. Follow Him."
Every false messiah seeks his own glory—everyone his own gain, his own elevation. Back to our text, look at verse 18: "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory." Again, it's going back to the fact that he's not speaking from himself for his own glory's sake. He's not coming up with this to draw attention to himself. "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the One who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him."
Question: How do you tell a true teacher? Because he seeks only the glory of God. Jesus only sought the glory of God. It's part of His humiliation—laid aside what He was entitled to, and He came all the way down, became a slave, down lowly enough all the way to the death on Calvary's cross.
Who’s the true Savior? He’s the One. He’s the One who washes the dirty feet of His disciples. He’s the One who came not to be ministered to, but to minister and to give His life for ransom for many. He’s the One who humbles Himself in love. He’s the One who bears the burdens of sin. He’s the One who seeks no profit, has no place to lay His head, takes nothing, gives everything. He’s the One who renders all the glory, defers all the glory, all the honor to the Father, not Himself. He’s the One. He’s the One.
Keep in mind also, as mentioned earlier, this was an age where you always cited a rabbinic authority for every statement you made, but Jesus makes these statements, doesn’t cite a single rabbi. Who does He say the source of His message is? He tells you in verse 17, it’s from God. And in verse 16, He says, “My teaching is not Mine, but from Him who sent Me.”
Now, how do we verify that? How do we verify that? Here, beloved, it all comes together. This is it. This is it. Verse 17 is the key verse. Jesus says, I’m speaking from God, you should trust Me. I am the Messiah. I am not seeking My own glory. I’m seeking the glory of My Father, so My message is true.
So you’re in that crowd, you’re standing there hearing this, and you say, well, how do I know that? How do I know You’re speaking from Your Father? How do I know that? Verse 17 is the key verse. And if you forget everything else in this message this morning, you must remember verse 17, underline it, memorize it, take it with you because verse 17 is the key.
Jesus says this: If you want to know if what I’m saying is truly from God the Father or I’m just coming up with it Myself, here’s how you will know. Leon Morris said this: His hearers had raised the question of His competence as a teacher, He raises the question of their competence as hearers. Look at verse 17. This is our Lord’s answer: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is of God or I speak from Myself.”
Discernment from devotion. You see it? Discernment from devotion. He’s saying, if you desire to perform God’s desire, His will, if you desire to please God, you will know whether I am from God or I am an imposter. Now, is that what you were expecting? Let me tell you, it’s not what I was expecting initially.
We think if we want to know something, we do what? More research, more research. You study harder, you investigate more. If you want to know something, you need higher quality information, right? Better facts, more evidence, sound reasons. We figure it’s a mental process we’re after. Jesus here says, no, it’s a moral process. It’s not a mental process, it’s a moral process. It’s a heart issue.
He tells us this kind of knowledge, this kind of discernment, to cut through the confusion and cure it with true discernment, comes to the one who chooses to please God. Insight, explanation, understanding comes through an attitude leading to an action. When He talks about an action or doing, it’s always an attitude leading to that action.
The golden rule for understanding spiritually, Oswald Chambers says, is not intellect but obedience. F. W. Robertson: Obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge. Again, this is not mere, shallow, outward obedience, mechanical. This is a heart attitude that expresses itself in action. J. C. Ryle: Honest obedience to God’s will is one way to obtain clear spiritual knowledge.
Discernment from devotion. You see, we don’t believe this in our age, do we? Jesus is teaching us the order of knowledge, true knowledge, is obedience followed by discernment. Explanation comes through submission.
Now, of course, knowledge does also lead to obedience. It also runs in that direction. You've got to know something so you can do it. But the Bible teaches us in many places that after we commit to obeying God, we receive what? More discernment, more understanding. We read that several times in Psalm 25. Turn with me there. I just want to show us one place where we read that exact principle, that truth—that after we commit to obeying God, we receive more understanding.
Psalm 25, look at verse 9: "May He lead the humble in justice, and may He teach the humble His way." You've got to be humble first, then you get the teaching, right? Later on in the Psalm, look at verse 12: "Who is the man who fears Yahweh? He will instruct him in the way he should choose." Look at verse 14: "The secret of Yahweh is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant." You fear Him first, and then what do you get? The secret of the Lord, right? He will make you know His covenant. He will give you greater knowledge.
And we all remember Proverbs, don't we? Proverbs 1:7: "The fear of Yahweh,” - what?- “is the beginning of knowledge." Proverbs 9:10: "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom." What do you have to do first? Here's what Jesus is saying: orient your heart rightly to God, then you'll learn. That's what He's saying. Orient your heart rightly to God, and then you'll learn. It doesn't say, well, you first get this information and get these facts and you memorize them, and then the fear of the Lord will result. No, you fear the Lord, and then you get the knowledge. Do God's will, and then you'll understand God's truth.
A. W. Tozer - and the reasons I'm referring to Ryle and Tozer and others is because I stand with good company - A. W. Tozer said this about this verse: "The willing and the doing come before the knowing. Truth is a strict master and demands obedience before it unveils its riches to the seeking soul." You see, you can have a well-educated mind that can be advanced in learning, and it's no guarantee that you will be wise or discerning. Some of history's greatest criminals, some of history's worst villains, have been highly intelligent and highly educated people.
And you know, Satan also offers knowledge, doesn't he? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil—except you get it through how? Disobedience. But Jesus offers knowledge as a result of obedience. First, you take the yoke of being submitted and responsible, and then you get the joy of knowing God's truth. G. Campbell Morgan said once, and I quote: "When men are wholly, completely consecrated to the will of God, and they want to do that above everything else, then they find out that Christ's teaching is divine, that it is the teaching of God," end of quote.
You say, why would this be the case? Why would obedience come before discernment? A few reasons, and one of them is this: The kind of knowledge that Jesus is talking about here is not just a factual, conceptual knowledge. Mark it down. The kind of knowledge that our Lord is talking about here is not just a factual, conceptual knowledge. It's the sort of knowledge you gain in a relationship of trust and obedience.
Spurgeon said this about the same verse: "If any man will know the will of Christ, let him do that will. When a young man is put to learn a trade, he does so by working at it, and we learn the truth that our Lord teaches by obeying His commands." And I love this: "Holiness," he says, "is the royal road to scriptural knowledge. We know as much as we do," end of quote.
You see, Christianity, beloved, is far more of an apprenticeship than it is a scholarship. And I'm all for scholarship. It is far more of a learning by doing than merely learning. Yeah, I learn, but so what if I don't live it? If I don't do it from the heart? I'm thankful to God that we have no problem in this assembly with book learning, with theology, with doctrine. We love it. We encourage it. We teach it. But. But obedience—more specifically, to put it biblically, an attitude of obedience—is what leads to truth and more truth. An attitude of obedience. One author said, "Spiritual understanding is not produced solely by learning facts or procedures but rather it depends on obedience to known truth," end of quote.
And think about this. You also see this in everyday life, don't we? Have you ever noticed when somebody takes on more responsibility, they always know more than they did previously? You move positions, and your perspective changes dramatically. You're an employee, and you have all sorts of complaints and questions and doubts about the business and about budget waste here and there. The manager is incompetent, and you complain about this and have an opinion about that. And then, all of a sudden, you're promoted, and you enter a more senior position. What happens? Suddenly, a lot more makes sense. Oh, wow. Oh, oh, oh, that's why. Oh, I guess that does make sense now, doesn't it? Why? You submitted to take on more responsibility. More things made sense.
The same thing happens when a church member takes on more responsibility and moves into a position of leadership. Before, there were all sorts of, "Well, why do we do it like that? Why don't we do it like this? If I was responsible, I would do this. It's kind of silly that they would do that. It really doesn't make sense, and no one is asking me." And finally, they do ask you, and you're in that place of responsibility. And suddenly, guess what happens? Oh, wow. All that stuff I have to be mindful of. And I have to look at it this way, and I have to see it this way. And oh, I understand. That makes sense now. What happened? You took on obedience. You took on submission. And from that, all sorts of insight happened.
How many of you parents were once a child? And when you were a child, yes, you thought as a child, and you spoke as a child. And one of the things you did was, "Well, I don't know why my parents... That doesn't make sense. They don't understand. And one day when I become a parent, I won't do this silly stuff they did." And then you became a parent, and suddenly—oh, you mean the bed doesn't make itself? They're going to have to eat every day? What about a break? And suddenly, everything opens up. Take on responsibility. Take on submission. And from that posture, from that attitude, from that maturity comes what? Insight. Discernment.
Hebrews 5:14, "Solid food is for the mature who" - now watch this, because of what, practice, obedience, exercise, use, obedience, practice - “who because of practice have their senses trained to discern both good and evil." Do you see it? Discernment comes by training, by obedience, by action. You cannot learn discernment as a spectator sport. You cannot learn good judgment from a distance. The solid food of deep doctrine is only for those who have practiced using their senses to discern good and evil by getting into the arena of obedience and obeying, doing it. They practiced obeying. That's why they're now mentally and spiritually ready for more advanced truth. There's more disclosure made to them.
Your stance towards God and truth affects your knowledge. Your heart attitude affects your discernment. The way your heart is pointed, beloved, is the rudder that directs the rest of you, including your mind. Let me ask you, what about your orientation this morning? Are you pointed towards obeying God? And we're talking about attitude. Is that the bent of your heart and mind? Because if you do, the rest of you follows, including your mind, including your rationality. Point your heart toward obeying God, and the mind and the understanding and the discernment follow. Obedience leads to discernment—obedience from the heart.
Again, I want to emphasize this in verse 17, the key verse. You see that verb "know"? There are two Greek verbs translated "know." This one here is ‘ginosko.’ This verb, this knowledge involves—and this is key—experiential knowledge. Not merely the accumulation of known facts, information, or stored data in your mind; it's experiential knowledge. Knowledge possessed through the intellectual process of learning is one thing, but knowledge gained by experience, by an active relationship between the one who knows and the person or thing known, is far superior to the former.
Experiential knowledge. ‘Ginosko’ describes this latter quality of knowledge, and it is what every Christ-follower should desire as their personal, permanent possession concerning the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. That experiential knowledge—not just head knowledge, but experiential knowledge. And in many places in the New Testament, we find this word, ‘ginosko,’ used referring not just to knowledge in a secular sense, but in a spiritual sense.
I love what Puritan Stephen Charnock said here, and I quote: "A man may be theologically knowing and spiritually ignorant." One of the most terrifying uses of ‘ginosko,’ and he continues, “is found in Jesus' solemn command in Matthew 7:23: "And then I will declare to them, 'I never ‘ginosko’ you. I never knew you. I have no experiential knowledge with you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'"
Let me ask you this morning, do you ‘ginosko’ Jesus? Do you have an experiential knowledge of Jesus—not just head knowledge? Do you really know Him? Your answer will determine your eternal destiny. There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality when it comes to this question.
Can I make it simple? Coming to Christ is not motivated by your desire to get what you want. Coming to Christ is not motivated by your desire to get what you want from Him. It is motivated by your desire to do for God what He commands, what He requires. The reason to come to Jesus Christ is because you have a desire to do God's will. "Hallowed be Your name. Your will be done.” Your will be done.
What were the first words that came out of Paul on the conversion road to Damascus? What would You have me do, Lord? What would You have me do? And if you have a desire to do God's will, you have to come to Christ, because there's no one else to come to. "He is the way, the truth, and the life." And this is where salvation begins.
The Holy Spirit convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment. The sinner is weary, laden with sin, weary of his sin, his fallenness, his wretchedness, the consequences of it. And he wants to be set free. And he becomes a seeker, and he's not looking for personal fulfillment. He's not looking for personal benefits and personal stuff. That's what the crowd was looking for that eventually left Jesus back in chapter six. Remember them?
But what the repentant sinner wants is to do God's will. This is the step in the direction of confessing Jesus as what? As ‘Kyrios’—Lord—coming out from under the mastery of sin, the dominion of sin, to the mastery of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what draws people to the gospel, what draws people to Jesus Christ, is the desire to please Him, the desire to do His will, to do the will of God.
God exists. God is sovereign. He's my Judge. He's the Judge. I'm going to stand before Him one day. I'm alienated from God. I'm an enemy of God. I need to submit to this God. And I'm tired of the power that sin exerted in my life and the devastation and the ruins of that sin. I want deliverance. I want to be set free. I want a new Master. That's what he's talking about.
And, beloved, truth is not decided by a debate, but rather, you come to know the truth when God reveals the truth to you. And He reveals it to you only when you seek to do His will. Jesus, for who He is, does not hinge on having enough evidence, but rather on having enough obedience from the heart. If a person is willing to obey God, he will know that Jesus was sent by God and speaks God's truth. As Augustine put it, "Do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand." In other words, if you come to the Bible as a scoffer, you will walk away as a scoffer.
Jesus never committed Himself to scoffers, to unbelief. And you remember what He says in John 14:21? "He who has My commandments” - and what? - “keeps them,” - keeps them, does them, practices them, obeys them - “he is the one who loves Me, and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father.” Now watch this, “and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him." More revelation. More knowledge. More discernment. The opposite is also true. If you don't obey Christ, He won't disclose Himself to you.
This is how faith acts. This is how faith acts. What is saving faith? It is the desire to put your trust in Jesus Christ, the desire to do the will of God. And if you want to know if Christ is who He claims to be, here's the test: Do you have a genuine desire to carry out the revealed will of God in your life? And what is the will of God? That you believe in His Son. And so you obey that. You obey that. Do you want to go on the narrow road, through the narrow gate, walk the narrow way? That's the issue.
And if you want to know who Jesus is and whether He is the True and Righteous One sent by God, you have to be willing to obey God's will as revealed in His Word and do it from the heart. Soren Kierkegaard wrote once, and I quote, "It is difficult for us to believe because it is difficult for us to obey." It's true. And if you're willing to obey, God will show you that Jesus is God's True and Righteous One, and He is worthy of all your trust. And so I invite you to come all the way to Him and to know Him experientially today and give your life to Him.
And, beloved, sometimes you find a Christian stuck in a rut of stagnation. They feel that they have learned all there is to learn, and they're no longer excited, joyful about the faith, and they're like on cruise control, going through the motions. And there is no zeal. There is no passion for the Word of God, for the things of God, and they're just on cruise control.
And they're sort of like the rich young ruler. You mention a Christian duty, which is supposed to be a delight, and they're like, "All this I've kept from my youth." The problem is not that they've learned all there is to learn. The problem is that they've become dull and hard to the truth they already have—dull and hard to the truth they already have with a slack and careless attitude toward obedience from the heart.
And many of these struggling, dear Christians try to address their boredom with the truth by dressing up the truth. They find some new podcast, some new exciting voice, some new exciting take on the truth, some new angle. Or they just go hunting for the more esoteric, obscure, and strange. They think, oh, that's meaty stuff. And they go into these weird angles where they have just a fragment of a Bible verse to back it up, and it's taken out of context. Or maybe some of them think, if I could just read the Bible in a different way, maybe I need to get a new Bible version, a new Bible app, or maybe a new pastor.
But you see, the hunt will go on and on. The hunt will go ever on. And do you know why? Because what they're experiencing is a dullness that is not caused by the kind of information, the truth, they're getting. It is caused, rather, by their attitude toward that truth. Let that same person change their attitude towards doing God's will. Let them make small but significant changes where they become fascinated with pleasing God in every area of life. Let that same person resolve, by the grace of God, you know, I'm going to become practical and detailed in pleasing my God.
"If anyone is willing to do His will," my Lord says, and I am willing to do His will. I want to please Him. I want to live for Him. And don't just say this generally, oh yes, I'm going to please God this week, in all sorts of various ways. Costco style. Wholesale. No, no. I'm going to do it in measurable, practical ways. Maybe for one month I'm going to choose the top three areas in my life. Maybe there are 27, and I can't tackle them all at once, but I'm going to choose, by the grace of God, to zero in on three areas that I've been convicted in, and I'm going to work on them every day with the help of the Spirit until the Spirit of God brings about the change.
Maybe there's a hundred spiritual habits you want to get a hold of, but you say, I'm going to work on these two spiritual habits, and I'm going to keep on doing them until they become part of me, part of my life. I'm going to master four Proverbs which I want to obey. Stop talking about vaguely obeying God, and get as practical as disciplines, routines, and actions—things to stop, and things to start, and things to put off, and things to put on. I'm using biblical language, people of God. Let me tell you what happens to that Christian. I've seen it, and I've seen it in our midst. That person suddenly feels all the truth is fresh. That person suddenly appreciates all truth in new ways. That person suddenly sees insight in truth formerly taken for granted. That person suddenly feels a whole world is opening up.
You come to church, and you're like, oh, I'm listening to this from the pulpit, and it's making sense now. It feels like a revival, like an awakening. What happened? It wasn't a mental event. It wasn't a mental event. It was a moral event. It was a moral event. The person desired to do God's will. They changed their posture toward authority. They combined it with specific disciplines. John 7:17 came true in their life. By desiring to please God, they came to know, to really know the doctrine. This is how you get verse 24 that speaks of righteous judgment, discerning truly.
This is how you can make it in a world of fake news, conspiracy theories, urban legends, biased media, manipulative advertising, political propaganda, false teaching, and erroneous doctrine. This is how you make it. Must we study? Yes. Yes, you must study. Must we choose our sources carefully? Yes, you must choose. You must grow your powers of discernment. Is God not sovereign over it? Yes, God must sovereignly draw you and teach you and open your eyes, without which nothing will happen. So you pray, "give me light," as you study.
But here, friends, we have perhaps the deepest root of true human knowledge. Ready for it? The fear of the Lord. If you want to know the truth, you must be rightly oriented to the Truth-Giver, God Himself. If you want to know, you must desire to please the Giver of all knowledge. And that's the secret.
Let's pray.
We praise You, Lord Jesus, for being the Christ of God, the God-sent God who has declared to us the ways of God, and how privileged we are to have You teaching us the true nature of human knowledge. Help us not to forget this. In an information age where we talk about ourselves as processing and having inputs and outputs, we're not robots. We're loving beings that must rightly love in order to rightly know. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So please, Lord, write these words upon the tablets of our hearts and change us from within with these words.
And we pray for the person who is outside of Christ, who does not know You, like the crowds, like the half-brothers of Jesus, like the religious leaders. Oh God, open their eyes. Draw them all the way to You, that they may come to behold, having believed, that they are able to see and behold our glorious Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. It is in His name we ask these things and for His glory. Amen.
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