Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Milford

Introduction

On and off across the past year or so Pastor Ben has been preaching through the Gospel of John. As our reading begins this morning, it is fall in Judea and the week-long Feast of Tabernacles is in full swing. Tabernacles is a “Thanksgiving”-type celebration: The final harvests have been gathered-in and there is much rejoicing going around giving God thanks for His provision. The religious leaders have decided that Jesus is a heretic, and have determined to arrest and kill Him when the opportunity arises.

Knowing this, Jesus has come to the Festival secretly, but here during the last days of the celebrations He has revealed Himself and begun preaching and teaching the gathered crowds…

John 7:17-30 [NLTse]

17 “Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether My teaching is from God or is merely My Own. 18 Those who speak for themselves want glory only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honor the one who sent him speaks truth, not lies. 19 Moses gave you the Law, but none of you obeys it! In fact, you are trying to kill Me.”

20 The crowd replied, “You’re demon possessed! Who’s trying to kill you?”

21 Jesus replied, “I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. 22 But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ Law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the Law of Moses.) 23 For if the correct time for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the Law of Moses. So why should you be angry with Me for healing a man on the Sabbath? 24 Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.”

25 Some of the people who lived in Jerusalem started to ask each other, “Isn’t this the Man they are trying to kill? 26 But here He is, speaking in public, and they say nothing to Him. Could our leaders possibly believe that He is the Messiah? 27 But how could He be? For we know where this Man comes from. When the Messiah comes, He will simply appear; no one will know where He comes from.”

28 While Jesus was teaching in the Temple, He called out, “Yes, you know Me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on My Own. The One Who sent Me is true, and you don’t know Him. 29 But I know Him because I come from Him, and He sent Me to you.” 30 Then the leaders tried to arrest Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His time had not yet come.

Sermon

The Bible shows us that sometimes the Lord Jesus knew things that there was no way He should’ve been able to know.

In Matthew 9:4 Jesus forgives a paralyzed man his sins, and the Bible tells us that the religious teachers who were watching thought to themselves, “Blasphemy!” But Matthew records, “Jesus knew what they were thinking”…

In Matthew 12:25 Jesus has been working on the Sabbath – feeding the hungry, healing the deformed, and setting-free the demon-possessed – and the religious leaders who are watching are shown thinking to themselves that His power must have come from the devil. But again Matthew records, “Jesus knew their thoughts”…

Earlier in John from our reading this morning, in John 2:24-25, Jesus had just cleared the Temple of all the money-changers and animal-salesmen, and John writes (starting in verse 23), “Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in Him. But Jesus didn’t trust them, because He knew all about people. No one needed to tell Him about human nature, for He knew what was in each person’s heart.”

When the Lord encounters a Samaritan woman He knows her marital history and her current adultery. (John 4) Here in our reading Jesus knew that the people were questioning whether or not He was the Christ and so He responds, “Yes, you know Me, and you know where I come from. But I’m not here on My Own.” (v. 28)

People take Jesus’ having such miraculous knowledge in-stride saying, “Well, of course Jesus knows people’s thoughts: He is God!” And yet the Bible makes very clear that God the Son had taken off His divinity to be born Jesus of Nazareth. The knowledge Jesus exhibited was because He’d been baptized with the Holy Spirit and was demonstrating the spiritual Gift of Knowledge. And we know this because we see the Holy Spirit giving such knowledge to the apostles and other Christians across the Book of Acts, as well.

For instance, the apostle Peter somehow miraculously knows that Ananias and Sapphira sold their fields for more than what they told him they did. (Acts 5:1-10) In Acts 9 the Holy Spirit told a different Ananias the apostle Paul’s exact name, where he was staying, and the fact that Paul had just seen Jesus in a vision. (And in case we’re thinking that only the apostles or special Christians received such gifts, the Book of Acts reveals Ananias to be just as plain and everyday a Christian as they come!) (Acts 9:10-19)

In Acts 10 the Holy Spirit tells Peter that three men would soon arrive seeking him. (Vv. 19-20) And Acts 20 shows several believers, across different churches, each being given Words of Knowledge to tell Paul that jail and suffering await him in Jerusalem. (Vv. 22-23)

So, although Jesus’ sinlessness did result in His being perfectly filled with the Holy Spirit, and God giving Him the Spirit without limit (see John 3:34), the Lord Jesus’ signs and wonders were empowered by the Holy Spirit that had filled Him and come upon Him, even as God has given us His Spirit and desires to come upon us to demonstrate His glory, as well. So the apostles, and even the most common Christians, are seen being given gifts of knowledge to convict them and those around them of God’s truth, to convict them of those things God was trying to reveal to them, and to prepare them and others for what was about to happen to them, too.

Now first and foremost this should lead us all to praise the Lord Jesus all the more because of His omniscience: He is God; He knows all things; and He doesn’t judge people by our outward appearances, He looks at and knows our very hearts! (1 Samuel 16:7)

But this should also lead us all to seek the Holy Spirit’s gifts of knowledge, like the Lord Jesus, the apostles, and other Christians before us have in order to help draw those around them to trust in Christ.

You see, “knowledge”, or what’s sometimes talked about as being given a “word of knowledge”, is nothing more than God revealing to you or me a fact or some truth about a person or a situation that we could never have known through our own reasoning, education, or training. And, of course, it’s never something that we can make the Lord give us, it is knowledge He chooses to give us according to His good pleasure and sovereign will!

Even so, as simple and straight-forward as the gift is, think about it: God is telling us secrets that He wants us to know and share so that people will be drawn to trust Him more! It’s so simple, and yet isn’t our Father so cool to share such wonders, and to let us build His Kingdom with Him?

I think such glory should also humble us as we live Jesus’ life together. What I mean is, I’ve talked to too many Christian people who have taken offense at too many other Christian people because of they thought those other Christians thought about them: “They don’t like me”; “they have it out for me”; “they think they’re so great”; etc… And the evidence for such knowledge and offenses has been a stray glance, or the other person walking by without saying hello, or some other flimsy happening. And when I’ve told different ones that they shouldn’t base such offenses on such flimsy events I’ve been told time and time again, “Nope, I know it’s true, Pastor. I know people. I’m sensitive to stuff like that,” or other such all-too-certain nonsense. Because only God knows a person’s heart. And 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that even the glorious and miraculous words of knowledge given by the Holy Spirit are “partial and incomplete.” (Vv. 8-9)

And then, of course, there are those things that Christians think they know about the Lord on account of how they interpret what they see or hear happening around them… Too often God’s people live by their five senses instead of living by faith in God’s Word, character, and promises…

So let’s be humble before the Lord, and if we think something’s true about the Lord then let’s search the Scriptures for evidence to make sure. And if we’re sure of something about some brother or sister, then let’s confirm it by asking them about it. And even if we find out we were right, then at least it’s out in the open and we can work together to be reconciled.

And let’s seek the gifts God’s Spirit wants to give us. Without exercising them in love none of them are anything more than an annoyance, but when exercised in love they provide opportunities to shake people’s worlds in ways that few other things can as they see God working miracles through us in their lives.

But perhaps most of all, let us worship God! and rest in the comfort that He knows all things: He knows the sincerity of our apologies when we fail; He knows the depths and genuineness of our needs when we pray; and He knows the burdens and desperations tempting to weigh us down when we find that we can’t pray. He knows our love for Him. He knows what’s been. He knows what’s coming. And He knows the angels surrounding us and the protection and provision that is often so invisible to our mortal eyes.

“The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the Earth be silent before Him.” (Habbakuk 2:20)