• Who can ever forget Winston Churchill’s immortal words: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills."
• It sounds exactly like our family vacation.
• Family life is difficult for all of us.
• One problem in families is being misunderstood.
• It seems that a family member can be the most critical.
• Many wise observations have been made about criticism.
• “Nothing can be stated so perfectly as not to be misunderstood.” - Philip Melanchthon
• “Let the man who says it cannot be done not disturb the man doing it.” - Chinese proverb
• “To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.” - Elbert Hubbard.
• “For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.” - Harrison’s Postulate
• “He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help.” – Abraham Lincoln
• Little is known about Jesus’ family life as a child.
• We know he had younger brothers and sisters.
• We don’t know about his school, friends, and relationship with siblings.
• We know he was perfect, and that itself had to be difficult on his family.
• Let’s look at the first five verses.
• (READ 1-5) (Prayer).
• When the Jews sought to kill Jesus, he chose to linger away from Jerusalem a while.
• Feast of Tabernacles was a reminder of Israel in wilderness, dwelled in tents, transient, and having no crops.
• God said, someday you will live in homes and have crops.
• The Feast was a reminder of God’s promises, a favorite celebration, where the families forsake their homes and lived in booths built by leaning branches.
• It was something children anticipated and stories were told for entertainment.
• Jerusalem was expected a typical large crowd.
• Jesus brothers said, “If ever you are going to show your stuff, this would be the time.”
• Then the sad note, they didn’t believe He had the stuff.
• When we are faced with Jesus, much like his family was, we are faced with difficulty.
• A dilemma is a choice between two options.
• A trilemma is a choice between three options.
• Jesus was either a 1) liar, 2) lunatic, or 3) Lord.
• John McDowell writes in More Than A Carpenter (25): “To say what Jesus said and to claim what he claimed about himself, one couldn’t conclude he was just a good moral man or prophet. That alternative isn’t open to an individual, and Jesus never intended it to be.”
• McDowell is borrowing from C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (40-41): “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him, ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
• Lewis is referring to the claims of Jesus:
• • That he and the Father are one.
• • That whoever has seen Jesus has seen God.
• • That God the Father sent him to do his will.
• • That he is the Savior of the World,
• • The one source of eternal life and spiritual nourishment,
• • The only way to God,
• • The supreme judge of mankind,
• • The light of the world,
• • The resurrection and the life,
• • The messiah, and
• • The unique Son of God.
• • Jesus says he has power to raise the dead and to heal the sick. And he claims authority over the Sabbath, authority to answer prayer, and authority to forgive sins.
• Illustration, If Brother Bill punched you, could I say to Brother Bill, “You are forgiven”?
• Or would that be your right?
• But Jesus said, “whoever I forgive, the Father forgives.”
• Others were saying Jesus was a blasphemer. His brothers were saying he was out of his mind.
• Some even said Jesus had a demon.
• Same is true today. Remember Nicodemus? (chapter 3)
• “We know you are a great moral teacher”, he said.
• Jesus responded, “You cannot enter the kingdom of God unless you are born again.”
• “You must be born of Spirit, born from above. Whoever believes in me will never perish.”
• There is only one way to understand Jesus. Otherwise, you will misunderstand Him.
• You must be saved, born again, born anew. Why:
• Because WITHOUT THE HAND OF GOD,
I. We Cannot Believe.
• Look at how familiar these people were to Jesus, his brothers and sisters.
• They had known him for up to 28 years.
• He had been their perfect, sinless older brother.
• They knew his character, heart, love, wisdom.
• They could never remember a time when he was selfish, full of pride, controlled by anger, or snide with his tongue.
• They could remember no lie he ever told, no cruelty common to brothers or sisters.
• Yet they could not, or would not, believe.
• Their criticism is silent and passive.
• “YOUR disciples”. You can feel the jealousy and bitterness.
• Yet, Jesus did not do his miracles in private. He showed them openly.
• Jesus Himself said, “They will not be convinced, even though someone is raised from the dead.”
• You see, the mind apart from God is closed to the grace of God and cannot believe.
• The heart is so opposed to the idea of Jesus that the mind cannot see the obvious.
• Without the hand of God, we cannot believe.
• Let me take a quick side street here and pull out three applications:
• 1) Do not be discouraged when your witness is rebuffed, especially in your family.
• Even Jesus got a cold shoulder from his brothers and sisters, but later, they believed.
• Jesus personally knows the frustration you feel in trying to reach that loved one.
• Jesus knows the loneliness that is there. Take heart, Jesus knows and cares.
• 2) Let’s pray for each other. We know some are going through family battles now.
• We know some are broken hearted about a loved one. We need to pray.
• Jesus said, “Call upon me, and I will answer.”
• 3) Let us continue to corporately try to reach each other’s family members.
• Let’s schedule things for that would interest those lost loved ones.
• Let’s read VERSES 6-9)
• WITHOUT THE HAND OF GOD
II. We Would Hate Jesus.
• Jesus knew some hated him.
• Why? Because He said He was the Messiah? No.
• The Jews wanted a Messiah. The wanted one, to be free from Roman rule.
• No, They hated Jesus for a very powerful reason.
• Think about this. Many I talk to know about their sins. “Pardon my French…”
• “That’s the way I am….”. etc….
• But Jesus told them that their GOOD works were sinful, evil.
• He said, “your works are evil. You don’t impress me.”
• These men who lived to impress God did not like what they heard.
• Jesus told them what Isaiah told the people 64:6, “Our righteousness is like filthy rags.”
• They felt that Jesus was condemning them. But he wasn’t.
• John 3:17 - “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.”
• Jesus didn’t come to condemn, but to reveal truth.
• Jesus simply told them the truth, a light shining in the darkness. We just don’t want to hear it.
• Without the hand of God, we end up hating Jesus. He reminds us of why we hate ourselves.
• But He came to save us, to rescue us from what we hate in ourselves.
• He rescues us by 1) showing us that our ways to God will not work,
• 2) telling us our lives cannot qualify to live with God
• 3) dying for us so we can be forgiven of our sin and sinfulness.
• There is a danger in churches today, and in some preachers today.
• 1) Being doctrinally precise but remaining safely abstract.
• 2) condemning others sin and leaving our own sins safe.
• Ill. Imelda Marcos 1060 pair of shoes. Preachers said, “No one needs 1000 pair of shoes.”
• We leave church feeling condemning and justified, even if we have only 500 pair of shoes.
• Jesus did differently. When He preached, He brought it down to the sins of the listeners, and they did not like that.
• Therefore, they hated Him.
• Let’s read VERSES 10-13.
• The Feast of Tabernacles was going to be crowded.
• It was natural that the Jewish leaders expected Jesus to be there.
• Yet, everybody was whispering. Everybody had an opinion.
• Some said He was good. Some said He was bad.
• Nothing has changed. James Boyce “Bible Study Hour” asked people on the street who Jesus Christ was. Here are some answers:
• • Jesus Christ was a man who thought he was God.
• • Jesus Christ is pure essence of energy. God to me is energy, electric energy because it’s something that’s not known.
• • I think that’s something you have to decide for yourself, but he had some beautiful ideas.
• • He is one that we look up to as our leader.
• • He is an individual who lived 2000 years ago and was interested in the social betterment of all classes of people.
• • He was well liked; he meant well, he was a good man.
• • I have no idea. I don’t know.
• People are still confused about who Jesus is.
• So many opinions, so many false teachings.
• Ephesians 4:14 - we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting.
• The truth is, WITHOUT THE HAND OF GOD,
III. We Are Influenced by Every Opinion.
• This story illustrates this truth. They saw God and discredited with every other opinion.
• Unless the Hand of God closes off the sieve of the mind, truth washes through it without slowing down.
• We are captivated by every wave of the latest new opinion.
• Ill. Sailors in northern oceans frequently see large icebergs traveling directly against the wind. How could that be possible? Their ship is being blown with the wind, no matter how they try to prevent it, but the iceberg merrily moves in the opposite direction. The answer is that with eight-ninths of its mass under water, the ocean currents affect its travel much more than the wind.
• Without the hand of God, we cannot believe.
• Without the hand of God, we will hate Jesus.
• Without the hand of God, we will be tossed about by every opinion.
• The good news is this, if you call upon Jesus, God will gladly send to you His hand.
