Don’t Judge By What You See

John 7 Part 3

John 7:19-30 (NIV)

19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” 20 “You are demon-possessed,” the crowd answered. “Who is trying to kill you?” 21 Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man’s whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.”

 25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.” 28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” 30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.

The crowd Jesus is speaking to once again tries to make sense out of who he is. They like what he says and does sometimes, but it does not always line up with their expectations of what the Messiah should be like.

Our focus verse (28) Jesus challenges the listeners – He says, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him,” Jesus accused them of not knowing God – the One they claimed to know all along. If they knew God the Father then they would know that Jesus was operating in His authority. They would know his actions were pure and pleasing to God.

·       It appears they are still hung up on the fact that Jesus healed the paralyzed man at Bethesda on the Sabbath! (John 5) Jesus responded to the need of this paralyzed man in a truly loving and miraculous way! So what if it was the Sabbath? Jesus’ action enabled the man to live out his God-given potential and bring glory to God.

·       Many people today want to be whole. They crave wholeness and feeling complete. Jesus is the source of wholeness. Only he can make each of us complete. Some of us even pray for wholeness, but when it comes, we decline because it is not the way we expected. Jesus knows the best way to make us complete. “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.” (Philippians 1:6) We can count on him to make us whole, but there is no guarantee of how that will be accomplished. When we allow God to work in our lives either through expected or unexpected avenues, we will be unleashed to live out our full God-given potential and we will be enabled to give glory to God.

Questions for Reflection:

·       Is there an area in your life that causes you to feel incomplete?

·       Would you be willing to allow God to make you complete even if it involves the unexpected?

·       If you said yes to the previous question, in what ways have you already seen him at work in your life?

·       In what ways have you perhaps declined his help?

Lesson written by Kelly Preston, 2011.

Sources consulted:

NIV Study Bible, 10^th Anniversary Edition, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1995.

The Message Bible Remix/Eugene Peterson, NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO, 2003.

M.H. Commentary, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, 1992.

D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, MI, 1991.

N.T. Wright, John for Everyone, Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.