The world hates Me.

Apologies, there is no recording this week due to technical issues.

 

“The world hates Me”

Joh 7:1-9

1 After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. 2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near. 3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." 5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him. 6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. 8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.

 

Last Sunday, we examined the Feast of Booths (also called Tabernacles or Sukkot) which by the way begins on Monday at sundown.

Today we continue in this passage with a brief conversation between Jesus and his natural brothers, a conversation which touches on several concepts which are central to the gospel of John. 

 

/They include  “ the time” or the hour for Jesus, the world, and Jerusalem.\

So we pick things up in verse 3.

 

Joh 7:3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing.

4 For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world."

His brothers start the conversation.

/These are his younger half-brothers, members of His immediate family.  They were the children of Joseph and Mary. \ These brothers also travelled with Jesus  and their mother to Capernaum in chapter 2 after the wedding in Cana.

Their existence proves that Mary had more children after she gave birth to Jesus.

/We learn their names from the people in His hometown:\

 

Mat 13:55-56

55 "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? 56 "And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?”

 

These brothers did not believe in Him.  /They didn’t believe He was the Messiah, and they definitely didn’t believe He was the Son of God. \ They were of the world.

 

Joh 7:3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." 5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.

 

His brothers did not believe in Him because He did not meet their expectations for Messiah:  who he would be, and what he would do.

His brothers wanted Him to openly perform miracles in Jerusalem during the Feast of Booths in the hope that the people would herald Him as their Messiah and king.

/They wanted to bask in His celebrity, even though they didn’t believe in Him!\

 

Joh 2:23-25

23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

 

The brothers wanted Jesus to perform greater miracles than He had done to date in Jerusalem, public ones, miracles on a par with those He’d performed in Galilee.


/Galilee was the boondocks.  Jerusalem was where it was at.\

His brother’s couldn’t fathom how someone who claimed to be the Messiah would deliberately shun publicity.

7:3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. 4 For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world." 5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.

“show Yourself to the world.” By that they meant the people in Jerusalem.

What they didn’t realize was that the Father had appointed an hour for Jesus to show Himself to the entire world!

 

/Next, Jesus replies to His brothers.  He issues a stinging rebuke:\

Joh 7:6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.

8 Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said these things to them, He stayed in Galilee.

 

/“My time is not yet here.” Jesus says this a number of times in the gospel of John, though He usually uses another word:  “hour”. \ For example:

John2:3-4

3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine." 4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come." 

 

/His Father had decreed the exact hour for everything that concerned Jesus to occur . No other hour would do.\

Others – His family,  His disciples,  His enemies, satan even – were always trying to force the issue to suit their agenda.

Joh 7:30

30 So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.

 

/His hour would come at the exact moment His Father had planned it. Then Jesus would go up to Jerusalem and be publicly revealed:  first to Israel, as their king – in His entrance into Jerusalem,  and then to the world, as their Savior – on the cross.\

Joh 12:27-33

27 "Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, 'Father, save Me from this hour'? But for this purpose I came to this hour.  28 "Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." 29 So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, "An angel has spoken to Him." 30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.

 31 "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.  32 "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."  33 But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.

 

Joh 7:6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil

 

/People who live according to the ways of the world -  people like His brothers – see no reason to wait for a time that God has appointed.\

It makes no difference when they come or go.  They do as they like.

James talked about men like these:

Jam 4:13-15

13 Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." 14 Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.

 

We all need to do a gut check about this from time to time.

 

Joh 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.

 

/The world hates Jesus, and the world hates all who belong to Him.\

Joh 15:18-19

18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.  19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

 

His brothers did not believe in Him, so the world was not hostile to them.  They conformed to the world’s standards.  And the world loves its own.

Jesus tells His brothers that the world hates Him.  To what was He referring?

 

/The world is the entire multitude of men who are alienated from God and therefore hostile to Christ and His body, the church.\ 

 

/The world is  the organization and mind and outlook of unbelieving mankind as it ignores and rejects God and lives independently of Him.\

 

Here is an excellent description of the world:

1Jo 2:15-17

15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

 

We read this verse earlier:

 

/John 12: 31 "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.  \

 

/The world has a ruler – his name is the devil and his title is satan. (Rev 12:9)\

This “world” was waiting for Jesus in Jerusalem.  Like ruler, like realm.

 

/They were outwardly religious –  but they were in rebellion against God, and rejected His word, and rejected His son – indeed they hate His Son.\

Why do they hate Him?

Joh 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.

We reflexively think of sin here, but resist that impulse.

 

/God says that men who refuse to worship Him are evil.\

Rom 1:18-19

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.

 

/The essence of evil is ungodliness. Sin is a by-product. \

 

/In his second epistle, John refers to false teaching as evil deeds.  (2Jo 7-11)\

 

3Jo 1:11

11 Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.

 

/Several times in this gospel Jesus says that those who do the good are believers, and those who do the evil  are unbelievers.   (Joh 3:19-20; 5:29).\

 

/Psalm 52 identifies the evil man as the one who loves falsehood and hates the truth, the one who would not make God his refuge. \

 

Joh 7:7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.

Jesus is the Light of the world.  He reveals the ugly truth about the world. 

 

/The world says that its deeds are good.   Jesus testifies that what the world calls good is really evil.\

Mat 23:27-28

27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.  28 "So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

 

/That’s why the world hates Jesus.  He exposes it as completely bankrupt,  a total fraud. Nothing good. Full of deceit and murder, pride, robbery and wickedness.  \

 


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