❖ Video
❖ Audio (Message)
Do You Really Know Jesus?
(John 7:25-31)
Mari Ikeda
The title of today’s message is a bit of a challenging question. Whether you are not yet a believer in Jesus or have lived most of your life believing in Him, I hope that today you will reexamine what you know and believe about Him. None of us can know everything about God in our lifetime. Therefore, we need to always humbly reexamine ourselves to see if we think we know Jesus when we really don’t, or if we think we know God when we really don’t. By reexamining ourselves, we will be able to discover new things about God that will help us to understand Him better. By reexamining, we can come to know Jesus and God in a new light. We can also become aware of our own selfish assumptions about God and deepen our trust in Him.
We will read John 7:25-31 in the first half and the second half. First, verses 25-27.
A. Uncertain information about Jesus (25-27)
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.”
We may know many things about Jesus, but what this passage reveals is that sometimes those pieces of information distract us from trusting Him.
1. As a criminal
In what we have just read, what the people of Jerusalem knew about Jesus was, first of all, that he was a criminal targeted for death. They also knew why. It was because Jesus had made Himself equal with God. If it is said that one real person is actually God Himself, the Creator who made this world, anyone, not only the people of that time but of any age, would find it a ridiculous and dangerous idea. Therefore, we Christians are, depending on one’s point of view, a dangerous group that worships a criminal who was executed 2,000 years ago as God the Creator. In fact, the name “Christian” was originally a bad word meaning “Christ-crazy.” But after the death of Jesus, those who believed in him rejoiced in the name. They took pride in the fact that they loved Christ to the point of foolishness in the eyes of others. They knew that those who executed Jesus as a criminal had made a great mistake, and that they, too, had made a great mistake in failing to stop them. It was not Jesus who was the criminal, but we human beings who could only see Jesus as a criminal.
2. As a historical figure
The second piece of knowledge that the people of Jerusalem had about Jesus was information about Him as a person. Jesus as a celebrity who was from Nazareth and performed various miracles in Galilee. Besides that, we may have been taught in history classes that he was the one who spread Christianity. Such knowledge of Jesus as a real person in history may see him as a moral teacher, a social activist for the weak, a social revolutionary who corrects politicians, a doctor who heals the sick, a person with supernatural powers, or the founder of a religion. Each of these ways of looking at Jesus is not wrong, but each is only one aspect of Jesus, not his essential nature. Just as the people in Jerusalem could not recognize Jesus by saying, “We know where this man is from,” if we know only one aspect of Jesus and assume that we know all about Him, we will lose sight of His essence. The essence of Jesus is that He is the One who died on the cross. We will consider this again later when we read Jesus’ own words.
3. Biblical knowledge
The third factor that hindered the people of Jerusalem from believing in Jesus was their ambiguous knowledge of the Bible. It might be better to call it a biased interpretation of the Bible. This is something we talk about often in this church, but we must also be careful. They say, “when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from,” but this is only one interpretation of the prophecies about the Messiah. There are several prophecies in the Old Testament concerning the Messiah (Savior), one of which was that He would be born in Bethlehem, the city of David. Based on that prophecy, some people claimed that Jesus was not the Messiah because He was raised in Galilee and not in Bethlehem. (8:42) Our knowledge and interpretation of the Bible is limited. The words of the Bible themselves are also limited because they reflect the culture of the time in which they were written and the values of the people who wrote them. We learn about God and Jesus through reading the Bible, but God’s help and the Holy Spirit’s help is essential for us to read the Bible correctly. To take someone else’s interpretation of the Bible, or to take one’s own selfish beliefs as the correct interpretation, ultimately leads to excluding God from the Bible and using the Bible for one’s own convenience. It is the same as making yourself God.
Now let’s move on to the second half and read Jesus’ words, verses 28-31.
B. Jesus’ cry (28-31)
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. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”
1. Do you really know me?
We now come to the rare occasion when Jesus taught in a loud voice. As I mentioned a few messages ago, there are not many records of Jesus teaching people in a loud voice. From this, I thought that the reason Jesus decided to go to the Feast of Tabernacles, even though he once said he would not go, was because he wanted to speak to the people, hoping that they would worship and rejoice in God wholeheartedly and not just for appearances. To Jesus, the clamor of the festival sounded empty, and in the midst of it, he cried out for people to come to know the real God.
The first thing Jesus cried out was, “You know me and where I am from.” This has a double meaning in light of what has been said so far. One is as an irony: “Surely you know that I am from Galilee, and you know what I have been doing. But the truth is, you don’t know me at all.” The other meaning, as you can see from the words that follow, is Jesus’ wish, “If you really knew God, surely you would know me as well.” In both of these meanings, I believe Jesus is also asking us here. “You may think you know me, but do you really know me?”
2. Know God through me
And what Jesus continues to say is, “Know God through me.” Let’s read Jesus’ words again.
I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.
Jesus said that he came from God and that God sent him. His purpose was to teach us who God is. Therefore, without knowing God through Jesus, we have not come to know Jesus. Jesus’ words were God’s words and His actions were God’s actions. With the coming of Jesus, God, who was previously invisible, entered human history with a physical presence and spoke directly to us.
So what did Jesus tell us through his words and deeds about who God is? It is that God has not forgotten us and wants us to live with hope and joy at all times. Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection proved this and made it possible for us to live that way. On the cross, Jesus proved God’s love for us. He also tasted the pain of our bodies and our hearts just as we do, so that we could endure any suffering without losing hope. Jesus even tasted the fear and despair of being abandoned by God. Through Jesus, God thoroughly showed us that He walks with us and suffers with us.
This should also bring about a fundamental change in our self-understanding. We are both so dearly loved by God that He would give His life for us, and at the same time, we are so sinful and grieved by God that He must suffer and die. The only way these two facts can exist without contradiction is through the cross of Jesus. We know and accept our sin and weakness by knowing God through Jesus and by knowing God’s love. Conversely, if we do not know God’s love and we do not know our own sins and weaknesses, we do not know Jesus.
In this season of Lent, let us hear Jesus’ question, “Do you really know me?”
(Prayer) Lord Jesus, help us once again to deeply accept in our hearts the meaning of what You gave Your life on the cross. In the midst of the difficulties we each face, may we know better that You are with us and that there is hope in Your presence. And teach us that the hope and joy You give us is never-ending. We pray in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Summary
Knowing that a historical figure named Jesus existed, that he was executed on the cross, that Christianity spread after his death, and that the Old Testament prophesied about him, does not mean that we really know him. Jesus was actually God Himself who created this world, His words were God’s words and His actions were God’s actions. God came to this world and died on the cross bearing our sins and suffering. Don’t we think we know Jesus and God, when we really don’t?
For Discussion
- What is (or was) preventing you from trusting Jesus?
- Why was Jesus sent to this world? Or why did God send Jesus to this world?