All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter | John 7:14-31

If you have your Bibles with you, please turn them to John seven. This morning we will be in verses 14 through 31. Some of you might be aware we have a few new chairs in the room. What are these people doing over here? This is not a choir. There’s that saying, you don’t preach to the choir. I will preach to these people today as well as you. This is all one congregation. That’s a saying. Because the idea is that choirs don’t need preaching. That’s a stupid saying. Choirs need the word of God. They need to be preached to. But I do think if you sit closer to the front and in those chairs, you are holier. So a little bit of cognitive dissonance to start us this morning.

I want to read John seven verses 14 through 31. Listen now to the Holy Word of God.

About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent me is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?”

Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

So Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, “You know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”

Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Almighty and everlasting God, who of thy tender love towards mankind has sent your only Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: mercifully grant now that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection. Help us, O Lord. We ask through that same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I believe the greatest fictional character ever written is Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings. Some of you may tire of Lord of the Rings illustrations. It could be worse. I could be using Harry Potter illustrations or Marvel, but Lord of the Rings is better. I’m unaware of any literary figure who more closely resembles the person of Jesus Christ.

Aragorn is a fearsome warrior and he’s a tender-hearted friend. He’s a rugged adventurer and he’s a gentle poet. He’s an itinerant ranger and the long-lost king of Gondor. Aragorn appeals to high and low culture alike. His hands, with all their scars and calluses, are called the hands of the healer.

Some of you might know how Aragorn is introduced in the books. In the first book, when Frodo Baggins meets Aragorn, he’s introduced as Strider because of his rough countenance and demeanor. Frodo does not immediately trust him, yet in time he receives a letter from Gandalf that says the following about Aragorn: “If you are in trouble, Frodo, or if I do not come, you may trust a ranger called Strider. He will look out for you, though I have not had time to send word. I believe he is your best friend in these parts. Trust him.”

And then Gandalf writes a little poem: “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

Gandalf says of Aragorn, “Not all that is gold glitters.” A variant of that quote was immortalized by the band Led Zeppelin in the greatest song of all time, on the greatest album of all time: “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold, and she’s buying a stairway to heaven.” All that is gold does not glitter.

That saying is much older than Tolkien, much older than Led Zeppelin. William Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “All that glitters is not gold.” And it’s older even than Shakespeare. Geoffrey Chaucer preserved a medieval proverb in The Canterbury Tales. (I’ll try to get the Old English right.) But the idea is even older than this, and far more profound than any medieval proverb or any Shakespeare play. It’s as old as David the son of Jesse.

As the prophet Samuel searched for the Lord’s anointed, the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, for the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Not all gold glitters, and not all that glitters is gold.

It’s as old as the prophet Isaiah, who said of the suffering servant: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

This old idea is as old as Samuel, as old as David, as old as Jesse, as old as Isaiah. It’s as old as the Gospel of John. What did the crowd say? “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? Where’s the glittering? Where is the light? Where is the great impression? Where is the display of glory? Is not this the carpenter’s son? We know his father. We know his mother. And he says, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”

Rather, the genius of Jesus Christ is that he subverts the wisdom of men. Jesus did not enter the world with fanfares from above, not with displays of angelic might, not with the triumph of a king, but as one incarnate of the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary. He was a humble, lowly, itinerant preacher. This is the Jesus that came into the world to save sinners.

The point of this, brothers and sisters, is that things are not always what they seem. And in the case of Jesus Christ, there is far more than meets the eye.

I have two points this morning from verses 14 through 31. We’re going to spend the vast majority of our time on the first point.

Point number one: an underestimated teacher.

Point number two: a misunderstood Messiah.

Consider with me point number one: an underestimated teacher.

Look at verse 14: About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?”

You might wonder when you read texts like this, “Where did Jesus get the opportunity to speak in the temple? How is he at this point where he’s speaking to crowds?” Because we saw in the last text he didn’t go down to Jerusalem because they were seeking to kill him. What’s going on here?

Well, this isn’t a formal teaching opportunity at a pulpit like this. We do see Jesus have opportunities like that. For example, in Luke 4, at the beginning of his public ministry, he preaches in the synagogue. He sits down, he opens up the scroll, he says, “I am the fulfillment of what we’ve just read.” This is not a formal teaching opportunity like that. Rather, this is outside in the public open courts, where there would often be this sort of informal teaching and crowds would often gather to hear this teaching.

But what do we see? What does the text draw attention to that draws attention to the shock of his hearers? They marvel at his preaching. And we’ve seen this type of marveling before. We’ve seen how the crowds are there constantly and regularly marveling at the signs and the authority of Jesus. So throughout the Gospels, he’s demonstrated his authority over sickness, authority over demons, authority over the created order, and indeed, authority to forgive sins. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” they exclaim. Keep going! He is God! That’s the idea. He has the same authority as His Father in heaven.

So the type of shock and alarm and awe we see in this text is not unlike what we see at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7. Matthew 7:29 says, they marveled, for he was teaching them as one who had authority and was not as their scribes. He’s not like those other leaders. He’s not like those other rabbis. He’s not like those other Pharisees. No. This man teaches with true authority.

So naturally, in our text in John seven, they wonder, “Where did this man go to school? Who is this man? How is it that this man has such extraordinary learning when he’s never studied?” In Luke 4 it says they all spoke well of him and marveled at his gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Where did he get such learning?

They even say this of the apostles in Acts 4. It says, “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” We say, like father, like son; like master, like disciple. They showed that same type of unexplainable authority that Jesus had in his teaching.

Likely one of the persons who has had the most impact on the English language is William Shakespeare. There are roughly 1,700 words that have their first known appearance in the works of Shakespeare. And these are common words like “majestic,” “obscene,” “radiant,” “lonely,” “critical.” Dozens, if not hundreds, of modern phrases owe their origin to Shakespeare. We talk about “breaking the ice.” That’s an expression that comes from Shakespeare. “She has a heart of gold.” “Wild goose chase.” “In a pickle.” “Wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve.” “Methinks thou dost protest too much.”

My personal favorite is, I think they said this of Seabiscuit, and I say it of my daughter Cora: “Though she is little, she is fierce.” Shakespeare.

He wrote around 40 plays and 154 sonnets. His works have been translated into over 100 languages. And to this day, it remains a historical marvel that Shakespeare had no university education. There were people in that day and age that wrote like that but didn’t go to Oxford, that didn’t go to Cambridge—those grand centers of learning. How did this man have such learning? Who is this man’s teacher?

John Bunyan was like this. His Pilgrim’s Progress is often regarded as the first English novel. It’s been translated into more than 200 languages and has sold hundreds of millions of copies. To this day, depending on the metric, it is the most popular book in the world besides the Bible. If you haven’t read Pilgrim’s Progress, you just got to read Pilgrim’s Progress. Find somebody else in the church and read Pilgrim’s Progress together.

Bunyan had no education. Zilch. And it remains a remarkable mystery of church history today. John Owen, the great Oxford Puritan, would travel all over England to hear Bunyan preach, and he was so fond of Bunyan that the King of England, King Charles the Second, once asked him, “Why, Mr. Owen, do you go to hear that tinker preach?”

Famously, Owen replied, “May it please Your Majesty, could I possess the tinker’s ability for preaching, I would gladly relinquish all my learning.” I don’t care where he had his learning. I would love what he’s got. I’ll give up everything I got to have something of that man’s ability to touch men’s hearts.

Jesus was like that. The Jews here, they wondered at his learning. In verse 16, we see how Jesus responds. He says, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent me is true, and in him there is no falsehood.”

Jesus says his teaching is not his own, but his who sent me. This is not to say that it isn’t Jesus’ teaching. He’s saying, “This isn’t my teaching alone.” And we know this based on what he’s going to teach later in our passage and what he’s already taught in the Gospel of John.

John 3:34: “For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives him the Spirit without measure.” A beautiful Trinitarian verse. The Son saying, “I speak what my Father tells me to speak by the power of His Holy Spirit. My words are ultimately our shared witness. It’s the same word of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

And one of the main messages of John 5 is that the Father and Son share the same divine authority. You may remember this. We saw how they share authority to give life. John 5:21: “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” We saw how the Father and the Son share the same authority to judge. Jesus can judge because His Father in heaven judges. He says, “For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”

Brethren, Jesus’ point in John 5 and again here is this: the Father and the Son share the same authority because the Father and the Son are one. John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Jesus is equal with His Father in heaven. All their acts are divine. Equal with God, the Son and the Father share one will. Equal with God, Christ has perfect fellowship with His Father. Equal with God, he makes the lame walk, the blind see, dead men breathe again. He can forgive sins because he is equal to God. He will come with glory and power to judge the living and the dead.

He says his teaching is God’s teaching because he’s one with him. The Lord Jesus is the Son of God. The Lord Jesus is divine.

You see what he says in verse 17? Jesus says in verse 17, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” There are 1,000,001 things I can say about this verse, but what I want us to see is that Jesus shows us that faith does not simply comprise a human decision, but rather a moral dimension is involved and something must change about the sinner before they have the capacity and the ability to discern the truth of what God in Christ says. Something has to happen.

He says, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will…” Jesus says some miraculous change must be brought in the human will and heart in order for them to believe in him. You can think of it this way: in order for the gold of Christ’s worth to glitter in your eyes such that you perceive its measureless worth, it requires a supernatural alignment with the will of God. Your will’s got to change. What you love has got to change. You need a new heart. And that’s something I can’t convince someone to have. It’s not something I can manufacture with the right combination of words. No, a prior work of regeneration and new birth must be performed upon the sinner in order for them to even recognize that Jesus is a Savior worth following.

Rather, this is one of the reasons why I just don’t believe in rationalizing people into the kingdom of heaven. I want all of you to be studying apologetics. I really want all of you to be understanding the Christian faith so well that you can defend it from error. That’s the duty of a Christian. We are to contend with every objection to the Christian faith. We ought to be able to do that. But people are never rationalized into the kingdom. It’s not as if if you just come up with the right argument—ontological, cosmological—I know an argument that proves the existence of God—that’s going to actually win the sinner to Christ.

That skeptic in your life does not ultimately have reasonable objections to the claims of Christianity. He ultimately just wants to do what he wants. He has a will unaligned with the will of God, and that will needs to be changed in order for him to perceive the excellence of Christ. You understand that your coworker doesn’t have real arguments against the authority of the Bible. She just hates the authority. That former church member didn’t deconstruct Christianity. He just wanted to sleep around and abandon his family.

Brethren, if anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know and receive Jesus Christ with the eyes of faith. And if you’re wondering how that applies to your life, and what do you do with that information? I’ll get to that later. We just need to understand this about anthropology, like how people are made. We can’t manufacture decisions for Christ. No, God must align that will supernaturally with his own, such that they believe that the words of Christ are real, that they come from God, and that Jesus—in Jesus alone—is the only name under heaven by which men and women can be saved.

That needs to happen. And it’s a miracle like Jesus being raised from the dead.

Jesus continues. John 7:19: “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision (not that it came from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

I’m going to address the Moses talk and Moses comparison in a moment. But notice Jesus says in verse 19, “Why do you seek to kill me?” And the crowd replies in verse 20, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you? We would never do that.” In modern terms, you might call this gaslighting. I mean, they’re gaslighting Jesus here. This is why they sought to kill him. Because he made himself equal with God. And this is a common tactic you’ll see from the world all the time.

So people will notice the world doing something like, for example, certain medical institutions and crazy psychologists seeking to trans minors independent of their parents. Like that’s a real thing that’s happened in the last few years. And people will notice that. And the New York Times will run defense and say it’s not happening. This is a lie. And they’ll try to round down the truth. This isn’t happening. And eventually it becomes so undeniable that the Times will have to acknowledge, okay, it’s happening. And finally they’ll get on the offense and say, yes, it’s happening, but it’s actually good that it’s happening. And let me tell you why.

You see, friends, the Jewish crowds, they play the exact same game. They say here that Jesus is crazy and has a demon because he says they want to kill him. And just ten verses later, they’re seeking to kill him. They know what they’re doing. They seek to kill him. And then just a few chapters later, we’ll see. They say it’s a good thing we seek to kill him. John 19. They say to Pilate, “Crucify him! We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the Son of God.” Yes. We want to kill him. Yes, we’re going to kill him. And it’s a good thing that we do. We have a law and he’s broken that law.

Now, what about this point of Jesus and Moses? Jesus says in verse 21, “I did one work, and you marvel at it.” He’s referring to that healing he performed at the pool of Bethesda at the beginning of John 5. And it’s that which led to more and more hot and heavy persecution of him in Jerusalem. That’s why he left Jerusalem last time. But he’s referring to that, and he argues that this good deed ought to have priority over the Sabbath.

Jesus kept the Sabbath in his life. He honored the Sabbath. He was a good Jew. And in the same way, all the Jews recognized that the law to circumcise on the eighth day took precedence over the Sabbath. So Jesus is saying, look, you have a category in your mind for exceptions. If you have a child, a son who’s born on Sunday—or I guess in this case, Saturday—eight days later, if you count the first day as Saturday, the eighth day is Saturday. So what do you have to do? Well, all pious Jews knew we got to circumcise this kid. They didn’t wait till the next day. So they relaxed the command of the Sabbath in order to obey a higher-order command.

So Jesus says you have this category here. I am healing a man who’s in desperate need of mercy, who’s in desperate need of health. And you don’t think this takes priority over the Sabbath? But you’re fine when it’s doing things you want them to do.

Jesus then concludes the thought in verse 24. He says, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” And this is a return to, I think, to his original point, in response to how the Jews marveled at his lack of education. See, brethren, many of the Jews, they judged him because he lacked the resume. Where is his learning? What college did he go to? Others rejected him because he failed their hypocritical, legalistic standard.

Jesus says you judge by appearances. You judge by the eye. You judge by your visceral commitment to what you already want. You judge by what you want to be true. You need to judge with right judgment. And brethren, that’s the lesson for us today. Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.

If you write down applications, the application is this: the world’s yardstick is no measure of a man.

The world’s yardstick is ultimately no measure of a man. The world will measure people according to a different standard. They’ll judge people by beauty and brawn, wealth and prestige, status and success. Christian, what’s your yardstick for measuring your worth? How do you judge a life well lived? I love my diploma because that piece of paper tells me my worth. I love my performance review because that piece of paper tells me my worth. I love my job because the amount of pieces of paper they give me tell me my worth. It’s a lie. It does not ultimately measure the worth of a man. It’s not your yardstick for success.

In Christ, we’re judged by a different standard. Jesus tells us not all gold glitters and not all that glitters is gold. The only paper that truly mattered are the pages written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Brethren, the question is, do you know Jesus Christ?

We learned so much on this point from the Apostle Paul. Paul knew what it was like to have a life that was impressive in the eyes of the world, and he knew what it was like to weigh that life in the balance and see Christ on the other end and choose Christ every single time.

He writes in Philippians, “I was circumcised the eighth day, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, a Pharisee. I could tell you that. Paul could tell you who his teacher was. Who was Gamaliel, the best teacher in Jerusalem.” He says, “I was a Pharisee, a Pharisee. That’s the law. I was zealous, a persecutor of the church.” His resume was impressive to the guild that he cared about. You didn’t get better than the Apostle Paul’s record.

But he could read in Philippians 3: “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things. I count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”

It’s so much more than anything the world can provide me. And his appraisal of Christ was a lowly Christ. This was the Christ he wrote about in Philippians 2: “Being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” And Paul says, that’s my Jesus. There goes my hero. He may look ordinary to you, but he’s so much more. That’s my Jesus, because it’s in that moment of humility that the Lord exalts him above every other king.

Brethren, the Jews, judging by appearances, wanted a political Messiah who would restore a material kingdom. Jesus says, I’m not that type of Messiah because I’m much more than that. The Jews, judging by appearances, wanted a Messiah robed in eminence and overwhelming might. Jesus says, let me show you the Son of Man dying on a tree. The Jews, judging by appearances, marveled that an untaught man could speak with such learning. And Jesus says, I’m not like those other saviors, not like those sages, not like those pretend messiahs. I’m the bread of life, and I offer my flesh for the world. And that spectacular lowliness is what God chose to exalt.

Paul writes, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

He’s an underestimated teacher.

Consider secondly: a misunderstood Messiah.

Look at verse 25: Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

It seems some of the people there, they’re honest enough to acknowledge that Jesus was the man that the authorities were seeking to kill. Now, scholars debate as to why the Jews did not seize him here, and we’re going to see an explanation for that in verse 30. But regardless, it’s noteworthy what some of the people say about Jesus.

They say he can’t be the Christ because we know where he comes from. And we know and have been told that no one is supposed to know where the Christ comes from. It’s really strange that they’re saying this, because the Old Testament is rather clear where the Christ would come from. So Micah 5 says this: “You, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”

So why are they saying, “Hey, we know that we’re not supposed to know where the Messiah comes from” in the Scriptures? Like it’s right there in the text. Well, there was a certain Hebrew tradition that said the Messiah would be hidden for a time. And what happened was, these Jews willfully misunderstood this to argue that they were not supposed to know ever where the Messiah came from.

So, brethren, this is very interesting. What we’re seeing here is an exercise of motivated reasoning and sinful rationalization of what somebody already wants to believe. So not only is the Bible saying that we know where Christ is going to come from, and not only did the Hebrew tradition on which they hung their hat not falsify that we would know where he would come from—they use that and abuse something that is less than the Word of God to argue for what they think was true, and as a pretext for denying Jesus Christ.

And brother, this is a great example of the way sin poisons our natural faculties. Even though the Scriptures were clear about Christ’s origins, unbelieving Jews chose instead to misread a random Jewish teaching that wasn’t even authoritative because they hated Christ and they didn’t want to submit to him as Lord.

Can you? Is there a better way that you can explain so much of the evil that we see in the world? I was talking to a younger member of this church today, and he was telling me that as an adult, before he came to Christ, he just knew abortion was wrong. He knew that there’s no way you can falsify and deny the sanctity of unborn life. It’s so clear there’s no logical argument against it unless you’re going to say just small children that have no help, that have no power independent of their own—they just don’t have rights, which nobody, few people, are that monstrous to make that argument. But rather, so many people enslaved to the spirit of the age will just say at some arbitrary point a fetus goes from no rights, a clump of cells, to being a dignified human life.

People believe what they want to believe. Paul is right in Romans 1 when he says the foolish minds are darkened. They’re blind. They’re blind. They can’t see the light. And the law needs to change their hearts in order for them to be saved.

But Jesus says in verse 28, Jesus proclaimed as he taught in the temple, “You know me and you know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.

If this seems confusing to you, like, did they try to seek to arrest Jesus? Did they try to seek to kill Jesus? How do you get out of this? There’s either one of two explanations. Number one, he just vanished from their sight and evaded them the way he does at the end of John 8. Jesus actually does that. We’ll see you later in the series. In the Gospel of John. Or it may be the case, I think is probably more likely, the authorities did not arrest him because they perceived that there was mounting support for him, and they didn’t want to agitate the crowds. And I think that’s clear, based on what we see in verse 31. We see that many people believed in him.

Verse 31 says, “Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’”

So it’s an important question. If you’ve been reading the Gospel of John, are these Christians? Are these people believers? Or is this a type of spurious, uninformed, or false faith that we’ve seen actually quite a few times in the Gospel of John already? The end of John 2: many were believing in him, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he knew their hearts. And Jesus knew what was in man. And Jesus knew these people don’t actually ultimately honor me. They don’t love me. They just want the gifts. They want the signs.

Is this the type of sign-seeking faith that we’ve seen several times in the Gospel of John already? I don’t think it is. I don’t think it is because there’s a difference, brethren, between sign-seeking faith and sign-sealed faith. Big difference. There’s nothing wrong with signs, and there’s nothing wrong with liking or recognizing or praising and lauding Christ because of the signs. The point is, where do those signs fit in your experience of Christ? And there’s a difference between sign-seeking faith and sign-sealed faith or sign-confirmed faith.

This is a faith that doesn’t cling to Jesus for love of the signs, but sheer recognition of what the sign bears witness to. You see, brethren, the man or woman who judges with right judgment, who’s willing to do God’s will, lays hold of Christ in faith, recognizing him for all that he is. And the signs just seal that for them. This person needs no other signs or witnesses. The case is settled. He believes in Christ with the warm embrace of his heart. And they say, do we need to see any more signs in this? I’ve seen all I need to see. This is the Lord of life. Where else shall we go? Says Peter at John 6. You alone have the words of life, and we have come to believe that you are the Christ. You are the Son of God. What more signs do we need to see?

They believe because of the signs, not out of love for the signs, but the signs showed something of the veracity and worthiness and loveliness of Christ. And the question for us is, will we reject Jesus for the signs that we have seen?

Friend, are you waiting for more signs? A lot of you don’t know Jesus. What else do you need to see?

Are you waiting for more signs? I speak to the kids for a moment. Okay. Do you know about Sodom and Gomorrah? Horrible place. The worst people in the world. You know what Jesus says about Sodom and Gomorrah? Matthew 10: “Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town who knew me, that town who heard me.”

Do you identify with Sodom and Gomorrah there, or that town? I’m here to tell you. You’re like that town. And think about Sodom and Gomorrah again. We’re talking about the worst pieces of human debris you could imagine. We’re talking about pedophiles. We’re talking about rapists. We’re talking about people that were so filthy the Lord had to rain down his wrath with fire and brimstone.

Jesus says you’re worse than them. Because you’ve had more light than them. Will you forsake the light and the teaching that you’ve received? I fear for so many of you for what you will experience on the Day of Judgment if you don’t fly to Christ. It’s going to be orders of magnitude more tolerable for Sodom than for you. If you reject the light.

Have you seen what more signs you need? Do you need to see more people who are changed by the Word of Christ? Do you need to see more lives changed by the gospel? Do you need the Word of Christ more faithfully preached? Do you need a Bible? You got one. Do you need miracles? You’ve seen them.

What other signs do you need before you repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? I’ve told you before, there’s nothing better than having your sins forgiven. Your sins can be forgiven today.

People say that I don’t like a fire and brimstone type of preaching. I don’t know what that means. I just preach it like I see it in the Bible. Many of you are perishing because you’ve not trusted in Christ. Repent of your sins. That’s agreeing with Jesus that you are a sinner in desperate need of the grace of God. You need something to happen about your sin. You need something or someone to die for your sin. You need Jesus, the only Son of God, to bear the weight of your sin.

It’s repentance is turning away from your sin. It’s faith with your whole soul and your whole being. You rest on Christ alone. You say, I believe Jesus is who he says he is. I believe he’s the Son of God. I believe he died for my sin. I believe he rose for my justification. You believe that? Oh, the Holy Spirit will rip right through your life and you’ll be changed. And you can have all the blessings of following Christ, all the blessings of numbering among his people. And you will not have to fear for that day the judgment.

Many people believed in him. You don’t need another sign. You don’t need another sermon. You need now to trust in Jesus.

I’m going to close with two applications. Brothers and sisters. Two applications.

First: The type of faith in this text requires as its prerequisite a radical exchange of the heart and will. You’ll need to write that down. Something needs to happen for this type of faith to emerge. You need the will to do what God wills, and that can only happen by the power of God.

2025 was a weird year for me. It was the best year up to that point. I have lived a life where every year gets better than the last, but 2025 was a little strange because it was the first year I met real people that could sit across from a table from me and say, “I believe Christianity is true, but I don’t want to be a Christian.”

How do you explain such terrific unbelief? It’s only if you believe what Jesus says in this text. There will need to be change. There will need to align with the Father’s will. That man outside of Christ is not merely uninformed. He’s dead. He does not simply need better arguments. He needs new affections. He does not need a slight adjustment. He needs a radical exchange of the heart. God must take his heart of stone and give him a heart of flesh. God must breathe life into dry bones and bend his will and make him willing to come to Christ. Apart from the Spirit of God, he has no power, no inclination, no ability to submit to the truth. His deepest problem is not merely this or that sin, however grievous it may be, but unbelief flowing from spiritual death. He’s blind. He’s unwilling. The Spirit must open blind eyes, soften hard hearts, and remake his will.

So what do we do with that? We should radically pray. Radically depend on the Lord that the Lord of the harvest would bring revival into hearts. We preach. We act. We plead. We share Christ. We pray. And we trust that the same power that raises the dead can renew the wills of people one by one. Brethren, I want us to walk out of here with a radical reliance upon God’s ability and his will to change people’s lives. I’m not asking you to relax at all your urgency to share the gospel. I’m trying to inform your heart. What do you trust in? At the end of the day? It must be the work of God alone.

Secondly, and lastly: This type of faith is nourished ultimately by exposure to Christ. The same type of faith that needs to originate in my heart—that trust in Christ—is the same type of faith I want to be growing in my life. So the same principles are at work. If I want to grow in Christ, how do I nurture this type of faith?

A few years ago, I really wanted to appreciate Beethoven. Beethoven. Greatest musician of all time, in the view of some. And I’ve just never liked Beethoven. And I’ve just felt like other people are hearing, like, some sort of dog whistle and tune and pitch, and I’m just not hearing it. They’re appreciating Beethoven, and I’m just not appreciating him.

You know what I did? I listened to Beethoven. I talked to others about Beethoven. I asked people about Beethoven. I said, what’s your favorite pieces and symphonies by Beethoven? There aren’t that many. You can listen to them. And guess what? I started loving Beethoven.

Your relationship with Christ is something like that. Some of you have such a diminished relationship with Christ because you just don’t expose yourself to him. You don’t lay hold of the means of grace. You don’t pray. You don’t read the Scriptures. You don’t pursue the people of God. You work really hard to keep your relationships in this room surface level. You have zero clue how to talk about your heart. Yeah, you’re not going to grow. You need to make use of the means of grace and expose yourself to Christ.

I want to end by just reading from you Hebrews 11, to talk about Moses. Jesus is making and comparing himself to Moses again and again throughout John’s Gospel. And he says, I’m the greater Moses. In this text he says, you want to follow the law of Moses, but you don’t want to follow me.

You know what’s awesome about Moses? Moses had his will aligned with God. Moses. If there’s any one person in the world more poised to judge by appearances and not with right judgment, it was Moses. But Moses chose to judge with right judgment, and he chose Jesus over the world in the most acute way imaginable. He said, I don’t need to be the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, but I can have the reproaches of Christ because he’s so much more. He’s an example to us to think of what Moses had access to. He says, I don’t need the world. You can take that. Give me Jesus. Give me his suffering. Give me his cross. Give me his people. I want to be aligned with him. That is a mind and will aligned with Christ by faith.

Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. And if you wonder, how did Moses choose Jesus? I’m not buying that. He lived 1,500 years before Jesus. He considered the reproach of Christ, says the author of Hebrews, greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.

Brothers, sisters, may we learn to judge with right judgment and find Christ to be altogether worthy.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, we return to this prayer again that we would love not the world, that we would look not like the world, that we would not seek the favor of the world or fear of the world. But, Lord, that we would will to do what you will, and that we would recognize the Holy Word of Christ as your word, and be so changed by its power.

Lord, cause us now to not judge by appearances, but to judge with right judgment. And Lord, may you be pleased for us to see everyone in this room to be like those in John seven, verse 31, that we would believe in Jesus Christ. Help us now. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.