True disciples versus false disciples, John 7:1-17

Jesus Christ is without a doubt the most important figure in the history of the world.  He was born more than 2000 years ago, contrary to the laws of life. He lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He exchanged a royal robe for a pauper’s ragged coat. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the tiny country in which He lived; and that was during His exile in childhood.

He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and He had neither training nor formal education. Yet in infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors; in manhood He ruled the course of  nature, walked upon the waves as if pavements, and hushed the sea to sleep. He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charges for His service.

He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries of the country could not hold the books that have been  written about Him. He never wrote a song, and yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters  combined. He never founded a college, but all the schools put together cannot boast of having as many  students. He never marshaled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun; and yet no leader ever had  more volunteers who have, under His orders, made more rebels stack arms and surrender without  a shot being fired.

He never practiced medicine and yet He healed more broken hearts than all the doctors far and  near. Every seventh day businesses and public offices close down and multitudes wend their way to  worshiping assemblies to pay homage and respect to Him. The names of past, proud statesmen of Greece and Rome have come and gone. The names of past scientists, philosophers, and theologians have come and gone, but the name of  this man abounds more and more.

Although 2000 years between the people of this generation and the scene of His  crucifixion have passed, yet He still lives. Herod could not destroy Him and the grave could not hold Him.
He stands  upon the highest pinnacle of heavenly glory, proclaimed of GOD, acknowledged by  angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils, as the living personal Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Such we can say from the vantage point of history and the testimony of the Word of God. Though millions today that claim to believe His teaching, that are attracted to Jesus, yet Jesus Himself said that many are called but few are chosen, that many will seek to enter His kingdom but will not be able. Though many are attracted to Him, there is a tremendous difference between true and false disciples.  Two thousand years ago, even  his own family did not believe in Him and his own nation rejected Him and put Him to  death.  Even after feeding 15000 people and healing many of the sick in attendance, when He began to preach His gospel many of His disciples stopped following Him. John 6:66 says,“As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”

Those disciples who came for the miracles but left after the message were obviously superficial. They were disciples or followers in name only.  There were still the 12 however.  Christ’s inner circle.  And when the others left Him, He turned to them and said, “You do not want to go away also, do you?”  Peter, acting as spokesman answered, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”  But even then, Jesus said that one of them had a devil and would betray Him. 

So Jesus ministry was characterized by true and false disciples.  I believe much of Jesus’ teaching is to show a distinction between His followers,  to separate those that followed Him for superficial reasons, and to develop true discipleship. Jesus seems to almost go out of HIs way to talk people out of following Him.  Let me give you  just a few examples.  

In addition to telling people that they had to eat His flesh and drink His blood, Jesus told those who wished to follow Him to let the dead bury the dead, and not even go to their father’s funeral.  He told a rich man to sell everything he had and give it to the poor and then to follow Him. At another time He told a crowd that unless they hated their father and mother and family, and even his own life, he could not be His disciple.  Then He told them to pick up a cross and follow Him. He said in Luke 14:33  "So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” Jesus told others to leave their nets, their professions as fishermen, and He would make them fishers of men. 

I could go on and on. Jesus called disciples to abandon all that they held dear in life for the sake of knowing Him.   I’m sure most of us would have responded to this call for radical abandonment  with the response; “you lost me at hello.”  But sadly this call of leaving all for Christ is not the gospel message of the modern church today.  We have changed the message to be as accommodating and appealing as possible.  We don’t ask for anyone to leave anything, but to come as you are.  We don’t ask for any sort of personal sacrifice; but say all God wants is a relationship with you because He loves you so much.  

If we are not careful, we find that we have redefined discipleship.  We are guilty of twisting the Jesus of the Bible into a version that 21st century hipsters are more comfortable with.  A non condemning, non controversial genie who is able to grant wishes upon our command and more importantly, places no demands upon us.  

But that is not the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus never presented discipleship as anything close to being easy.  The Jesus of the Bible talked about offering Himself as a human sacrifice for sin, and man’s need to repent for the forgiveness of their sins, and the people rejected Him.  When He condemned religionists of His day as hypocrites in turn they hated Him and plotted to kill Him.  So it says in 7:1 that Jesus avoided going to Judea, which was the seat of religion in Israel, because He knew that they wanted Him dead.  

His home by the way was in a small city called Capernaum, in Galilee, which had a population of about 1500 people.  We can assume that  it was the family home.  And so about six months after the feeding of the 5000/15000 on the seashore of the Sea of Galilee, His brothers come to Him and said, “Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. 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.”

From a logical perspective, what they said seemed to make sense.  It seemed to be good advice for how to raise up a ministry, or in Jesus’ case, how to establish your Messiah-ship. But their motive was not really in the best interests of the kingdom of God.  The underlying motivation for their comments are found in vs.5, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” So even His own brothers were false disciples.  They were perhaps willing to benefit from their relationship with Him if in fact He could pull off some sort of coup in the socio/religious culture that they belonged to.  But in fact they did not really believe that their own brother was the Messiah, much less the Son of God.

In chapter 6, you will remember, the crowds were taken back by His claims of having come down out of heaven, and they said in vs. 42, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” Now in chapter 7, you have His brother’s agreeing with the crowd.  After all, they had grown up in the same house with Him 24/7.  They shared the same parents, or so they thought.  How could He have come down from heaven? 

Matthew’s gospel identifies His brothers. Matt. 13:54-58 “He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers? Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" 57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household., And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief.”

So from that text we know that Jesus didn’t do many miracles in His hometown because of their unbelief. And in John 7 we learn that even His brothers didn’t believe in Him.  That explains why they say, “IF you do these things show them to the world.”  They didn’t even believe that He had done any real miracles. 

I see a parallel here in the life of Joseph from the Old Testament.  Joseph was hated by his brothers, because they were jealous of him.  And so they scorned him and eventually plotted for his death.  Jesus’ brothers did not plot His death, but I do think that they rejected Him and really wanted Him to get out of town.  He was an embarrassment to them.  And His greater brethren, meaning the family of the Jewish nation did plot His death, even as with Joseph.

The Bible does indicate that His actual brothers did eventually come to believe in Him, even as Joseph’s brothers eventually came to bow down before him.  But it was not until after Christ’s resurrection according to Acts 1:14.  Tradition tells us that Simon became a servant of the church for many years.  And James became the author of the book of James, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, and a martyr for the faith.  He describes himself in his epistle as "James a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ,” establishing Jesus as Lord, Messiah and equal with God.  Jude describes himself also as a servant of Jesus Christ. And then in his book he speaks about looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.  So His brothers eventually come to recognize Him as the Son of God, but at this stage they are filled with contempt and scorn for Him. Though they could claim a relationship with Him, yet they could not claim true discipleship.

Their suggestions are indicative of false disciples as well.  They basically are espousing the mantra of modern evangelism; that if you are successful, if you have a big crowd, then you must be doing something right.  That’s why they wanted Him to go to Judea.  Why hide out in Smallville Galilee when the big crowds and the success was in Judea. If you’re really the Messiah you are going to have to become popular with the multitudes and accepted by everyone. But notice that’s not Jesus’ plan for taking over the world.  In chapter 6 Jesus spent about 2 days teaching the 15000 people.  But they all deserted Him there when they found out the cost of discipleship.  So for the next 6 months Jesus spent all His time primarily with just 12 guys - discipling them.  That was His plan for establishing the kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus’ commission is the same to us; Matt. 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The command is not go into football stadiums and attract a crowd.  Not to organize giant crusades and get a lot of people to walk and aisle and repeat a prayer.  But make disciples, and teach them, note that, teach them, to observe all that I commanded you.  Attracting a crowd is easy if you have enough money.  But making disciples is hard work.  It’s time consuming.  It’s not done in a single outreach.  It’s not done in a short term mission trip.  It’s a long term affair. It’s teaching disciples to be doers of the word and not just hearers, not just superficial disciples.

Now the occasion of His brother’s suggestion to go to Judea is because it was the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.  There were three feasts which Jewish men were required to Jerusalem to celebrate.  The Feast of Tabernacles was one of those feasts, which lasted 7 days.  From a human perspective, it would have been a great opportunity for Jesus to appear before every able bodied man in Israel and start doing some miracles and show everyone that He was indeed the Messiah.  

That’s another indication of false disciples, by the way.  They are attracted by signs and wonders.  Great crusades happen in our country all the time which purport to be visited by signs and wonders.  One just happened last week I believe in Los Angeles, the city of the angels.  And one of the organizers of that event claimed to see a giant golden angel up in the sky above the stadium as he was driving in on the freeway.  Their whole program was about signs and wonders.  I heard one speaker proclaim that everyone there was going to be able to walk behind someone afterwards and know everything about that person.  I guess that is what they consider a word of knowledge.  There were people who were acting “drunk in spirit” all over the auditorium.  

But the Bible warns about such signs and wonders as a means of leading people into a false discipleship. .  Matt. 24:24 "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.”  Jesus rebuked others who followed Him for seeking signs and wonders in John 4:48 So Jesus said to him, "Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.”  And Paul warns in 2Thess. 2:9 about “the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.”

Jesus is not interested in accommodating man’s agenda, even if it’s His own family members who are pushing it.  So He responds, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil. Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”

There are a couple of points that need to be made concerning this important statement.  First of all, God has His own timetable and agenda, and we need to be aligned with it, rather than trying to get God to accommodate ours.  Jesus had an appointed time that He was going to go into Jerusalem and present Himself as the Messiah.  It would be 6 months later at the Passover Feast.  At that time, Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey and the crowds celebrate His coming as the Messiah, the son of David.  A week later, He is crucified as the lamb slain for the salvation of the world.  That is the timing of God, and Jesus is fully in agreement with that plan.  This was the plan of God before the foundation of the world.  And though it doesn’t look like it to His brothers or His disciples, all is going according to God’s plan.

Listen, I’ve said before that there is no safer place than in the will of God, and there is no safe place outside of the will of God.  It should be a great comfort to us to know that we are in the will of God, so that even when it seems like everything is going wrong, we can trust that God is in control, and He has a plan and things are going according to His plan.  If you are going to be a disciple of Christ, then you have to get in tune with the timing of God, and then trust in His sovereignty to accomplish His will in HIs time.  All our anxiety is usually because we have a different timetable and different expectations than God has.

Trusting God is hard work. Faith is hard work. The idea that faith is easy is contrary to scripture. It’s hard to walk by faith and not by sight.  I heard a story that illustrates trust.  It’s setting is back in the day when televisions still required antennas on roofs.  Something that has gone by the wayside in the digital age.  But this man was up on his roof fixing his television aerial when he slipped and began to slide down toward the gutters. He tried to catch himself, but he went over the edge. He managed to grab hold of the rain gutter as he dropped, and he hung there, suspended in the air. He couldn't look down and he didn't know how far it was to the ground, and in his desperation he cried out. "Oh, God help me!" And a voice replied, "I am ready to help you." And he said, "Tell me what to do." The voice asked. "Do you trust me?" He said, "Yes, I trust you." The voice said. "All right then. Let go." And man asked, "Is there anybody else up there who can help me?”  Trusting God isn’t always easy.  Letting go of things we depend upon though is fundamental to really trusting in God.

Secondly, if you are on God’s timetable, doing God’s will, then you are in opposition to the world, and the world is going to hate you.  True disciples are hated by the world.  But contrarily, false disciples love the world, and so the world does not hate them.  Now why is this true?  Well, because if you are a true disciple, then you are in agreement with what Jesus said, “it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.”  That’s it.  We call sin, evil.  And we testify that their deeds are evil.  

Let me tell you something that you need to really understand.  This is the defining point of true disciples versus false disciples.  The defining point between true and false disciples is their deeds.  Don’t get me wrong.  You are not saved by works, you are saved by grace.  But don’t get Jesus wrong either.  You shall know them by their fruits.  The most damning statement of Jesus was for false disciples, found in Matthew 7:20-23  "So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”  

So their fruits are the deeds that they did.  Notice that they did signs and wonders.  They even cast out demons and performed many miracles.  They named the name of Jesus.  And yet they were not true disciples because they practiced lawlessness.

Now that is exactly what Jesus accused the Jews of in vs.19.  He said to them,  "Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?” They claimed the righteousness of the law, but they did not carry out the law.  They sought to kill Him, in opposition to the law.

Their hatred of Jesus was equal to murder, and so it beget a plot to murder Him, which was eventually fulfilled.  So if you are a true disciple of Christ, then the world will hate you.  That really is the irony of the seeker friendly church model, isn’t it?  That we are trying to ingratiate ourselves to those who really hate what we stand for.  Because what we stand for is the truth of God’s Word which declares sin as evil, and defines it by God’s law.

So Jesus did eventually go up to the Feast of Tabernacles, but secretly.  That means that He did not enter into Jerusalem with a big fanfare.  His family would have been part of a large caravan, and His coming would have been with thousands of pilgrims, which would have probably instigated some sort of great political, religious rally to make Him King.  But He was not interested in their agenda, He was interested in fulfilling God’s agenda. So He shows up midweek, without fanfare, and when they find Him, He is teaching in the temple.

But notice that there was grumbling going on amongst the people concerning Him.  Vs.12, ‘There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, “He is a good man’; others were saying, ‘No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.’ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”

Notice that neither of those comments are the marks of true disciples.  Jesus was not just a good man.  Either He was God incarnate, or He was a lunatic.  Most of the world’s false religions say that Jesus was a good man.  But they fail to believe that He is God.  That He is alive, having risen from the dead and ascended into heaven.  And as such their belief is of no avail.  Believing that Jesus is a good man will not save you.  Of course, the other half of the people were under the influence of the religious leaders who were saying that He was a deceiver.  But neither group were professing saving faith, and neither group spoke openly about Him for fear of the Jews.  That word Jews is used of the religious Jewish leaders.  They feared being ostracized, or kicked out of the temple because of any allegiance to Christ.  

I read a quote by DA Carson which said, “as the social cost of claiming to be a Christian increases, the percentage of nominal Christians decreases.”  I believe the day is already here when being a true disciple of Christ will bring persecution in the social arena, which may cost you your job, or mean you are sued for everything you have and then some, or even thrown in jail.  That day is here.

So Jesus starts teaching in the temple.  And the Jews hearing Him, ask in astonishment, “How has this man become learned, having never been educated?”  This is the great thing about preaching the Word of God.  It’s the wisdom of God. The Holy Spirit working in us, in conjunction with the Word of God, teaches us the things of God, so that we have the wisdom of God.  You want wisdom?  Read the Word of God.  [1Co 1:25 NASB] 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Notice Jesus says in John 7:16-17 "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”  Jesus spoke the words of God.  When He refuted the devil in the wilderness, He quoted from the Word of God.  This is the habit of Jesus when He preached.  So as well I believe it’s a good habit for preachers to preach the Word of God.  Jesus goes on to say, “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”  We have a lot of glory seeking preachers out there today who speak in order to glorify themselves.  They speak to gain a crowd, to please people, to entertain people.  And they fail to preach the full counsel of God.  Jesus testified that people’s sin was evil.  He preached the Word of God in it’s fullness.  Only when man is convinced of His sin does he come to know his need for a Savior.  And only when man has come to know Jesus as His Savior will he come to serve Jesus as Lord.

But here is the key Jesus gives us in those passages regarding true discipleship.  He says, “If anyone is willing to do His will, that is the Father’s will, he will recognize the teaching is of God.”  (my paraphrase) Here is the key to true discipleship.  You first have to come to a point of being willing to submit and obey the will of God, and when you do that, when you obey, then God will reveal more truth to you.  This is the principle I have mentioned so many times, that of progressive discipleship.  When you are obedient to the light God has shown you thus far, then He will reveal more to you.  God’s word is a lamp unto your feet and a light unto your path.  That means it’s walking revelation.  As you walk out the truth in obedience, God will continue to lead you.  Too many people want to see the light at the end of the tunnel before they start to walk.  That’s not discipleship.  Believe and obey.  Trust and obey, for there’s no other way. 

Well, there is more to this message that Jesus gives during the Feast, but it will have to wait for next Sunday.  In the meantime, I believe that you have been given enough light to start to be obedient to the light you have.  I hope that you will prove to be a disciple this week by your deeds and not just your claims on Christianity.  I hope that you are indeed a true disciple.  If not, then today is the appointed day of salvation.  Salvation is simply believing all that Jesus claimed He was, that He was the bread of life which came down out of heaven, that men might eat of Him and receive eternal life.  To eat of Him is to receive Him, as Savior and Lord.  To be willing to forsake the world, even all that life offers, in exchange for eternal life.  To be willing to take up your cross and follow Him.  True discipleship is not without a cost.  But the reward is so much worth it all. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”