John Chapter 7:1-12

I believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Savior of the world. How does that affect your life?

There's a lot of people in academia that believe that Jesus was the Christ, but they're not following Him. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is a senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today on the program we have D.A. Brown, one of David's associate pastors here at The Bridge.

Welcome, brother. Bob, we're faced with many decisions, but the most important one is, what are we going to do with Jesus? We say we know what we're going to do with Jesus, but today, what really are you going to do with what Jesus is speaking to you? And are you going to live by that decision?

So let's jump right into David Magee teaching You Must Decide. John, chapter 7, verse 1. After these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.

Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. His brothers, therefore, said to Him, Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see the works that you are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world, for even his brothers did not believe in him. You got to love brothers. You know, I mean, Proverbs 17, 17 says, brothers are born for adversity. And most of us who have brothers know that is a true scripture.

Amen. Look at verse 4. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly.

If you do these things. See, they were hearing. They were hearing that Jesus was doing miracles, that He was doing these things with water and to wine. He was doing these things with lame men. And as brothers, what did they think?

Oh, I don't know about that. That's amazing to me that they could not see before now that Jesus was indeed the Messiah. I mean, growing up with Him. Can you imagine growing up with Jesus as your brother?

I mean, you would always be hearing, why can't you be more like Jesus? He never murmurs. He never complains. He's always thankful.

He's never rebellious. I mean, man, that would be tough, wouldn't it? I mean, I heard that as a younger brother. And let me assure you, my two older brothers were not Jesus. But they were hearing about these things that Jesus was doing. And notice, guys, they don't, they're not supportive. They seek to undermine Him with their words. And that's our first life lesson. Our words are important. Be careful what you say. Our words are important. Be careful what you say. Our words are the vehicle somehow by which we receive our forgiveness.

They're so powerful. You say a prayer. Now, it can't be just words.

It has to be felt with your heart. But these words are used to gain your entrance into heaven that Jesus has provided. And certainly using our words with other people to encourage them.

Guys, it's so easy to tear somebody down in it. It's a little more difficult to take the time to encourage somebody. And let me, you guys, you ought to make it a goal that every time you come here, you encourage somebody. Look around. Find somebody that perhaps looks like they need encouragement and encourage them. Or perhaps find them when they're coming in. And you can tell when somebody is a visitor, not quite comfortable, and they're kind of looking around like going, what is this? You know, then you can go and say, hey, you know, do you need to find your way around?

Can I help you? Or, you know, we're glad you're here or something like that. But to encourage someone in their faith as well.

It might make all the difference. And it's, what's it going to cost you, 10 seconds, 30 seconds? What's wrong with the advice of the brothers here? Well, I'll tell you what's wrong with it. They're advising Him out of their unbelief. Be extremely careful and skeptical when taking advice for an unbeliever.

Now, I know that's a strong statement. The Bible puts it a little bit stronger in different places. Don't walk in the council or the ungodly, we're told in Psalm 1. Be separate, we're told in another place.

Now, understand something. And I want to clarify my position and the church's position. I believe in biblical counseling. I believe in biblical discipleship. I believe, whether you want to call it Christian counseling or biblical counseling, I do not believe that a Christian should ever, under any circumstances, be counseled by an unbeliever, ever.

There's no reason for it. You see, because there's two different world views. If somebody says, I don't believe the Bible, I don't believe in sin, I don't believe in Jesus, what can they speak to you in your situation about? It's unhealthy to go to them and say, hey, speak into my life. Because one of the things they may say is, you know, you got this whole guilt complex about this whole sin issue. That's why Jesus died for you. And incidentally, don't, you know, if somebody says, well, I'm a Christian counselor, you know what, be skeptical still. Say, what does that mean to you?

Have you been born again? Oh, I'm not that kind of Christian. What do you think about the Bible? I believe the Bible contains the word of God. See, words, again, the Bible doesn't contain the word of God. There's denominations that are using that now. The Bible is the word of God.

See, there's a big difference in those. They sound alike. No, the Bible contains the word of God. It sounds good. It sounds warm.

It sounds fuzzy. It's wrong. The Bible is the word of God. And again, be very careful in getting advice from an unbeliever. And guys, that's not just in discipleship or counseling areas. That, you know, that goes with attorneys.

That goes with accountants. Because if you listen to the wrong attorney or the wrong accountant who's ungodly and unbeliever, you could wind up in prison. So be careful. Be careful about taking counsel from an unbeliever. Verse six is a good verse. My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. Now, Jesus is speaking, and we're going to get into this in depth when we get to the trial entry in John chapter 12, which ties back into a prophecy in Daniel that if you've never made the connection there, it's a mind blower. But Jesus had a time that he was moving towards that was his time, but he wouldn't be swayed by man. And here it says your time is always ready.

I like that. Your time is always ready. Perhaps you're sitting in here this morning, and you've thought in the past, you know, at some point I'm going to make a commitment to the Lord. At some point I'm going to quit playing games.

I'm going to come off the fence and really give my life to the Lord. This is that morning. Your time's now. Or maybe you've never asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins. Your time is this morning. And how often we think, well, no, no, no, no, no, I got to get ready to make this step.

How do you get ready to make a step towards God? Well, you clean up your life. It's kind of backwards, isn't it? Let me ask you a question.

I use this analogy a lot. Do you get cleaned up to take a shower? Hopefully not. If you do, we offer biblical counseling. No, see, the shower cleans you up.

Guess what? That step towards God begins to change your life. And you see in Scripture, some people took some really weak baby steps, and Jesus honored them. He honored them.

And he'll honor your steps towards you. And Jesus says in verse 7, the world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. Now guys, keep in mind, he's speaking to his brothers that are unbelievers.

It's important. You know why? Because as believers, we are hated by the world.

That's not a conspiracy theory. That's the reality of it. If you're living for the Lord, people will exhibit hatred, they'll exhibit bitterness towards you because you're living for the Lord. Jesus tells that in chapter 15 verse 19 of John. He says, if you were of the world, the world would love its own.

Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Guys, don't be surprised by this. Don't be shocked by this.

When you encounter hostility or animosity, and I'm still sometimes shocked by it. I shouldn't be at this point, but I still am when I get an email or a phone call. And let me say this, I get much more positive emails than negative emails. And I hope I've never given the appearance of whining about getting emails, because I've shared before that I was kind of whining, it was probably a year ago or something, I was whining about emails. Now some of them are kind of, you know, there was one guy that actually set up an email account.

I hate David McGee at yahoo.com. That was a little weird, but you know, I was kind of whining, you know, and God gave me kind of this vision and of getting to heaven, you know, John the Baptist is there and you know, Isaiah is there and Stephen's there and we're all sitting in a group and you know, well, I got persecuted. I got persecuted too. I got persecuted. How did you get persecuted? Well, they stoned me when I was telling everybody about Jesus.

Wow, that's pretty impressive. Isaiah, what they do to you? Well, they actually saw me in half because of my witness for Jesus.

What about you young man? They sent me emails that were mean, but I just kept right on for Jesus. But I get a lot of encouraging emails and I thank you guys for those encouraging words, but you know, we're going to get some animosity from people and that's because we're living for the Lord.

And if you're not, there may be a problem. You may have been in a group where people knew that you were a believer and somebody said something, they used a profane word or something. You ever notice what happens? They look at you and go, oh, I'm sorry.

Isn't that amazing? See, they know they're being convicted by your presence. I usually say, well, you're apologizing to the wrong person, especially if it's been a blasphemy or profane thing using the Lord's name. But see, we're convicting them and that's part of what we're called to do. And that doesn't give us the entitlement to be hateful or judgmental or obtuse in the name of the Lord.

Too many of us have done that for far too long. And I've been guilty of that. The truth with love, it's important. You got to speak the truth, but you got to speak the truth in love. Now, in chapter 3, verse 19, Jesus said, and this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world and men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light that his deeds may be clearly seen that they have been done in God. Now, we're going to talk about the light again in chapter 8, but let's spend a couple of minutes on this. Because again, in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, you are the light of the world.

A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand. And it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. Jesus says, don't put your light under a basket.

It's kind of a weird thing to do. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but you get a high white bulb to give you more light and then you cover it. Now, I don't have like naked light bulbs sitting in my house or anything and I'm not telling you to go home and take all the lampshades off of your lamps and your family already thinks you're weird enough probably. But, well, Pastor David said we got to burn all our lampshades, praise God.

No, Pastor David did not say that, okay? But lampshades are kind of interesting things. See, this is the thing. We're called the light of the world. Is your light burning? Is your light illuminating? Is your light burning bright? Or through blowing your witness and not living for the Lord and acting inappropriately and speaking inappropriately and laughing at inappropriate jokes or visiting inappropriate websites or whatever, are you putting a shade on your life and your lamp?

Because, guys, if you do, everybody else gets left in the dark and they can't see. And the darkness is an uncomfortable thing and the Lord tells us why, because it's filled with iniquity and sin. And we're supposed to be the light of the world without any shade or anything that covers our light so that we can all be able to see.

And do you know what? We get comfortable with the darkness sometimes, don't we? Because we compare ourselves to everything else that's dark in the world and we go, well, you know, I'm doing okay when I compare myself to this guy or that guy.

But what about when you compare yourself to Jesus? See, there's times that we do cover our light and we shouldn't. Perhaps even in this you've thought about times where you in the past week maybe have covered your light and the people are in the darkness around you and they need you to be that light. They need to see that light because that may be the very thing that brings them to Jesus. The life lesson here is let your light shine. Let your light shine. Burn bright for the Lord. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment, but I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for him. You need someone to present God's Word to him. Every day we're presenting God's Word to him here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button.

All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Now here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. Amen. Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Now when he's using this time, understand the Greek word used here is keros, which means season or opportunity.

It's not kronos, which is the Greek word that refers to the hour of the day where we get chronology and different words from that root word. But there's a specific time that he's coming to where it will be his time. And again, we'll see that in John 12. And when he said these things to him, he remained in Galilee. But when his brothers had gone up, then he also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret. Now Jesus never said he wouldn't go. He just said he wouldn't go with them yet.

He wouldn't go with his brothers. Then the Jews sought him at the feast and said, where is he? And there was much complaining among the people concerning him.

Some said he is good. Others said no. On the contrary, he deceives the people.

Now it's interesting. Verse 11, they were looking for him, but they were looking at him, they were looking for him, I believe, for the wrong reasons, to persecute him. And then in verse 12, there was division there. There was division there. They were saying, well, I think he's a good man.

No, he deceives the people. Now we've talked about this before. We've talked about the C.S. Lewis thing.

C.S. Lewis said, well, he's either a liar or a lunatic or the Lord. I had a conversation last week with a guy at a sushi place because he believed that Jesus was a good man or a good teacher, and I was challenging him going, you can't say that because he went around saying that he was God, that he was dying for everybody's sins. And that's not something a good teacher or a good man does unless it's the truth.

Trilemma 3, that's the decision you have to make. You can't say, well, Jesus was a good man or Jesus was a good teacher if you deny his deity. You can't say that. See, because good men don't go around saying that they're God when they're not.

And you can't say that Jesus was just a good teacher. So he didn't leave those options really open to you. So out of those three choices, there's only one. Either he was who he said he was and you receive him and you accept that and your life changes accordingly, or he was none of those things and you reject him. But this other stuff, it's not really open to you. He didn't leave it open to you. He didn't mean to leave those decisions open to you. Which brings us to the next life lesson. You must decide who Jesus is and live by that decision. And guys, I am not talking about just an academic decision.

Oh yes, I believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Savior of the world. How does that affect your life? Well, obviously it's affected your Sunday morning because you're here, but what about Monday through Saturday?

Is it affecting your life there? It should, if you really believe it. I'm not saying you never make a mistake, but I mean, there's not only a belief in the head, but there's a belief in the heart. For the heart man believes unto righteousness.

And Spurgeon said, you know, the difference between believing in God in your head and believing in your heart while it's only 18 inches is the difference between heaven and hell. There's a lot of people in academia that believe that Jesus was the Christ, but they're not following him. I believe Jesus was and is the Son of God. I believe that he is and was the only Savior this world can ever know.

I believe the Bible, so it's not open to me to think that there's other ways to salvation or other ways to heaven because Jesus said there's not. And I believe him. And Jesus, I worship Jesus. I'm not ashamed to say that. I worship Jesus and I love Jesus. And not just for a couple hours each week, but with my life.

And I hope you do as well. Because guys, times are changing. The world is changing.

But you know what? As these things happen, as these dark times come upon us, it's a great opportunity to let your light shine because people want answers. They want real answers. They don't want fake answers and masks hiding. They want real things. They want the reality of God in their life. And they want somebody to show them that it is real.

And you guys can show them. What the world needs now is heroes. Jesus is my hero. You may think that's trite.

It's not trite to me. Here's Jesus who stood up in the face of great opposition, great religious persecution. And he walked in strength. And that stirs my soul and my heart.

Jesus is worthy to be followed. And what Jesus wants us to do is to declare our weakness to him and say, you know what? Lord, I'm weak without you. I know that without you, I can do nothing. But with you, I can do all things. And in my weakness, Lord, make me strong. Because you know what? The world needs heroes.

It needs lights. Guys, men, your wives need you to be a hero to them, to stand in the strength of the Lord. Your kids, your sons and your daughters desperately need you to be a hero, somebody to look up to. And you ladies, you can be heroes.

Some of you are single mothers and there's nothing more heroic than a single mother raising her kids in a godly fashion. That takes a lot of strength. And whatever happens in the future, we're gonna need his strength. We're gonna need the strength of the Lord.

We're gonna need to be walking closely with the Lord. And guys, he wants to give you his strength because you'll need it. And it's okay to say, you know what, Jesus, I am weak. I do need your help. See, thinking you don't admit that and you think that's strength, that's not strength, that's weakness.

And it's a weakness that leads to further weakness, not a weakness that leads to strength. But to say, you know what, Jesus, I need you. I need your help to live out this Christian life. I need your strength to be a light. I need your help to be a hero. You can't make a stronger statement than that.

And let me assure you, everybody in here needs that. So where does it start? Where does the fight begin? Will your attention please?

The fight begins by giving up. That's not a contradiction. But what you have to do is give yourself to the Lord and die to what you wanna do, die to who you wanna be, and ask the Lord, Lord, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to be? You have to die to trying to be righteous by your own works and say, Jesus, I can't do it. I can't be declared righteous in my own works. I need your righteousness.

And the amazing thing, he stands here this morning ready to make that exchange with you. Whether you've walked with the Lord 10 years or you've never prayed this prayer, we need to come back often to the Lord. I'm not saying get born again again. Don't confuse my words. But we need to come back to the Lord often.

Why? Because we drift on a daily basis. Maybe you thought that was just you.

That's not just you. We forget too quickly. 2 Corinthians 6 verse 2 says, in an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation.

So those of you listening right now to my voice, now's the time. If the Lord is tugging on your heart, it's not me. I'm not tugging on your heart. I don't do the emotional manipulation thing at the end of the service. I don't believe in that.

I believe the Spirit of God is much more powerful. He doesn't need that. But if you're feeling a tug on your heart, you need to respond to that. Because if you reject that, if you turn away from that, you're not turning away from me. You're turning away from God. In Hebrews chapter 4 verse 7 says, today if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. Respond to the Lord.

Respond first by giving up and recognizing that your righteousness is not good enough to walk with Him. Your strength is not strong enough. And it's okay to admit that. It's okay to admit this morning that you need something outside of yourself.

You need someone outside of yourself. And today if you don't harden your heart, you can be strengthened for whatever happens. Because guys, the reality is we don't know what the future holds. But we can know who holds the future. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him. And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. Pastor DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. That sounds good, Pastor DA.

And again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's home church, The Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.