The Hiddenness of Jesus

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Jesus says that the reason he all so often spoke in parables was so that quote seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. This question is what Christian theologians for 2,000 years have called the problem of the hiddenness of God. Jesus explains in this chapter why he does this, how he does it, what the point is in it. Welcome back to Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. Today's message is titled The Hiddenness of Jesus, and I've got a question about that title. If God wanted the whole world to know him, why did Jesus go to such great lengths to hide his accomplishments?

He always told people not to tell anyone what miraculous thing he had done. Such an interesting approach, right? It's part of our Kingdom Come teaching series, and if you've missed any part, you can always catch up online at jdgreer.com. Okay, ready to jump into God's Word? Let's turn to Luke chapter 10 and join Pastor J.D. Luke chapter 10, I want to talk with you about a question that a lot of people have, and that is basically this. People ask if there really is a God, if there really is a God, then why hasn't he made the evidence about himself clear?

You ever asked that question? I mean, for example, take evolution. A lot of people, smart people, not twisted weird people, but just regular people, smart people, think that evolution pretty much puts God out of a job. And even if you disagree with what they say, you might say, well, yeah, but why didn't God make the evidence about himself and creation so clear that whenever somebody gets up and suggests a theory of the origin of life that doesn't involve him, it just looks ridiculous. I mean, for example, you're looking through the microscope at a cell and you see a little tag in the cell that says designed by Jehovah, right? I mean, at that point, there's no more discussion. Why didn't God do that? God can do whatever he wants to.

Why did he make himself more obvious? Or on another front, why is it that New Testament critics are able to present arguments about why the Bible has been corrupted, even forged? And even if you disagree with them, you're like, yeah, but they ask some really good questions. And some of their questions are hard to answer.

And some of the things they say make lots of sense. And so I don't believe what they're saying, but why didn't God do this in such a way that there really would be no doubt about it? Have you ever thought about it? Why hasn't God made the evidence for himself clear, more obvious?

For me, it's kind of the question behind all the questions. A famous American novelist, a guy named John Updike, said it this way, and I love this quote. He said, all this heaven storming you people want to do, if God wanted his tracks discovered, wouldn't he have made them plainer? Why would God tuck them into odd bits of astronomy and nuclear physics? Or I might add, why would he bury it into a story that was written 2,000 years ago in a document we don't even have the originals of? He says this, why be so coy if you're the deity? In other words, if God can do whatever he wants, why wasn't God a little more obvious to the point that nobody could really question? Why doesn't God speak? I think this is a perfectly valid question. Why doesn't God daily speak from the sky? A little news brief. I mean, John Stewart's got his daily show, why didn't God have his?

That just says, here's how I feel about what's going on there. How come you don't have, every time you open the Bible, a little angel that just hovers over it and says, this is true, this is true? I mean, most people would have doubts, right? How come when a New Testament skeptic or some skeptic at UNC Chapel Hill or NC State or Duke is up there in front of the class talking about why Jesus didn't raise him from the dead, how come a 900 foot Jesus doesn't appear next to him and be like, this guy is wrong?

There'd be a lot less unbelievers. And why is it that so many seemingly smart people come up with different conclusions than we do about the Bible? I once had a friend who was falling away from the faith.

He asked me, he said, if this stuff is really true, why does it seem like all my smart professors rejected? Some of you have asked this question from a different angle. You're like, well, why isn't God more present? Why isn't God more obvious when I need him?

And no less than CS Lewis, CS Lewis, one of the greatest, in my opinion, Christians and writers and philosophers in the last hundred years, he said in a really honest confession in his book, A Grief Observed, listen, he said, quote, but go to God when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face and the sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You might as well turn away.

The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house.

Was it ever inhabited? It seems so once. Why is God so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a time in our help with trouble? I'd say for many of you, this has been a question in your mind, hasn't it?

Here's the thing. I don't really hear this question ever dealt with much in church, but it is a question that runs. It's a theme that runs all through the Gospel of Luke. One of the things that you're going to see happen repeatedly in the book of Luke is you're going to see Jesus have some golden opportunity to reveal himself.

Something he could do to just end all the questions and shut everybody up, but he doesn't. For example, you might have noticed this as you've been reading through the Gospel of Luke. He repeatedly tells people who get a glimpse of his power not to say anything.

Did you see that? Luke chapter 4, for example, he casts out a demon and then says, don't tell anybody. Luke chapter 8, he raises a little girl from the dead and then he says, let's just keep this between us. Sometimes when Jesus is pushed to do a miracle to prove himself, like, for example, Luke chapter 23 when Herod says, if you'll do a miracle, then I'll believe in you. Jesus does nothing. Sometimes when he's asked point blank to defend who he is, he's silent. Or how about this one, Luke chapter 8, Jesus says that the reason he so often spoke in parables was so that, quote, seeing they may not see and hearing they may not understand. In other words, he spoke in a way that would deliberately keep some people confused. Have you seen this? I mean, I thought Jesus wanted everybody to know about his power.

And if so, why did he do that kind of stuff? Have you ever asked that question? If not, maybe you ought to start reading your Bible with your brain on, right? I mean, I've got a strong reaction against Christians who mindlessly believe what they're told. They don't even know why they believe what they believe.

They just believe it because it's the most comfortable thing. That is deeply offensive to God. You're supposed to read and ask, why is he doing that? This question is what Christian theologians for 2,000 years have called the problem of the hiddenness of God. When our reading of Luke, we're about at chapter 10, and Jesus explains in this chapter why he does this, how he does it, what the point is in it.

And I want to try to deal with this for you. Personally, again, I have never heard a sermon on this, because I think a lot of us are afraid to embrace the hard questions about Christianity. But I'll tell you guys this, the more I walk with Jesus, the less afraid I become of hard questions. There are a lot of things about Christianity, there are a lot of things about this book that blow my mind, that offend me, that shatter my thinking.

But the more I read this, the more convinced I become that there is a God, there is a true God behind this mysterious, mind-boggling revelation. In fact, I would say this, the hardest questions about God are never asked, in my opinion, by the skeptics. The hardest questions about God are always asked by the gospels themselves. That's what you're going to see here in Luke 10. You're going to see a very hard question that Jesus brings up. Luke chapter 10, let me give you the context of this story. Jesus suggested that his apostles to announce the arrival of his kingdom in the surrounding cities. He arms them with the power of miracles, they're able to cast out demons, they're able to heal the sick, make the blind see. Well, his apostles get a mixed reaction. There were some people, a fairly large number of people, that enthusiastically believed what Jesus or the message that the apostles preached about him. But a lot of people in the cities reject the message. And a lot of the people, here's the thing, a lot of the people who rejected were the right people, if you know what I mean.

The people of influence, the political leaders, the religious leaders, right? Jesus' reaction to this, you're going to see it, Luke chapter 10 verse 13. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! Those are two of the Jewish cities in Israel the apostles had gone to. Those were two of the cities that were filled with the right kind of people. That's where a lot of your religious leaders live, that's where a lot of your capitals were of power and the capital of education and the capitals of religion. For if the mighty works, he says, done in you had instead been done in Tyre and Sidon, those are two notoriously wicked enemy Gentile cities, Tyre and Sidon. If the works that had been done in you, Chorazin and Bethsaida, had been done in those Gentile cities, they would have repented long ago sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

And you, Capernaum, Capernaum was another famous Jewish city that was filled with the right kind of people. You who were so full of religious leaders who studied so hard to become wise, will you be exalted to heaven with all your impressive learning about God? No, you will be brought down to hell, to Hades. Then Jesus says to his apostles, the one who hears you, you see, hears me. The one who rejects you, rejects me.

And the one who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. Verse 21, in that same hour, he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. In other words, the rejection of these right people by him didn't bother him that much because he knew who he was. He knew that God approved of him and so the rejection of other people, even the right people, didn't really bother him that much because it wasn't that significant because he knew who he was and he knew who he was and he knew he had God's approval. So he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and he said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden, there's your word, hidden, underline it, circle it, write it down, prick your finger, dab it in blood, whatever it takes, that's your key word. These things, you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and you have revealed them to little children. Who missed it? Who missed it? The wise and understanding.

Who got it? Little children. Now is there anything wrong with wisdom and understanding? Of course not. The Bible tells you to seek wisdom and understanding. Read the book of Proverbs.

That's what the whole thing is about. God wants you to be wise in his word. God wants you to be wise in his world. He loves for you to increase in your knowledge and your wisdom.

He loves for you to master the earth. That's one of the commands that he gave. Yet the Jewish people who were the biblically wisest people of the day, they missed him. And the worldly wise people, the Greeks and the Romans, the ones who had mastered politics and mastered power and the scientific community of the day, they missed him too.

This passage actually says God hid himself from them. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. To learn more about this ministry, visit us online anytime at jdgreer.com. Before we get back to today's teaching, I want to take a moment to remind you about an extremely helpful resource that we offer our listeners in addition to this daily teaching. If you have questions about life, theology, or the Bible, you won't want to miss Pastor J.D. 's Ask Me Anything podcast. In each episode, Pastor J.D. answers real questions submitted by listeners just like you using biblical wisdom along with practical advice that he's gleaned from his many years as a pastor.

And the best part is completely free. You can find Ask Me Anything with J.D. Greer by visiting jdgreer.com slash podcast or by searching for it on your favorite podcast platform.

Don't miss out on this great resource by subscribing to the podcast today. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D.

here on Summit Life. He continues, yes Father for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father and nobody knows who the Son is except the Father or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.

Wow! Did you see that? The only people who know God are those to whom Jesus chooses to reveal Himself. Verse 23, then turning to his disciples he said, blessed are the eyes that see what you see. I got two questions I'm going to try to ask of this text. Okay, they're really two different sermons but I'm going to try to merge them into one.

I'm not sure how good I'm going to do but I'm going to try. Here's the two questions. Number one, why do the wise and the understanding, why is it that they miss God? Why do the wise and understanding miss God? And then the second question I want to ask of this text is how do we find certainty in what to believe about God? Why do the wise and the understanding, why is it that they miss God? And then how do we find certainty about what to believe about God? Question number one, why do the wise and understanding miss God?

Here we go. I'm gonna give you four logical premises as to what the Bible's answer is to that question. Number one, because our hearts are naturally blind. Our hearts are naturally blind and that is not something that wisdom or understanding is able to overcome. The Gospel of Luke repeatedly presents men and women in a natural state of blindness. We saw this when Jesus first launched his ministry in Luke 4 and described what it was going to be like. He said that one of his primary tasks was going to be to open the eyes of the blind and yes he was talking about the physically blind but he was talking about something even more significant than that and that was the spiritually blind.

Those people who were unable to see the glory of God that was all around them. The blindness of our hearts was a kind of willful blindness that grew out of our sinful attitudes, our sinful disposition. The Apostle Paul would later explain this blindness a lot more clearly in Romans chapter 1.

I don't have time to walk you through it in detail but let me kind of summarize it for you. Paul says that the posture of the human heart since the fall has been a posture of rebellion. Our hearts have rejected the authority and the glory of God so that Paul says our foolish hearts have been darkened and because they have been darkened he says they are blind to God's goodness and his holiness and his power that is really all around us. What Paul means by rejected the authority of God is that we don't want God to be in charge. We don't want God to rule. We want to be a rule unto ourselves.

That is as natural to us as eating and breathing. My kid's first word after daddy okay after the first word daddy their second word is no and for whatever reason that's like their first sentence daddy no. It's like their subject and verb. I know no is not really a verb but you know they're using it in a verb kind of way.

Daddy no because they are born with this sense of I don't want anybody telling me what to do. I am a rule unto myself and that's what Paul says. Our hearts are in a posture of we don't want God to rule we reject his authority we want to rule ourselves. What I mean by rejecting the glory of God is that we don't seek God's glory above all things. We seek our own glory and we seek our own pleasure. I've told you this before but the word for glory in Hebrew is the word kabod. Kabod literally means weight so when you give glory to something you are giving it weight. To give something glory in the place of God is to give something in your life the weight that you should be giving to God. A long time before there's unbelief and disobedience there is the false giving of glory giving things the priority and the weight in our lives that we ought to be giving to God.

That's how most of us live. It's that we give weight to things we care more about obtaining things we care more about the opinions of others than we do about God that is giving worship away. So as a result of that posture Paul says our hearts are darkened and that means that our natural state we can't even recognize the truth about God when it's presented to us. It's not that the evidence is not there. It's not that the evidence is not open to us.

It's that we're not open to the evidence. We can't see God because at our core we don't want to see God. And in order to really see God Jesus says we have to be given new hearts. We have to be given new eyes that are not blind. Hearts that can see God's glory. Hearts that can feel his majesty.

Eyes that can see him where he is around us. The example I've used here before but I think it bears repeating is imagine you got a guy who's on top of a 50-story building. He's clinically insane. He is certified cuckoo.

He thinks he's a bird. And the guy's standing up there on the ledge of this building and you give him a free choice. You're like hey man bro you can you can jump off this building but you cannot fly. If you jump off this building you're gonna plunge straight to the ground you're gonna be road pizza. This is not going to end well for you.

Or you can walk back down here with me to safety. Now he's certified insane. He thinks he's a bird. Every single time 100 out of 100 times what's he going to do?

He's going to jump. Right? Say that you had the power though you knew you had some medicine like you know it was like in a little needle you had the power to restore his sanity. So right before you ask him the question you stuck this thing in his back you put the medicine in him and his right mind comes back to him and then you ask him the exact same question.

Right? You put the medicine in. Okay man you got a free choice you can jump off this building but you and I both know you ain't a bird. Or you can walk back down here with me to safety. Every single time what's he going to do? He's going to walk down with you to safety. Why?

Same choice. It's that his mindset has been changed so now he sees things differently. What the Bible teaches you is that God the Holy Spirit restores your mind so that all of a sudden your eyes are open you start to see evidence it's all around you like how could I not have seen this before but it takes a change of the heart to be able to see that kind of evidence. You see what I'm getting at? It's not that the evidence was not there not open to us it's that our hearts are in a posture of rebellion so that colors how we see the evidence and that's why we can't see it.

Here's the point listen God giving us that kind of sight is grace. He doesn't owe it to us does he? No because we have rejected him so he doesn't owe us even a revelation of himself.

Imagine you had a friend for example who stole from you lied about you betrayed you and left town right well then your kid gets married and you don't invite them to the wedding do they have any reason at all for them to say that's unfair you should have invited me to your wedding your kid's wedding. No they rejected you you don't owe anything to them because we have rejected God. God does not owe us anything including a revelation of himself the idea that if there really is a God out there just anybody should be able to find him at any point whenever they want it's just not true. God's revelation of himself to us is grace it is a gift that we don't even deserve anymore and one of the things that often disturbs me in our conversations about the evidence for God is that people act like they're doing God a favor if they believe in him as if God is sitting there in heaven going no no no please believe in me please please Ashton Kutcher has way more twitter followers than I do I need some followers I need some believers please believe in me please please no okay from God's perspective this is God's world whether you believe in him or not doesn't really affect his self-esteem one way or the other he doesn't need you to believe in him at all if you don't believe in him that's going to be your loss not his number two God will not be found through human achievement because if he could be that would contribute to human pride what's the first reason the wise and understanding miss god the first reason is that their hearts are naturally blind and that's not something wisdom and understanding can be overcome that's not something wisdom and understanding can overcome number two God will not be found through human achievement because if he could be found that way that would contribute to human pride if the way to find God for example were through mastering science then the really smart scientists would say we found God because we were smarter than everybody else we know God and truth best because we're the smartest and we went to the best schools they would boast that you listen to them talk now and that's pretty much what they talk like in it you hear this tone in it it's like I know the truth I can see things clearly because I went to the best school I went to an ivy league school and I'm smarter than you anyway I got a higher IQ and I worked harder than you that's why I'm boasting my strength is what enabled me to find the truth if the way to find God was through religious piety then the really religious people would say we found God because we were morally superior to everybody else and they would boast that their personal goodness was what enabled them to find God listen to religious people talk now that's pretty much how they talk in it we have the truth about God because we're better than you and because we're more moral than you and that's why we have the truth about God and you don't God says you will not find me through anything that would allow you to boast in fact in this passage Jesus says God you have hidden these things from the wise and the understanding and you have revealed them of your own choice to little children yes father for such was your gracious will grace means we didn't deserve it it was your gracious will nobody knows who the father is verse 22 except the son and anybody to whom the son chooses to reveal him in other words said in other words Jesus says God people who find you find you only because you reveal yourself to them in fact they didn't really even find you you found them it's not our brilliant intellect that somehow discovers God thankfully it's God's gracious love that finds us you're listening to summit life today's message is titled the hiddenness of Jesus and it's part of our study from the gospel of luke titled kingdom come you can find all of the messages online at jdgrier.com a little while ago i got to sit down with pastor jd and asked him about our latest featured resource that goes along with this teaching series and how luke provides a unique perspective on jesus's life and ministry 60 of the material in the gospel of luke is unique and that we just wouldn't know about if luke hadn't taken time to write it down for us luke has in his mind because of his background he has in his mind some of the greek and roman intellectuals and he's trying to answer questions that they have which means that it's really helpful i think for us in in our context and one of the things he focuses on is on jesus's dependence on the heavenly father and the power that is available to the church in the spirit when they depend on the father the way that jesus did to go along with the series on luke we've produced these 20 bible studies that will take you deeper in the gospel of luke you know just when i'm i'm preaching as much as i love getting into the into into the weeds so to speak the good stuff of the scriptures there's a lot of stuff i have to leave on the on the cutting room floor through these bible studies you're able to press in on some of those things and not only that you're able to hear directly from the holy spirit as he speaks to you through his word so i would say that if you're enjoying these messages get these bible studies to go along with them because it'll take you a lot deeper we'd love to get you a copy of this set of 20 devotionals as you work through the content we pray it'll encourage you to align your life around the gospel message get a hold of kingdom come 20 devotions from luke when you donate today to support this ministry call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or you can give online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich inviting you to join us again tomorrow when pastor jd looks to the gospel of luke to answer the question why do so many well-educated people reject god don't miss tuesday on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries