This sermon examines Jesus’s striking declaration to the people of Israel at the Feast of Booths that despite their religious activities and temple worship, they did not truly know God. The message reveals how judging by appearances rather than with right judgment can blind us to spiritual truth.

Listen above or download the audio file here.

Transcript below:

Scripture Reading: John 7:25-31

Brothers and sisters, please listen carefully to John 7, 25 through 31.

“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?”

Saints, this is the word of God. Thanks be to God.

The Setting: Christ at the Feast of Booths

Well, as you just heard, saints, we are still in John’s Gospel, chapter seven, and we are still considering our Lord’s addressing of the people of Israel at the Feast of Booths. And it makes sense that he would do this and make this address to the people of Israel at this feast because the people of Israel would have made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast there.

And so since he had everyone’s attention and everyone was there to hear what he had to say, it makes sense that the Lord Jesus would take that opportunity to say everything we hear him saying to the Israelites, to the Hebrews. And as we consider the content of our Lord’s teaching, it gives us an idea of what was wrong with Israel. What was their problem? And when you stop and think about it, the things that he says to the people of Israel here, to the Jews in John seven, are very striking, very bracing, things that they were not expecting to be told, that’s what he’s telling them.

The Shocking Declaration: “You Don’t Know God”

And it’s important for us to bear that in mind. What am I getting now? Well, I’ll just bring it out to you. It’s right here in the text, and you’ll see it in the title of the sermon.

Here, as the Lord Jesus is addressing them, he tells them that they don’t know God. There they were at God’s temple, God’s people, celebrating the Feast of Booths, which God himself had instituted. There they are celebrating those things, and yet God incarnate says to them, you don’t know God, in spite of all appearances.

Because that’s how it looked. It looked like, oh, these people know God. There’s God’s temple, this is God’s feast, they’re God’s people, they know God.

The Lord Jesus says the exact opposite to them here. You don’t know him. I know him, but you don’t.

And that’s what’s so striking about Christ’s words here to the people of Israel. And so you’re gonna notice in the sermon today, crossover with last week’s sermon. And that will continue to be the case, probably, for at least one more week.

The Root Problem: Judging by Appearances

And what’s the cross-referencing going on? Well, it’s the same theme, it’s the same concern, right? And the Lord Jesus really summarizes it for us just in the previous verse. In verse 24, when he exhorts the people to stop judging by appearances, and to judge with right judgment. There is the nub of the problem.

The people of Israel were not judging with right judgment, they were judging with appearances. And that helps us to understand why it was that in spite of all appearances, they did not know God because of their manner of judgment. They judged by appearances, and since they were judging by appearances and not with right judgment, they did not know God.

Jesus as God Tabernacled in the Flesh

The context, again, bear this in mind, that as Jesus is addressing the Jews at the Feast of Booths, also called the Feast of Tabernacles, that he was addressing them as God tabernacled in the flesh among his people. That we cannot be lost on us, that’s why I remind you of that fact from week to week. And here, the Lord Jesus is continuing to confront the people of Israel with the truth about themselves.

Jesus Fulfilling the Prophetic Office

And in this way, he is serving like a prophet, fulfilling the prophetic office, because he is taking the truth about God’s people, which they were living in denial of, they were living in denial of the truth, and so he is calling the truth to their attention. He is declaring the truth to them. The truth about what? The truth about themselves.

About what was going on in them, about who they really were. They saw themselves as people who knew God. And why did they see themselves, why did they judge themselves to be people who knew God? I mean, if you’ve gone there, if you’ve been present, and what do you think any of the Israelites would have said there in Jerusalem for the feast? If you walked up to them and said, do you know God? What do you think their answer would have been? Yes, of course I know God.

The Self-Deception of the Religious Leaders

What if you had asked one of the Pharisees, do you know God? Well, I can tell you what they would have said. We’re gonna see it in the next chapter, in chapter eight, verses 39 through 47. They’re not only gonna say, oh yeah, we know God.

They’re gonna say, we are sons of Abraham and even of God. Not only do we know God, we’re sons of God. That was their view of themselves.

And what does Jesus say of those certain Jews in John eight who claim to be sons of Abraham and even of God? He says, “no, you are of your father, the devil.” So there the Lord Jesus is taking the same truth that he’s declaring to all of Israel here, and in John eight, he’s putting an even finer point on it. Not only do you not know God, oh Jews, God’s not your father, the devil is your father.

You are of the devil. He is your father. So the Jews believed that they knew God.

Modern Application: Personal Relationship with God

Or if we put it in modern terms, as you often hear many churches speak, and I’ve spoken in these terms too, they thought they had a relationship with God, a personal relationship. God, he and I, we’re good. We’re good.

And they were utterly self-deceived. They did not know him. That really needs to hit us right between the eyes.

Because it hit them right between the eyes. Why do you think they were looking to arrest him with the things he was saying? You don’t know God. I do, but you don’t.

And then, as we’re gonna see next week, I’m going somewhere, and where I’m going, you can’t come. What does he mean by this? Right. Well, he’s not complimenting them when he says that.

Where I’m going, you can’t come. It’s not a compliment, right? So they were self-deceived. Why were they self-deceived? Well, we have to remember the context, because they were judging themselves not with right judgment, not according to God’s law, but according to appearances.

The Problem with Outward Focus vs. Heart Knowledge

And the things to bear in mind, something to bear in mind from last week about God’s law is that God’s law is not merely concerned with outward appearances, amen? Now, see, that was a problem with the traditions of the rabbis and the Pharisees. The rabbinical traditions so focused upon outward practices that they utterly neglected what it really meant to know God, and what it really means to know God is to know him from the heart. What does that mean? Now we’re getting subjective and spooky.

Don’t worry, we’ll bring clarity. But the rabbinical traditions neglected the heart and focused on works, focused on the outward appearance, redefined righteousness not as starting in the heart with faith, but redefined righteousness as being something that concerned how you appeared to other men, and that’s exactly how the Pharisees misdefined and redefined righteousness.

The Heart of True Righteousness

Righteousness is a matter of how I appear to other men. Or, if we’re being really honest, how much better I appear to be than other men. No, that’s not righteousness. That’s not true righteousness.

God’s law says no, righteousness starts in the heart. How do we know that? The 10th commandment, you shall not covet. It’s going to have righteousness. It must start in the heart. You must not be a coveter. Oh, well, our ship is sunk.

The 10th commandment is one great torpedo that sinks all of us, amen? Because we’re all coveters. Can’t get away from that. It’s like, well, I can abstain from committing adultery on my wife bodily, right? I can abstain from looking like an adulterer. I can abstain from looking like a murderer. And I can put on that appearance. But what I cannot do is avoid the reality of the fact that I’m a coveter inwardly.

Ripping Away the Facade

So the Lord Jesus is pulling back the appearance here. He’s ripping it down. Think of a facade, right? Think of a house that’s in really bad repair, that’s nasty and full of mold and all sorts of other unpleasant things. But someone puts a facade on it to make it look nice until you walk inside and start picking away at that facade and then you realize, oh gosh, this is awful.

Or better yet, think of a whitewashed tomb, right? It looks beautiful, like our Lord says this in Matthew 23. Think of a tomb that’s beautiful from the outside, but as soon as you step in, what do you find? Bones, dead people’s remains.

And the Lord Jesus here, what the Lord is doing, he’s going up to a whole crowd full of whitewashed tombs and he’s opening the door and saying, look, you wanna know the truth about you, oh Israel? Look inside. Look inside. What is going on within your heart? That’s the truth about you.

You do not know God. Why? Because of what’s happening in your heart. You’re self-deceived.

The Crowd’s Contradiction

The Lord is confronting them with these things, with these truths about themselves here in the passage before us. Now you’ll notice an interesting contradiction, not of scripture, of the crowd that takes place in verses, in verse 25 in particular.

Back in verse 20, remember what the crowd said to him when he accused them of, some of them, of wanting to kill him? The response was, “you have a demon, who is trying to kill you?” Then what did they say in verse 25? “Is this not the man whom they seek to kill?”

Say, wait a second, it doesn’t work like that. You’re claiming that he’s crazy and has a demon for thinking someone’s trying to kill him, but then later on in verse 25, some of them were saying, wasn’t this the guy they’re trying to kill?

What’s that tell us? It tells us that at least some of them, namely those who were intending to kill him, but outside of that number, outside of the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees, there were others who were aware of the desire among the prominent men of Jerusalem. They were aware of their intent to kill Christ.

So what are we seeing? I would suggest to you between verses 20 and 25, we’re seeing a kind of duplicity in the crowd, a kind of duplicity.

Oh, Jesus, you’re crazy, no one’s trying to kill you. Wait a second, isn’t this the guy that they’re all trying to kill? Wait, I thought you didn’t know that. I thought you said he was crazy, but you’re aware of that. All right, that’s interesting. I think it’s called denial.

Speaking Boldly Despite Opposition

But notice, of course, the Lord Jesus was aware, as we know, because he said it in the previous passage, he was aware that they wanted to kill him. Not the whole crowd, but the ones who were actually able to do it, like I said last week, the men with the power to make it happen, they were seeking to kill him.

And in spite of that fact, he continued to speak openly, or that word there in the Greek can also be translated as boldly. And this is something that surprised the crowd. They say, here he is speaking openly, and they’re saying nothing to him, even though many of them were seeking to kill him, namely the authorities.

And that surprised the crowd that Jesus would do that, that he would get up in front of everybody at the Feast of Booths when everyone’s there and in front of everybody, say the things he is saying.

A Culture Ruled by Fear of Man

Now, why did that surprise them? Again, we read between the lines a little here. And I think it surprised them because of the culture of Judea at the time and the culture of Jerusalem, which was all about appearances. I think their response to Jesus tells us that what he was doing was not something that was typically done. And it tells us that the culture of Judea at the time was ruled by the fear of man.

And I would suggest to you that that’s why Christ’s teaching had such authority in the ears of those who heard him.Because when it came to the Pharisees, when it came to the Sanhedrin and the priests who were supposed to be the teacher of God’s word and among his people, they feared man. They would never have done what Jesus did.

They would never have spoken with boldness and courage. They never would have confronted those who were corrupt and in power with fear. They would never have confronted those who were corrupt and in power with the truth of God’s word because of the risk it would have entailed.

They wanna kill me, I better not say anything. And so it was understood, I would suggest to you, at the time that you don’t do that. You don’t confront the sin of God’s people. Especially of the Pharisees, especially the Sanhedrin. Because if you do, there’ll be a price to pay.

So don’t speak against them. Don’t offend their image. Don’t offend their respectability. They were accustomed to that.

The Scandal of Truth

And so when you had a man who got up and did what Jesus did and said what he said and called them out and said, you don’t know God, which is a simple statement, and yet look at how scandalous it was in the ears of those who heard it. They didn’t know what to do with this because they weren’t accustomed to hearing this kind of teaching.

You know what this says to us, saints? It tells us that the word of God was not being faithfully preached and applied in Israel at this time. You did not have men of God faithfully declaring and applying the truth of God’s word to God’s people. It didn’t happen, why? Because they were so concerned with keeping up appearances.

They were so concerned with respectability and guarding one another’s reputation and making one another feel better and encouraging and promoting one another in their own self-deception. We’re okay, we’re just fine. We know God, we’re the circumcision. The Gentiles, look how bad the Gentiles are. Look, everyone, look at those Gentiles.

The Pharisee’s Prayer of Pride

You wanna see a real summary, I think, of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin’s view of themselves and of the rest of mankind look no further than the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee in Luke 18. We have a tax collector and a Pharisee. You know the parable.

The tax collector and the Pharisee, they go up to the temple to pray and the Pharisee goes on and on and on about thanking God, so humble, so humble. Thank you, Lord, and I’ll just paraphrase what he says:

Thank you, God, that you have made me so much better than everybody else. Wow, what humility. Thank you, God, that you have made me so awesome. Thank you for making me better than that miserable, sniveling, treacherous, backstabbing tax collector over there. I’m better than him. Thank you for making me better than that guy. Look at him. Just look at him. Thank you, Lord, that I’m not like that guy.

That’s how these men prayed. That’s how these men prayed. If that’s how they prayed and that’s how they saw themselves, and it is, you can understand why there were no teachers in Israel who would stand up and say to such men, you don’t know God. How dare you? How dare you?

The Tax Collector’s Humility

And yet, we know who went home justified before the Lord, and it wasn’t the Pharisee. Who was it? It was the tax collector. What did he do? He wouldn’t even look to heaven. He beat his chest, said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Pharisee wasn’t gonna do that.

Now, we’re beginning to understand why the Jews didn’t know God. What did you never hear them praying? “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” It was always instead, thank you, Lord, that we’re not as vile and as bad as those dogs, the Gentiles, the uncircumcision.

Oppression of Their Own Brethren

And for the Pharisees, it wasn’t just about the Gentiles. It was about all the other Jews, too. Make no mistake, the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, but especially the Pharisees, those whitewashed tombs, those sons of hell, as Jesus calls them in Matthew 23, they exalted themselves over their own brethren.

It wasn’t just the Gentiles they picked on. It was fellow Jews. They had their own brothers under their heels, too. They oppressed them also. Make no mistake about that.

The Word Incarnate Rejected

So that gives us a good, clear picture of the context. The word of God wasn’t preached. It wasn’t declared until the Lord Jesus Christ came and began to do so as the word incarnate, who could judge the hearts of men and who was applying scripture faithfully to the people and almost got him killed. And again, not almost, it did eventually. That can’t be lost on us either.

Here is Christ. I mean, if you want confirmation they didn’t know God, when God incarnate came to them and declared his word to them, they didn’t respond by saying amen and thank you. They responded by crucifying him, proving they didn’t know God.

The Heart vs. Outward Appearance

What Isaiah said of Israel in Isaiah chapter 29, verse 13, I mean, that again, that just captures what’s happening here, the problem, the sin that our Lord is addressing. “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And they treat, they teach the traditions of men as the oracles of God.”

And this is exactly what our Lord says in Mark seven. They were honoring God outwardly with their lips, but inwardly their hearts were far from him. They did not know God, in other words.

And yet because they judged themselves according to appearances, they thought they did know God. Which is why they had to be told, you don’t know God. You don’t know God.

Warning Against Dead Formalism in the Church

Let me say this to you, just as an encouragement to us and exhortation also, we must not believe for a moment that the body of Christ and certain areas of the body of Christ and certain churches that we cannot just become as dead and formalistic and appearance obsessed as Israel was in the first century, amen? Do you think there are churches where you dare not offend the respected people within the congregation? Because if you do, you’re gonna get fired? Oh, I guarantee it. Do you think there are certain communions, fellowships, denominations, whatever name you wanna slap on there where you have the respectable crowd and you dare not offend them and call out their sin? Well, there will be consequences, most certainly. You see, we can become just as infatuated with our own status and respectability and appearance as the Pharisees were.

And when we become so infatuated with our own outward appearance, we become just as vile and vindictive and murderous as the Pharisees were. Want to eliminate anyone, anyone who touches our facade, anyone who threatens our appearance, we want to eliminate. Because that appearance, that facade is our God and is our idol, it can be.

Guarding Against Self-Deception

We have to guard ourselves against that. How do we guard ourselves against that? By doing what our Lord did. The faithful preaching and application of his word.

Not withholding anything, not holding anything back. But preaching to the heart. Not promoting, not appealing to people’s self-deceptions, but calling people to repentance from self-deception.

Do we need to be told to repent from our self-deception once or twice in our lives? Which do you think is the right answer? Neither. Not once or twice, all of the time. All of the time.

We have to be told, don’t believe your own press. Don’t think for a moment, well, I think I’m a pretty respectable guy. Okay, good, but don’t trust in that.

Don’t trust in that. Judge yourself with right judgment. And you know, here’s the thing.

The Tax Collector’s Honest Response

I might as well just be done after this. I’m not going to be. I’m gonna make you sit there a little while longer, but I’m not making you do anything.

You can go anytime you want. When we judge ourselves honestly, with right judgment, and not according to appearances, do you know who we always end up standing next to? That tax collector from Luke 18. That’s where you end up.

That’s how you know you’re judging yourself with right. Because you’re cut to the heart. You examine yourself, and you don’t just look on the outside, you look on the inside.

And you still see your sinful thoughts, your sinful motives, your self-deceit, all of your failures, all of your breaking of God’s law. And then you’ll have nothing left to say to God except what that tax collector says to him, beating your chest and saying, “God have mercy on me, I’m a sinner.” That’s the only conclusion we as sinners can reach, saints.

Amen? That is the only honest response to an honest self-assessment in the light of God’s law. It can never be, on this side of eternity, oh, not bad, are you kidding? Or better than that guy. No, the only answer is, “God have mercy on me, I’m a sinner.”

Right Self-Assessment Before God

That’s how you know when you’re honestly assessing yourself and judging yourself with right judgment when it comes to your relationship to the Lord. And I wanna emphasize that. I’m not talking about interpersonally.

I’m not saying every time someone accuses you of anything, your only right response can be, have mercy on me, I’m a sinner, right? But when it comes to your relationship to God, the judge of all men, the only right response in our assessment of who we are before him in light of what he sees in us is to plead for his mercy because we are sinners.This is why, on this side of eternity, as we walk with the Lord, we never stop confessing our sins. We never stop telling the truth about who we are and what we’re struggling with, ever.

That’s why John warns us in 1 John 1 that “if we say we have no sin, we lie, and the truth is not in us.” No, there’s no sin in me. That’s what the Pharisees said, and they were deceived.

The Crowd’s Doubt About Jesus’ Origin

Now, the crowd is doubting whether or not the Lord Jesus is the Messiah because they say they knew where he was from. He was from Nazareth, which was a backwater, right? So the Messiah couldn’t come from Nazareth, of all places. But there seems to have been a tradition, a rabbinical tradition floating around at the time that taught that when the Messiah came, he would just show up and no one would know where he had come from.

Well, that’s certainly not true in the light of Scripture. We see Scripture gives plenty of direction in terms of what to expect and what to look for in the Messiah. Easy for us to see that, though, on this side of the Messiah’s coming.

But at that point in time, the belief was, well, when Messiah comes, we’re not gonna know where he came from. We know who this Jesus is, and we know that he is from Nazareth. And of course, he responds by telling them that, yeah, you do know where I came from, but then he, he doesn’t stop there, though, because he goes on to add to that, right? He says, yeah, from Nazareth.

Jesus’ Dual Nature: God and Man

He’s affirming that implicitly, but he goes on to say that he is from God. He is from God, and there we should be thinking of the incarnation, right? Yeah, Jesus is both, he’s from earth. He’s also from heaven.

He is both God and man, fully God, fully man at once, one person, two distinct natures. And so Jesus is affirming this. Yes, you know where I come from, but I also come from God.

Four Bold Assertions of Christ

And then he says what he does in verses 28 and 29. Let me read it to you briefly. Two, three sentences.

“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 you do not, him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.”

Here, the Lord is making four claims that we need to consider. Four assertions about himself that carried a lot of weight, that carried a lot of weight, and which were an open challenge to the Pharisees and to the Sanhedrin at the time, those men of authority in Jerusalem. These four assertions of Christ about himself and about them were a real, he was drawing a line in the sand, and rightly so.

Christ’s Love for His Sheep

And again, I wanna return to what I said to you earlier just so we can try to understand our Lord’s motives here, right? Here are his people, and even though Israel did not know God, did he still love them? Most certainly, for his own glory, for his namesake, he still loved Israel, even though Israel didn’t know God. And we know he loved Israel, because if he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been there. The fact that he was there proved he loved Israel.

And so can you imagine being our Lord who loves his sheep, who don’t know God, who are sitting under the teaching of cowardly men who fear man rather than God, who will not bring the word to bear, who will not feed the sheep with the true word of God, who will not save them from their sins by showing them their sin in the light of Scripture, and how can you imagine that must have made Jesus feel as the shepherd? He wanted to save his sheep. He wanted to save them from the oppression of these Pharisees, of these charlatans, who were cowards and who would not preach the truth to the sheep, to Israel. So here’s our Lord making these assertions boldly so not to puff himself up, but to glorify God and for the good of his sheep.

He is preaching for their salvation here. Remember that.

That’s why he’s saying these things.

He’s saying these things, again, not to exalt himself, but to exalt God, to save his sheep, and to expose those who are blinding the sheep through their traditions. So let’s consider the four assertions the Lord makes about himself. First, he says this, God is true.

First Assertion: God is True

God is true. Well, who would have disagreed with him in that context? Well, no one on paper would have disagreed with him, but when the Lord Jesus makes that statement, God is true, what’s implicit in him making that assertion about God is that he is also true, he’s sent by God, we’ll see that here in a few moments, but also the Jews were not true. God is true, you aren’t, because you don’t know him.

God is true. God is the standard of truth, the judge by which all truth, the distinction between truth and falsehood, is judged and established. That’s God, not man.

And so he’s saying God is the standard, God is the judge, and you are not. And when he says God is true, that’s also, I would argue, an accusation against him. Again, remember what he had said to them in the previous verse, excuse me, in verse 24.

“Judge yourself with right judgment.” They were ignoring God’s judgment. They were ignoring God’s law.

Whenever you ignore God’s law, you are ignoring God’s judgment. What is the standard by which God judges our hearts? His law. So if you’re not using his law as your standard of judgment, you are not submitting to God’s judgment.

Do you follow everybody? So he’s telling them, he’s condemning them, God’s true, you’re not. God’s the standard of what is good and what is evil, what is true and what is false, and you don’t know that standard. You don’t worship that standard, you don’t love that standard, Israel.

Second Assertion: They Did Not Know God

That’s the first assertion he makes. God is true. Here’s the second assertion, and this is the one that really, as I said before, hit them between the eyes, and it should have.

He asserts that they did not know God. Him, you do not know. And again, this was an ironic thing, because there they were, for all intents and purposes, appearing to be people who knew God, because he had given them the temple, he had given them the Feast of Booths, he had made them a people, and yet, in spite of how everything appeared to them, the reality was they did not know God.

So the problem was that they’re all there judging themselves according to appearances and not with right judgment. Why did they all judge themselves as knowing God when the truth was they did not know God? Well, because, as I mentioned earlier, according to the traditions of the rabbis, knowing God had been reduced to a matter of keeping traditions, observing holy days, and practicing those rituals given by God. That’s what they had reduced knowing God to, those outward things.

How do you know God? Well, you know God by, first of all, being descended from Abraham. You know God by keeping their traditions, by observing the holy days, by practicing all the rituals that are required by the law of Moses. That’s how you know God.

So with that false definition of what it means to know God, they were all self-deceived because the rabbis had gotten that wrong. No, that’s not how you know God. Is God known through those things? Sure, I wanna be very clear here.

All of those provisions of the Mosaic Covenant, the holy days, the various rituals, the sacrifices, the priesthood, these were not evil things. These were good blessings, but to know God required more than merely participating in those rituals and holy days, amen? And the problem with the jurist and the rabbis is they reduced knowing God to mere participation in ritual, if I can just summarize it like that. How do I know God? Do this stuff.

If you do this stuff, you know God. Voila, it’s magic. That’s what they believed, and that’s why they all concluded, well, I know God, why? I do the stuff, I do the things, you know, the feasts, the rituals, the offerings.

I do all that stuff, and that means I know God. No, that’s a lie, actually. That’s not true.

Knowing God is more than that. Are those things part of knowing God? Most certainly, but is there more to it than merely participating in outward practices? Yes, most certainly. What was lacking in their view of knowing God? The heart, faith, justification.

Paul says in Romans chapter 10, verse 10, that it’s with the heart that we believe and are justified, with the heart. And if you don’t believe from the heart, are you justified? No, you’re not. And if you’re not justified, do you know God? No, you don’t.

The Danger of Formalism

And this is why we see such an emphasis in the New Testament upon the heart. This is why we see the Lord Jesus preaching the things he’s preaching here, saying you don’t know God, why? Because you’ve misdefined it. You’ve redefined knowing God.

You’ve reduced knowing God to merely performing certain rituals and rites and practices and observing certain days. Think of that for a moment. Imagine if we reduced our other relationships to that, the mere outward performance of certain practices.

I’m saying practices to make it more general than ritual. Imagine if I said to my wife, I’ll pick on me, imagine if I said to my wife, our marriage is reduced to this, right? That we go on a date once a month and we eat dinner together every day and that’s what it means to be married. Is that all that’s entailed in being married is that we go on a date and that we eat together? No, there’s much more involved in being married than simply practicing those things.

Are eating together and going out on a date, are those part of knowing one another and being married? Yes, most certainly. But can marriage be reduced to that? Absolutely not. Marriage is more than that.

It entails those things, but it’s more than those things. Marriage is actually much more involved than that. And so this gives us an idea of why our flesh likes this kind of formalism and that’s what I’m calling, what’s formalism? Well, formalism, in essence, is when we reduce knowing God to participating in rituals.

And those rituals could be reciting the creed and catechism, coming to church and doing all the things we do on the Lord’s Day, so on and so forth. That’s what I mean by that. That’s formalism.

And that’s a temptation for us, just like it was for Israel at the time, because it makes it so easy. Oh, that’s all it takes to know God? That’s all it takes to know God? I just have to do these things and then I know God? Well, how much, what does that demand of you? Do you have to humble yourself? No, you just go do the thing. I go and I do the thing and then I know God because I did the thing.

I got the bread, I got the cup, I ate it and I drank it, right? I’ve lifted my hands, I said the glory, apostry thing, and whoop, I know God. That’s so easy. Now I can go home and just claim to know God and there’s no more to it than that.

Of course we love that. There’s no demand, there’s no sacrifice, there’s no humbling. There’s no blood.

There’s no death to self. It’s easy. Knowing God is easy.

Well, listen, knowing God is free, amen? Knowing God is all of grace. But is it easy? It is not easy. We want it to be easy, don’t we? So easy.

We don’t want it to cost us anything in terms of I don’t have to change, I don’t have to repent. I just want it to be easy. It’s not easy.

Third and Fourth Assertions

We’ll see why here in a moment. The third thing our Lord asserts. Unlike the people, he did know God.

Well, of course he did because he’s God incarnate, so that makes all the sense in the world. He came from the Father. We know this from John chapter one, verse 18.

Now that would have inflamed the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin’s rage against him because here he is, a man from Nazareth who didn’t have any rabbinical teaching. Remember, they were amazed by his authority. He hadn’t received any formal teaching.

Here he is saying that he knew God, but they did not. So of course, he’s confronting them with the truth without fear, and fourth and finally, in terms of the four assertions the Lord makes here in what he’s saying to them, he affirms that he had been sent by God, and that meant that he had infinitely greater authority than the rabbis, their traditions, the Pharisees, and the Sanhedrin. They had not been sent by God, but Jesus had been sent by God.

He had come down from heaven, and that meant that he spoke on God’s behalf with God’s authority. And so in saying this, that he had been sent by God, he is calling the people to follow him, to follow him, to believe what he is saying. And as we can see in verse 31, many people responded by believing in him at this point when they heard what he was saying.

The Response to Truth

Apparently, by God’s grace and the work of his spirit, they were cut to the heart by his words. We also see in verse 30 that after the Lord Jesus had made these four assertions in verses 28 and 29, the immediate response of the men in power was to seek to arrest him. That was their response because they were not dumb.

They heard what Jesus was saying. They picked up what he was putting down. And so they wanted to arrest him right then and there, why? Well, because he was doing the thing that is not to be done.

He was speaking the truth. He was tearing down the facade. He was opening the door of that whitewashed tomb and exposing the contents therein.

And that was not something that was to be done. He did it, and so they wanted to arrest him, but they couldn’t, why? Well, because it was not his time. It was not his time.

When the time was right, he would lay his life down, and we’ll get there, but this was not that time. That also revealed they didn’t have authority over him. They wanted to arrest him, they couldn’t.

They had no authority over him. How do you think that made them feel? Right? Wanted to arrest him, wanted to shut him up, they couldn’t do it. So it just made them all the angrier, till it culminates in them calling for our Lord’s crucifixion.

Application: The Warning Against Self-Deception

So where do we go with the application of this passage? Well, I think more than anything, the right application, one of the, I think, most obvious applications we make from this text is a great warning that’s being presented to us here in verses 25 through 31. Where we see that, though Israel, for all intents, as I mentioned, for all intents and appearances, appeared, seemed to know God, the reality was they did not know God. The danger is, for you and me, that we can fall into the same sin.

Amen? We can also be self-deceived, and deceived by our appearances. We can also reduce knowing God, as I mentioned earlier, we can reduce knowing God down to ritual, creed, catechism, confession, having the right appearance, participating in the right rituals, having the right doctrine, fill in the blank. We can reduce knowing God down to that, and whenever we do so, and why, as I mentioned earlier, why are we tempted to do that? Because it’s so easy.

All I have to do to know God is have right doctrine. All I have to do to know God is go to church. That’s all that’s required.

No, there’s more than that that’s required. So what is required then? What more is required? Faith. Having faith is what’s required.

What Does Faith Mean?

All right, what’s that mean, pastor? Have faith. So you’re saying, if I’m truly going to know God, I must know him by faith. How do I know him by faith? Boy, I wrestled with this.

Because this is something I’m saying to you all the time, because it’s what scripture says all the time, right? We’re justified by faith alone, or by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Okay, what does that mean? I’m telling all of you, being here isn’t enough for you to know God, you need to also have faith. What’s that mean? Well, here’s what I’m thinking, especially in light of our Lord’s exhortation, his correction of his people.

In verse 24, “judge yourself not by appearances, but judge yourself with right judgment.” Think of it this way, all right? You have two judges to appear before, you have a choice. Just work with me here as an illustration, it’s a short one, and then we’ll be done.

The Illustration of Two Judges

Two judges, all right? And who would you, just think to yourself now, don’t answer me, but just think to yourself, who would you rather, between these two judges, who would you rather appear before? On the one hand, you’ve got me. Pastor Nate, you have to appear before me and convince me that you know God and that you’re faithful, and you have to convince me of that, all right? On the other hand, you have to appear before God, not Pastor Nate. And it’s gonna be God who judges you, not me.

Now, between those two judges that you have to appear before, which one requires more faith? Which one requires more faith? Well, God does, let me explain why. You can fool me, no problem, amen? It’s not hard, it’s not hard. I can’t see your heart, I can be deceived by appearances, it’s not a problem.

I mean, it’s not that, I’m not inviting you to deceive me, by the way, when I say these things, like, just go ahead, I’m, you know, I’m not that easy to fool, okay? So, just remember that. But it is possible to fool me as much as it is possible to fool any man. So, in all honesty, to appear before me to be judged by my judgment, my very fallible, imperfect judgment of your appearances, that doesn’t take any faith at all, none, why? Because there’s no real consequence.

I can’t send you to hell, I can’t see your heart, I can’t issue any judgment against you that’s gonna last for eternity. So, to appear before me is easy. Doesn’t require any faith at all.

What do you have to believe? What do you have to trust in order to appear before me for judgment? Only that I like you. Ah, I think Pastor Nate likes me, I think he’ll give me a pass. But how much faith does it take to appear before God, to be judged by him? That takes faith, let me explain.

Appearing Before God Requires Faith

In order to appear before God for judgment, and here’s what I mean, all right? God’s courtroom, his throne room, and you’re gonna willingly not be dragged in, I’m not talking about that, you’re being hauled in as a rebel now to receive your penalty for your sin. I’m saying you are coming in by his invitation. He’s invited you to appear before him to be judged.

How much faith does it take to appear before him? Great faith, why? Well, because he can see your heart. You can’t hide anything from him. He’s actually able to condemn you.

He knows who you are. You can’t hide anything from him. And so the only way you as a sinner could accept the invitation to appear before the God of all men is by faith in his promise that he’s not going to condemn you.

That requires great faith to appear before God as your judge, requires trusting his promise that he’s going to forgive you, that he’s not going to hold your sin against you, that he’s going to grant you the gift of his own son’s righteousness imputed to you. He’s gonna declare you, his promise that he will declare you righteous when you stand before him through faith in his son. Do you see it, saints? Coming to me for judgment, you don’t have to believe any of God’s promises.

No faith required. Appearing before God as your judge, oh, you gotta believe all the promises, amen? So what does it mean to have faith in God? It means to appear before him for judgment. It means to humble yourself and go before him like that tax collector and say, God, it doesn’t matter how I appear.

I present myself to you for judgment. And the only reason I do so is because I trust your promise. I trust your promise that by virtue of Christ and his flesh and his blood, you will forgive me, you will cleanse me, and you will declare me righteous by virtue of Christ and his righteousness.

And so the only way you can honestly come before God for judgment is through faith in his promises and in his son. That’s faith, to go before the judge of all men and submit yourself to him. Do you do that? Do you trust God that much to entrust yourself to his judgment, to place yourself in the hands of the living God who knows you better than you know yourself, who could easily cast you into hell? Are you going to willingly place yourself in his hands and trust his promise that he’s not gonna do that? Believe that, saints.

Living by Faith

Trust God’s judgment. Get on your knees, not right now, at home. Always confess your sins before the Lord.

Live by faith in God. Always go before him, confessing your sins, submitting yourself to his righteous judgment, trusting his promise. That’s how to live by faith.

That is costly, because it costs us our pride, it costs us our respectability, it costs us everything that makes us look nice and good and acceptable to others. When we come before God as judge, none of that matters. Amen? None of that counts for anything.

All that counts before God is the blood and the righteousness of his son. So live by faith. How, pastor? By presenting yourself before God, the judge of all men, to receive his judgment, trusting his promise to forgive you and declare you righteous through his son.

Prayer

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, let us pray. Father in heaven, you judge our hearts. We do not want to be like those Israelites to whom our Lord was speaking at the Feast of Booths in John 7. Father, we acknowledge that we are very much inclined to the same sin into which they had fallen.

We are very much inclined, Father, as you know, to judge ourselves according to appearances and not according to right judgment. We are very much inclined to avoid appearing before you to receive judgment, Lord, to willingly place ourselves in the hands of the living God, your hands. Help us to do so, Father, by faith.

Help us to humble ourselves before you and to entrust ourselves to your judgment, believing your promises and your son, trusting in your son’s flesh and blood and righteousness to save us from your wrath. Help us to not deceive ourselves by instead trusting only in other men’s judgment of us, other men who cannot see our hearts, who do not know our sins, who also cannot justify us, who cannot save us at all from anything. Help us, Father, only to trust in you and your judgment and to join with that tax collector who went home justified.

We pray together with him, Father, have mercy on us sinners. We ask all of these things in the name of Christ, our righteousness, amen.

The Lord’s Supper

Brothers and sisters, when we judge ourselves with right judgment, when we actually by faith go before God to be judged by him rather than merely going before men who we can easily deceive and mislead by our appearances, but when we submit ourselves to God who judges our hearts and our every thought and our every word, well, then the body and blood of our Lord becomes incredibly precious to us, amen, because it’s only through the body and blood of Christ that we can even appear before God to be judged by him and yet walk away from that encounter forgiven and justified with eternal life.

If you and I as sinners were to appear before the almighty God to be judged by him apart from the body and blood of Christ, what hope would there be for us? The answer is none, none whatsoever. We are unable to cancel that record of debt that stood against us. So apart from faith in Christ, it is impossible for sinners to appear before God for judgment without being condemned.

And this is why doing so requires faith in Christ because it’s only by virtue of his death and his resurrection and his unceasing intercession at the Father’s right hand that we can appear before God to be forgiven, to receive that gift of righteousness that is given freely by grace alone. So as you come to the Lord’s Supper, as you eat and as you drink, don’t judge yourself according to appearances. Paul says, “let a man examine himself.”

Examine yourself, all right. Recognize your sinfulness. Recognize your need to depend upon God and to present yourself before his judgment and in seeing your need to appear before God and to trust yourself to his judgment, and see also your great need and your great dependency upon Christ’s flesh and his blood.

As you consider your dependency upon his flesh and blood, I would also say this to you, that you need to also recognize that his flesh and his blood is sufficient to forgive you. That you and I, through Christ, need not have any fear of appearing before God because we have an advocate with the Father. And so we can submit ourselves to God and his judgment without fear.

Why? Because Christ is with us. And so we ought to put no trust whatsoever in ourselves, but we must put our full confidence, we can put our full confidence in Christ who went ahead of us.

Going Into the World

Saints, as you go into the world, go into the world recognizing that the world is very much deceived like the crowd to whom the Lord was speaking in John 7. The rest of mankind who are perishing in their sins also trusts in their outward appearance.

They do not believe the word of God. They are not submitting themselves to God to be judged by him through faith in Christ. And because of that, they’re headed for eternal destruction.

So the world needs to hear what our Lord said to the crowds at the Feast of Booths in John 7 as we need to hear it. They need to be told to judge themselves not according to appearances, but according to right judgment. That’s our calling.

That’s what we need to go out into the world to do. And it takes courage to actually preach the gospel, to faithfully apply the word of God to those who are perishing in their sin, to tell them, you know, I think you’re a great person. Maybe you think that, maybe not.

But before God, you are a sinner and you are self-deceived. And that’s why you need the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s offensive, amen? But is it true? It’s true.

So go and tell the world, love them enough to tell them the truth when you have opportunity, to not be deceived by appearances. Tell them of God’s promise, his promise that if they will appear before him now if they will place themselves in the hands of a living God to receive judgment from him, that if they trust in his son, he will not condemn them. He will forgive them and he will justify them, declaring them to be righteous by virtue of Christ and his righteousness.

Tell them of that promise so that they might receive the same salvation that we have received, all of grace.

Benediction

Now receive the benediction from the book of Numbers. Chapter six.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Amen. Saints, go in peace.

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