The One Who Was Misunderstood

This is Christ the King Sermons. Christ the King Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh.

I've worn many hats here for those of you who've been around for a while. One of the new hats that I'm really stepping into is that of Church Planter. As we work to plant Northside Presbyterian Church up in the Northeast Wake, Roseville area, we have an exciting step forward that we're taking this Saturday in the official realm of all the things that have to happen before we can be official. I'll be changing my call to be officially a church planter of our presbytery at our presbytery meeting. And so I just thank you for your encouragement and your prayer as we continue to step into—as we heard from the Stevens family—this exciting and yet challenging new step for us as a wee baby mission church up north.

Let's focus now on God's word and what we have this morning from the book of John. We're going to look at John chapter seven verses one through 24. You can find this printed in your bulletin or it's also up on the screen behind me. I will invite us, as is our custom, to read this together.

After this, Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews' feast of booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world." For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I'm not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come." After saying this, he remained in Galilee, but after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.

The Jews were looking for him at the feast, saying, "Where is he?" And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, "He is a good man," others said, "No, he is leading the people astray." Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him. About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, "How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?"

So Jesus answered them, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?"

The crowd answered, "You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you?" Jesus answered them, "I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." — John 7:1-24

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let me pray. Jesus, would you speak to us this morning through your word? With the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing to you. Would you send your Spirit to make this alive in us today? Will we be drawn closer to you, our Lord, our Savior, and our King. In your name I pray, amen.

So as I was preparing for this sermon this week, spending some time reading over this text—it's not necessarily the most familiar of texts when we think about stories and snapshots and vignettes of Jesus' life—but there was this song that kept popping into my head all week long. I haven't been able to get rid of it. So sorry. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" Remember this one? I take it from the Sound of Music. You remember the nuns in the convent and how they're exasperated by Maria? She won't follow the rules. She's so unpredictable. She's charming and delightful one minute, and then she's disruptive and slamming doors the next. And they sing just such delightful thoughts about her, right? The most condescending and sweet sound. She's a darling. She's a demon. She's a lamb. "How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria? A flippity gibbet, will of a wisp, a clown."

Doesn't that sound a little bit like the way the people are responding to Jesus—thinking about him, talking about him, muttering about him? Here in John 7, the opinions fly: "He's a good man." "No. He's leading the people astray." "He's a demon." "He's a crazy person." "He's a deceiver." "Oh, but he teaches so well."

You know, if Rogers and Hammerstein wrote the musical of this scene, you could probably hear the orchestra starting to ramp up for an ensemble number in the courtyard of the temple. "How do you solve a problem like Jesus?"

It's uncomfortable for us to talk about Jesus as a problem, but that's how he's being seen. Jesus is magnetic, he's mysterious, he's divisive, he's impossible to ignore. He was then. He still is now.

Jesus doesn't fit the mold that people expect of him. He doesn't behave how people would expect a Messiah to behave. He doesn't teach what religious leaders expect a rabbi to teach, and he doesn't stay in the boxes that we try and put him in.

By this point in John's gospel, as we've been studying this summer, Jesus has done a lot of miracles. We've seen him do some pretty awesome stuff: turning water into wine, healing the sick. He's teaching with this beautiful power. He's flipping tables. He's walking on water. He's feeding 5,000 people from a Lunchable. The word is out. People are beginning to draw conclusions about who he is. Some are feeling pretty confident. Some are feeling pretty cautious. Everyone's got an opinion.

Jesus, knowing exactly what's stirring beneath the surface, does end up heading to Jerusalem—or I guess down, since he was in the north—to what's called the Feast of Booths.

The Feast of Booths

The Feast of Booths, or the Feast of the Tabernacles, was one of the major holidays for the Jewish people. They would travel to Jerusalem and sleep in tents and makeshift shelters to remember God's provision during the forty years of wandering in the wilderness before their entrance into the promised land. It was loud. It was a really fun festival. People were coming together from out of town, camping out, making tents and building forts in their yards for a week, camping out and feasting together—like the Burning Man of Jewish festivals, except ancient and way more sacred and probably a lot less glow sticks.

It's here in the middle of this festival that Jesus arrives and goes into the temple courts and starts to teach. He causes quite a stir, because wherever Jesus goes, he stirs things up. And why is this? It's because Jesus doesn't fit the categories that we assign to him. We try to box him in. We try to make him manageable. We try to label him, but he keeps breaking out of those boxes. He keeps shaking those labels.

I want us to see two things this morning. Jesus is going to disrupt our expectations, and Jesus is going to reveal his true self.

Point One: He's Going to Disrupt Our Expectations

Let's ask it plainly: What do people expect from Jesus? What do we do when he doesn't meet those expectations?

There are three groups that we see in this text: his family, the crowds, and the Jews.

His family, in the first nine verses, says they don't believe him. They're basically saying to him, "Hey, if you really want to be somebody, if you think you're this big somebody, you got to go to Jerusalem. Stop hiding out here playing little spots in the sticks up here in Galilee. You need to go to the big town. You need to stop treating yourself like a small town act. It's time for you to go pro. That's what real ministry looks like. That's what a real Christian leader looks like. You need a bigger church. You need a bigger platform, a bigger opportunity, a bigger voice." Jesus is not going to do it. That's not how it goes.

Then there's the crowds. Jesus does end up going to town. He does end up teaching. The crowds are all over the place about him. They've seen his signs. They've heard about the miracles. They've watched him flip the tables in that very temple courtyard. They're still stewing about the healing that he did just two chapters back in John 5—the man at the pool. Some say he's a good man. Others say he leads the people astray. Nobody really knows. No one's talking openly either. Did you catch that? These are whispered, silent conversations. Why? Because they're afraid of the Jews.

Now, the Jews—we're not talking about the whole ethnic people group here. When John uses this term, what he's talking about is the religious leaders, the religious elite, those who are holding power in Jerusalem.

So the religious leaders, it says in John 7:1, that Jesus knows they're actively trying to kill him. They're seeking to kill him because he's a threat to their power and to the way that they think the world should work, the way they think worship of God should happen. Everyone's murmuring. Everyone's whispering. But nobody is really seeking to see the true Jesus. That's true then. I think it's true now. Let me show you what I mean.

If you're familiar with the Barna Group, they're a research organization and they did a study on what people's perceptions of Jesus are. And this was an amazing statistic. I had to share it with you. According to the Barna Group, 92% of Americans believe that Jesus was a real historical person. That's huge. But when you get into the perceptions of who Jesus is, only 56% believe that he is actually the son of God. But when you try to say, well, who is he? What was he? It jumps back up again. 70% believe that Jesus was a good moral teacher. And 77% of teens and young adults, I found this particularly encouraging, are curious about who Jesus is and they would like to know more.

Doesn't this sound a little bit like our passage? Everyone's got some little piece of the truth. Everyone's circling around Jesus. They're trying to figure him out. But here's the deal. Jesus isn't just a historical figure to be analyzed and admired. He didn't leave room for neutrality about who he is.

The Liar, Lunatic, or Lord Argument

If you're familiar with C.S. Lewis, one of his most famous quotes came from this. He's famously taught that it is illogical for one to come to the conclusion that Jesus was merely a good man. Trying to answer this question for himself about who Jesus is, we must come to the conclusion that Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or he's the Lord. Lewis zeros in on this when he wrote this famous trilemma in what would become his book Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say.

Now why is that? Because a merely good person doesn't speak or act like Jesus. A moral teacher doesn't show up at the feast of booths and stir up a city. He doesn't walk into the heart of religious tension and stand there with total authority and composure. A nice guy doesn't claim oneness with the father. He doesn't forgive sins. He doesn't challenge Sabbath laws.

Lewis continues:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse.

Isn't that what we're seeing in this text? People grappling with the dissonance between what they expect and who Jesus actually is. They want to put him into a safe category. He's a good man or he's a political agitator. He's a crazy person. But none of these labels fit. And he blows up their boxes. That's the brilliance of Lewis's point. The only options that we're really left with at the end of the day when it comes to Jesus are this: rejection or worship. He can't be anywhere in between.

See, Jesus defies the logic of being just a good teacher. When people say that Jesus was a good and moral teacher, what they often mean is that he said wise and loving things like you should love your neighbor. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And yes, Jesus said those things. And they are good. And they are moral. And they are beautiful. But that's only a piece of his teaching. And only hearing those parts is like saying, I watched the movie trailer. I don't need to see the film. I think I understand the movie. No. You're only getting a piece. You're only taking the piece that you want to hold on to and saying, this is who he is.

See, Jesus did teach with incredible moral clarity, but he also said and did things that if he wasn't God are utterly shocking. Here's a few examples. In Mark 2, he says:

Son, your sins are forgiven. — Mark 2

He forgives sins. Only God can say that. We can't do that. If Jesus isn't God, this is offensive. This is blasphemous. He claimed exclusivity. In John 14:6:

I am the way and the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father except through me. — John 14:6

That's not a casual opinion. That's a total claim on your life. Next, he accepted worship. In Matthew 14, after calming the storm, the disciples worship him. You know, we see Paul and Barnabas—people try and worship them in Acts 14 and they reject it. Jesus doesn't stop them. He claims equality with God.

In John 10, in just a couple of chapters that we're gonna get to in a few weeks, he says, "I and the father are one." They try to stone him for that one. Not because he broke the rules, but because he's making himself equal with God. He demands ultimate allegiance.

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father, mother, wife, and children, he cannot be my disciple. — Luke 14:26

And we say, "I don't like that." But what he's saying is next to the love that you have for me, the love that you have for me needs to be so great, so all-encompassing that anything that is a lesser love feels like hate. That's how much I want from you.

He predicted his resurrection.

The Son of Man must be killed and after three days rise again. — Mark 8:31

Friends, that's either a miracle or that's madness.

And last one, he rewrote religious authority. Matthew 5, Jesus' great Sermon on the Mount, he says again and again this phrase: "You have heard it said... but I say to you." What's he doing there? He's not just speaking as a teacher, he's not just regurgitating information, but he's speaking as the author of truth itself.

So no, Jesus doesn't leave us with the option of calling him a good teacher and walking away. He isn't giving advice, he's giving life, which means he's either who he says he is or he's dangerous.

Following the Real Jesus

Back in John 7, the murmurs—"he's a good man," "he's a deceiver"—these aren't harmless, but they're the sound of people who are trying to domesticate Jesus, trying to squeeze him into the box that he never came to fit in.

And so what about us? Following Jesus means surrendering our assumptions about who he should be. Jesus will not conform to our version of him. To our cultural or our political or our personal categories about who he is and what he loves and what he's like. He's not just a wise teacher. He's not just a moral example. He's not just a miracle worker who is like the genie that answers our prayers on demand. He is the Lord.

And when we follow him, we should expect him to regularly challenge our expectations of him—about power, about success, about suffering, and even what we think a blessed life looks like.

See, if your view of Jesus never surprises or confronts or unsettles you, it may be—it may not be Jesus that you are following. It may be a version of him that you have crafted in your own image. Real discipleship begins where our expectations end. When we can lay down our expectations and follow the real Jesus, that's when we become disciples. We don't get to add on to who he is. The Christian life is not Jesus plus something. It's just Jesus. He's come to give you himself, to transform you into becoming more like him, more like how you were made to be. And he doesn't keep it a mystery.

Point Two: He Reveals His True Self

Jesus doesn't keep himself hidden. He's not playing games. He says, "If you seek me, you'll find me. Knock and the door will be open to you."

If Jesus really is who he says he is, if all of this is true, then something incomprehensible has happened—that God himself has taken on flesh and he's walked into this world among his peoples and he says, "Here I am. What will you do with me?" He reveals his true self. Jesus doesn't stay hidden from us. He reveals his true identity.

Right in the middle of the feast, Jesus steps up into the temple. That's not exactly a low-profile move. He's trying to stay low, low, low profile in the beginning, and then there he is right in the temple. It's not what I would have done, but there is Jesus doing that.

He begins teaching, and it's not just any teaching. It's amazing teaching. It's powerful. It's filled with clarity and authority that the people don't know what to do with it. And so what do they do? They bring up a new charge against him. Did you catch that? They say, "How is this man? How is it that this man has learning? He's never studied. Who trained this guy? Who gave him the credentials? He didn't go to seminary. He wasn't taught by big name rabbis. He's not even quoting footnotes. He doesn't have the resume that we expect."

Can I tell you a quick story? When Lindsay and I were married and we were living in Philadelphia, we bought an old row home and I replumbed the whole thing. We had to gut it and fix it up. I replumbed the whole thing with videos I watched on YouTube. And I did hire a plumber to come and connect it back to the main water main in the city. That was a good move. And he was looking around the house and he was saying, "Wow, who did your work?" And I said, "I did. I learned it on YouTube." You should have seen his face. It was this mix of just incredulity and disbelief, like, "Please don't explode the house as I turn the water back on."

The religious leaders are hearing him and they're marveling at his words that are coming out of his mouth. They're looking around and saying, "Where did you learn that?"

What gives you the right to teach that? Jesus says this isn't second hand teaching. This isn't YouTube theology. This isn't borrowed from rabbis that came before me. I didn't copy a trend on TikTok. This comes straight from the father.

My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. — John 7:16

And then it sounds a little confusing to us, but he flips the question back on them. He says, you want to know if my teaching is real? Here's the test. Is your will aligned with God's will? Do you actually want what God wants?

If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I'm speaking on my own authority. — John 7:17

Jesus is exposing their hearts. He says, if you want to know if I'm true, ask yourself, who are you glorifying? Do you want the spotlight? Do you want your rabbinical tribe to be praised? Do you want the applause of people? He says, you seek glory for yourselves. I seek to glorify the father. You say you have Moses and his law. Why are you trying to kill me? You claim to keep the law and yet you keep breaking it at its very core.

See, Jesus doesn't just defend his authority but he exposes us as frauds. We come with all these questions. How can this man be God? Jesus turns it, how is it that God could come to you? You didn't see it. Isn't he just a good teacher? The gospel isn't a collection of morality tales and flannel graph lessons. It's not a buffet where we pick and choose the teachings we like and we ignore the ones that confront us. Jesus refuses to be domesticated.

Isn't he a liar? Just trying to divide people from their comfortable religion? Jesus presses. Who are you really trying to glorify? Yourself? Your tribe? Your knowledge? Your wisdom? Your system of control? Your comfort? Could this be the Lord? Man, why is that question so hard for us?

I think it's because if Jesus is the Lord, if he's God in the flesh and he came not in power but in weakness, if he came not to sit upon a throne but to take a crown of thorns, some nails, a spear in his side on a Roman cross. Suddenly, the problem isn't him, is it? The problem is us. If he is who he says he is, then it's not Jesus that needs to be solved. It's our own hearts. It's my own heart. And that's what makes this so unmasking.

We want to interrogate Jesus. We want to put him on trial, but Jesus just gently and clearly and unapologetically shows us that we have no right to stand in judgment over him. The gospel isn't about demanding more proof. It's about receiving the unsettling grace that we are the ones who need saving. And still, by grace, Jesus keeps coming. He comes to his own people. He teaches with clarity and beauty and with truth. He reveals his identity not to crush us, but to free us. He opens our eyes to see that he really is who he says he is and then he welcomes us into the upside down yet right side up kingdom of grace.

Following Jesus Means Being Misunderstood

So what do we do with that? Well, here's the reality. If you're following the real Jesus, you're gonna be misunderstood just like Jesus was. Your life will not always make sense to the world around you. And if it does, it might be time to ask whether you're trying to shape Jesus around your life or if you're allowing him to shape your life around his.

See the presence of Jesus in you, it's going to create tension. Not because you're looking for a fight, but because his spirit rewires your desires. It changes how you spend your money. It changes how you raise your kids. It changes how you treat a stranger, how you respond to suffering. It confronts the world's categories just like he did.

So don't be discouraged if in your pursuit of Jesus you feel misunderstood. Don't panic if people whisper or even pull back or don't get it. That's not a sign that you're doing something wrong. That actually might be the clearest sign that you're actually walking with him.

But also don't use this as an excuse to be a jerk for Jesus. The aim isn't to be provocative for the sake of being provocative, okay? It's to live in such a way that when people misunderstand you, it's because they see something compelling. They see something beautiful. They see something different. And maybe, just maybe, you get the joy of them asking you this question. Who is this Jesus that changed your life?

A Question That Cannot Be Neutral

Now if you're here and you're not a believer and if you're unsure where you stand and you resonate with the people murmuring about who could this guy be, you're asking, well, maybe he is a good teacher or he did say some beautiful things. He was just a revolutionary or I don't know if I can really trust him. Friends, Jesus doesn't leave room for you to have a neutral opinion.

If he's not who he says he is, then we should all just walk away. We should have gone to brunch today and you should, as Paul says, you should pity me that this is what I do with my career.

But if he is who he says he is, then our only response is to worship him, to surrender everything to him, to trust him with every ounce of our life. See, Jesus doesn't demand that you have it all figured out, but he does invite you to stop judging him by the appearances and start seeing him, as it says, with right judgment.

Stop waiting for him to prove himself again and again and again and start wondering if the real question is whether you're willing to be unmasked, to allow your heart to be laid there and to trust the very delicate places of your soul with him? What if he's not the problem that needs solving? What if your heart is? And if that's true, what grace that he's come.

He came not to condemn but to redeem. He came not to crush you but to free you. He came not to avoid your mess but to walk right into it and say, here I am. I love you.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Jesus?

So in conclusion, back to that question we started with: How do you solve a problem like Jesus? You don't. He's not a problem to be solved. He's a savior to be received. Stop trying to categorize him. Stop trying to dismiss him, to debate him, to domesticate him. Jesus stands unmoved, undeterred, unboxed. Here I am. Take me.

His presence demands a response. You cannot ignore him. You can misunderstand him. You can try to fit him into your categories, but sooner or later, you will have to answer the question: Who is he really?

And if the answer is what he claims, if he really is the Son of God, if he really is the savior of the world, then he's already answered the question behind every human heart. Am I loved? Yes. Am I seen? Yes. Can I be healed? Can I be forgiven? Can I be fully known? Yes. Yes. And again, yes.

Because the one who was misunderstood is also the one who understands you completely. He loves you fully, and he still came anyway.

Prayer

Jesus, your grace is unmatched. Your love is incredible. The offer that you give us through yourself is beyond our imagination. I pray that we would be people who see you for who you really are. We follow you as your word proclaims. We follow the real you, not the version we make up for ourselves, not the version the world tells of who you are, but the real you, the one that's given to us in your word. I pray this in your name. Amen.