Well, I do invite you to turn in the gospel to the gospel of John chapter 7 as we're making our way through this. And I'm going to read verses 37 to verse 52. Verse 52. We looked at the rivers of living water that Jesus gave this great call on the last day of the feast last time. And now we look at the responses, which is really what John is capturing here for us. The responses to Jesus' great and powerful claims. And that's exactly what the Lord wants us to consider here in this particular passage. What is the response and what is our response? So beginning at verse 37, On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. When they heard these words, some of the people said, this is really the prophet. Others said, this is the Christ. But some said, is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there was a division among the people over him. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, Why did you not bring him? The officers answered, No one ever spoke like this man. The Pharisees answered them, Have you also been deceived? Have any of you, have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Nicodemus, who had gone to him before and who was one of them, said to them, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does? They replied, are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. And there ends the reading of God's word. This is quite a passage, quite a passage of response to Jesus, challenging us with response to Jesus. And there's this statement that I couldn't get over as I was working through this this week in this particular text that the officer said of Jesus, no one has ever spoken like this man. We've been looking at that last time that his speech was bold and what that meant and what it sounded like and what it looked like as people heard it, his ministry. And we spent some time on that, but his authority and his boldness and the way that he spoke, he was fearless. He said whatever he was intending to say and nothing stopped him. When he spoke these things, it offset him so much in the way that he spoke. Remember the scribes and the Pharisees, they just endlessly debated all the fine points of the law. It must have been exciting to listen to that, right? It was boring. With all 613 commandments and endlessly quoting each other as if that was supposed to change a life, Jesus has come along and commanded their life and called them to him. It's powerful stuff, reading the Gospel of John. And you'll notice here that it has caused among the people mass confusion. They are utterly confused now about Jesus. And what John is doing at this point is helping us and stopping and putting a spotlight on the responses that we might think about response to Jesus. Where do I fit in and in which particular response? Sounds a little bit like me. And what is Jesus really after here? And this is an important point because Jesus is making strong claims as to his divinity. Remember, this is what John is showing us about Jesus. This is the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth. And you have to believe in him to be saved. And this is what the apostles would go out and announce to the ends of the earth. But Jesus' speech in this particular passage has caused a division. His speech is so strong, it has pushed people to make a decision. Where do they stand with regard to Jesus? Where do they believe with regard to Jesus? And John doesn't want us to leave this issue too quickly. That's one of the beautiful things about this particular passage. It's really the heart of the book that what we're doing with Jesus, his claims, his authority, his word, all has and is dealing with this intention that you would believe since John's gospel is the gospel of belief. So that's the intention of the book. That's what the end will say. All these things are written that you would believe. That's what I'm trying to show you. in some cases, don't do this because it's not belief. So we're looking at this a little bit unconventionally today. I want you to hear the claims of Jesus, and then I want you to briefly, and then consider the three responses that are given here, which I've sort of categorized as the convinced and the confused and the contrary. And those are three responses that we see that people picked up and noticed throughout the ministry of Jesus to Jesus' own teachings and Jesus' own words. And that's what we're going to begin with, thinking about which of these responses is correct. Which one is correct? It seems obvious, but I'm going to come back to that at the end. Now, you remember in John chapter 7, no one's conception of who the Messiah would be what he would come and do was fitting with what jesus was doing it's an interesting moment in studying how you receive jesus because the conceptions what they built in their mind the presuppositions the way that they looked at jesus was running up against all the cultural baggage all the tradition baggage everything that that was in front of them now stood jesus and it was mass conflict because none of it seemed to align with what they expected which i find an important moment, and we'll come back to that. So here in this particular passage, Jesus says something glorious about himself, giving a call, one of the most powerful calls in the Gospel of John, and then the responses are here outlined, as you'll notice. We ended last week with the first one here in verse 39. On the last day of the feast, you'll notice that, the last day of this great feast, Jesus says something. He cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And of course, we talked about the importance of the Spirit, where when the Spirit would come that faith would be in the resurrection illustrious and bright and strong but i want you to notice this great claim here it's the last day of the feast jesus is in this highly traditional setting beautiful setting the priest would take a golden pitcher and he would pour out water fill it from the water of the pool and it would be a great solemn possession the trumpets would blow as the water would be poured out to the base of the altar. And all of this was celebrating the provision of water in the wilderness, thinking of how the Lord sustained them in the wilderness. Remember, John's been using every event here, and now we're specifically at Meribah and Marah, if you will. John has been taking each event sort of systematically and working through them to show that these all were talking about Jesus. And so in this particular section here, remember that At Meribah and Marah, they asked an important question. It was the end of that little pericope in Exodus 17. Is the Lord with us or not? That's just the issue here. That is just the issue in this particular passage. Who is this with us? Is the Lord with us or not? Who is this one walking among us? And he's made great claims. He's now said, he's taken Exodus 17 and he said, I am the water. Come to me and drink, and you'll never thirst again. So again, Exodus on the brain. John captures three responses now to this. A great moment in the Gospel of John. I think you'll find fascinating, and I believe helpful, that in verse 40, you'll notice many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, This is the prophet. This is the one promised to Moses that a prophet like unto his brethren, this is him. Some said, no, he's not just the prophet. This is the Messiah. This is the Christ. He's finally come. So what you have here initially are what I call the convinced, aren't they? They are convinced about who Jesus is. They're convinced with the things that are happening. These are the right answers. And it's really interesting to get into the minds of these particular people and to see what they were thinking. They're thinking in these sort of ways. Who speaks like this? And last time, he can say whatever he wants and nope, nobody does anything about this. People get put up on crosses for this. And Jesus says, not my time yet. And he just keeps speaking. They remember and they've drawn this conclusion that the teaching was so powerful, the teaching was so amazing, The teaching was so gripping, so effective. His signs were so convincing. They're so wooing that they have become convinced in their minds that this is no ordinary man. This has got to be either the prophet or the Messiah. And they're drawing right conclusions about him. I can't tell you how many times that people have responded like this to Christianity. How do you explain this? How do you explain what we're sitting and doing right now? Who makes this up? You know, thousands of years later, we're still gathering, worshiping one name given above every name. You can't make that up. Humanity couldn't accomplish that. So you draw the conclusion, this has to be real. This has to be right. These are the kind of things that just don't happen. And people reason this way all the time, don't they? They could look at a world and say, listen, I'm not crazy enough to think this thing banged together. It's the right conclusion. It's a good conclusion. God had to have made it. With regard to Jesus, people are still preaching him thousands of years later. Nobody preaches any other name like this. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. This has to be right. This has to be right. And you'll notice that in this particular section, again, as John has been showing us, many of them believe because of the signs that he was doing. It's just too convincing. It's too convincing. Now, I'm going to come back to that person. I'm going to come back to that response. But I want to move on to what I'm going to spend a little more time with, which is really the confused. Because this was the bulk of the people with regard to Jesus. The confused. Notice the second group. But some said, will Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the scripture said that Christ comes from the seed of David, from the town of Bethlehem, where David was? What an interesting response. You'll remember that last time, do the rulers know that this is the Christ? However, we know where this man is from. But when the Christ comes, no one knows where he is from. So no one knows where he's from, but we know where he came from. Conclusion, he can't be the Messiah. But now we've got people reasoning a little bit differently and they're struggling a little bit more with it. Some have known a little bit more of the scriptures and they take the scripture and they correctly observe that, look, Jesus, when he comes, he will come from the town of Bethlehem and be of the seed of David. But what we don't accept is he came from Nazareth in Galilee. And so then they conclude because of that, he can't be the Christ. It's confusion leading to unbelief, and that's what is being shown here today. Galilee, I always think about this. Whenever I find out that you guys are from, one of you particularly, I'm going to focus in some really bad city like Lemoore. And when you're there, I'm going to focus in on that. I know I've said this before, our secretary is from Blythe. It would be like saying that. How could the Messiah ever come out of Nazareth? Nobody hangs out in those places. Nobody wants to go to cow town. And that's where he came from. But we do know the scripture said he came from Bethlehem. Confusion. Confusion. Sophisticated people don't go to L'Amour. They don't grow up there either. see i'm hitting myself now you see great people come from san diego great people come from la great people come from london i want you to think about who's standing there the pharisees and back in verse 32 the pharisees sent officers to arrest him and i mentioned in verse 44 now some of them wanted to take him but no one laid hands on him And then in verse 45, the Pharisees confront the officers about this and say, why didn't you arrest him? Why aren't you booking him? Take him in. And their response is, no one ever spoke like this guy. Never heard of him like it. So this here is very interesting to me. There are the masses caught in the middle. They're caught between the power of the words that are being spoken and the message and then the rage of the leaders on the opposite end. And as one pastor said, what you had in the middle here, what you had with the confused is these people were paralyzed into inactivity. I think that's exactly right. Paralyzed into inactivity. They're just fence-sitters. They're just fence-sitters with regard to Jesus. We don't really know. We don't really know. And what do people like this do? Nothing. Nothing. It's an interesting moment in regard to the history of response to Jesus, isn't it? Because all people have their own conceptions of who Jesus should be. Remember back in chapter 6, they had a politicized conception of Jesus, that he would come and that he would beat Rome for them, and that he would be a political messiah, and that he would overturn Rome. And Jesus is in total conflict with what they have built up in their minds of who this Jesus should be for them. All of their preconceived ideas, all of their presuppositions, have really put blinders on them so that they can't see Jesus. This group reasons with the scriptures. They know the scriptures, but their knowledge has done nothing. You see what's just happened. Everyone has built into their mind because of experiences. And this goes on with, I think, a real challenge for us. With our experiences and in what we expect and how we've been raised and the things that have happened to us. And you can put all the cultural baggage in there. The way that we live in an American environment. The way that prosperity has governed our lives. All of these things come into play when it comes to how we are going to look at Jesus. What's happened to you? What do you believe about the Christ? Well, that depends on my experience and what I expect. And this is an important point, that our conceptions of Jesus, I want you to know, our conceptions of Jesus are always changing. Depending on your cultural circumstances, depending on your personal circumstances, depending on what's happening to you, depending on the good or bad that's happening to you, your conceptions of Jesus are always moving. Always. You can have an American brand of Jesus. We can follow a Jesus we're confused about. Because we're constantly trying to fit him into our own social economic status. We're trying to find a Jesus that's attractive to us. This is why I raised a few sermons back, the image issue. It's a bigger issue than you think, because if you look at the history of image-making of Jesus, it's always the Jesus that fits the one you're most comfortable with in light of who you are. Your ethnicity, your race, blonde hair, blue eyes. Go figure. This is the challenge. We're constantly being corrected in the study of scriptures as to who Jesus is. That's why church is important, by the way. That's why coming to listen to John's gospel is important. And what he came to do in dealing with fighting this great challenge of expecting Jesus to do more and to be more than Jesus is for us in the present, or at least what we expect. Shouldn't Jesus be fighting constitutional battles? shouldn't his kingdom have a greater impact than this? Mass confusion to this day over who Jesus is, what he came to do, what he's doing. And what we do is reason from our expectations for him. Who wants a backwoods savior from L'Amour or Hanford? Who wants one like that? Who's going to die? No thanks. We always fight the idolatry of making him into what we want him to be for us instead of how he is truly revealed. And then when he doesn't seem to fit, we explain it away. So you see the problem with the second group. So I spent a little bit of time on it. You've met two kinds of hearers. You have the convinced, and then you've got the confused. And you see the problem with the confused as we're dealing with them. But now we come to, you've met the first two, the last group, which I call, and others have called the contrary. Our friends, the Pharisees. They're represented as the contrary. Notice in verse 45, they ask why the officers didn't take him, and we know because his hour had not yet come. Jesus was very clear. You can't take me until my hour has come. You're not going to be able to take me until my hour has come. But I want you to notice the rage here in verse 47, that the Pharisees then answered and said, are you also deceived? The Pharisees were the spiritually elite. The Pharisees were the power holders. They would look at this situation and think, only the uneducated, only the gullible, only the cowboys would believe in something like this. Only those of really simple minds would ever think like this. Only people buying into these ridiculous claims of the crowds would believe in this guy. They have no idea what the Old Testament says. They don't know our rabbinic traditions. Now, mark this, what they say. None of us Pharisees believe this madness, this stupidity. None of us have believed in him. Dear officers, you can see these masses are really deceived. None of us have ever said that we should bow the knee to this guy. And that should mean something to you. How stupid are you people for falling into this nonsense? Did he just say, come to me and drink living water from me? Does that make sense to any of you? Does it? What do you mean? Drink from me. Stupid to believe things like that. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden. Who says that stuff? That's a good question. Who says that stuff? You see the responses. Others have rightly noticed here of the convinced, the confused, and the contrary. There's one verse I really haven't touched on in verse 43. So there was a division among the people because of him. That word is schisma. It's a schism. Jesus caused a massive schism. Remember he said this, I came to bring schism, division, of mother and father, of family. You're going to see those divides everywhere. This is what the gospel will bring. Does any of this sound familiar? Here's where I pause this week. Does any of this sound familiar? Well, we live in a society right now to the extreme on every single issue that you can find these three categories of people. You can find the categories of the convinced, the confused, and the contrary. And how does everyone relate to each other on whatever issue you want to raise? You can fit yourself into one of these three categories. People take their sides on a given issue. You have those convinced that an issue, that it's either right or wrong, and then you have those in the middle, usually the bulk of the people who are sort of waffle between two opinions and aren't quite sure, and each side trying to pull them to one of the side. On the convinced side, they see the people in the middle as just the sheep who are just sort of mindlessly following around and not thinking for themselves. And then you have the elite, you have the academy, You have those who look at things a certain way and they look on the far other side and say those people are just completely foolish, completely stupid, and we've got to herd the masses and lead them properly. Those usually in positions of power and at the end of the spectrum and to the masses, their attitude is the same. They are really trying to control the general mindset of the people. Those on each end of the spectrum looking at each other with hate. Hating the ones on the other end. Despising those on the other end. Looking at anyone who goes against the status quo as ignorant, stupid, uninformed, uneducated. That's our life. That's our life. And those of the convinced look at the elite as arrogant, not principle-driven, ivory tower people, compromised, willing to just follow whatever is the accepted norm of the day on that side. I mean, you know, you could put this in any given circumstance, even with COVID-19 right now. We have people on every side of that issue and get it going. It's not fun if you find people on one side or the other. You got the masses in the middle, right? Here's what I fear happens in the midst of all this. The claims of Jesus simply fall into this mess. And we align with Jesus one way or the other with our agendas, falling into this stuff. And we hijack Jesus into it, thinking that he would wear our political colors, or he would do this or that. Now, there's certainly moral issues that can't be compromised. But I have an issue as I was working through this text. Jesus created the division. But at the end of the day, don't ever think and fall into the trap that this is how the claims of Jesus can be treated. As if he's a facilitator of our divides. Even though there may be moral issues. That he is just another choice in the spectrums. And that we can fit him in our way. What if I told you this today? All three of these responses are wrong. What if I told you all three? Convinced, confused, and contrary. When you come back to the convince, you can be convinced today of a lot of things. You could be convinced that Jesus is real. You could be convinced by the wonderful signs that he did, as John has been exposing the whole time, saying, who's done more signs than this guy? But is that really the right response? I think this is where John's pressing us here. Are these the right response? Because John is showing us certain things that has been the problem in the book that many people were believing in him for the signs that he was doing and for the evidences, but something still was wrong. Jesus is not just after right conclusions about him. You could walk away from the sermon today and I could have all three of these responses. I could have the contrary to the sermon and then I could have the general mass that accepts it, but then I could have those who are really convinced it's true. Then what? Do we just walk away and say, good sermon, I was convinced. Was that the response? See, Jesus is not just another opinion. Faith is not just about agreement. I fear that our whole society right now is training us that what is most important is you're just on the right side of something. On its terms. And then you have to think a certain way about something. And that doesn't really mean much with regard to Jesus, even if you're correct in what you think about him. I could agree he's the Messiah, but fundamentally, has it changed my life? See, that's an important question. That's a really important question. Fundamentally, has my belief that something's correct changed my life? Jesus is calling people to come to him for life. You must participate in my life, says Jesus. This is not just about facilitating a fight so that you might just rightly agree with something, you see? Life flows out of the heart. And I think this is why we have somebody special mentioned here in closing. The Pharisees, and Pharisees are those who are furious at grace, say something that should have startled us. Have any of the rulers of the Pharisees believed in him? And a resounding yes, there is someone. Nicodemus. You guys don't think anyone's bought into these teachings, have you? Yep. Did you notice the first name of verse 50, Nicodemus? Notice how he's pitched. One who previously came to Jesus by night, being one of them. said to them, is he walking in darkness? Listen to what he says. Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he's doing? Do you see what John wants you to see? None of us have believed that this man, this man from Galilee, none of us have accepted this man from Galilee, Nicodemus, who came by night previously, did. What is the Lord showing you here? I think it's the most powerful thing in the gospel of John of what he's after. Nicodemus was probably one of the top instructors in Israel. And it's like John saying to us, hey, remember back to chapter 3? Remember back when Jesus said to Nicodemus, you must be born again by the Spirit? When the Spirit comes, you're going to be born again and life is going to be put in your heart. Remember that passage? Remember how important that passage was? Here he is, and guess what? He's born again. because you can't enter the kingdom of heaven unless you're born again. And really, by the way, it's from above. That's the important thing Jesus is saying. Nicodemus heard the message, and the fruit of that is now is that life has been imparted in that heart, and he's going to show up even at the burial of Jesus. Nicodemus, a Pharisee. I love that Jesus saves the Pharisee. A Pharisee was a true believer. And here's one I want to show you, the power of the Holy Spirit. Pharisees say, these crowds are accursed. They don't know the law. Nicodemus says, no, you don't know the law. Who's accursed? You're judging a man without a hearing? And the end of this is the true division. Listen to it carefully. The end of this passage is the true division today. Hear it? When they recognize this, they no longer recognize Nicodemus. So in other words, they recognize Jesus came from somewhere else. And as soon as they recognize Nicodemus stood up for him, you know what they recognized about him? They didn't know where he was from earth either. Are you from Galilee too? Hear that? Are you from Galilee too? No, he's born from above. And that's what John's showing you. Brand new creature. That's the division Jesus brings. A new birth from above, that life flows out of somebody. What do you say about Jesus today? Where is he from? From heaven. He came from heaven. And guess what he's going to do for you when you believe? And you're not just convinced, but you believe. You're going to get a whole new identity, and you're going to have a whole new origin point. This is what the Psalms was celebrating. This is what Psalm 87 celebrates when it says, all those born again are born from Zion. They're born from above. That's the new life given to you. That's the division, the real division. And from a heart that believes the gospel, out of that heart, the Holy Spirit is flowing. That's what the Spirit does. He gives life. If you have believed in the gospel of the only begotten Son of God, that He is the Christ, the Son of the living God, if you come to trust in Him, and you've come to Him and you have said, I am a sinner and I need grace. I'm not just convinced about you. I need your mercy. I need your love. I need your forgiveness. He has promised you he'll never cast you out. What he will give you is that brand new life where true water is coming out of you that people see. You're no longer from earth. You have an origin birth point from heaven. That's the new life Jesus gives. Nicodemus shows us that. So I pray today that we all come to Jesus in true faith, believing the gospel and responding and being willing to count the cost of our new identity and following him. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word today and thank you for your encouragement in your word. What a special, beautiful passage of life that you give by the Holy Spirit. And it really goes to show that in and of ourselves, we never could respond. We would fall in just the categories of everything else that this life we see every day. What we need from you is your spirit. What we need from you is life from above. And we're so thankful that you have the power to do it, and that that's what you're teaching us in the gospel of John. So give us confidence in your word. Let us be students of the scriptures, and let us come and understand, Jesus came to this earth to be a savior, to save us from our sins and to give us new life and life abundantly. And in that person in work, the life of Jesus, we rest and find great joy. Thank you for saving us. May we be not unbelieving, but believing. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.