The Face of Prejudice (4/29/18 The Book of John #26)

ATTN: I’m sure like you, I was deeply hurt and disturbed by the recent event that took place in a Starbucks in Philadelphia. Two African-American young men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, were arrested by the police for refusing to leave the store when an employee denied them access to the restroom. They had not purchased anything and were waiting for a friend. Prejudice is being partially blind. You do not see them for who they are and only see what your biased mind makes you see. If the woman who called the police on them saw these young men as they really were and not for the criminal or trouble-makers that they were not, then she would have left them alone like countless others who came and asked for the access code to the restroom and don’t have a drink in hand…. Prejudice is partial blindness. Blindness to other cultures, races, and experiences. In that sense, we are all prejudiced to some degree. The only one who is not prejudiced is God because He sees the world for what it is, and judges it for what it is.

Today, we see an encounter between those who were prejudiced – the pharisees – and the one who was not – Jesus. They are accusing Jesus because He has done something wrong in their eyes. He has healed a man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath day. And the pharisees jump on Him for this “wrong” doing.

They were prejudiced against Jesus. They didn’t see Jesus for who He really was – the Son of God, the co-Creator of the world – but a local rabble-rouser with some tricks up his sleeves that threatened their comfortable order of life, that must be gotten rid of. So, the pharisees question the authority of Jesus. And how does the Son of God respond to their accusation? He defends Himself to these pharisees. Can you believe this scenario? The patience and grace of God the Son! He left heaven to come to earth to give Himself to them as a ransom, and yet He is being questioned by these nobodies. I wonder how Jesus resisted the temptation to wipe them out from the face of the earth the moment that they even thought about questioning Him. But Jesus is patient and explains to them who He is and what He came to do. So, in defending Himself, He calls four witnesses).

 

John 5:30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.  

Although Jesus is accused of wrongdoing and is told to defend Himself, Jesus prefaces his defense by saying that He is the Judge! He’s not the defendant. He’s not even the defense attorney. He’s not the prosecutor. He’s the judge! These pharisees, in other words, are messing with the wrong person. They are bringing Jesus into the court where Jesus is the judge! But Jesus is gracious. He gives them evidences that prove His identity as the judge of all things.

 

V.31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.  

He may be referring to John the Baptist or the Father at this point because He calls both of them into the witness stand.

 

1. 33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. 34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

So the first witness He calls is John the Baptist. John the Baptist had certain respect and following with the people. Most people believed him to be a prophet of God and a righteous man. They were getting baptized by him. However, the pharisees did not receive John’s testimony. As Jesus said in Matthew 11:18, 18 For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ 19 The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

The people rejected both types of ministries. Why? My guess is that John was too ascetic, too other worldly, for them. He kept a strict diet, wore all natural clothes made with camel hair, lived a minimalistic lifestyle.  In other words, he was weird! In today’s term, He would have no TV, no smart phone, he owns no home and lives in a tent and yet extremely educated, grows his own food, hunts his own animals, and so out of touch with today’s world. And the pharisees didn’t want that kind of lifestyle. But they didn’t like Jesus for the opposite reason. Jesus was too liberal for their liking. He went to parties, he drank wine, probably, he liked singing and dancing, and he liked hanging out with sinners at taverns, etc. in other worlds, He was too worldly. So, they rejected John the Baptist for being too other-worldly even though he was from this world, and they rejected Jesus for being too worldly even though He was not from this world…

Bottom line – they weren’t liking anyone who were a threat to their current lifestyle. They didn’t want to change!

He calls the next witness to the stand.

 

1. 36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

The second witness he brings to the stand is his works – namely his miraculous works, such as healing this man at the pool of Bethesda. These were signs that He did to prove that He is who He says He is. It is one thing for a man in Western Hospital to say that He is the Son of God, but it is entirely another thing if that same man went to St. Joseph’s hospital and started touching patients with stage four cancer and even the ones in the morgue and they are completely healed and the dead ones come back to life! And then He says, “I’m able to do these things because I am the Son of God.” “Believe me for the works that I do.”

I know it baffles the mind that how some people will not believe Jesus is the son of God when He did such obvious miracles.. I can imagine some people taking an issue with this and say if Jesus really did those things, then how come some people still didn’t believe? It doesn’t make sense.

I think this is true – seeing is not believing, but believing is seeing. People see what they believe. ILL: When I wasn’t a believer, I saw the world and thought this all came by random chance by an evolutionary process. But after I became a believer, I couldn’t believe that I used to believe all this came by random chance plus matter plus time we call evolution. I used this illustration before. If you found an iphone X on the beach, you would never think, “maybe this device got developed naturally over the last billion years as the sand, salt, air, got swished around, finally resulting in this iphone X! But many people, very smart people, believe we human beings who are multiple orders more complex than an iphone X came by random chance, plus time, plus matter. Why? We just don’t want someone being us, impinging on our “perceived” freedom. We don’t want to be told what to do. We want to be our own boss. So, we will ignore the most obvious signs just like the pharisees did with Jesus.

So, his miraculous works bear witness as to who He is. Then, he brings the third witness to the stand. His Father.

 

1. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

They claim that they know the Father, they claim that they are God’s children, but Jesus accuses that they don’t. God is not their Father because they are not His children. And what is the reason that they do not know the father? They do not believe in the Son… ! The Son was the perfect representation of the invisible Father, but because the image of the Father in their heads was their own imagination and not shaped by the Bible, they did not recognize the Son. Hebrew 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

So, the Father is called to the witness stand to defend Jesus and accuse the pharisees… Then, He calls another witness – the word of God.

 

1. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, Aand then skip down to v. 46, “For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote about me.”

So, Jesus claims that the scriptures bear witness about Jesus. Even Moses wrote about Jesus. Really? Moses wrote the first 5 books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Where is Jesus in those books? Everywhere! I will give you a just few quick samples…

Moses wrote in Genesis about…  1) Adam and Eve’s account of how they fell. As soon as they sinned, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offerings; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen. 3:15), Eve’s offspring – singular, whose heel would be bruised – as in, not a fatal injury on the cross since Jesus came back from the dead, but a fatal injury to Satan on the cross since he is defeated for good. 2) Moses wrote about Abraham in Genesis. He was told to sacrifice his son, his only true son on a wood to God possibly on the exact same spot that Jesus would die on the cross 2000 years later. God stopped Abraham from killing his own son, but later God would not stop from his own son from being killed on the cross…. 3) Moses wrote about Joseph, who was sold as a slave for pieces of silver by his own brothers and yet he became a ruler of over them later. Jesus was sold for pieces of silver by his own disciple and yet he became the ruler of the world. 4) Moses wrote about Israel, going to Egypt and then spending 40 years in the wilderness being tempted all those years. It parallels Jesus fleeing to Egypt as a baby, then being tempted 40 days in the desert before His public ministry and yet passing the test when the Israelites couldn’t. 5) Then the sacrificial system of a goat and a lamb in the book of Leviticus. During the annual sacrifice, a  scapegoat was released and the lamb was slaughtered. If you remember, Barabbas was released and Jesus was slaughtered. I can go on and on about how even the tabernacle, and later the temple was built to point to Jesus, not to mention the stories of Esther, Ruth, and all the prophets, the Psalms, etc etc all point to one person in Jesus! To me, that is the single most powerful argument for the existence of God and the truthfulness of Jesus Christ even more so than the answered prayers and signs that God allowed me to see.

 

What is the result of all these witnesses – John the Baptist, his miracles, the Father, and the word of God – defending and advocating Jesus?

 

1. 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

After all these witnesses, they refuse to see that He is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. Why? Why couldn’t the pharisees see that Jesus was the christ? 3 Reasons. Let me just mention them to you now and I’ll expound on them in detail next week God willing. 1) They thought that eternal life is in the book rather than coming through the book in Christ. 2) They had no true love for God. 3) They loved people’s praise more than God’s praise.

 

CONC: One lesson. Don’t always assume you are the good guy (right) in a contentious situation. Being self-centered, we always assume we are in the right, and the other in the wrong. The arguments and contentions arise when two sinners both think they are in the right. The pharisees, their problem was that they were not willing to admit that they might be on the wrong side. They liked their lifestyle and they wanted a God in their own image and so when the real God showed up, they didn’t recognize Him. And the whole time, they assumed they were on the right side.

We are fallible sinners, yes? Then, if we are in a contentious situation especially with another believer, such as our spouse or a brother or a sister, then admit that we are probably on the wrong side at least 50% of the time. In the middle of the argument, inject this thought: “I could be in the wrong here even though I have 5 reasons I can give as to why I’m in the right.” Actually, Paul says that love is honoring one another above yourselves, which could be interpreted as thinking, “She’s probably right more times than me…”  And rather than trying to get God on our side – those of us who know the Bible love to quote Bible to win the argument, don’t we? – try to discern what God’s heart might be in the situation and get on His side. So often, our problem is in our family, in our ministry, in our job, we try to get God to be on our side. But Christian maturity is to find out where God is going and joining Him in where He is going. And this includes a contentious and argumentative situations.