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(upbeat music) - I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're
studying together through the Gospel of John, and this week, John chapter seven.
Day one of our look at John chapter seven, we're going to look at verses one to 10
today.

Really, this whole chapter, John seven, is about a single question. Are you
thirsty? And where, if you're thirsty, do you get your spiritual thirst
quenched?

In many ways, this chapter reads like a desert of doubt with an oasis of trust
right in the middle. It's a picture of all the wrong places that we turn to get
our inner thirst quenched. And right in the middle of it all, towards the end,
actually, of the chapter, there is this powerful, there's this memorable example
of the only place that our inner thirst can truly be quenched.

I just want to remind you, as we talk about spiritual thirst being quenched, this
is true whether you're not yet a believer in Christ or already a believer in
Christ. Wherever you are in your spiritual journey, you can look to other
things, other places, wrong places, wrong things, to get this spiritual thirst
quenched and stay thirsty every single day of your life. As we launch into this
chapter, I just want to remind you also that the focus is getting tighter and
tighter as far as timelines as we move through the book of John.

John chapter one, verse one, focuses on the life of Jesus from the beginning.
It's a pretty long timeline. And then John chapter one through six focuses on
the first two and a half years of Jesus's ministry, first six chapters.

But then the next four chapters, seven to 10, focuses on just the next six
months of Jesus's life and ministry. So a more intense focus. And then when we
get to John 11, John 11 to the end of the book focuses on just the last week of
Jesus's ministry.

And as we walk through this gospel of John, as we hit this incredible statement
of Jesus in John chapter seven, I just want to set it up for you by what happens
in verse one and verse two. In verse one, the Bible says after this, Jesus went
around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were
waiting to take his life. Jesus was staying away, he was staying in the north,
he was staying in Galilee, he wasn't going down to Judea in the south because he
did not want to put God to the test.

Jesus had spiritual wisdom and so he knew that it was not yet time for him to go
to a cross, not yet time for the crowds to be all around him and all that was
going to happen because of that to occur. So he waited, he waited on God's timing.
Now God's timing to go there at least once is coming near.

And so in verse two, this happens. The Bible says there when the Jewish feast of
tabernacles was near. Remember last week we talked about the fact that if you're
going to understand the gospels, you have to understand the Jewish calendar.

Well, here's a reminder of that, this feast of tabernacles. To understand John
chapter seven, you have to understand the feast of tabernacles 'cause the whole
chapter is built around this feast that happened in Jerusalem. This feast of
tabernacles, let me just take a couple of minutes to just go through some bullet
points about it.

It was one of the three feasts for which Jews were required to travel to
Jerusalem if they lived within a certain distance of Jerusalem. So it was an
important feast. It took place five days after the high holy day of Yom Kippur.

It was a feast that lasted eight days. The first and last of those were Sabbath
days of rest. And this was the feast, you might remember this, where people
would move out of their houses and they would live in tents.

Actually, they were called booths that they would make out in their yards where
they would remind themselves of the fact that the people of Israel had had to
live in temporary shelters while they went from their captivity in Egypt to the
promised land. In fact, there were other reminders of this journey towards the
promised land in this feast of tabernacles. During this feast, the temple area
was illuminated by some large candlesticks and they were reminders of the
pillars of fire that had led the people of Israel as the glory of God as they
went towards the promised land.

During this celebration, there were temple trumpets that were blown on each day
reminding people of the greatness, the glory of God. And also during this feast
of tabernacles, water each day would be brought up from the Pool of Siloam to be
poured on the altar in front of the temple as a reminder of the rock that flowed
from the water miraculously to supply the needs of the Israelites during the
Exodus. Now as we walk through this chapter, Jesus is going to teach us some things
about what that rock, the rock that the water poured out of to quench their
thirst, what that rock really represented.

This feast of tabernacles, it looked back to Israel's journey through the
wilderness and it looked forward to the promised kingdom of the Messiah. So with
that in mind, here's what happens in verse three. Jesus' brothers said to him,
now remember here they're in Galilee, Jesus' brothers said to him, you ought to
leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the miracles you do.

No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you're doing
these things, show yourself to the world for even his own brothers did not
believe in him. Now this whole chapter is about thirst and about how we get our
spiritual thirst quenched.

Each day of this week, we're going to look at a way that doesn't work to get your
spiritual thirst quenched. And the last day, we're going to look at Jesus' dramatic
teaching about what does work. And when we talk about getting our inner thirst
quenched, there's a lot of ways that people try to get that thirst quenched that
we know are wrong.

I mean, if I get involved in this addiction or this habit or this relationship
that tears my family apart and I think that through that, I'm going to get my inner
thirst quenched, we know that is wrong. Those are not the ways of chasing after
getting our thirst quenched that is focused on in this chapter. Instead, it
focuses on the nicer ways, the more popular ways, the more accepted ways that we
try to get our thirst quenched.

In fact, as these brothers talk to Jesus, you see one of those. You see human
strategy. Human strategies can't satisfy this inner thirst.

I would call this the political solution. And we think if I just strategize well
enough, if we just get the right people together, then we can come up with a
solution. That's what these brothers were doing.

They were doing it in verse five in spite of the fact they didn't really even
believe in him. If they had, they wouldn't have made these kind of human
strategy suggestions. Now, by the way, before we go on, why didn't they believe
in him?

They'd grown up with Jesus. I believe it's because of familiarity with Jesus.
This can happen to all of us.

You get so close to something that you miss the miracle, you miss the wonder of
it all. And Jesus' brothers, we know there were at least four, by the way, Mark
6. 3 tells us that James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon were Jesus' brothers.

These brothers were so close that they couldn't see who Jesus really was. So
they came up with their idea of how he should act. Now, by the way, later they
do believe.

And James and Jude are written by two of these brothers, two of the books in the
New Testament. But here they're not yet on board. And this same thing can happen
to us as believers.

We can become so familiar with the things of God that they don't feel as
powerful anymore. They don't seem as significant anymore. And so we begin to
come up with human strategies to try to make them feel more powerful.

And it never works because that's not what we need. We just need to reconnect
with the truth, the reality of who God is. What we do is we try to help God out.

We bring in our ideas to make him better. And it sounds about as silly as these
brothers' ideas. Did you notice their political advice as we read through those
verses?

They said, go to Judea. You need a bigger audience, they were saying. There's
more people there than here.

They said, so your disciples can see the miracles. Give them what they want,
they were saying. That's what any political strategist would say.

Don't act in secret, they said. You need a better strategy. Let's make this more
public.

Show yourself, they said. You need better advertising. These are all just human
ways to try to accomplish this quenching of the thirst.

And by the way, these are also verses for anyone who's ever received bad advice
from their family. Jesus understands. He got some bad advice from his own
brothers.

These brothers said, here's what we think you should do. And Jesus says in
verses six to 10, and therefore Jesus told them, the right time for me has not
yet come. For you, any time is right.

The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does
is evil. You go to the feast. I'm not yet going up to the feast because for me,
the right time has not yet come.

Having said this, he stayed in Galilee. Jesus' answer was, I'll do it in God's
time. That's how you confront this human strategy political solution in our
lives.

I'll do it in God's time. You look to God's timing. My time has not yet come.

He said, it will come, but it has not yet come. Now, I just want to remind you
that Jesus is talking to his brothers here. So when he says, the right time for
me has not yet come.

For you, any time is right. Some people try to make this into this broad
spiritual principle. Jesus is talking to his brothers.

He's saying, it's not yet time for me to go to the feast, but you can go to the
feast any time you want. They don't hate you. They're not going to try to
crucify you.

Here's the important point in what Jesus is saying. When he says, my time has
not yet come, the important point, the point not to miss is this. Jesus
understood God's timing.

In his case, God's timing had to do with hate. He says, the world cannot hate
you, but it hates me. Because of their hate, the world was going to eventually
put him on a cross and it was not yet time for him to go to the cross.

You see, Jesus understood something. He knew it was God's will for him to go to
the cross, but he knew it was not yet time for him to go on the cross. There is
a difference between God's will and God's timing.

If you get that, that sentence, you will understand something about the working
of God in your life that many people never get. There is a difference between
God's will and God's timing. It may be God's will for you to move, but not yet
time.

God's will for you to get married, but not yet time. God's will for you to start
a new ministry, but the timing isn't right yet. And so Jesus talked about the
right time.

And I found in my own life, it requires a lot more spiritual discernment to
understand God's timing than it does to understand God's will. Truth is, you're
probably facing a decision right now, where you need to understand God's timing.
Maybe you need to understand his will as well.

As we end today, this look at Jesus' work in our lives, how he wants to quench
our thirst, I want to pray for you. I want to pray that God will give you
understanding of both his will and his timing in your life. Lord, I pray for all
of us.

As we think about you and your work in our lives, you often show us what it is
that you want to do in our lives. We understand your direction, but we also want
to understand your timing. Help us not to rush ahead of you.

Help us not to lag behind you. I pray that through the people around us, through
your word, through your prompting, through your spirit in our hearts, you help
us to understand your timing. Help us to be patient until the right time, and
help us to be passionate when the right time comes.

We need your strength to do this, Jesus. We need your direction for this Holy
Spirit, and so we ask for it. We ask for it in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, join us tomorrow. We're going to be looking together at verses 11 to 24.