Sunday Message // August 21, 2005

Title: Seeking Glory
Text: John 7:1-28
Proposition: It is human nature that we set ourselves up for our own glory for our pride’s sake, Christ calls us to recognize that what we have comes of God.

Introduction: Is pride necessarily a bad thing? Surely there is good pride. What would be some examples of “good pride?”
- Unit pride, family pride, etc
How bout, “bad pride?”
- Thinking we are all that and then some.
- Thinking that all our decisions are right cause we are God’s gift the human race!
- Thinking that we have gotten where we are all on our own, forgetting the others that have worked in us to produce what we are.
There was a woman playing a video game called “Trapper” one of those great point driven games that rotted your mind and gave you carpel tunnel. At any rate, she played for 14 hours one day and had amassed an unprecedented seven and a half million points. She continued while a TV crew that had been alerted by her fiancé set up to record her efforts for posterity. Suddenly, the screen went blank and she stepped back in horror and looked at the end of her game. The TV crew had unplugged the game in order to plug in the camera, thus bringing her bid for 10 million points to an end. The effort to publicize her achievement became the agent for her ultimate failure.
How does pride affect us? How does pride manifest itself in our lives?

Transition: In our text this morning, Christ deals with pride in our lives. He deals with the subject of glory seeking. How is it that we as Christians seek our own glory and how do we really “give glory to God?”

Let us look to the text.
1. Note that Christ is no longer able to preach (yea, even walk) in Judea! After these things – denotes Jn. 5:18 – the Jews were seeking to kill Him. He has become popular with many people and very unpopular with others. Realize, as you seek to serve Christ more fully, you will face more and more trouble. Some people love to see a person that is following Christ – however, most don’t. Is it not amazing that you do not even have to SAY anything and people will still work you over? You just try to live for God – just for yourself, you may or may not try to get others to follow that – and people will still work you over, poke fun, or even actively try to make you doubt your faith.
2. The Feast of Tabernacles (also known as the “Feast of Boots) was celebrated in the autumn “on the fifteenth day of the seventh month” (Lev 23:34), which would compare roughly to the second week of October in our calendar. It began five days after the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and lasted eight days (Lev 23:33-36; Deut 16:13-17). This feast stood pre-eminent among the Jewish festivals. Josephus says that it “was the holiest and greatest of their feasts.” Occurring at the vintage season, after the crops were garnered, it was a season of thanksgiving. Each family constructed its own temporary shelter of branches to live in for the period of the feast. This typified the years of wandering in the desert before the people entered the Promised Land. The feast was joyful in character and was a time of thanksgiving for the harvest that marked the transition from nomadic poverty to stable affluence in their own land. It was one of the three annual feasts at which attendance was required of all Jewish men (Deut 16:16).
3. Note verse 5: Jesus’ brother’s did not believe in Him. Why do you think that is? Perhaps, it is simply because they knew where Jesus came from. (The brother’s perspective) I mean really, Jesus had always been a little weird right? He was such a killjoy! He would never lie to Mom when you needed Him to. Now, this brother of theirs not only had been Mom’s favorite growing up (gets away with murder at the house), but now He is becoming an household name. So their suggestion might have been twofold:
a) The are sarcastically challenging Christ to prove himself. After all, if was indeed all that He said He was – surely, He would have a great opportunity to demonstrate this an gain many followers.
b) Or perhaps, they were just hanging on to His coattails. After all, you can get some serious hook-ups if you are family to the prophet.
4. Jesus asserted that he did not belong to this world. The world regarded him as an alien and an antagonist because he condemned its evil works. Jesus states that He does not live by a earthly calendar but a divine one. He is on a mission and though others do not understand His mission, he must pursue it. By the way, when you are following God, you have to work by His calendar not your own. I have spent so much of my life trying to make ministry happen, all I needed to do was rest in God, He put me where I needed to be. Listen soldiers, work on God’s calendar.
5. Now, understand the teaching in Verses 17-18
a) 17 - . If any man will do his will he shall know the doctrine. Literally, “If any man wills to do his will,” etc. A willing obedience to the will of God is essential to knowledge where Christ is a divine teacher. This does not promise that he who seeks to obey the will of God shall be able to solve every difficulty of theology, but it does promise that he will be able to know whether Christ taught divine truth and is therefore the Savior of mankind. In other words, the purpose to do God’s will so clears the spiritual insight that the soul will be able to recognize the nature and mission of Christ. If this be true, unbelief originates in an indisposition to do the will of God. The honest soul, eager to do God’s will, will recognize Christ as a divine teacher. The experience of humanity confirms this declaration! I have never heard of one who devoutly sought to know and do the will of God who remained in unbelief. As far as my observation has gone skeptics have been more anxious to follow their own will than the will of God. The antidote to unbelief is for the heart to say, not my will but thine be done. Indeed, the conscience is not right before God until there is a determination to do his will. Until that point is reached there is not “the good and honest heart” in which the seed of the word can germinate. In these words the Savior points out to the Jews the spiritual difficulty in the way of their understanding his claims. They were not willing, in spite of all their religious pretensions, to do the will of God. It goes back to the Prayer of Christ in Matthew 6 – Thy will be done in earth as it is in Heaven. – There must be a submission to doing God’s will as revealed in Scripture. So often, we are confused by theology that we have not taken the time to study out and angry that God seems distant, but it is us that have walked away.
b) 18 – The text from which the title is derived – Seeking Glory. Why is it that mankind is so consumed with seeking our own glory?
• Seeketh his own glory. His own praise, or seeks for reputation and applause. This is the case with mere human teachers, and as Jesus in his discourses manifestly sought to honour God, they ought to have supposed that he was sent by him.
• No unrighteousness. This word here means, evidently, there is no falsehood, no deception in him. He is not an impostor. It is used in the same sense in 2 Thess. 2:10-12. It is true that there was no unrighteousness, no sin in Jesus Christ, but that is not the truth taught here. It is that he was not an impostor, and the evidence of this was that he sought not his own glory, but the honour of God. This evidence was furnished,
1st. In his retiring, unobtrusive disposition; in his not seeking the applause of men.
2nd. In his teaching such doctrines as tended to exalt God and humble man.
3rd. In his ascribing all glory and praise to God.

Pride is a cancer that would destroy any of us. In a combat environment, hurt pride can get people killed. Every leader must have the humility to know that if he is wrong about something, to own up to it and choose the right way. Every leader in here, from PFC on up has to understand that you must be servant leaders. In other words, you have to lead while keeping the needs of those under you at the forefront of the decisions you make. The higher you go in rank, the more this becomes necessary. The attitude of, “hey, its all about me and mine” has no place in this environment. The attitude must be, “what is the mission and how can we work together to accomplish it?” What is heartbreaking is when this spirit overflows into the Kingdom of God. The only way to avoid this is to stay focused on Christ and doing His will. We are often so quick to criticize and tear down others, while lifting ourselves up – Jesus said, If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.” Its not our jobs to draw people – it is our job to lift up Christ!!! In the lifting up of Christ, He will do the rest, He will heal, He will redeem, He will quicken the heart of man to himself. It is our job to lift Him up!!

So, how do we avoid falling into the trap of self-glory and pride?
1. Know where you come from. Note how Jesus notes his origins. John 7.28-29 (NKJV) ¶ Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, “You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me.” And yet, we still accept the grace that Christ died to give us and use it to judge others. We use it to condemn others. We take the power of Christ’s name and abuse it to get what we want. God does not call us to do that – He is the judge of all humanity, He does not need us to do His job – He calls us to lift up Christ!!
The strength we need comes of God.
You recall the Pharisees in the street corner – why did they pray? To be heard of men, what was their reward? They were heard of men! They got their reward. However, those who lift up Christ, they sometimes are ridiculed and mocked, but what it their reward – “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!”
If we understand where our faith comes from, we will not lose site of the teachings of Christ.
2. Know that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
James 4.10 (NKJV) Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
2Chr. 7.14 (NKJV) if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Prov. 11.2 (NKJV) When pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.
All that we are comes of God. All the we have is of His mercy. Jeremiah tells us it is the mercy of God that we are not consumed in a moment. Knowing this needs to humble us. The psalmist spoke of this in Psalm 8 when he saw God’s creation, saw the love of God expressed through the works of His fingers, what in Man – that perfect God would desire fellowship with him? What is man that perfect God would leave all that He created just to save an ungrateful, sinful man that spent his time actively working against what Christ would do? Ponder that statement.
3. Remember, if you seek to lift up Christ, you can’t go wrong. As soon as you leave the work of lifting up Christ, you fall prey to pride and all the traps that lie therein. Serve others. Its that simple. Its is easy for us as soldiers to think that because we are here away from our families, that its time for us to get selfish and others need to do things for us. My friends, we owe it to both past and future generations to serve our country. It is, as Romans puts it, “our reasonable service.” Humility comes with serving. Serving comes with thanks. Thanks comes from a heart that sees all the God has done for me and knows that without Him, I am nothing.

Conclusion – as you go this week, go in the knowledge of God’s work done in your life. Go in the grace that God has given you. Go in the humility that comes of serving others. There is no greater picture of Christ’s love than someone who is willing to be a servant of others. Go and serve!!!