Friday, May 24, 2019

2019.05.24 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 12:42-50

Questions for Littles: Many of whom believed in Jesus (John 12:42)? Why didn’t they confess Him—of whom and what were they afraid? Why, really, didn’t they confess Him—what did they love more than what (John 12:43)? Who cries out in John 12:44? Whom do we believe in, when we believe in Jesus? Whom do we see, when we see Jesus (John 12:45)? Without Jesus as our light to show us the Father, in what would we abide (John 12:46)? What does Jesus not personally do during His time in the world (John 12:47)? What will judge them (John 12:48)? On what day? And Who will be the judge then? Whose Word do we hear, when we hear Jesus (John 12:49)? What do these words give (John 12:50)?
Believers grieve over our slowness and coldness to serve Christ and identify with Him. So, let us learn to beware the praise of men! This is what kept even those who believed from confessing Christ.

The biggest difficulty in preferring God’s praise over man’s is that we see men all the time, but we cannot lay our eyes upon God. Even those who had seen Jesus, heard Jesus, and believed Jesus in our passage… they cared more about what those Pharisees thought—Pharisees whom they would see all the time on the street, and by whom they couldn’t stand to be shunned.

So, Jesus cries out and says that He has come to even out the problem of perceiving men but not perceiving God. Believing in Christ is the way to believe in God. Seeing Christ is the way to see God. Hearing Christ is the way to hear God.

This is our one opportunity before we arrive at the judgment. We don’t deserve an opportunity. Without Christ, we’re in darkness. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can see or know about God. Like a beautiful painting in a pitch black room, we just have no capacity for seeing Him. But He tells us in John 12:46 that He has come as a light in the world.

Now, here’s the question: how can you see Jesus? How can you have Him as your light? Look carefully at verse 46 again. “I have come as a Light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And what does He use to give this faith? Look at John 12:47, “if anyone hears My words and does not believe…”

It is the hearing that is appointed to trigger faith. It is the faith by which we have light. Just as Romans 10 says, “How can they believe Him whom they have not heard? … Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”

One chance before the judgment. Pray God to give you faith through the hearing of the Word, and put yourself as often as you can under the preaching of that Word!
What opportunities do you have to hear preaching? How do you need God to use them?
Suggested songs: ARP19B “The Lord’s Most Perfect Law” or TPH172 “Speak, O Lord”

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