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Jan 22, 2023

John - The Stick (click for resources)

Passage: John 12:37-43

Speaker: Brad Owen

Series: John: Come and See

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: love, judge, judgmental

“Bringing the Wood” - God is love, as well as Judge. God's judgment is essential to His love. Do I see God’s judgment of me or others as loving? When I’m blind to my desperate need for judgment, I am blind to God’s love. So God “brings the wood.” Someone’s going to pay for all I’ve done, will do, didn’t do, and not just me, but billions of people and countless sins. Someone’s gonna pay for all the pain and suffering. God brought the wood, the nails, and the thorns. And He empowered the sinful voices and arms of man to swing the hammers and shed the blood until God was satisfied, until it was finished.

Theme: “Bringing the Wood” - God is love, as well as Judge.  God's judgment is essential to His love.  Do I see God’s judgment of me or others as loving?  When I’m blind to my desperate need for judgment, I am blind to God’s love.  So God “brings the wood.”  Someone’s going to pay for all I’ve done, will do, didn’t do, and not just me, but billions of people and countless sins. Someone’s gonna pay for all the pain and suffering.  God brought the wood, the nails, and the thorns.  And He empowered the sinful voices and arms of man to swing the hammers and shed the blood until God was satisfied, until it was finished.

 

SERMON DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

Read the passage together, and give some time for each person to interact with the text...circle things that stick out. In your opinion, what is ONE WORD that you think summarizes this passage?

 

Do you see God as more loving or more judgemental?

 

Does it seem like Love and Judge contradict one another?

    How can God be both judgemental AND loving?

 

Think about it this way: What if somebody did some real, deep damage to you and your family. Would it be loving if that person was caught but received no consequences at all?

 

    How would appropriate consequences be the most loving thing?



Pastor Timothy Keller explained this concept like this: If you go over to somebody’s house for dinner and accidentally break the chair you are sitting in, it is impossible for there not to be a “payment.” Either you will pay to repair it, they will pay to repair it, or they will “pay” by being without one of their chairs.

 

    How is this a parallel to sin and judgment?

    ...and Jesus on the cross?

 

It was fear of “human judgment” (and consequences) that kept “many authorities” from revealing that they believed in Jesus. How do we do that?

    WHY do we do that?

 

It boils down to where we find our “Glory” -- remember last week’s definition of glory:  “to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged”

 

What do you think about that definition?

 

    How were they (and we) trying to get their dignity/value from others?

 

CENTRAL PASSAGE: John 12:37-56 (he’ll likely focus on 37-43)

When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. 37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: 

“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 

40 “He has blinded their eyes
and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”

41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. 42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.