If you want to begin turning in your Bibles, we're going to be reading once again from the Gospel of John chapter seven, and we'll be picking up where we left off the last time we were in this book some few weeks ago in verse 25. The Bible is full of examples where people were confronted with the Gospel. confronted with Christ himself. And their subsequent reactions and responses to that confrontation are recorded for us in the Bible. In many ways, this is what happens every time that we open the Bible, every time that we listen to a sermon, Every time that we attempt to pray, every time I hope that we try to gather together as a church, there is a confrontation that happens, I hope. A confronting, a confronting of us with God, a confrontation with us and His word. Our passage today that we're gonna read from is one such example. And in these examples, this one that we'll read today and others in scripture, we discover certain truths about how people do react and respond to the confrontation with Christ and with the gospel. Very similar ways. There's a pattern that one can't help but to see. As again and again and again in scripture, we see men and women a young man at one point coming to Jesus asking what he must do to be saved, a woman with an issue of blood who came and had sought healing from all others and is confronted with Christ. And over and over in scripture, we are just again and again confronted with the way that men and women respond to Christ. And it is my hope today to confront you with the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is my intention. There's no hidden agendas and there's no mystery to what I hope to accomplish here today in our time together. It is to confront you with Christ. To place Him before you. Because He is the most important person in your life. No matter who you are, no matter what your current relationship with Him is, Jesus Christ is the most important person who has ever lived and who ever will live. All of history either points forward to that day when Jesus Christ died on the cross, or it looks back to that day. But make no mistake about it, all of history looks to that day when the Son of God, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, was nailed to a cross and died there for all men who would come and believe in His name and place their trust in Him. This is a confrontation, though, and it's one that we read about again and again in the Bible. My desire is not merely to provide you with a history lesson about Christ, as beneficial as that might be. Instead, my desire is to show you from the scripture the way people have responded to Christ and His message, and particularly today, the stumbling blocks that are often in people's way to coming to Him. And so our message title today is The Stumbling Blocks to Belief. The Stumbling Blocks to Belief. Let's read together John chapter 7 verse 25. I had originally intended to speak through verse 39. We'll not get anywhere close to that today. It's not the direction that the Lord continued to move. We're just going to look down through the 31st verse. And we know, forgive me for pausing once again, we know the setting. I hope we keep these things in mind. The Feast of Booths. Jesus is in Jerusalem. The Jews are seeking already to kill him and have been. He's been in Galilee for the better part of six months to a year, ministering to the people there. He comes back to Jerusalem at this feast, and it's this eight-day feast bookended by Sabbath days from Saturday to Saturday. It's towards the end of the week. Jesus is now speaking and teaching in the temple, and people are confused. and people are being confronted with Christ, and that is the setting. And I hope that's the setting here today. I hope you are confronted with Christ, that you do not dismiss that confrontation, but that you deal with that confrontation. Lost and saved alike, by the way. All of us. Many times Jesus confronted his own people and his own disciples. And here we read of another confrontation, and actually a continuation of the confrontation that had already begun, but something of a different sort. In the earlier passages, the earlier verses, Jesus was speaking apparently primarily to visitors to Jerusalem. people from the dispersion, people from other areas, from Galilee and Samaria, and visitors to Jerusalem. And now the conversation seems to be had with people in Jerusalem, because it specifically calls out that fact. Some of the people, verse 25, of Jerusalem, therefore said, is not this the man whom they seek to kill? Speaking, of course, of the Pharisees and the rulers. And here He is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to Him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from. So Jesus proclaimed, as He taught in the temple, You know Me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, When the Christ appears, Will he do more signs than this man has done? Stumbling blocks to belief. There are four of them here, I see. And I wonder what yours is, or mine even. I believe firmly and without reservation that God holds those who he has saved eternally secure. What he has done, Paul tells us in Philippians, God will finish and complete. And I look forward to the day when I am separated from the sinful nature of my flesh and my carnal mind and my carnal heart is forever done away with and never again to be to vex me and vex my soul and come between me and God. But in the meantime, there remain stumbling blocks in our life, stumbling blocks to belief and to greater belief in God. And I wonder what yours is. I wonder if it's in this passage, one of these stumbling blocks that we're going to look at today. What is it that's between you and God? I think here, right away, the first stumbling block we see is a stumbling block of incorrect expectations of Christ. Incorrect expectations. Having in your mind already an idea of who Jesus is, how he works, what his methods are, all about him, to think for a moment that you know all that he knows and that you know all that he will do. this stumbling block of incorrect expectations. Jesus was not what people were expecting the Messiah to be. He just wasn't. Even though they were told in the Old Testament, we were told, men were told, humanity was told by the prophets in the Old Testament. And in the one place in particular, when we are told by Isaiah that there was going to be no beauty, no form about him, nothing outwardly that was going to suggest to us and to our natural eyes that he was something different than any other man. And yet men in the time when Jesus came had all sorts. of incorrect expectations about Christ. Jesus' life did not look at all like what people were expecting it to look like. Not even close. The Son of God coming into the world and being born in a manger, in a stable at an inn. The majesty of the Son of God, the eternal Word of God. announced to some shepherds on a hillside by some angels, rather than being trumpeted and paraded through the streets of the capital of Jerusalem, known outside of the gates. His life looked nothing like what people expected his life to look like, from his birth to his death, and every day in between. Jesus life did not look like what people were expecting it to look like. And I wonder today how much of Jesus my own expectations are off and incorrect. They were expecting the Messiah to come suddenly. And that, by the way, is what verse 27 is talking about, when they said, we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. Right there is a false expectation of Christ. It was a misunderstanding of scripture in Malachi chapter three, verse one, is where this comes from. In the mind of the Jew, when they expected the Messiah to come, their expectation was that He would appear suddenly, and that in some ways even the Messiah Himself would not know this was a common idea of the day. If he himself would not know that he was the Messiah in Malachi 3.1, this is where this misunderstanding, this incorrect expectation comes from. It says, Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The general interpretation of this verse among the Jewish leaders and the scribes and the Pharisees of the day was that the Messiah would come suddenly with little announcement. This is what the Jews, again, in verse 27, were talking about their misunderstanding. They're looking at Jesus and they're saying He did not meet their expectations of who He was and how He would appear. And therefore, because of that, He must not be the Messiah. What an incredible thought that is to me. to think that man in our own expectations miss God right in front of us because our expectations are in the wrong place. They were not only expecting Him to come suddenly, they were expecting the Messiah to come and deliver them from the Roman occupation, reestablish the earthly independence of the nation of Israel, and set up His kingdom in the world. They were expecting the Messiah to be utterly recognizable in the mind of the Jew. It was simply unthinkable to think that there would be any confusion about who the Messiah was. And we know that these incorrect expectations of Jesus contributed greatly to their missing Him entirely. Some Jews became believers in Jesus, but most didn't. And much of that difficulty that they struggled with was that their own expectations were incorrect. There's something of a sobering irony in this, by the way. I don't know if you saw it. The Jews' expectation of Jesus' first coming is exactly how His second coming is going to be. They misunderstood and did not understand the Old Testament prophets. They were expecting His first coming into the world to be what His second coming into the world will be. He will come quickly and without warning the second time. We know this to be true. Jesus Himself said it in Matthew 24, Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. He will set up His kingdom that will never fall when He returns again. In Luke 1, verses 32 and 33, the angel Gabriel speaking to Mary, He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of His kingdom there shall be no end. The Jews were expecting His first coming to come where He would come and triumph over all of His enemies, and every knee would bow to Him there, and every tongue would confess to Him there. But that is what happens when Jesus comes again. Romans 14, 11, for it is written, speaking of the prophets, it is written, Paul says, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. Absolutely everyone. yours and mine, the heretic, the atheist, the agnostic, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the disinterested, the deceived Christian, all are going to bow to Him and speak that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The Israelites were looking to Jesus' first coming in such a way as His second coming is going to be. But I want to bring this to you and to me. Your expectations of and about God could very well be your biggest stumbling block to finding Him. your own expectations if they are not based on the word of God and based instead upon this culture, this society, this ungodly world that we live in, this long seemingly forgotten scripture. If your expectations are based somewhere outside of the word of God, about God, I can tell you with almost certainty that your expectations are wrong. And if they're wrong and you're expecting a certain thing, you often will miss it when it shows up. Religious training is a good thing. It is a good thing. Training children with the Word of God and teaching them the Bible is a good and necessary thing. Not only that, it is a commandment of God. We're called to do it. We must do it if we are to be obedient to God. But the gravity of that responsibility ought to grab a hold of our hearts in such a way that we would never become prideful about doing so, but burdened and crushed and humble at the responsibility that it gives to us because of the danger setting people's expectations in the wrong place. We must ever be careful about that. This danger lies in setting incorrect expectation in the minds and the heart of people about the nature of God. Who is He? What has He done? What does He expect of me and you? How does He work in the world? What does He desire? What pleases Him? What displeases Him? What does His nature as a Trinity mean for man? What does it mean about Him and about me? Why did Jesus die on the cross? On and on and on and on it goes. where we must be teaching our children and ourselves and one another and the world about God and about His Word and our commitment to this scripture must be full and steadfast, because if we depart from this Word and begin to set people's expectations of God apart from this Word, we're going to set those expectations in the wrong place. And just like Israel, God may himself show up and they may miss him because the expectations are so set that they don't see him and they don't hear him and they don't feel him. This is exactly what was happening as I see it with the Jews in Jerusalem. Try as we might. We must ever and always be diligent about teaching this word, but try as we might, we will fail. because we are fallen. And that's why all of our teaching, all of our instruction, all of our preaching, all of our exhortation and encouragement to our children, to our friends, to our loved ones, to our coworkers is you go to this word and you read it and you pray and you go to God. I pray and I hope that my interpretation is right. But you must know for yourself. What God has said, The greatest defense against the setting of wrong expectations is to flavor all of our teaching, all of our encouragement with a humility. And we must always check our own ideas next to this Word of God. But I think you and I would likely be very surprised and sobered, I hope, If we were to lay all our ideas and expectations of God next to what God's Word says, I believe we would find that some of our expectations are off. Not quite right. But the greatest damage that is done to any church is done when the Bible is no longer the arbiter of who God is. No longer the decider. of what we are to think and to believe and to feel. What happened to these Jews can and has happened to many others who use even the Christian name but know little, if anything, about Christ himself. Incorrect expectations are stumbling blocks yet today when it comes to salvation in Christ. Many have the false expectation that salvation is a religious work Get baptized. Repeat words of scripture. Repeat a prayer. Go through some membership classes. Decide to reform your life. Commit to living better. Decide that you're going to be a good person. Decide that you're no longer going to be guilty of some sin that is vexing your life and causing you burden and pain. All of these things are works and it's a false expectation of what salvation is. Salvation is not a work. Salvation is the gift of God in Christ Jesus, who extends his mercy and his grace to all who will come to him in belief and trust. Other false expectations that many have even under the umbrella of Christianity today. Salvation in Christ comes through a particular kind of preacher or church or service. Salvation in Christ depends upon the man somehow and not Christ. Salvation brings earthly peace and prosperity. That's a terrible stumbling block to true belief today. Men are lining their pockets and filling their airports with their jets, speaking an expectation of Christ that does not exist in Scripture. And even among those who have come to know God through Christ, our incorrect expectations can create a lot of unnecessary stress and confusion. In a reversal of expectations similar to how the Jews looked for Christ's first coming, Christians, you and I, can sometimes be under the incorrect expectation that our life here on earth is supposed to look just like our life is going to be in heaven. Sometimes I think we forget that reality. We think, and some people even peddle this kind of a gospel, that come, give your life to Christ, become a member of this church, give your tithes and your offerings, and God is going to bless you. You give this ministry 10%, God is going to respond to you and give you 100% 10 times over what you've given. This is not the expectation that one should have of the Christian life. We are not at home yet. I'm not. I hope I'm not. I'm looking for a city whose builder and maker is God, like Abraham was, and I'm stumbling on the way as I go, but I'm going to find it and I've not found it yet. I found an interest of it. I found a promise of it. I know one day I'm going to find it because of the mercy and the grace of God, but I'm not there yet. The promise of life in heaven reads like this in Revelation chapter 21. John says, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor sin anymore, for the former things have passed away. That is a wonderful blessing and promise that is in front of all of those who believe God. But brethren, we're not there yet. This is what we are promised in heaven. It's not what we're promised here. This is not what God said about life here. Let me tell you what He said about life here. The promise of life for the believer here on earth is this, according to Jesus Himself, later in this very book, John chapter 16, verse 33, I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I've overcome the world. He just said we're going to have tribulation. My eternal home in heaven is where my peace and joy and never again will there be a tear in my eye and a broken heart over sin, my own and that of others, or separation from those that I love, when those will ever and forever be done away with. That is my promise in heaven. It is not my promise here. We are told that we will have tribulation here. Paul tells Timothy this in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12. Very well known scripture indeed. He starts out with that word, indeed, without a doubt, certainly, it's unavoidable. He says, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Will be. That's the promise of this life, and yet it is also a promise in this life that Jesus said He will always be with us, although He'll ever be with us, even to the end of the age. That even in the midst of our struggles, as James teaches so clearly, we can count those trials as more precious than gold, because why? It draws us closer to our God. and to Christ who has given His all so that we might come to know Him. And our light affliction here, as Paul says, becomes nothing except this, an opportunity to glorify the Son of God. But sometimes people get the wrong expectation about Christ and about God. And that false expectation or that incorrect expectation leads them down a road that does not meet Him. because Jesus will not be manipulated. This is one of the greatest dangerous, I believe, to religion itself. And I'm not against religion. I know I speak in ways sometimes that make it sound that way. God has given us tasks. He's given us things to do. He's given us his church. It's not religion. It's religion that is misguided. But so much of the time, the greatest danger in religion itself can be the idea that we can manipulate God. Mary tried it at the wedding in Cana. Jesus' own brothers tried it here when they told him, go to the Feast of Booths and announce yourself. The crowd that desired to make him a king, they tried to manipulate him based on their own expectations. Even the Jews here are a demonstration that Jesus will not be manipulated. They wanted to take him and kill him now, but as it says, no one laid a hand on him because it wasn't his time. This was not in the control of man. It was always in the control of God. And perhaps that's one of the greatest misunderstandings and false expectations that men have, is that it's up to us instead of God. When we develop incorrect expectations of God, if those expectations are not corrected by the word of God through prayer, through godly counsel, it won't be long before we attempt to manipulate him into doing what we expect him to do, but we'll be unsuccessful. Examine your own heart this morning. In what ways might you be attempting to manipulate God based on incorrect expectations that you're harboring in your heart? We also see here the stumbling block of ungodly leadership. The hold that the Pharisees and the scribes and the leaders of the people of the day had on the minds and the hearts of the people of Israel was significant, and it was a significant obstacle to anyone who would follow Christ. We read that just recently in verses 12 and 13 of John chapter 7. There was much muttering about him among the people, about Jesus. While some said he's a good man, others said, no, he is leading the people astray. Yet for fear of the Jews, no one spoke openly of him. One of the darkest marks on the history of Israel and the history, frankly, of the church is the mark left by leaders who, through intimidation and the misuse of their authority, have led people away from God rather than toward God. The pages of Scripture and the pages of history is littered with many examples of this happening. The leaders of the people, intimidating and having God to fit again their own expectations, then presumed that upon others. At this specific time, the people of Jerusalem were aware of the plot to kill Jesus. And I want you to hold with me for a little while as you look at this. At this time, people knew these were people in Jerusalem. They knew of the plot that the leaders had to kill Jesus. They were aware of it by their own admission. Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? Yet they find him publicly and unapologetically and without any reservation, teaching the people and the people look at him and they say, is not this the one whom our leaders are trying to kill? And here he is speaking openly and they do nothing. They don't lay a hand on him. They don't do anything. This lack of response by the leaders of the Jews added to the people's confusion on this day. Verses 25 and 26, some of the people of the Jerusalem said, therefore, is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? It is as though the people are saying, If Jesus is the Messiah, if he is who he is claiming to be, then our leaders should say so openly. But if he is not the Messiah, if he is not the son of God, if he is not the savior, if he is not the king we are expecting, then he should be treated as a blasphemer. But one of these two things should happen. Should it not? That's in their minds. If He's not the Christ, He should be treated as so. Can you not hear in their voices the confusion created by the lack of action on the part of their leaders? The halting and the hesitation of their leaders opened the door to greater uncertainty on the part of the people. And certainly there must have been some among the leaders of Israel, certainly Nicodemus seems to be one, who saw in Jesus at least something of the fulfillment of prophecy. The undeniable power of His presence, the unexplainable works He performed, and yet here they are, making no public declaration about Christ. Because by allowing Him to speak, They halt and they hesitate and they're halting between these two opinions. Is he Christ or is he not? And I wonder for you today, is that question going on in your mind and in your heart? Is he Christ or is he not? Is this true or is it not? And sometimes the leaders of the people, the people that you perhaps and I maybe even look to, sometimes they hesitate. That's what's happening here. This is the scene. These Israelites, these Jerusalemites, even these from Jerusalem, looking on this scene and saying, our leaders want to kill this man because they say he's a blasphemer. Well, here he is. And they do nothing. There's a great lesson here for all of us, certainly for preachers. Certainly for anyone who would exercise any influence over someone else for the cause of Christ, there's a great lesson here. One who would lead people to Christ ought themselves to follow him with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. To follow him unhesitatingly to the place that he calls them to. Because to follow Christ hesitatingly is to place a stumbling block in front of the very people we would like to reach. Pastors take note. Parents take notes. Friends take notes. Mothers and fathers, grandfathers, fathers and grandmothers, all employers, friends, all who are in a position of influence and leadership over others, do not halt in your obedience in your own life. As these people looked upon this scene, seeing those who they trusted in at least some respect, to know whether or not this person Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, and their inaction, and their halting, and their hesitation, led in them doubt and uncertainty. In many instances, the best thing we can do to encourage others to seek God is to model what seeking God looks like in life. You teach them and tell them and do all kinds of things to explain to them the word of God as we should. but to model through our own lives our love for God, our trust of God, our obedience to God, our joy and hope in God, our love for His word and our contentment with His provision and His presence in our lives. Do not hedge your words or your life when it comes to Christ. Don't hedge it through a doubt of God. Why should an unbeliever begin believing if the believer himself or herself does not appear to believe? How can one even be distinguished from another if this is the case? Hang with me for a few more moments because this does not remove us individually from our own responsibility to respond to God as we will see. But for those of us who are in a position to witness to Christ, may that witness be without hesitation. That well-known story of David Hume, the philosopher of the 18th century, well-known atheist, or certainly deist at least, traveled 20 miles to hear George Whitefield. And you've heard this story before. He comes around a corner in London. He bumps into a man, and the man says, aren't you David Hume? Everybody knew who David Hume was, this philosopher who said God was not interested. If there was a God, he did not partake in the world. deism would proclaim. And this man bumps into him, aren't you David Hume? And David says, yes, I am. And he says, well, what gets you into London at this early hour? I believe it was some five o'clock in the morning. And he says, I am going to hear George Whitefield preach. And the man who ran into David Hume says, why are you doing that? You don't believe anything that George Whitefield preaches. And David Hume famously says, no, but he does. He believes it. Is that how people describe you? I don't necessarily believe what that one does, but they believe it. There's no doubt. There's no question. Look at their life. Examine their heart. Look at their treasures. Look at all that they do, how they spend their time and their money and their, what are their hopes and what are their dreams? How do they make their decisions? I don't believe it, but they do. Wouldn't that be wonderful if that's how people described us? Don't show a hesitancy to act and obey God in your life. Don't show a hesitancy to obey God in your life. Once you have determined His will, and you know it to be His will, and you have tried the spirits, and you have checked your own hearts, your own mind, you've checked your pride, you've checked your own will, and all these things that we've said, and you know God wants you to carry through with something He's called you to do, I beg you, do not hesitate, do not halt, do not wait. Obey Him. Your obedience may be the very thing that those in the crowd need to see. Wouldn't it have been wonderful if one of those leaders of Israel would have said, yes, this is the Christ. He is the one who has come. He is the Savior of the world. That's not what happened. Their leaders stood by, hesitant, quiet, without a word. Don't show hesitancy to obey God. And if you don't believe God, that don't pretend that you do. That may sound harsh. If you don't believe God, don't pretend that you do. Jesus knows the danger of a lukewarm heart better than anyone, and this is how He speaks of it. To the Laodicean church, chapter 3 of Revelation, I know your works. You're either cold or hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. Because you're lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Similar pictures given in the Old Testament with Elijah, right? Standing before the 400 prophets of Baal. Elijah comes to them and says, look, if God's God, serve him. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. People did not answer him a word. Terrible damage is done by those who claim a closeness to Christ, but through their words, actions, and treasures, they demonstrate instead a closeness to the world. Their clear and obvious hesitation to commit fully to God creates a question mark in the minds and the hearts of an unbelieving world. That is the question. That question that they ask is if the Christian himself does not really believe, then why should I? Do the difficult work this morning, I'm asking you. Do the difficult work this morning of examining your heart before God. What areas of your life are you halting? Are you hesitating in? What are you holding back? What is it? If you don't know what it is, but you don't feel the closest to God like you would like, or maybe you have in days and years gone by, then bow upon your knees and say, God, what is it in my life that I'm hesitating about with regard to belief in what you've said? What am I holding back from you? What have I not given you, God, that you're asking me to give to you? The answers to those questions are the very stumbling blocks that perhaps you're setting up in your own life. So what is it? The last two will be much shorter. The stumbling block of hesitating an incomplete belief. John 7 31 in our scripture lesson, yet many of the people believed him, it says. Many of the people believed in him. They said, when the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? Some view this verse as representative of the fact that these people got saved. I don't see it that way. I don't believe this was belief to salvation. I believe Jesus' words when he told them, you don't know God. There's plenty of evidence for that. In my opinion, based on everything we've read in John up to this point, not to mention what we read throughout the New Testament, this was very likely not the case that they were saved. Remember the times we've come across already in the Gospel of John, where belief alone, without trust, was not enough. In several instances, we've been told clearly that there were people who, quote, believed but did not truly believe those who would make Jesus king. Remember them? Jesus says to them, he didn't entrust himself to them. In chapter two of John, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. And by the way, isn't that what these people in chapter seven said? Must be the Christ. Nobody could do those signs. When they saw the signs he was doing, they believed. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Listen, Jesus will not entrust himself to you until you entrust yourself to him. He will not be manipulated and he will not be your safety net. He will not be that one that you call on in your deepest, darkest needs of life, but never throughout the rest of it. Here in John 7, the belief of the Jerusalemites is clearly tied to Jesus' signs. It does not appear to me to be belief in the person of Christ as God's Son and their Savior. It is a belief in the signs and their conclusion that Jesus then must be the Messiah because of them. Their belief almost sounds like we have to believe because we can't explain what He's doing in any other way. We have seen His works and believe Him because logically we can come to no other conclusion but this. But this is not belief in Christ to salvation. Belief in Christ is not a resigned belief because there's no other path that seems available. Belief in Christ is not merely the resignation or surrender of the mind because there's no clear alternative possibility. While I enjoy reading and studying and hearing men who have provided all sorts of evidence for the Christian faith, I believe they've done good work in that to at least cause some doubt and question in the mind of the agnostic and the atheist and the philosopher of the day. They have done good works. I love to read about those evidences. I love to read the many evidences of God and creation. and history and sociology and biology and mathematics and government and all fields of knowledge find their end in God. And I love the evidence that is there for that. But I tell you this today, belief in Christ is not just a resolution because of some logical, rational, reasoned argument that a man might make. And that's what these people had done. He must be the Christ. Look at the signs. Do you know what's missing there? He must be Christ. I must repent. He's the Son of God, and I am a broken sinner. You can come to this logical conclusion of Christ and still miss Him. Belief in Christ is a whole-hearted, full-throated obedience to Christ in clear view of all the other available paths that men have created. In clear view of the self-defeating Buddhist argument to desire to find nirvana, which by the way, the word even means emptiness, to find emptiness and find peace is to get rid of all wants and desires in life, because it's the wants and desires of life, according to the Buddhists, where we get disappointed and disillusioned. And so their answer is this, we should desire to empty ourselves of all desire, never minding the fact that that is a desire itself. It's not the answer. Buddhist, Islam, Hinduism, all of these things. Belief in Christ is belief in Him in light, in full view of all the other possibilities. It is a purposeful stepping onto the narrow way and off of the broad way. which has choice after choice after choice. You can choose to walk the broad way in this life because you prefer that path, but I tell you what Jesus said, that broad way ends in destruction. It ends in heartbreak and brokenness and separation from God, where there's an eternal, unspannable gulf that will be fixed for all of eternity. And Christ is there proclaiming, come to me. And I will give you rest. I will speak peace to your hearts. Belief in Christ is a conviction that speaks like the three Hebrew children when they stand before the most powerful man on the face of the earth, Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar says, I told you to bow down and to worship me, and you will not do it. If you don't do it the next time, I'm throwing you into the fire. And they said to him, whatever may be, God may deliver us. He may not. We will not bow to you. Where are the young people today who will stand and say, no, I will not bow to the silly empty promises of this culture that I'm living in. I will not bow to the empty promises and the lies that I'm being told again and again and again. Where are the young parents who are telling their children that God is true, man is a liar, and he's the only hope for all of eternity to stand up and say, I will not go unbeholdingly through my life for Christ. But I will stand and say, He is my God. He is my King. I don't care what the world may do to me. You may throw me into the fire. God may deliver me. He may not. But He's God either way. That's what God wants us to be. Unhesitating. Unhalting. Is your trust in Jesus like that? Or does it sound more like what these Jerusalemites said? Well, look at the signs. He must be the Messiah. How empty. Because what if when God in his sovereignty and his wisdom says, I'm not going to perform a sign, is your faith going to go away? Or will you be like Job? Though he slay me, yet will I trust him. Is Jesus your only trust? Or is your faith in Him more like a just-in-case faith? The belief of these people, in my opinion, it seems to me to be more along the lines of an inability to set aside the miracles than it is a belief in the person of Jesus Christ. We know that there'll be people on the last day who are going to speak much like this. We know this. I won't take the time to read it. Matthew 7, we've talked about it many times. Jesus, didn't we do wonderful things in your name? Weren't we religious? Weren't we Christian? Didn't we cast out demons? We believed in you, Jesus, because there was really no other place for us to go, but they didn't believe to the saving of their soul, their hesitant belief. Belief that is not accompanied by trust in Christ alone is not biblical saving faith. Trust in one's own religious dedication. Trust in one's logical deductions that God must exist. Trust in one's own determination that the Bible is true. These things apart from trust in Christ are stumbling blocks to true faith. What are the stumbling blocks of hesitation in your life? Finally, the stumbling block of open denial. open denial, perhaps the most serious and concerning of all. The fact that we are told that some believed tells us, of course, then that others didn't. There doesn't appear to be much hesitation among those that didn't. We don't hear from them. Maybe there was. They've they've weighed the evidence about Christ and they found him wanting. I could not help but think of the fact that some days, years later, in the lives of these people, they were weighed by Jesus and found wanting. And we start to get a little bit of an insight into what Jesus perhaps meant when he said, the way you judge is how you'll be judged. What you judge and determine of God, the judgment you make of God, of Christ, will be the judgment Christ makes of you. We see in this that belief in Christ is an individual reality and responsibility. While I believe what I have said to this point regarding the stumbling blocks that even Christian people can place before others in their life, that does not remove the responsibility of the individual to respond to God when he deals with their hearts. These who rejected Jesus outright saw the same things, heard the same things, were near Christ just like all the others. And instead of even some modicum, some form of belief, they disbelieved. Same questions in their mind, same issues at hand, yet despite all of this, they rejected God. And they are accountable for that rejection. And might I say today, so are you. Romans 1 20, his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. A favorite weapon of Satan is to point out the failures and weaknesses of God's people and use those failures and weaknesses to to give a person a reason to reject. But hear me today, God is not great, He is not merciful, He is not holy, He is not righteous. Only when His people are, He is those things, because that's who He is. He's all those things even when His people are not. When His people stumble and fall and in their weakness place stumbling blocks even before them and others. Stop using the weakness of God's people as an excuse for your own unbelief. When you stand before Jesus on the day of judgment and you say to Him, God, Your people, they were hypocrites. They were cruel even at times. They argued with one another. They made mistakes. God, your people, they just made mistakes. I saw just hypocrisy in them and I just didn't come because of them. I'm going to tell you today, if not these words, you're going to hear something like this. That's why God will say, I told you to come to me, not them. That's why I'm called to you and I did call you again and again and again to me. Not them. And if you would have listened to them, you likely would have heard them say that. That we're not perfect. You find the perfect church, I've said it many times, be sure to point her out to me because I will never join her because I do not want to be responsible for taking a perfect church and making it imperfect. And that's exactly what I would do. Stop using the weakness of God's people as an excuse for your own unbelief. God is going to say to you, I never told you to look to them. I told you to look to me. I know their light flickered at times, and even at times might have looked like it went out entirely. I know that their decisions were not always the ones I wanted them to make. I know that that is true. But my light always shines bright and without any dimness about it. And it was always clear. And I told you who I was. I told you who you were. And you're accountable for that. While I pray and hope to avoid being a cause for unbelief in others, God will not give you a pass because you saw weakness in me. He won't. I look back on my life and I see so many times I could have done better. God, my head was so messed up, my heart was so distant from you, and I preached, and it was not with power, and it was not with hope, and it was not with joy, and I just, I shudder, God, at maybe placing a stumbling block in front of other people, and I fear that, perhaps, but that does not relinquish you of your responsibility to respond to God. God's gonna say, I didn't tell you to go to them. I told you to come to me. My commission was not going church, make other people just like you. My commission was to go and do what you can and preach the gospel and make them like me so that we can pick up at least some of those stumbling blocks and clear the road at least a little bit for unbelievers to come to me and find me. Which of these stumbling blocks might you be struggling to get past today? Incorrect expectations, ungodly leadership, hesitating and incomplete belief, or open denial? Only you can answer this question. My call to you is to overcome those stumbling blocks and come to Christ today. I pray you've been confronted with the gospel by the Holy Spirit through his word. Now you must respond. Forget your previously conceived expectations of God and how He works. Take your eyes off of all others, including those that you might look to for leadership. There is only so far that anyone can take you to God anyway. No one can take you there fully. You must take the final steps on your own, because it must be your faith that takes you to Christ. Don't settle for a resigned belief because you can see no other viable alternative to Christ. That is a cold, lifeless faith. Place your trust in Christ fully and find him the loving God that he is. Finally, if open denial is your particular stumbling block, I beg you to set down your weapons of rebellion against God. Stop using the failures of others to grant yourself permission to deny Christ. Let go of your disappointments in Christians so that you might enjoy the fulfillment and the joy of Christ. What's the stumbling block? May God remove them. And may God grant this today. Let's have song.