John 10:22-42,

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, 23 and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” 33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— 36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” 39 Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

40 He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. 41 And many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.

I want you to think, for a moment, about someone in your life who rejects Jesus. Why do they reject Jesus? 

I really want you to try and answer that question. What is it about him that drives them away?

Maybe the Christians they know have disappointed or even hurt them. Maybe they had a bad church experience somewhere along the way. Or they’re sinning in a relationship, and aren’t willing to stop. Or they had a child who came out as a homosexual, and they couldn’t accept what the Bible says about homosexuality. Or they look at all the suffering in the world — wars and poverty and cancer — and can’t conceive how there could be a God. Maybe they can’t stomach hell — eternal conscious torment.

I think that question is what our passage is about this morning: Why would anyone hate and reject Jesus? . . . And why would anyone love and follow him?

Three (Four) Responses to Jesus

As we’ve been walking through this Gospel, there are really only three responses to him. Some think he’s crazy. They seem to kind of pity him. We saw this two weeks ago, in the first half of chapter 10, verse 19:

“There was again a division among the Jews because of these words. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon, and is insane; why listen to him?’”

In other words, “This guy’s clearly nuts. Did you hear who he thinks he is? Why would you give him the time of day? Why listen to him?”

Others hate Jesus, and they do everything to stop him. They’re not content to stop listening, dismiss, and ignore him. They want to kill him. They actually try to beat him to death with rocks. That’s how angry and afraid they are. We’ll see this kind of hatred again in our passage this morning, but this isn’t the first time. Again and again, they tried to arrest him, silence him, and kill him. 

Some think he’s crazy. Others hate and attack him. A few leave and risk everything to have him. They weren’t just saying, “Yeah, you know what, I think he’s right about that. No, they were saying he’s worth losing everything.” I think about the man born blind in chapter 9. Jesus spits on the ground, makes some mud, rubs the man’s eyes — and he can see! The Pharisees are angry that he’d open someone’s eyes on the Sabbath (can’t do that), so they confront the man’s parents. Even his own parents are so afraid to be associated with Jesus, they say, “Go ask our son. He’s of age. He will speak for himself.” That’s how dangerous all of this was. The son they bore and raised and guided around his whole life because he couldn’t see — he can see, and they can see that he can see — and they don’t want to talk about it! So the Pharisees confront the son and ask him what happened. He tells them. And they say, “You were born in utter sin,” and they cast him out. That wasn’t like, you need to leave the room now. That was “You’re cut off from everything now.” You’re not welcome anymore — your identity, your relationships, your livelihood, you’re finished. Some think he’s crazy. Others hate and attack him. A few leave and risk everything to have him. I really might lose everything to follow this man — but if I have him, it’ll be worth it.

I’ll add a fourth response here that I don’t see anywhere in the Gospel but I see everywhere today: Many in our day hear Jesus and just scroll right by — no hatred, no confusion, no love, just cool disinterest. They don’t care enough to be curious or offended. They treat him like a guy would treat an ad for skin care, or like a girl would skip a YouTube video about how to fix the drive belt on a dryer. What do they hear when they meet Jesus? They hear “cottage cheese,” “real estate tax,” “math homework.” That’s how they feel about Jesus — the Son of God. I almost wish they hated him, at least then they’d be taking him seriously. 

Jews in the first century didn’t have this fourth option. They couldn’t scroll by this man. His works were too great to ignore:

• He turned water to wine.

• He healed an invalid.

• He healed the man blind from birth.

• He healed the official’s son from afar.

• He fed 5,000 people with one man’s leftovers.

• He walked on the sea.

• We’re about to see him raise the dead in the next chapter.

No, Jews at that time knew he was either the Messiah or an imposter. He was either everything they had ever wanted, for hundreds and thousands of years — or he threatened everything about them. They didn’t have a fourth option, and I want you to hear this morning: We don’t either. We might think we do, but we really don’t. His life and teaching demand a response: either pity, hostility, or worship. Those are still the options. Either he was a mentally ill babbler, or he was a lying egomaniac who’s ruined millions of lives, or he was the very Son of God. 

And some of us might say, “Well, of course, he’s the Son of God” here on Sunday morning, but then we treat him like a skincare product the rest of the week. What do you see when you meet Jesus? And why do you see what you see while so many hate what they see?

Why Does Anyone Hate Jesus?

That’s the main question this text is addressing: Why do so many hate Jesus when he finally comes?

We begin in verse 22:

At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. . . .”

The question might sound sincere: “Oh Jesus, are you the Christ we’ve been waiting for — Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace? Just tell us, so we can follow you.” But it’s not sincere. It’s sinister. They’re trying to trap him. They want him to say something they can kill him for — “say it plainly, Jesus.”

Why don’t the Jews believe him? Why do his own people try everything to kill Jesus? This problem is raised in the very first verses of the Gospel, John 1:11:

“He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”

Why did so many not believe? Why do you not believe (if you don’t believe)? That’s the question at the heart of our text this morning. And before I get to Jesus’s answer in our passage, we’ve already gotten two answers in the book of John. Why does anyone reject and hate Jesus?

1. Because They Love Their Sin

First, they don’t believe because they love their sin. This is John 3:19–20:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Why did people hate and reject Jesus? Because they secretly loved darkness. They loved their sin, so they hid their sin, and stayed in bed with their sin. And Jesus went around exposing people’s sin, and telling them they must repent, so they tried to kill him. Their secret sin kept them from seeing the Messiah who would save them from their sin. But they didn’t want to be saved from their sin. They didn’t want to go to hell, and they didn’t want their sin to be exposed in front of others, but they didn’t want to leave that sin behind either. They didn’t love Jesus because they loved their sin, and no one can serve two masters. If that’s you, you can’t serve two masters.

2. Because They Live for Praise

Second, they don’t believe because they live to please man. They live for the approval and applause of other people. This is John 5:43–44:

“I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”

Why did people hate and reject Jesus? Because they lived for the glory and praise of man. They cared too much what other people thought about them, and they knew what it would cost them socially to get in the boat with Jesus. The reputation and approval they’d worked so hard to earn would be gone. And that vanity, that me-worship blinded them to Jesus. They loved the mirror, and so they could never love the Messiah. “How could you believe?” he says.

3. Because They Are Not His

Jesus gives a third reason now, though, and it’s the most blunt of the three. Again, they ask, verse 24,

“How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered them, verse 25,

“I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because . . .”

Because what? Here’s the third reason why so many hated and rejected him. Why do the people you love not believe in Jesus?

“…you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.”

You do not believe in me, because you are not mine. 

Whoa, what does that mean? He goes on, verse 27:

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”

You do not believe in me, because the Father has not given you to me. It must be given to you.

At the earliest, deepest, most decisive root, our belief in God is not a work we achieve, but a gift we receive.

The Father gifts us to the Son, and in handing us to the Son, he gifts life and faith to us by the Spirit. Why does anyone who believes in Jesus believe in Jesus? Because the Father has given us to the Son. We’ve been born again. We saw this in John 3:6-8, remember:

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

You believe because you were born again, and you had as much control over your second birth as you had over your first. God chose you and gave you new birth. From beginning to end, you are a child of sovereign grace.

“But” — Jesus says to the angry mob — “my Father hasn’t given you to me, and so you are not among my sheep, and that’s why you don’t believe.” You hate me because the Father you claim to know and worship hasn’t chosen you. He hasn’t given you sheep ears yet. And so while others hear my voice and it sounds like the Hallelujah chorus, you hear nails on a chalkboard. The Father has sent his own Son into the world, so that anyone who believes in him might not perish but have eternal live, and yet in your ears, that Word of heaven sounds like hell.

And what do they do? “The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.” They prove who they are. They prove they’re not his sheep.

“I Said, You Are Gods.”

A brief aside here on the next few verses, the most confusing part of this passage. When they pick up stones, Jesus says,

“I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” 

The Jews answer back, verse 33,

“It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

And then Jesus does this strange thing. He quotes Psalm 82: 

“Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came — and Scripture cannot be broken — do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

What’s he doing? It’s difficult to really say, and I won’t get into all the possible interpretations. Good scholars I trust, though, get to the end of their sophisticated theological and exegetical explanations, and basically say, “He was buying time.” He’s about to be murdered, the rocks are about to fly, and so he buys a little more time. 

The argument — “The Scriptures sometimes call humans ‘gods,’ so why would you stone me for saying I’m the Son of God?” — the argument certainly doesn’t prove that he’s God or the Son of God. And it doesn’t really solve the problem of blasphemy either, because Jesus is saying he’s more than whatever humans Psalm 82 is talking about. No, I think he’s buying a little time in an incredibly heated, volatile moment, by saying in a roundabout way, “You don’t understand your own Scriptures, and that’s very obvious because of how you’re treating me.”

Now why would he buy time? He’s already said, verse 18,

“No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.”

So why stall with a Psalm 82 riddle? It’s not for his safety; he doesn’t need tricks or riddles. No, he buys a little more time for them. What does he say next? 

Verse 37:

“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Even if you can’t bring yourself to believe my words, believe my works. Do you hear his patience with them? They’re holding rocks, arms raised, and he’s still pleading with them to repent and believe. Hear my voice! Hear my voice! And if you can’t hear my voice, then look at what the works are saying: that the Father has anointed and sent me.

“Believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Believe the works for now, so that you might finally hear and believe me. And what do they do in the face of all his patience? Verse 39:

“Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.”

They hated, rejected, and attacked him. They treated the Son like a wolf. Why? Because they loved their sin, because they only cared what others think, and because they’re not one of his chosen sheep. The Father has not made them his sheep, not yet anyway.

Why Evangelize with Election?

Why did Jesus take this approach with them?

“You do not believe because my Father hasn’t chosen you and given you to me.”

You won’t find this in an “Evangelism for Beginners” book, right? You’re picking up stones because my Father isn’t your Father, and you’re not my sheep. 

No, we talk about election with Christians — this is how you were saved. Why would he go there with really hostile, lost people?

Because he wanted to make it clear to a group of violently proud men that the Son of God came to save the humble and oppose the proud.

This kind of talking draws the humble and infuriates the proud. Even in this room, some of you are bristling inside. There’s too many Americans in here for someone not to. I don’t like that! I make my own choices. I make the decisions around here. I come to my own conclusions. This God won’t save proud people, people who want credit for their saving. He won’t save someone who comes to him holding up their intelligence, their decision, their good works. No, from beginning to end, he does the saving and he gets the glory. 

This Savior is calling sheep — and this crowd doesn’t want to be sheep. He’s calling children — and they don’t want to become like children. He chooses the sheep, he predestines the sheep, he justifies the sheep, he calls the sheep, he gives new birth to the sheep, and one day he will glorify the sheep — and no one can take them out of his hand. Verse 29 again:

“My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”

That makes Jesus a refuge for the humble and a terror to the proud. He’s calling sheep who are happy to be chosen sheep, born again and saved by grace — and they don’t want to be sheep. So are you okay being a sheep? Can you love a God who calls and saves like that?

Why Does Anyone Love Jesus?

You might think, “Well, if no one believes unless the Father chooses, then what can I do? I guess I’ll just have to head home and wait for a call.” No, he’s calling right now. If you want to come this morning, you can hear his voice. He’s given you a gift. If there’s any impulse in you to come, then come! 

This is the invitation, John 6:35–37:

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” 

Do you hear him this morning? Are you drawn to this Jesus? Are you ready to come out of the darkness, and to finally leave your sin behind, and to stop living for what others think about you? Do you want to come, somewhere deep inside of you? He won’t cast you out. If you come in humble faith — I’m a sheep, and I’m so happy to be your sheep — he will never, ever turn you away. And no one will be able to snatch you from his hand. 

I want you to be like the sheep in verses 40–42. I love where this chapter ends. The Jews sought to arrest him and he escapes, and now verse 40:

He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained. 41 And many came to him. And they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.” 42 And many believed in him there.

He went across the Jordan, and he lifted up his voice, and the stones stopped flying and the sheep came running.

The sheep heard his voice. They heard him then, and they still hear him now. Oh that God would do this in the Cities today, in New Brighton, in Burnsville, in Woodbury. He was calling along the Jordan, and now he’s calling here along the Mississippi. Many came to him and believed in him there, and we pray that many, many would hear his voice and come to him here. I’m so jealous that our legacy in these Cities would be John’s legacy in that town of Bethany:

“Everything those people said about this man was true.”

A Man Making Himself God?

As we come to the Table now, I want to end back in verse 33. When they pick up the stones, Jesus said to them,

“What work are you stoning me for?”

The Jews answer,

“It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”

And in all their blindness and hatred, they’re almost right. It’s beautiful when Jesus’s enemies preach the gospel for him, isn’t it? We hate you and we’re going to kill you “because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Almost.

No, this is not a man who made himself God, but this is a God who has made himself man — for us. Remember the very first verses of this Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

That’s why he could say, “I and the Father are one.”

“And that Word became flesh and dwelt among the sheep, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Have you seen his glory? Have you heard his voice? Have you tasted and seen that he is good? Have you believed in his great name? 

Then we’d invite you to eat and drink with us. If you’re not yet a believer in Jesus, we’d ask you to let the bread and the cup pass. But let today be the day you put down your stones, put down your pride, join the sheep, and experience abundant life with us.