God's Purpose For You! (Forget the mob and turn to God.)

So we are going to take a look at who actually tells you who you are. Where do you come from? What are you here for? And what you're doing. And John 7 is going to tell us exactly where we find that information. So I'm going to be reading from the ESV as usual, guys. Please go grab your Bible, your translation, the paraphrase that you like to have. Hit the pause button right now. Go grab that. Come on back if you need some water, need some coffee. Let's do this. We're going to break it down. John 7, here we go. So John 7:25, we'll work our way down to about 31. It's not a huge passage of John, but it is what we're going to work our way through today. There's a big meaning in it, and I want us to wrestle with it a little bit, come to terms with what's actually being said here. So some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, is not this man 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? 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've 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. Okay. So just before this happened, you had Jesus essentially throw down as far as teaching goes. He just starts teaching openly. Uh, the, the scholars there going, who is this guy? We don't know who his teacher is. What authority is he teaching with? What authority is he teaching from? Uh, he starts to correct them. He starts to help them understand. And now people are saying, well, this is really odd because normally the, the Pharisees If they see somebody and they've got issue with him, they just deal with it. They don't tiptoe around this. It's not a, okay, well, let's, let's see what he has to say. They are hard and fast on if it's not what they want taught, they don't allow it taught. And yet here he goes. He's still teaching. They're not stepping in. Nobody's arresting him. Could it be that he does have the authority to speak simply by them allowing him to speak? Is that showing us something? They keep using the term the Christ, the Christ, the Christ that we're talking about the Messiah here. We're talking about the deliverer. We're talking about the one who was promised to the Jews that they were Expecting to come and set them free. And now that question has to be put out there of: Is this him? And half the crowd's going, well, it could be like this. This might be him. He's doing miracles. Would surely, surely the Messiah when he comes, the Christ when he comes, he's gonna perform miracles like this. He's gonna perform signs like we're seeing him perform. Surely this is true. But on the other side, they're going, yeah, but we're not supposed to really know where the Messiah is coming from. We know this guy. Like, we know where his mom and dad came from. We know where he grew up. We know about him. And Jesus kind of has to settle the second half of this and go, you think you know me. You think you know who I am because you know where I've come from. But the reality is this. You don't know where I came from because you think that I came from Joseph and Mary and I came from Nazareth and I'm a Galilean. And that's just not it. I came from God. He sent me here with a message and he sent me here with a purpose. And because you don't know him, you don't know me. And that's what I'm here to fix. I want you to have that relationship with God. I want you to know who he is. I think this is really, really important for us as Christians to come to terms with here. This happens frequently in our walk. You're going to see this where people will have that assertion. They'll place that stamp on you. We know who you are. We know where you came from. We know what you're about. And we know you're not who you are now. You're not serving the purpose you're supposed to serve. You're not, you're not here for that purpose. And I think Jesus is showing us here that it's important to stand up there and say, I know why I'm here. I know why I got sent. I know I have these gifts. I know I have these talents. I know I have this, this purpose. And I'm going to go towards it regardless of whether you know me or not, regardless of whether you acknowledge that or not, because there's nothing else that I can do. I know God the Father. I know he sent me here for a reason. I know I have these gifts, these talents, these purposes, and I have to pursue that. I have to keep going forward with that, irregardless of what you think you may or may not know. What's really cool here, though, is Jesus is so willing to do that that he's willing to face whatever consequences might come with it, right? Arrest by the Sanhedrin, as we find out later in Jesus's story. Spoiler alert, he gets arrested eventually by them. It doesn't go well when you get arrested by the Sanhedrin. It doesn't go well. Stonings are common. Death is, is often involved. It's not a pretty picture. And yet he's willing to risk it to correct on this point of authority. Originally, he wasn't even going to go. He had told the other disciples, I'm not going to go. It's not my time yet. I'm not going to go. But he chooses to go anyway. He chooses to risk this so that these people could have this clarification, that they could come to know Who Jesus is, what his purpose is, and that he was willing to speak boldly for it. I think for us in our day-to-day, one, this is obviously about recognizing who Jesus is, what his character is, and that he doesn't back down. Yeah, he's meek, but he's not weak. He's not afraid to to step into the fire and speak boldly. But at the same token, we in ourselves, in our own walk, have this that we have to confront. We've got our own giftings, our talents, our purposes, and we have to speak boldly for them. We have to move forward into that calling that we have, even if there's those around us that would second-guess or cause doubt. Those are their doubts to manage. That's theirs to manage. For us, you have to go to God and say, what is it that you want me to do? What's the purpose that I have? And you just need to pursue it. You just need to pursue it without apology, unabashedly, unashamed. Just walk right at it and get it. Done. Now, I know that this is a short passage, and John is a great big book, but I really wanted you to dial in on this. If you are finding yourself in a place where you're feeling lost, you don't know what you're doing, you feel like you're spinning your wheels, take that time, and no matter how audacious, no matter how massive the answer you might get back is, pursue that. Spend that time in prayer. Spend that time in scripture. Resources like The Purpose Driven Life. If you go grab that, there's tons of resources on YouTube that you can find. Find your purpose, wrestle with it, find your gifts, your talents, and how God wants you to use them in your walk. And when you find them, don't shirk them. Don't turn from them. Use them. Use them as much as you can, as often as you can, regardless of what anyone around you has to say. Period. That's it for today, guys. If this is something that you've wrestled with, let me know down below in the comments. If this is something that you are are looking for resources on, please let me know. I'm gonna create a playlist here with a whole bunch of other videos that help you with that specific question of what is my purpose? What am I called to do? So feel free to check that out as well.