Pastor John will be preaching this morning from the Gospel of John Chapter 7,

verses 14 through 18. And I invite you to follow along as I read.

John 714 through 18.

About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.

The Jews marveled at it saying, how is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?

So Jesus answered them, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If any man's will is to do his will, he shall know whether

the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory.

But he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true and in him there is no falsehood.

The question we are asking now in these four Advent messages is how is the heart prepared to receive Christ for who he really is. And this week's text provides another part of the answer in addition to last week's answer from Matthew 1617. The situation is that Jesus has just come up to

Jerusalem to the Feast of Tabernacles and has put himself in the middle of the feast in the temple and begun to teach.

Verse 15 shows the teach. to teach like this when he's had no formal training?

That's the sense, I think, of these verses.

How is it that this man is learning when he has never studied?

Now, their amazement is not an appreciative amazement.

Because verse 19 says they're trying to kill him.

So their amazement is an antagonistic and an angry amazement that he would presume as an unstudied nobody to take the place of a rabbi and teach publicly in the central place of worship in the middle of Jerusalem,

who does he think he is? What right has he to speak in this way. Now the answer Jesus gives is

verse 16 my teaching is not, but he is who sent me.

So Jesus denies presumption.

It is not presumption.

I'm not speaking my own words I speak on behalf of the living God.

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