Why Jesus Seems Controversial: Understanding the Lamb of God

From the sermon preached on July 5, 2026

Jesus confuses people, and he always has. Pastor John Starke teaches that Jesus can only be understood rightly as the lamb of God who bore sin on the cross, not as a clever teacher, a political hero, or a wise moral example. In John 7, Jesus gives his own listeners (and us) a framework for understanding him: not worldly timing, but the cross, and not mere information, but a surrendered heart.

This matters because so many people walk away from Jesus assuming they are missing some hidden key, some piece of information that would finally make him make sense. Jesus himself says the opposite. Understanding Jesus was never about having ears sharp enough to catch a secret, but a heart soft enough to receive him as the lamb of God who forgives, and who then asks us to forgive as we have been forgiven.

Understanding Jesus starts by admitting how naturally we misread him. In John 7:3-4, Jesus's own brothers urge him to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths and put on a public display of his power. Their logic was simple: if you want influence, go to the right city, meet the right people, and show yourself to the world.

Jesus refuses, telling them in John 7:6-7 that his time has not yet come, though their time is "always here." Pastor John Starke calls this "nowism," a worldly instinct that treats the present moment as the only moment that counts, whether with money, relationships, or reputation. Understanding Jesus through purely human categories, credentials, timing, or influence will always leave you confused.

A simple, honest step this week is to notice one place where "nowism" is shaping a decision in your own life and name it before God in prayer.

Jesus and the cross cannot be separated, and this sermon insists on that point. Throughout John's Gospel, Jesus repeats one phrase: "My hour has not yet come." By John 12:23 and John 17:1, that changes; his hour has arrived, and it turns out his hour of glory is the cross itself.

Jesus and the cross reframe everything, including his other titles. A good teacher who demands perfection, as Jesus does in the Sermon on the Mount, is crushing rather than kind unless he is also the lamb of God who covers what he demands. A political leader whose movement ends in apparent defeat under Rome is a failure, and a prophet no one heeded is forgotten, unless the cross is actually victory in disguise.

In Gethsemane, Jesus prayed "not my will but yours be done," and that prayer is the hinge of Jesus and the cross for every other title people give him.

Take one honest look this week at which "filter" you have been using to explain Jesus to yourself: teacher, moral example, or lamb of God.

Forgiving others is where this passage stops being theoretical. At the end of John 7, Jesus reminds his critics of an earlier miracle from John chapter 5, when he healed a man on the Sabbath and it enraged the religious leaders watching. Jesus makes his point sharply: they will circumcise a man on the Sabbath to keep the law, yet they are furious that he made a man whole.

Forgiving others, Pastor John Starke says, is one of the clearest tests of whether the cross has actually reached our own hearts. It is possible to trust Jesus as the lamb of God who forgave you completely while still refusing to release the resentment you are holding against someone else. Forgiving others is not optional sentiment; it is the natural fruit of praying "not my will but yours" and meaning it.

This is the part of the sermon that resists a quick resolution, because forgiving others when the wound is real and recent rarely feels simple or immediate. The honest, actionable step is smaller than forgiveness itself: name, specifically and honestly before God, the one person you are struggling to forgive right now, without minimizing what happened to you.

John 7 lays out two failed filters and one true one. In John 7:16-17, Jesus says his teaching is not his own but comes from the one who sent him, and that anyone willing to do God's will can recognize this for themselves. The chapter shows two paths people take when they cannot reconcile Jesus, filters that leave him permanently mysterious, and one posture that actually opens him up.

Each explanation collapses on its own, and John 7 shows why: Jesus can only be understood as the lamb of God, sent by the Father, whose hour is the cross.

Questions like these, about why Jesus seems distant, why forgiving others feels impossible, or why the cross matters at all, are rarely resolved alone in a quiet moment. They tend to surface in conversation, over time, with people who will sit with the tension rather than rush past it. That is part of why Apostles Church Uptown gathers in community groups, whether you are in East Harlem, Washington Heights, or the Upper East Side.

Whether your week takes you through Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights, or the Upper West Side, there is a group of neighbors nearby working through the same Gospel of John passages together. No one is expected to arrive with the questions already answered.

Jesus is only confusing when we try to understand him apart from the cross. Once the lamb of God who died and rose becomes the lens, his hard teachings, his claims about himself, and his call to forgive others all begin to make a different kind of sense. Pastor John Starke's closing prayer captures it simply: not my will, but yours, so that Jesus can finish making us whole.

If this sermon on the lamb of God and understanding Jesus raised something in you, start here to learn more about who we are and what it looks like to belong at Apostles Church Uptown.