WITNESSES ABOUNDING

#802                                                             WITNESSES ABOUNDING                                                                                    

Scripture  John 5:31-47 NIV                                                                                                                         Orig. 3/10/1990

Passage: Testimonies About Jesus 

31 “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who testifies in my favor, and I know that his testimony about me is true.

33 “You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth. 34 Not that I accept human testimony; but I mention it that you may be saved. 35 John was a lamp that burned and gave light, and you chose for a time to enjoy his light.

36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You study[c] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

41 “I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God[d]?

45 “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. 46 If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

Purpose: Continuing the series from the gospel, here sharing the witnesses who declare Christ to be Saviour.

Keywords:           Bible Study John’s Gospel             Christ as Saviour               Salvation

Timeline/Series:               John

Introduction

                One thing among many that we have learned in our study of this gospel is that Jesus faces the antagonisms of the Jews fearlessly.  He is not operating on the back streets of Jerusalem and the small towns of Galilee.  He is addressing everyone everywhere, telling them that He is the Messiah, and that they, sooner or later, are going to have to deal with who He is.

                Does His fearlessness surprise you?  Do you have the spiritual volition to compare His boldness with your own?  Would you like to have a faith conditioned by such purpose as His?  (E14p114)

                Bishop Hanns Lilje(1) wrote a book about his experiences in German prisoner of war camps.  One of the clear messages of The Valley of the Shadow is the differences in the lives of people who had a “living” religious faith.  Lilje says that they had conquered their fears, even the fear of death.  He wrote, ”In those days it was granted me to tread the shores of that land which lies on the outermost fringe of time, upon which already something of the radiance of the other world is shining.  I did not know that an existence which is still earthly and human could be so open to the world of God.  It was a stillness full of blessing, a solitude over which God brooded, an imprisonment blessed by God Himself.”

                Jesus was God, imprisoned within a human body, but it was an imprisonment of purpose.  Can it also be said that every believer, who chooses to live by his or her faith, does so with that same sense of imprisoned purpose?  “I am what I am, and therefore, I must be what I must be.”  It is not a prison of fear or dread, but a simple constraint of purpose.  Do WE seek such faith?  This passage calls forth witnesses to so testify of Jesus, and to call us to follow.

I.             The Witnesses Are Identified.  V31 “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.”

                He is the Word, but does not depend upon His “word” only.  He is well able to identify himself.  People everywhere are seeking to find out who they are.  Jesus knew absolutely.

                The rest of this chapter, however, is an enunciation of those witnesses of who He is.  The law clearly states the concern for integrity among witnesses.  Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15 ,           176 Whoever is deserving of death shall be put to death on the testimony of two or three witnesses; he shall not be put to death on the testimony of one witness. 1915 “One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.  II Corinthians 13:1 “In  the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.”

                Jesus here tells us that there are unlimited witnesses whom He can call.  Six are clearly identified.  His own witness is the allusion of the first (31) and the last (47) verses.  They all say the same thing: that Jesus is God’s unique son, a monogene.

                Jesus next identifies the six witnesses.  Our word for martyr.  Greek times did not connote this.  The first witness is the Holy Spirit.  V32 “There is another.”  “Is” is a word for fundamental being.  “Another” is of the same kind.  Remember that we Baptists believe in the Trinity: the Godhead.  The Holy Spirit is still the agent of confirmation of who Christ is.  When you trusted Jesus, you do so at the urging of Holy Spirit.  Some will deny Him today by denying the Spirit urging in your heart.  We deny by denial.  We deny by closing our minds.

                Next, Jesus identifies John as a witness.  V33 “Ye sent unto John, and he bears witness.”  In actual fact, they went twice to John.  John 1:22 “Who art thou?”  “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness.”  “I baptize with water . . . among you is one you know not.” (Matthew: “baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”)  John 3:26, “He that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou bearest witness.”  Also in actual fact John testifies He is the Christ (28). Speaks God’s words (34).  One with Holy Spirit (34). To believe is to receive life (36).  Deny is to be condemned (36).  Romans 2:5: “But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.”

                Nor must we overlook v36: “He was a burning and shining light.”  Burning is present/past participle—consumed.  Shining is aorist/active/participle—still shines.  We are more interested in shining than we are in burning.  The will of these people was emotional rather than resolve of comm. 

                The third witness is the oneness of Jesus’ own works with God’s will.  He has affirmed that it is not given to Him to boost Himself. V31.  He does not find it necessary to use words to affirm who HE is.  In vocal silence, however, His works still establish who He is:

• Going public in Cana.

• Preaching like John in Judea (John 4:1).

• Healing an official’s son (John 4:43).

• The paralytic at Bethesda (John 5:1).

• Every work attests to who He is.

• It is in this tradition that chapter 6 of John opens with the feeding of 5,000.

                Three witnesses should be quite enough but the fourth is God.  V37 “And the Father Himself, . . . hath born witness of me.”  The Holy Spirit/John/His own works.  The problem is their own unbelief.  Someone (Z#191) defines hear as hearing with the ear of the mind.  We can condition ourselves with noise so as not to hear music.  We can condition ourselves with error so as not to hear truth.  The person who claims inability to believe blames externals.  Philosophical/Witness of others. “Seen” ‘orao—to see with the mind, to suddenly grasp a fundamental but obscure truth.  They must come to terms with God, but to do so they must believe Him.

                Jesus describes salvation.  What it is.  What it is not.

• It is not religious law. V39

• It is not human personality. V44

• It is not spiritual heritage. V45

• It is Jesus Himself. V40

• This outline for next week.

                Next, He adds the scripture as the fifth witness.  V39 “Search the scriptures: . . . they are they which testify of me.”  The reference is to the Old Testament scripture.  Genesis 49:10 “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah till Shiloh comes.”  Isaiah 11:1 “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse.”  Jeremiah 23:5 “I will raise unto David a righteous branch.” Micah 5:2 “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratha.”  And many, many others.

                Finally, He certifies what should not have been, but was, the most important voice to the religious leaders, . . . Moses.  V46 “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.”  No text above from Moses but there is one.  Deuteronomy 18:18 “I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my word in his mouth; and he shall speak  unto them all that I shall command.”

                Dr. Vaught says they probably had pictures of Moses  in the classrooms.  We have Lincoln, Washington, King. Grant and Winn Parishes had pictures of Huey Long. 

                It was Moses who prepared the serpent on the pole for the relief of the people.  Numbers 21:8

The LORD said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live,” to which Jesus alludes in 3:14.

Conclusion

                Someone (T43p240) writes “How many popular histories, encyclopedias, and school textbooks have blindfolded Jesus by an apologetic paragraph on The Carpenter of Nazareth, or The Greatest Jew Who Ever Lived, or The Great Teacher of Galilee!  They read about the seamless Robe but do not receive new life by the touch of a living faith.  They follow the story of The Big Fisherman but never make the great confession he did, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God.’  They listen to The Greatest Story Ever Told . . . but do not know the power of Christ’s Resurrection.”

(1) Lilje, H. (1966). The Valley of the Shadow. The Muhlenberg Press.

“I SEEK NOT MY WILL”

#199                                                                “I SEEK NOT MY WILL”                                                                                       

Scripture John 5:17-30 NIV                                                                                                                          Orig. 6/10/1962

                                                                                                                                                                               Rewr. 3/1/1990

Passage: 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him. 24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man. 28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.”

Purpose: Continuing a study from the gospel, here revealing the intent of Jesus to do God’s will even though it will result in His death

Keywords:           Bible Study of John’s Gospel                       Divinity of Christ               Resurrection                      Sovereignty

Timeline/Series:               Bible Study of John’s Gospel

Introduction

                Last Sunday we followed Jesus back into Jerusalem, and near the sheep gate, at a place called Bethesda.  We looked on as He healed a man paralyzed for thirty-eight years.  When the Jewish religious leaders found out that this had been done on the Sabbath they were incensed.  It was a violation of the law, and as says verse 16:  “Therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him.”

                Most of us are smart enough to know that when someone is out to get you, the thing to do is to lie low, to be  obscure.  Apparently, Jesus didn’t know the meaning of lying low, didn’t know how to be obscure.  “My Father worketh hitherto,” He said, “and I work.”

                And with that terse statement they hated Him the  more.  They hated Him so much that they started keeping a book on Him.  They would record everything He did that was outside the law.  They would be especially sensitive to charges, legitimate or otherwise, that they could bring against Him that would result in His death.  They were not interested in redeeming Him as a Jew.  They were interested in destroying Him as an enemy.

                John records then, the first discourse of Jesus to the Jews.  He has talked at length to Nicodemus, and to the woman at the well.  He  has  talked with disciples (2:22) and others.  There were brief encounters with Jews (2:18f), and with individuals.  Here, Jesus gives notice to the Jews for what He has come.  And they do not like it.

I.             Jesus First Identifies Himself with God.  V17 “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”  This is one of five parallels established.  The same word for work is used.  The Father and I are both doing the same perfect work.  There is a oneness in ACTIVITY.

                Next Jesus correlates what is done.  “Whatsoever things the Father doeth, also the Son.”  You can imagine their uneasiness.   There is a oneness not only in ACTIVITY, but also in WILL.  It is one thing to claim to be righteous but to be one in WILL with God.

                Thirdly, Jesus takes sovereignty upon Himself.  V21 “As the Father raiseth up and quickeneth, even so the Son.”  He has already alluded to the work at Bethesda.  In response to their disdain for healing on the Sabbath, Jesus responds saying, “My work is God’s work.”  Now Jesus talks about ‘raising’ the dead. SOVEREIGNTY.  So, a man paralyzed 38 years is walking.  You will see much more.  He will return to this subject momentarily.

                Next, Jesus interrelates honor of God and Son.  Someone suggests that Jesus came to Jerusalem to leave His calling card.  It was Passover.  God redeems.  Redemption had its inception in the covenant, but the law stifled it.  A friend years ago: “Me: missed nothing; my church: missed something; Christ: you’ve missed everything.”  The major negative quotient in our lives is failure to honor God, Son.  Letter in New Orleans inviting participation in highway dedication. “Don’t pray in Jesus’ name.”  Don’t blame them.  Blame Christians who compromise.

                Finally, the same life-force the Father has in Himself, so also has the Son.  V26 “As the Father hath life in himself, so has he given to the Son to have life in him.”  In Him is  the fulness of divinity.  Also, there is undiminished humanity.

II.            Next, Jesus Establishes the Dominance of the Role that is His.  V26 “The Father hath . . . given to the son . . . authority to execute judgment.”   Back in the old days, a gospel was preached that required sublimation in Christ.  Funerals didn’t beat around the bush.  You were a Christian or you weren’t.  You gave evidence of your faith by the way you lived, worshipped.

                People depend on something other than faith.  The sobriquet “I don’t drink and I don’t chew and I don’t go with girls who do” never has been a valid distinction.  How much graver the danger today: “I’m a church member!” “Deacon!” “I go to Sunday School!” “Teach!” “I don’t drink!” “I don’t use drugs!”  “l live by the Bible!” “I follow the Golden Rule!” 

                If Christ is not Lord of your life, and a part of every decision, you don’t!  These people got riled with Jesus because He told them their ragged righteousness would not save them.

                We don’t have time to get into the resurrection this morning, but Jesus defines two momentous events.  One has already come, and they are accountable for it.  V25, “The hour is coming, and now is.”  V24, 25 both use the Greek word for “hear”—to hear obediently.  V24 establishes the condition, not only of eternal life, but deliverance from Hell as well.  In life, we determine our own destiny in the way we choose to live.  But v25 eliminates the condition  The spiritually dead shall hear the call to live, and in response, live.

                Which brings us to the second event.  V28 “For the hour is coming, (note) in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.”  V25 addressed spiritually dead. V28 speaks of physically dead.  V25 is conditional, optional even.  V28 holds no condition, option.

                Whether you have heard it believingly in life or not,  you will  hear it in death.  Jesus is the essence of your choice.  You, I, cannot honor the Father and dishonor the Son.  Believing in deity doesn’t save you, believing in Jesus does.  You don’t believe that, you throw the Bible in the garbage.  Deny that,  you say Jesus is a liar, a charlatan.

                This did not start out as a message of the resurrection, but the word is there.  Most of us have been touched by death.  Some of us have recently been to the grave.  My second Winter, six in 12 days.  Proclaimed message was different.  Some gave evidence when v25 in “spiritual death, heard, and responded.”  Some gave  no evidence. Others, only God knows.  All, will hear, v28 and they will do as they are commanded.

                There are members of First Baptist Church, if I had to preach their funeral tomorrow, I would  have to guess if asked their spiritual condition.

                The human bones, apparently of a 17-year-old girl, were found in Union Parish earlier this week.  A search went on for days for proof. When the dead are called from their graves that girl will come forth fully formed.  No question about identity.  If a believer she will answer the summons unto “the resurrection of life.”  If not, just as certainly, “unto the resurrection of damnation.”  It matters not that she was brutally murdered by a person more beast than man.  Unimportant detail that she had so little time to prepare.  The Christ who came seeking “not  His own will, but the Father’s” holds absolutely and eternally  her condition, yours, mine.

THE SALVATION OF CHRIST

#828e                                                         THE SALVATION OF CHRIST                                                                                  

Scripture  John 5:1-18                                                                                                                                      Orig. 3/1/1985

Passage: Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda[a] and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. [4] [b] 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” 7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” 8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” 11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” 12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”

13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

The Authority of the Son

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

Purpose: Continuing the series on The Doctrine of Christ, here emphasizing Christ’s salvation.

Keywords:           Christ as Saviour               Doctrine  of Christ

Timeline/Series:               Doctrine of Christ

Introduction

                Dr. James Stewart, in his book, The Wind of the Spirit(1), shares a powerful word about this Jesus who is called Christ.  Says Dr. Stewart: “There are indeed myriads of facts in this world you can disregard, multitudes of events you do not need to come to terms with. . . .  The politics of Julius Caesar, the origins of the sonnet, the tactics of Waterloo, the internal motions of the planetary nebulae—such things do not enter into the structure of my every day experience.  I can ignore them.  I can disregard them. But there are other facts that will not thus be disregarded.  I cannot indefinitely ignore the laws of health, the social solidarity of the community, the demands of duty, the reality of death. . . .  And of all the facts of life  that refuse to be ignored, the greatest by far is Jesus Christ.

                “He  haunts the human race.  Men have tried for 19 centuries to escape Him, and after all their trying He pursues them still.  I know that if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, I shall find Him there.  I know that whether civilization climbs the steep ascent of heaven or plunges down to hell, it will find Him there.  The world may flout His laws, and trample His name in the dust of oblivion; I can wash my hands of Him, like Pilate, and drag my soul in slumber and apostasy, but irresistibly and inexorably He comes back, our Judge and our Redeemer, our Tormentor and our Saviour, the pressure of Almighty God on your life and mine, He comes back and stands at the door and knocks.  He is there now . . . and He will not be ignored.  ‘Lo, I am you always, even to the end of the world.’” (W43p177)

I.             First, the Hurt. v3/v5

                Physical infirmity is a symbol of lostness.  Crippled legs are crippled by sin.  John 7:23 Jesus “made a whole man well.”  God completed the creation with Himself. Genesis 2:7 “breathed” “he became a living  soul.”  Old Testament and New Testament uses “soul” for completeness.  Acts 2:41, 3,000 “souls” added to church.

                The point of Jesus’ coming was spiritual.  What must first be provided?  John 5:14 physical first; Mark 2:5, 9-12 sin problem first.  He deals with people at soul level. His goal is wholeness, Galatians 5:22, Philippians 4:23.  Plato popularized soul trapped in body and death frees soul.

                We are physical.  Additionally, we have personality. Different capacities for intellect.  Emotion.  We entertain socially. We are spiritual.  Wholeness.  Jesus made whole man well.  He healed legs.  He prompted sin’s dealing.

                Jesus came because man was lost.  Genesis man.  Lostness.  Sin predominated. Man is separated from God.  Wholly lost.

II.            The Human Factor. V7  “I have no man [to help me]”

                Characterized by uncaring. V3 “great multitude.”  V5 “38 years” to do the “stirring,” no one helped.

                Characterized by personal disorder.  V6 “Do you want to be well?” Personal will: Jesus offers, He does not impose.  Ask of physical and spiritual. 

                Characterized by religious dissent.  V10 It’s the Sabbath. Why? V18 Jews sought to kill Jesus. Sabbath.  God was His Father.

                Characterized by inability. Matthew 8, there comes to Jesus a Centurion, beseeching Him.  Not a common man. Naaman demanded Elisha cure.  How much humility?  Came to befriend a slave. Came to Jesus.

III.           Finally, the Wholeness.  V8 Rise, take up your bed and walk.  V14 See, you have been made well.  Sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon you.

                Wholeness is the true object of God’s concern.  Mark 2:27, The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.  John 5:10, The Jews said to him that was cured.  It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to carry your bed on the Sabbath.  John 7:23, Are you angry with me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?

                Wholeness was the reason for Christ’s coming.  For human weakness—not sub-human, not super-human.  Sin causes problems.  We try to avoid but don’t always succeed.  Difference between wine and wineskins.

Note from transcriber:  This sermon was handwritten and is more fragmented than typed sermons.

(1) Stewart, J. (1988). The Wind of the Spirit. Baker Publishing Group.

WELL BUCKETS AND WATERPOTS

#091                                                     WELL BUCKETS AND WATERPOTS                                                                            

Scripture  John 4:5-34, 39 NIV                                                                                                 Orig. 8/23/1964; 11/1979

                                                                                                                                                                             Rewr. 4/20/1988

Passage: 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him. 31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. 

Many Samaritans Believe

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

Purpose: To show how Jesus shared expectation, and guilt, and faith, and victory, with a woman who perceived of herself as caught in the trap of sin.

Keywords:           Christ as Saviour               Biography of the Samaritan Woman        Conviction           Faith      Guilt      Hope                                Revival

Timeline/Series:               Biography of the Samaritan  Woman

Introduction

                In some form or the other, well-buckets and waterpots have figured into human social activities.  As necessary as the water itself, are the gatherings of community.  So, on a day not all that different from other days, “a woman of Samaria” went to draw water for herself, perhaps for others.

                Our interest in well-buckets and waterpots now is only as a memento of early American treasures from the past.  Her interest was basic.  It had to do with life, and living.  And thus she  has come to the well.

                The last thing on her mind that day as she walked the dusty road beyond Sychar was that this was going to be a day like no other.  She would encounter One who would turn  her life around.  In sudden swirls, a spiritual, moral  dimension will invade her life.  In the twinkling of an eye, she becomes a practitioner of the Kingdom of God.

                Dr. James Stewart, in his book, The Wind of the Spirit(1), reminds us of the care that we must take in assessing a person’s spiritual attainment.  He writes, ”God assesses . . . relationship to the Kingdom of Christ, not by the point [one] has reached on the highway of holiness, but by the way he is facing; not by the  distance of his pilgrimage, but by the direction of his life; not by the question, ‘Has he achieved an ethically complete and rounded character,’ but by the question, ‘Has he his face to Christ or his back?’”

                She is not much, this Samaritan woman, but there is a great lesson that we can learn from her, because she stands with her face, not her back, to the Christ.  We must turn our own faces to these well-buckets and waterpots to learn what they would teach us.

I.             Jesus Found Her in the Anguish of Hope.  V15 “Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come  hither to drink.”

                You see, hope can sometimes be misapplied in that we want it to affect life where we are, rather than life in its substance.  If we have no bread, it is food, not faith, that claims our interest.  If we have bread, it may be for something more, cake, pastry, for which we yearn.

                This woman stands at a moment of great crisis and decision though not yet knowing it.  She is not just a woman dissatisfied with life.  She is a woman lost in the wilderness of living.  If that were not enough, suddenly, her sin is exposed.  Exposed before moral, spiritual perfection.  But of equal importance, exposed to herself.  She sees that she, herself, is not under the searchlight of law, rather, under the enigma of grace.

                She had  momentarily concluded that this man at the well could help her to escape from herself, from this trap she has rigged, from another man who has dragged her down, perhaps from reality itself.  I sat one afternoon and talked for two hours with a woman  like this.  She needed, wanted Christ.  It seemed that she was ready.  That evening her male companion came by, with a bottle.  They went to the shack he called home.  A fire that night spelled finish to whatever hope she had.

                This well symbolizes the bad and the good in this complex life.  It is both  her burden, and the source of life.  She is here drawing water to quench the thirst of the one, at home, who is the source of her woe.  She has come expecting no one else present.  The social center of life for other women is avoided because of unpleasantries.  Seeing other women coming toward the well, she knows she  is partly what they whisper about.

                She is closing in, however, on the discovery of new life waiting at the well.

II.            He Led Her Through the Acknowledgement of Guilt.  V16 “Jesus said to her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. [V17] The woman answered and said, I have no husband.”

                There are times when life’s realities are too much.  Joshua 7:7 (Israel at Ai) “Would to God we had been content, and dwelt on the other side Jordan.”   (How can we pretend this evil away?)  Habakkuk’s sad lamentation (Habakkuk 1:2) “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! . . . cry . . . and Thou wilt not save!”  In Columbia this week, a friend told me about the prominent citizen, Bible teacher who took his own life.

                Guilt, however, is not something to be avoided.  Medical professionals diminish it.  But Jesus seems to have deliberately brought her this way.  How much  worse to have a soul so steeped in sin that guilt could not penetrate?  Romans 3:19 “We know that whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them that are under the law: that every mouth . . . be stopped, and all the world . . . guilty before God.”

                Without guilt, law is impractical.  Without law, society is impossible.  But culture, brought under the burden of law by guilt, finds its solace in community, and in Christ.

                When the rescue of a soul is at stake, guilt is a relatively minor price to pay.  Matthew 1:21, “Thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.”  John 4:42 “We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”  For her sake, guilt is the goal.  But others are involved also who will find their own struggle through her.

III.           He is Her Companion through Her Altercation with Truth.  V19 “The woman saith unto him . . . Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place . . . to worship.”  Her only real experience with truth was that of tradition.  Twin mounts of Ebal, Gerizim are near.  Jerusalem was 40 miles away.  But a temple had been built on Gerizim.  Some even contended that Isaac had been brought by Abraham to this mount.

                Believing as she did, she disdained the beliefs of others.  Even of Jesus.  Truth is an enigma to  her.  No doubt she is sincere.  Sincerely wrong.  She thinks others are in the same dilemma. 

                Jesus reminds her that tradition will not set her heart at rest.  Worship without prejudice was vital. She deals with Messianic uncertainty.  Jesus tells her who he is—Messiah.  Jesus made such a revelation of himself to a social outcast of the Jews and also of the Samaritans.

IV.          Thus, She Begins to Discover the Affirmation of Faith.  V28 “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did:  is not this the Christ?” 

                Someone to believe in has given her something to believe in.  How natural faith is for a child.  Sunday School teacher talking to class about creation.  Child: “God created the world with His left hand.”  “How do you know that?”  “Because Jesus was sitting on His right hand.”

                But for an adult, a more practical view of sin clouds such faith.

                Someone to believe, and something to believe in, now enables her to believe in herself.  Faith is her enabler. Others will  now come to believe in her also, to see the world through her.  For too many, quest for success is first.  That quest can trap us away from God’s grace, and all others who might come to grace through us, to see the world through us.

Conclusion

                Two little lads stood on the edge of Itasca.  “Look,” said one, “it’s leaking!”  “That ain’t no leak,” said the other.  “That’s the Mississippi!”

(1) Stewart, J. (1988). The Wind of the Spirit. Baker Publishing Group.

TWO DRINKS OF WATER

#798                                                              TWO DRINKS OF WATER                                                                                     

Scripture  John 4:1-30, 39-42                                                                                                                      Date 12/7/1989

Passage: Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.[a]) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Many Samaritans Believe

39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.

42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Purpose: To see Jesus change the focus of His ministry, and along the way offer encouraging words to a woman steeped in sin.

Keywords:           Bible Study         Encouragement                Compassion of Christ                      Sin         

Timeline/Series:               John

Introduction

                We live in a mobile society.  I have read statistical charts reporting as high as 50% of all of us relocate every  year.  We move into a new town, or neighborhood, or take a new job every other year.

                Jesus is making a career change in this text.  He began a ministry similar in every way to that of John, and the obvious begins to happen.  Those ministries are compared, and one begins to receive preferential treatment.

                Obviously, John’s star is on the wane.  He has already (3:23) relocated his work.  He is being directly confronted (1:19) about the nature of his work, and the confrontation will worsen until he is jailed about the time this Galilean ministry begins (Mark 1:14).  The religious leaders are making things difficult for John’s disciples, and they are seeking answers to questions relative to the compared popularity of Jesus and John, and Jesus seems to be winning.

                Jesus decides that it is time to make a change.  The religious leaders in Judea are obviously as little interested in His work as they have been in John’s work.  Beckoning us home.  Galilee! And a change in style of ministry is ahead also.  Where it has been a riverside prophetic, declare-the-gospel kind of approach; now, He will touch people  with the power-of-the-gospel-to-change-peoples’-lives approach.  He will find people through the countryside, village by village.  Luke 4:14 “A fame went out concerning Him through all the region round about.”

I.             Jesus Uses the Direct Approach to Galilee.  V4 “He must needs go through Samaria.”

                There were two routes of travel.  One wound its way down into the valley of the Jordan and followed circuitously.  The other was quicker, easier, but required travel among Samaritans.

                Remember the sting of invective between these hostile people.  A mixed bloodline, settled in Samaria during Israel’s period of captivity.  They had worked to oppose the resettlement. There was no love lost either way.  Jesus did not reject business dealings, but refused personal contact, thought of them as unclean.  While Jesus was comfortable with this route, His disciples were not.

                Jesus has come this way of purpose.  We listened in as Jesus dealt with a Jew (Pharisee) of distinction—Nicodemus.  Summary relative to the new birth.  Now, in Samaria, He has come upon a woman without distinction—forthrightness, worship, two drinks of water.

II.            Now, We Discover the Object of His Samaritan Exploit.  V7 “There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water.”  There is the anguish of hopelessness, at the well in the middle of the day, to avoid unkindnesses; to quench her first thirst.  This well doesn’t contain the second drink.  It is her hope and her hopelessness: water for her household.  She knows she is what the other women whisper about.

                Wanda Beeson opened up from a hospital bed to receive Christ, when the reluctant one had been myself.

                There is the acknowledgement of guilt.  As winsomely as Jesus deals with this woman, she must nonetheless face up to her sin.  Remember, Jesus knew “all men.”  2:24.  He knew Nicodemus; He knows her—He knows her sin, her struggle.  We may know people’s sins, but do we know their struggles?  Habakkuk: “O Lord, how long shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear! . . . cry . . . and Thou wilt not save?”

III.           That Brings Us to Jesus as a Model for Witnessing.  There is no harder thing for us to do than to open up about one’s soul welfare. (Story about barber wanting to learn how to share his faith.  Stranger: struggled. Barber: shaved, wiped cream from edge, walked to front: “Mister, are you ready to die?”)

                So, clearly, all of us need help.  He recognizes the opportunity. “He must needs go through Samaria.” He may have had foreknowledge.  All we need is sensitivity. 

                He treats the opportunity graciously.  Even though weary of traveling.  Herbert Lockyer (1): “Often weary in His mission, Christ was never weary of it.”  There were reasons not to confront this woman: Samaritan, woman, sinner, reputation.  One reason to: it was the right thing to do.  He allowed her to meet His need so that He might then meet hers.  V7.

                He optimizes her need. The first drink of water has brought her to the well.  The well will symbolize another, a “second” drink of water, not from a cistern, but from a source.  Two words for source of water.  Two words for source of water: pégé—fountain (v6,14), phaer—cistern (v11).  She came to draw standing water, Jesus offers her living water.  The core around which missions works is physical needs, but we must offer more, Jesus.

                He presents a message.  He offered her truth, Himself.  Not a plan to memorize, a person to follow.  He respects the woman’s personhood.  Coercion is never the step to witness.  He shares of himself, and gives her the word of belief rather than doubt.  He encourages  her to be a witness.

IV.          Having Left This Woman in the Anguish of Hopelessness and Guilt, We Must Return to Her.  V13 “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”

                This is the reason of note that Jesus has chosen to journey through Samaria.  A woman’s needs are to be met beside a quiet well.  The disciples will know the attitude of our Lord toward outsiders, and toward prejudice.  You see, the second drink of water is one of measure.  She responded to His unexpected request.  He gives a measure of her own need by these regular forays to the well of Jacob.  Is it the rebuke of the women?  Is it the Sychar well is closed?  Is it a spirituality meditative thing?

                The other men in her life were interested for their own sakes. Jesus for her sake.  Jesus cares for people.  We often use people for ourselves.  We win people to Jesus when we communicate this caring spirit of Jesus.

                The second drink of water reaches inward.  Psalm 42:1 “As a hind longs for the water brooks, so do I long for Thee, O God.”  Isaiah 55:1 “Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”  She is one of these, she longs for God. 

                Jesus will help her in discovery.  He must reveal herself to her.  “Go call thy husband.” V16.  He must reveal Himself to her.  “Prophet,” v19, is not enough; “worship” v20 shows that tradition is not enough.  Jesus points out to her that worship apart from soul-rest won’t fly, in either Gerizim or Zion.  She has been quenching physical thirst.  Spiritually, she has been drying up.  How many people, like this woman, hope for someone like Jesus, but the truth is so slow-dawning?

Conclusion

                Max Cadenhead lay in a hospital room, a broken and dying man.  Cancer had  him in its power.  His church was at the point of a split.  His daughter struggling with a drug problem.  “I’ve got you with your war boots off.  If you had your boots on, you’d be out there trying to stomp out all those fires.”

Anonymous reflection, added at a later date, source p16, HE SPAKE TO THEM IN PARABLES

ONE SOLITARY LIFE

                Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.  He grew up in another obscure village.  He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, and then he was an itinerant preacher.  He never wrote a book.  He never held an office.

                He never owned a home.  He never set foot inside a big city.  He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.  He had no credentials but himself.

                He had nothing to do with this world except the named power of his divine manhood.  While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him.  His friends ran away.  One of them denied him.  He was turned over to his enemies.  He went through the mockery of a trial.  He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves.

                His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying—and that was his coat.  When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

                Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the centerpiece of the  human race and the leader of progress.  I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as that one solitary life.

(1) Lockyer, H. (1988). All the Women of the Bible. Zondervan.

MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS

#828a                                                         MESSIANIC EXPECTATIONS                                                                                  

Scripture  John 4:1-42                                                                                                                                    Date 2/19/1985

Passage: Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ² although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³ So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. ⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. ⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸ (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) ⁹ The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.^[a]) ¹⁰ Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹ “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹² Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” ¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” ¹⁵ The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” ¹⁶ He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. ¹⁸ The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” ¹⁹ “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. ²⁰ Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” ²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²² You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³ Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. ²⁴ God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” ²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

The Disciples Rejoin Jesus

²⁷ Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” ²⁸ Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ²⁹ “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” ³⁰ They came out of the town and made their way toward him. ³¹ Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” ³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” ³³ Then his disciples said  to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” ³⁴ “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. ³⁶ Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹ Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” ⁴⁰ So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. ⁴¹ And because of his words many more became believers.

⁴² They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Purpose: Begin a series lasting through two weeks on THE DOCTRINE OF CHRIST, here introducing the Christ who came.

Keywords:           Christ the Messiah                           Doctrine of Christ

Timeline/Series:               Doctrine of Christ

Introduction

                My father has been an avid reader for most of his adult life.  I remember often encountering him in some reading venture.  What he particularly liked was westerns, and Bret Harte was a favorite.

                One of Bret Harte’s most famous stories was called “The Luck of Roaring Camp.”  It is about a wild mining camp in the late Nineteenth Century.  Roughness and crudeness were not only acceptable, they were expected.  The story revolves around a young, pregnant woman in the camp, who, when she gave birth to a fatherless son, died of complications from the delivery.  The miners were left to care for the baby.  Unexpected changes began to take place.  The baby was kept in an immaculately clean room, amidst the rubble of the camp.  But soon, other areas began to improve in appearance.    Cleanliness became the order of the day.  Swearing, which had always been the language of the men, came to be strictly forbidden. Their favorite pastime  had always been drinking.  After the coming of this child in among them, they spent their off hours taking care of “their” baby.  What a difference one little baby can make in one’s perspective of life.

                Grapple, if you can, with the reality of what it has meant, not only to the believing Jew of the first century who expected Him, and to whom He came, but to all of us, that the Christ has come into our world and became one with us.

                I heard a classic recently about children, and pleasure derived.  Someone said “If I had known how much I was going to enjoy my grandchildren, I would have had them first.”

I.             The  Samaritan Woman Allows Us to Examine the Expectations of Messiah.  V25 “The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming’ (who is called Christ).   ‘When He comes, He will tell us all things.’”

                First, a word about Samaria.  When David’s kingdom was divided during the reign of Rehoboam, it was divided north from south, between Judah, and a confederation of the other tribes.  25 years after the death of Jeroboam, their first king, Omri, then King, bought a site identified as the Hill of Samaria (I Kings 16:24), and built a new capital called Samaria.  This kingdom collapsed in 721BC, many of the people were taken away, others brought in.  The feelings between Judah and Samaritans worsened.  After Judah fell, people returned, Samaritans sought to prevent settlement and reorganization.

                The Samaritan:  She comes to Jacob’s well, away from her village.  Why?  She opens up immediately to Jesus. She senses quality, she has religious  values.  Jesus shows His concern for an unseemly woman.  She identifies her concept of Messiah, limited to Samaritan horizons. “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain”—the shrine at the site of destroyed temple on Mt. Gerizim.  Settle human differences.

                It will surely help to understand better what the Jews expected.  The term means “anointed.”  Word has various Old Testament uses not referring to Christ.  “Christ” is Greek form.  Some expected a warrior/anointed, a David.

                Others expected a priestly Messiah who would be like God’s regent.  What is clear at Masada is that these faithful Jews waited for a “deliverer.”  When none came, they committed mass suicide. 

                We will talk a little later about what Jesus taught of the Messiah.

II.            Jesus Gives Us Our Best Practice of Messianic Expectation.  He identifies Himself as a Jew, but not a standard Jew.  He is in Samaria.  He is at Jacob’s Well talking to a Samaritan woman.  V7 “Give me a drink.”  It is not that they do not drink from a vessel.  Sugchrontai—to use in common.

                He reveals to such a one as the complex reality of His messiahship.  He has established Messiah’s humanity.  (See John 1:14—and the Word was manifested among us.)  He was weary, needed food.  He refutes any idea of nationalistic deliverer. 

                He affirmed His message.  She spoke of “proclaimer,” v25.  He acknowledges this. V26 “I Am.”  Exodus 3:14, “And God said to Moses, ‘I Am who I Am’” . . . say . . . ‘I Am has sent me to you.’”

                Jesus identifies Himself as THE ANOINTED OF GOD: 

• In Jerusalem, John 10:24f, “If you are the Christ, tell us.”  “My sheep . . . follow me.”   Salvation is His goal. 
• In the garden at prayer, John 17:3,  “That they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom  you sent.”
• At Jesus’ trial before the High Priest, Mark 14:61, “Are You  the Christ, the Son of the  Blessed?”  Jesus replied “I am.”   Then He stresses that His throne is heavenly not national.
• The Risen Christ so identified Himself, Luke 24:26f, to the couple from Emmaus—“ought the Christ to have suffered these things?”

III.           Finally, a Brief Word about the Salvation He Came to Offer.  V42, “Now we believe, not because of what you said, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the World.”

                Jesus’ enterprise is not material or national, it is spiritual.  He came into the world as the promised and anointed of God.  To redeem all, and to reach reconciliation among them.  He came to fashion faith not for the Jew only, but for Jew and Samaritan; descendant of Abraham and one never having heard; child of faith and one born of superstition; Jew as well as Gentile—Romans 2:10f, “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God.”        

                He forever destroyed the barriers that separate us one from the other.

Conclusion

                Historian Will Durant is reported to have once said, “The greatest question of our time is not communism versus individualism, not Europe versus America, not even the East versus the West: It is whether a man can bear to live without God.”

Added: Source PBS 12/12/1999, 7:50a.m., “Circle of Light.”

Young Indian boy alone with a fire and the belief that his grandfather’s spirit was in the trees nearby.

                Elk comes to rest in still light, scar on his flank

                Wolf comes to opposite side, blind in one eye

                Flurrying of wings and an eagle rests opposite, leg is broken.

Boy asks each what the fire means: It is a circle of light in which each can rest without fear.

HE MUST AND I MUST ALSO

#860b                                                        HE MUST AND I MUST ALSO                                                                                 

Scripture  John 3:22-36 NIV                                                                                                                         Orig. 8/27/1961

                                                                                                                                                                           Rewr. 11/30/1989

Passage: 22 After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. 23 Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. 24 (This was before John was put in prison.) 25 An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”

27 To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. 28 You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ 29 The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. 30 He must become greater; I must become less.”[a]

31 The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33 Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34 For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God[b] gives the Spirit without limit. 35 The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

Purpose: In a series from John’s Gospel, sharing this passage related to the early ministry of Jesus as to our dependence upon Him

Keywords:           Bible Study                         Christ as Lord                     John Series                                                                        

Timeline/Series:               Sequential                                         

Introduction

                One of the distressing realities of our time relates to public figures who are indicted following some scandal.  We read, and hear about it with great dismay in the lives of prominent religious leaders.  It is made to be a public spectacle when these, and well-known political figures compromise certain standards, and are accused, tried, and convicted.

                We struggled last week with the sentence directed against James Bakker.  On the same day, an actress was convicted of hitting a policeman.  A few days before, one of America’s wealthiest women was indicted for tax evasion.

                It is not new.  We well remember the Nixon years and the Watergate scandal.  One of the men who figured prominently in that was the man who was counsel to President Nixon, a lawyer by the name of Charles Colson.  Colson was found guilty and sentenced to several years’ incarceration.

                During his time in prison something different happened.  He acknowledged his own involvement and guilt, realized that the wrong was in himself, and sought to change his life.  And the help he sought was spiritual.  Mr. Colson became a believer in Jesus Christ.  He later wrote his autobiography with the title, Born Again(1).   

                Many people were skeptical.  “Oh, no, not again,” was a commonly heard refrain.  It has been ten years or more, and Charles Colson is out of prison, still holding his new birth experience, and is involved in ministry to men and women who are in, or recently released from, prison.

I.             The First Theme that We Encounter is Summary. V22 “After these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon.”

                Here is a bridge between two important texts.  Some called John 3:16 the most important verse in the Bible.                  W.O. Vaught tells about a prior Little Rock Crusade back in the fifties.  He was sent with a committee from the ministerial association to Fort Worth to check out Mr. Graham.  And, he said, though they brought back a glowing report of Graham’s message and manner, twenty-three of his ministerial colleagues signed a petition saying in effect, “this is not the kind of man we need in Little Rock.”  John the Baptist had his critics also, but they will get very little of our attention this morning. 

                Others refer to chapter 4 as the single most significant chapter in the Bible.  1966 JL Sullivan—John’s Witness to Jesus(2).  1989 HH Hobbs—The Gospel of John:  Invitation to Life(3).  So much more than just a bridge.

                The summary is that of perspective.  John 3:1-21 has provided perspective of the new birth.  John Newton:  “I am not what I ought to be, but thank God, I’m not what I used to be.” Separation from the past, commitment to life of discipleship.

                John 3:22-36 insists that we take note of the increasing centrality of Christ to the believer.  Pilgrimage might begin with loyalty to none. Shifted with loyalty to none but Jesus. Being a follower calls forth two requirements: a statutory commitment, and a circumstance of growth.

                It is summary also of personality.  Facts about Jesus and John otherwise unknown.  Of Jesus early ministry: Matthew 19:1, Mark 10:1—come to Judea, Luke 4:44 Judea (KJV reads Galilee).

                Jesus public ministry before John imprisoned.  Mark 1:14 “After John was delivered up, came Jesus into Galilee.”

                Jesus’ affirmation of baptism.  Synoptics never mention Jesus baptizing.  John 4:2f clarifies this about administering.

                That John continues an independent ministry after Jesus’ baptism at a place called Aenon near Salim.  “There was much water there.”  Summary statement on baptism.  Are you distressed about baptisms?  Some say that John chooses a less promising site to open the way for Christ.

                Finally, there is seen an abrupt change from this revival . . . for Jesus.  Luke 3:3 and Matthew 4:17 depict the common mode of their message.  “Baptism of repentance.” “Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  After John is imprisoned, Jesus goes into Galilee (Mark 1:14) with same style and message.  But change is in the wind.  Perhaps this explains John’s uncertainty.  See Matthew 11:1,2.

II.            Next, There is the Theme of Subordination.  V25 “Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples . . . .  Rabbi, [Jesus] baptizeth, and all men come to him.”

                In regard to the ceremonial washing, it was major concern to Jews, and a way to make money.  In Cairo ten years ago coverlets; in Jerusalem no admission to the Dome of the Rock.  Regeneration dealt with inside, therefore they wouldn’t pay the tax.  Discussion turned to Jesus and His prominence over John.

                Matthew 14:1f: “Herod had arrested John . . . because of his brother Phillip’s wife.”  From this diatribe on religious ceremony, John shows us what Christian grace ought to be.  His followers are uneasy because Jesus has come to a more favored posture.  They have no idea what is ahead.  The concept of cross is unknown. 

                He reaffirms the centrality of Jesus.  “I am not he!  You know who is!”  John 4:26f same without the negative.  He sees himself as “friend,” philos.  His role in the wedding is to protect interest of bridegroom.  He guards the chamber where the bride awaits.  John will not usurp Christ’s place.

                To what degree do you subordinate yourself to Jesus? I was envious of a friend when 200 of his people were present at S.C.  I had 20 who had chosen to come to the M.C. to hear warmed over Th. Ms. (Meaning unknown.)  Don’t do it for Brother Lamar’s sake.  There is a reason for doing it, and

Remainder of paragraph lost.

                Someone tells about the passenger who went trackside, found his train, and went aboard. He found the car empty, chose his seat, got comfortable.  After a few minutes a grease-stained trainman came through.  “You’ll have to go up to the forward car.”  “Why? What’s wrong with this one?” “Well, nothing’s wrong with it.  It’s just not hooked up to anything that’s going anywhere.”

III.           Finally, There is the Theme of Superiority.  V31 “He that cometh from above is above all . . .   V35 The Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into His hand.  He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life . . . he that believeth not the Son shall not see life.”

                Here is the eternal two-fold choice.  It is not that they are “saved” or they are “lost.”  The choices are: they are saved or lost, or there is nothing.  Then, you can conclude that since there must be something, we are either saved or lost.  Or, are you too sophisticated (worldly) to believe that.

                The choice epitomized here is of life or death.  Deuteronomy 30:15 “See I have set before thee this day, life and good, and death and evil.”  Joshua 24:15 “Choose ye this day whom you will serve.”

                John reminds us that the same choices are still much in vogue today.  Herschel Ford wrote: [The sinful man}

• Shuts the door on his highest possibilities.

• Puts himself in the way of others.

• Puts himself on the devil’s side.

• Insults God.

• Crucifies the Son of God afresh.

• Rejects testimony of greatest men.

• Seals his doom in hell forever.

Conclusion

                We must not, in our haste to get from the greatest verse to the greatest chapter, overlook what may be the greatest concept:  “He  must increase, and I must decrease.”  He must and I must also!  Self-subordination is vital to our faith.

                A line on the drug awareness program (C12 11/30/89) said it well.  “It’s painful to take inventory of the things you’ve done wrong.  It’s painful to change.”

(1) Colson, C. (1976). Born Again. Chosen Books.

(2) Sulllivan, J. (1965). John’s Witness to Jesus. Convention Press.

(3) Hobbs, H. (1988). The Gospel of John: Invitation to Life. Convention Press.

THE WITNESS AND HIS FAITH AND CONVICTIONS

#624                                      THE WITNESS AND HIS FAITH AND CONVICTIONS                                                             

Scripture  John 1:12                                                                                                                                                  2/11/1976

Passage: “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.”

I.             Why We Have Come to Believe as We Do.

                Because of our enduring need.  (1) Someone said, “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God”—we believe ourselves to be.  (2) What the whole world is looking for we have found: “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (3) We came to despair in  the atonement of human worth; Ephesians 2:8 “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.”

                Because of the working out of the great promises from God.  (1) That God can accomplish great victories through us.  Psalm 37:5 “Commit thy way unto the Lord.  Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.”  2 Timothy 1:12 “I . . .am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed unto Him.”  (2) That Jesus is the only enduring hope for people such as we. Matthew 14—Peter walked on the water until he took his eyes off Jesus.  Hebrews 12:2—"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”

II.            What We Need to Believe. 

• The deity of Christ. (1) Divine authority—“As the  Father hath sent Me, so send I you,” John 20:21.  (2) Virgin birth, “And the virgin’s name was Mary,” Luke 1:27. (3) The personification of God, “The express image of His person,” Hebrews 1:3.
• Salvation through the blood of Christ.  We will not be disappointed if God saves some other way. (1) Old Testament prophecies: “The chastisement of our peace was upon Him,” Isaiah 53:5.  (2) New Testament identification: “Who bare our sins in His own body,” I Peter 2:24. “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood,” Revelations 1:5.
• That such salvation comes only by grace, without works. (1) “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,” Ephesians 2:8. (2) “Not by works of righteousness, which we have done,” Titus 3:5.
• Man’s sin nature, and his resultant lostness.  (1) Ephesians 2:3, “by nature the children of wrath.” (2) John 8:44, “Ye are of your father the devil.”  (3) Psalm 51:5, “In sin my mother conceived me.”      
• Inspiration of the Word.
• Obligation to witness.   
• Jesus’ return.    
• The Holy Spirit.

JESUS IS ALIVE

#741                                                                        JESUS IS ALIVE                                                                                               

Scripture  Matthew 28:6; Mark 16:6; Luke 24:5f; John 20:1f

                                                                                                                                                                               Date 4/13/1979

Passage:

Matthew 28:6: He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Mark 16:6:           “Don't be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”

Luke 24:5f:          And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?

John 20:1:            The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

Timeline/Series:               Easter

Introduction

                If you, as a schoolboy, remember reading Cervantes’ story “Don Quixote,” you will recall that part of the fun of the book was in his strong imagination.  He went out pretending to be a courageous knight.  He fought windmills, satisfied that they were giants.  He drove herds of sheep askew, believing them to be enemies of the kingdom.

                Good sense and timing dictate that I should be to you, what I am.  You do not need another pretender.  I will speak about that which I best know, and my conscience leads me to believe that it is what you most need.

                The gospel narrative wastes no words in dealing with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and no more worthy subject could be claimed for this occasion.  Since we get caught up more in the crucifixion scene, I will claim the scene of resurrection for these moments.

                While all of the gospels write about a single theme, they are not simple copies of each other.  They emphasize different things out of the life of Jesus.  They single out separate events that may speak more to what they want to say.  Certain parts of the story are so important that each of these writers declares its integrity.  This is the case of the resurrection.

• Matthew 28:6: He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay
• Mark 16:6:           “Don't be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.”
• Luke 24:5f:          And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
• John 20:1:            The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

                Then there were those to whom Jesus appeared: Mary Magdalene, John 20:16; the other women, Matthew 28:9; Emmaus disciples, Luke 24:13f; Disciples Mark, Luke, John, and Thomas, John 20:26f; seven at seaside, John 21:1.

I.             This is So Important Because We Make So Much Over the Death of Jesus:  Jesus Christ, Superstar; The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey; Jesus of Nazareth. 

                Good Friday has more appeal.  It may be for some of the same reason that  Thomas felt it necessary to touch the living Jesus before he would believe.  Without us Jesus couldn’t make it!!!?

                We’ve done our bit for poor Jesus.  More here than at the sunrise service. 

                The Turin Shroud as told in The Silent Witness.  More a case for His death than for His life.  Satisfies a human propensity for physical evidence.

II.            Of Much Greater Importance is the Reality that Christ is Alive. 

                There will always be those who want to intellectualize faith to satisfy human ideals.  1978 Act of God, Charles Templeton—a novel of the discovery of Jesus’ body and the effort of the church to hide this from the public; a few years ago, The Passover Plot; liberal theologians—Bultmann stated “A historical fact which involves a resurrection from the dead is utterly impossible.”

III.           The Early Believers did not Say that Jesus was Spiritually Alive, but that He was Resurrected from the Dead. 

                These are not all the same.  Many Jews already believed in life after death.  Jesus died, albeit horribly, for the sins of people such as we; but what is important is that death did not have power over  Him, but rather He over death.

                There are three very significant reasons why this bodily resurrection is so important.

• It establishes unquestionably, the verdict of Holy God, upon the life (obedience) of Jesus.  Acts 3:26 “Unto  you first God, having raised up His son Jesus, sent  Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from his iniquities.”  Romans 1:4 “And declare to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”  The disciples then and now, by the way, had to have absolute evidence that Jesus was not just another flash in the pan.
• It gave absolute credence to the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross.  Romans 8:11 “But if the spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit.”  II Peter 2:24 “Who in His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.”  I Corinthians 15:17 “If Christ has not been raised your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins.”
• There is a third reason. It means that death is a state of being enhanced through our faith in Jesus.  Greek immortality was a state much better than cessation of being, but how much??? The resurrection proclaims that a Christ is alive, so, in Him, are we.  There is total transformation of the whole person in a new and better life.

Conclusion

                From an  unknown source*:

“I saw the conquerors riding by, With cruel lips and faces wan.

Musing of kingdoms sacked and burned, There rode the Mongol, Genghis Khan;

And Alexander like a God, Who sought to weld the world in one;

And Caesar with his laurel wreath; And like a thing from Hell, the Hun;

And leading like a star the van, Heedless of outstretched arm and groan.

Inscrutable Napoleon went, Dreaming of empire and alone.

Then all they perished from the earth As fleeting shadows from a glass,

And conquering down the centuries Came Christ the swordless on an ass.”

                Jesus came to die to live; to die for your sins and mine that we might live in Him.

                John Michener captures somewhat of the essence of faith in The Source. Zadok the righteous (Abraham) hears El-Shaddai—“As long as you live old man, you will be free to ignore my commands.  But in time I will grow impatient and will speak to others as I have spoken to Epher.”

                The call of God had been to serve Him in the city.  “My home is the desert,” Zadok said in self-justification, “and I was afraid to leave.”

                “I waited,” El-Shaddai said, “because I knew that if you did not love your home in the desert you would not love me either.  I am glad that you are now ready.”

*Harry Kemp

BELIEVING THE UNBELIEVABLE

#164                                                        BELIEVING THE UNBELIEVABLE                                                                               

Scripture  John 3:16-21 NIV                                                                                                        Orig. 3/3/1963 (2/1977)

                                                                                                                                                                             Rewr. 5/15/1988

Passage: 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Purpose: To share with my people the great discovery of new life in  Christ.

Keywords:           Belief                    Christian Life                      Salvation              Renewal              Redemption

                                Christ as Saviour

Introduction

                Well over a half century ago, H.G. Wells published his anthology “The Outline of History.”  He was a man, by the standards of many evangelicals of today, who would be perceived to have been an atheist: even more so by the standards of his own day.  Yet, his writing presents a provoking picture of Jesus.

                To Mr. Wells, Jesus was one whose closest followers and friends did not understand him.  Consider texts like:

• John 1:10  “He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not.”

• Luke 11:15 “But some of them (people) said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of devils.”

• John 13:2 “And supper being ended, the devil now having put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.”

• John 16:32 “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone.”

                It is so clear that what they expected was for Jesus to miraculously set himself up as king.  The Messiah they expected was to be a warrior/priest.

• John 1:49 Nathaniel:  “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the king of Israel.

                But Jesus did not perceive Rome as His principle enemy.  He saw the despotic tendency of Israel herself as His chief antagonist.

• Mark 11:15 “Jesus went into the temple and began to cast out them that sold and bought . . . He taught, saying, ‘My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer. . . .’ And the scribes and chief priests sought how they might destroy Him.”

                Thus, according to Mr. Wells, the crucifixion was nothing more than these Hebrew religious bigots attempting to rid themselves of an embarrassment and a misguided zealot, to whom the people listened.

• Luke 20:19f “And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him . . . and they watched him and sent forth spies that they might deliver him into the power and authority of . . . government.” 

                Is it so unbelievable that God would do so unseemly a thing as to provide for man’s salvation and deliverance from the burden of sin?

I.             Well, Let Me Remind You that Believing the Unbelievable Begins with a Rightful Appraisal  of Sin.  V19 “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.”  It is our natural course to live in sin.  One of the major mandates of God’s Word is in this declaration. 

                There are purveyors of filth who accuse the Bible of being pornographic.  It is an honest portrayal of human corruption.  But it is to the end that man might be delivered from himself and his kind.  The honest presentation of sin pictures even the high and mighty.  David’s sin with Bathsheba.  How refreshing when church leaders are honest, and prayerfully entrust such honesty to their pastor.

                The Old Testament prophets spoke out with vehemence against the nation’s sin.  Isaiah 5:20f “Woe to them that call evil good, and good evil. . . . Woe to them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight.”

                And what more could warn us of man’s corruptible nature than our changing times.  Increasing numbers living out of wedlock.  Grade school children in increasing numbers involved in drug and alcohol traffic.  I recently read the sad commentary that 75% of all college students admittedly cheat on exams.  It is reported that 15-20 million sex magazines are sold monthly.  I read several years ago that 51% of all of the world’s divorces are in the USA.

II.            If One Is to Believe the Unbelievable We Must also Consider the Nature of God.  V16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

                The nature of God is as revealed in Christ.   Recent Sunday evening message on the incarnation (#130)  adoption, kenosis (that Jesus emptied himself of His own desires), docetism (that Jesus only appeared to be human). 

                No matter how powerful, or technically correct our words, we can’t do justice. 

                Jesus and the Samaritan woman, John 4—Other Jewish men were abusive; Samaritan men treated her like the prostitute she was, their wives treated her worse.  Jesus treats her as a person deserving His time and His kindness.

                The story of the adulterous woman, John 8—The men in the story brought her not to try her, but to try Jesus.  Jesus quickly turned their pride back on their own heads:  “Let the one without sin cast the first stone.”  He set her free, urging her to “sin  no more.”  He convicted them that God knew their sin also.

                His purpose though these stories and so many others is helping us experience what God is really like.  Jesus told the parable of the vineyard (Mark 12).  Leased to tenants, a servant went to collect for the owner.  He was beaten. Another injured critically.  Another killed.  Others were sent.  Finally, in one unbelievable move to reconcile, he sent  his son.  He was killed.  “What do you suppose the owner will do?” Only one answer.  It is obvious.  But Jesus told them they were wrong.  They don’t know God.  V10 “The stone which the builders rejected became the head of the corner.”  Not revenge, but reconciliation through restitution.

                The nature of God demands the response of personal faith.  Our own nature contradicts this.  Thus, we must break with our nature if we are to honor God’s nature.  L.E. Maxwell,(1) Born Crucified, p51: “Self dies hard.  In final captivity and awareness to the “carcass” of self we are brought to cry out, “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

                It is believing the unbelievable.

“A Christless cross no refuge were for me;

A crossless Christ my Saviour could not be.

But, O CHRIST CRUCIFIED, I rest in Thee.”  (B85p51)

III.           Thus, Believing the Unbelievable, We Come to Terms with the Nature of Redemption.     V21, “He that doeth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”  Living Bible  “Those doing right come gladly to the light.”

                For redemption to begin at all, it must begin with God.  We see the gist of this in creation.  Genesis 1:27 “And God created man in His own image.”  We see the finality of it in reconciliation.  Colossians 1:21 “You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works yet now hath He reconciled.”

                And that redemption is made manifest on the cross.  I Peter 1:18f “. . . ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . but with the precious blood of Christ.”  How can one excuse himself for disdaining such unbelievable love?  How can a Christian withhold our fullest commitment and service in the face of such expectation?

Conclusion (Swindoll, p 103)

                The world is full of contradictions.  We show ourselves wise, not by speech but silence.  Society is not based on more rules, stricter laws, but greater trust.  Those who give from the heart have much more than those who keep by stealth.  Believe the unbelievable.

(1) Maxwell, L.E. (1945). Born Crucified. Moody Press.