Sunday May 7, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 17 – John 4:27-42 “Motivation and Mission”

Sunday – May 7, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – May 7, 2023

John 4:40-42
So when the Samaritans came to him, they started asking him to stay with them. He stayed there two days, and because of His word many more believed. They said to the woman, “No longer do we believe because of your words, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this one really is the Savior of the world.”

If you’re anything like me, you struggle at being an effective witness for Jesus Christ. I’ve prayed about it for decades, I’ve read many books, gone to different training seminars, and even taken a seminary class in evangelism, but still I often fail at being a good witness. An hour or two after an opportunity, I think, “I should have said such and such,” but I didn’t think of it at the time. Our text gives us some help in being the kind of witness that God uses from an unlikely source: A woman who is a brand new convert, who is still living with a man outside of marriage, who knows almost no sound doctrine, and who has not had a training course in how to share her faith. Yet she effectively evangelizes her entire village for Christ!

Our Lord fulfilled His mission, but He has given us the task of proclaiming the gospel to a lost world before He returns. The time is short, and a team of workers is required to complete the task. It would seem that a different group of individuals had sown the fields than those who were to reap the harvest. I believe this is still true today. Where wheat is grown in the United States today, the farmers may plant their own crops, but the time to harvest is so short that a caravan of professional harvesters is often employed. Trucks and combines are brought in, and the fields are harvested within hours.

The disciples have no idea that a great “harvest” is about to take place, and that they are the harvesters. They have been so preoccupied with lunch, while others have been at work sowing the gospel. In the past, the prophets had sown the seed through their words and the Scriptures. Men like John the Baptist had also sown the seed of the gospel. And this very day the Samaritan woman has gone into the town, bearing testimony that Jesus is at the well, and that He has “told her all she had done.” She did the sowing; now it is time for Jesus and His disciples to reap. No wonder there is no time for lunch, the “fields are already white for harvest.”

Look at the kind of faith these Samaritans possess, as reflected by their words. At first they took the word of the Samaritan woman, but having heard Jesus for themselves, they no longer relied on her testimony, but on what they heard Jesus say. We are told of no miracles (other than Jesus letting this woman know that He knew all about her life of sin), or signs being performed by our Lord in Samaria. These Samaritans have a vastly superior faith than mere “sign faith.” Their faith is “Word faith,” faith in Jesus Christ, based upon His own words. They came to trust in Jesus as the Messiah, as the “Savior of the world.”

Sunday April 30, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 16 – John 4:23-24 “How Evangelism of the Gentiles Began”

Sunday – April 30, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 30, 2023

John 4:23-24

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

Jesus’ words about worship to this unnamed Samaritan woman occur in the context of His witness to bring this woman to saving faith. We might not think that witnessing is the right context to talk about the priority of worship. But Jesus takes her implicit question (4:20) about whether Samaritan worship or Jewish worship is correct and uses it to zero in on the aim of the gospel: to turn sinners into true worshippers of God.

Jesus tells this woman that a significant transition is about to take place. Unbelievers often mistakenly think that if they go through the proper externals of “worship,” then things are okay between them and God. But they haven’t dealt with God on the heart level. They haven’t repented of their sins of thought, word, and deed. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that it’s not the externals that matter as much as the internal when it comes to worship.

There are also Christians who are sincere, but their worship is man-centered. Sometimes it’s patterned more after the entertainment world than after the Bible. It draws attention to the performers, but not to the Lord. Or, on the other end of the Christian spectrum, some go through ancient liturgies week after week, but their hearts are not in submission to God. They mistakenly think that because they went through the rituals, they’re good for another week. They’re like the Jewish leaders of whom Jesus said (Matt. 15:8, citing Isaiah 29:13), “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.”

Why do you come to church? If your focus is to get something out of the church service, you’ve got it wrong. Your focus should be to give praise and honor and thanks with all the saints to the God who gave His Son for you. Soren Kierkegaard pointed out that often a congregation views itself as an audience, watching the worship leaders and the pastor give their presentation or performance. But the truth is that the congregation is actually the cast of actors, with the worship leaders and the pastor acting as prompters, giving cues from the wings. The real audience is God and the entire presentation is offered to Him, for His pleasure and glory. So the issue when you come to church is not, “Did I get anything out of it?” but, “Did I give God the heartfelt praise and thanks and glory that He deserves?” That’s our aim as a church.

Sunday April 23, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 15 –

Sunday – April 23, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 23, 2023

John 4:3-6
He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob’s well was there.

One of the wonderful things about the good news Jesus brings is that it meets the basic need all people have. Since all people are sinners who need to be reconciled to the holy God, the same gospel applies to all: Jesus saves sinners who trust in Him. John 3 gives the account of Jesus’ interview with the Pharisee, Nicodemus. As a religious leader and a moral man, he was no doubt shocked by Jesus telling Nicodemus his religion was not sufficient. He needed the new birth. John 4 gives the account of Jesus’ encounter with the immoral Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus skillfully shows her that she needs the living water that He can give. It’s the same basic message with a different metaphor.

Nicodemus and the unnamed Samaritan woman are as different as they could be. He was a Jewish man; she was a Samaritan woman. He was educated and orthodox in the Jewish faith; she was uneducated and unorthodox. He was an influential leader; she was a nobody. He was upper middle class; she was lower class. He was morally upright; she was immoral. He sought out Jesus because he recognized His merits; she had no idea who the stranger was who sought her out. He came to Jesus at night; Jesus and the woman met at noon. Nicodemus responded slowly and rationally; she responded quickly and emotionally. But Jesus loved both of them. He came to seek and to save all types of people.

It wasn’t that the woman at the well said, “Sir, you look like a Jewish rabbi. I’m hungry to know your God. Can you tell me how to do that?” She was just going about her daily chores, minding her own business, when this stranger asked her for a drink and then steered the conversation into spiritual matters. She wasn’t seeking to know God. Her guilt over her current live-in boyfriend and her five marriages, which had probably ended because of her multiple adulteries, caused her to keep her distance from God. The only explanation for this story is that Jesus was seeking a sinner who wasn’t even seeking Him.

What an amazing thing that our Lord found it necessary to pass through Samaria. Why was this? The easy answer was because God had purposed to save these Samaritans from their sins. But there is yet another reason, a very simple one: These Samaritans would not come to Jesus, Jesus had to go to them. I think there is sometimes the presumption that the unbelievers should come to us, but it is a presumption on our part, and a bad one. “Go” is an important word in the great commission, and Jesus has set the example for us. If the church is saying, “Come” to unbelievers, let us remember that our Lord says, “Go and make disciples” (Matt 28:19) to the church.

Sunday April 16, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 14 – John 3:31-36 “The Heavenly Authority of Jesus”

Sunday – April 16, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 16, 2023

John 3:32-34
What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. 33 “He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.”

We hear stories these days of people who supposedly went to heaven, came back, and wrote a book about it. A lot of what they write contradicts what the Bible says about heaven, but people buy their books and receive it as true because the authors claim to have eyewitness testimony. It’s interesting that none of the people in the Bible who were raised from the dead wrote books or set up speaking tours to tell everyone what they saw up there! The apostle Paul had a vision of heaven (some think it may have been when he was stoned and left for dead), but he only spoke about it hesitantly 14 years after it happened (2 Cor. 12:1-10).

But John’s point in our text is that Jesus can testify truthfully about heaven because He is telling us what He has seen and heard. He wasn’t speculating or philosophizing about heaven. He was speaking the very words of God, telling us what the Father is like and how we can have eternal life. His witness is reliable and certain. This isn’t the only time that John asserts this. In John 7:16, Jesus said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” In John 8:28, He said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” It may sound irreverent, but there is an common phrase that says: “I got this right from the horse’s mouth.” That is what John is saying about Jesus and His words.

Jesus had a large popular following because He healed people and they found His teaching fascinating. They liked the fact that He spoke with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 7:29). But, the same fickle crowd that shouted “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday on Friday shouted, “Crucify Him!” Their views about Jesus changed with the popular tide of opinion. Yet in spite of the authority of Jesus’ own testimony, the general response to Jesus when He came to this earth was rejection. John 3:19, “Men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” But, by God’s grace alone, there have always been some who have responded by believing.

The point for us is: the reason we should put our trust in Jesus is because we have come to the firm conclusion, based on the apostolic witness, that God is true and that Jesus spoke the words of God. He is who He claimed to be. He is the Christ, the Son of God, sent from heaven to redeem us from our sins. By setting your seal to this, John means that you fix in your mind and heart that Jesus is the promised Redeemer, your personal Savior and Lord. Even if all others forsake Him, you will be faithful even unto death.

Sunday April 9, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 13– John 3:22-30 “Jealousy and Joy”

Sunday – April 9, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 9, 2023

Romans 4:23-25
Now not for his [Abraham’s] sake only was it written that it [faith] was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”

If I were to ask, “What is the most crucial question for which you would like a definitive answer?” we would probably get many different answers. Some might say, “What career path should I pursue?” Others may say, “Whom should I marry?” Or, “Where can I find a decent-paying job?” Some might want to know, “How can I live longer with good health?” These are all important questions, of course. But as I’ve often said, the most crucial question that we all must answer is Jesus’ question to His disciples (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?” Your answer to that question not only determines how you will live the rest of your life, but also where you will spend eternity.

The correct answer to that question largely rests on the historic fact that Jesus rose bodily from the grave. If that is really true, then He is who He claimed to be, the eternal Son of God in human flesh, the Lord of all creation, who is coming to judge the living and the dead. That means that you must trust in Him as your Savior and bring all of your thoughts, words, and deeds under His lordship. If you trust in Him as your risen Lord and Savior, He promised that you will spend eternity with Him.

In the Book of Romans, Paul says that Jesus “was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4). This does not mean that He became the Son of God through the resurrection, but rather that the resurrection distinguished Jesus to be who He is, the eternal Son of God. By virtue of His resurrection, Jesus was appointed to be seated at God’s right hand of power. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Phil. 2:9-11).

Paul’s reference to “Jesus our Lord” in Romans 4:23-25 emphasizes again both His deity and His humanity. Jesus took on human flesh so that He could bear our sins, but He did not give up His deity. He is the Lord. When Paul says that Jesus “was delivered over because of our transgressions,” he means that Jesus died to pay the just penalty for our sins. When he says that Jesus “was raised because of our justification,” he means that when God raised Jesus, He put His seal of approval on Christ’s death as obtaining our justification. Because Jesus was raised, we can know that God accepted His substitutionary death on the cross, so that if we believe in Jesus our sins are upon Him.

Sunday April 2, 2023 The Gospel of John – John 3:1-21

Sunday – April 2, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – April 2, 2023

John 3:22
After these things Jesus and His disciples came into the land of Judea, and there He was spending time with them and baptizing.

So far in the ministry of Jesus according to the apostle John, Jesus and His disciples had been at the wedding Canna and then spent time in the city of Jerusalem, where He had cleansed the temple (2:13-22), performed a number of signs (2:23), and spoken with Nicodemus (3:1-21). They are now leaving the city of Jerusalem, making their way into the countryside. There, Jesus “spent time with” His disciples.

We should ponder these three words, “spent time with,” because they remind us of a very important element of discipleship. As it should be, the church is very interested in discipleship. Jesus is seen as the model for “discipling,” and rightly so. Nevertheless, our discipleship programs seldom do what our Lord actually did. Rather, we emphasize a kind of classroom instruction, and usually a highly structured program with “accountability” and other controls. While this may be commendable, I cannot overlook the fact that Jesus “spent time” with His disciples. To be our Lord’s disciple was to “be with Him”.

Spending time with Jesus is an opportunity to hear from Him, to learn from Him, and as a result, to become more like Him. Whether our life is all together or not, clothes folded or in a pile on the floor, orfeeling the presence of God or when we feel we are in a spiritual desert. Jesus wants us to draw near to Him. Jesus’ love for us is not affected by our quiet times. His character does not change like circumstances and feelings do. 2 Timothy 2:13 promises, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.” Jesus wants our individual hearts. Your heart. My heart. Filter-free. A heart that’s open to the unwavering love He wants to pour out on us freely.  Our time with Jesus doesn’t have to look the same in every season, but it should exist in every season. There will never be a day when we don’t need to hear from Him.

Discipleship is about witnessing, accountability, and one-on-one relationships with those who come to faith in Christ. But first and foremost, a disciple is one who spends time with the Master. Many times we often confuse the time we spend in preparation for our ministry with personal time with the Lord. Our time of study should be a time of fellowship and intimacy with the Lord, but we also need time with Him personally, for His sake and ours. Let us not lose sight of the fact that a significant part of our Lord’s discipling was simply spending time with His disciples.

Sunday March 26, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 12– John 3:1-21 Pt 2 “What Great Love, What Great Tension”

Sunday – March 26, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – March 26, 2023

John 3:16-18
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but it also can breed boredom. That means that when we come to a verse like John 3:16, which is likely the most familiar verse in the Bible, we are in danger of thinking, “Yes, thanks for reminding me of how lovable I am.” But, “God so loved the world” was just plain shocking! John wants us to understand that God’s love goes beyond the Jews to Gentiles from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). And, His love extends even to those who are His committed enemies (Matt. 5:43-45; Rom. 5:6-8, 10).

The Bible speaks of the love of God in many distinguishable ways.  There is the peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father (John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31). There is God’s providential love over all that He has made (Gen. 1; Matt. 6). Also, there is God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward His elect (Deut. 7:7-8; Eph. 1:4-5). And there is God’s conditional love toward His own people, based on their obedience (John 14:21; Jude 21; Ps. 103:9-11, 13, 17-18). Should you take any one of these aspects of God’s love and try to force all the other biblical references into that one mold, you sacrifice sound exegesis of those texts and your understanding of God’s love.

A balanced view of God’s great love should rightly affirm that Christ died for all, in the sense that Christ’s death was sufficient for all and that Scripture portrays God as inviting and desiring the salvation of all, out of His great love. But this also requires us also to confess that Christ Jesus, in the intent of God, died effectively for the elect alone, in line with the way the Bible speaks of God’s special selecting love for the elect. This is the tension we find in the complexity and beauty of God’s love.

In practical terms, this means that we can tell unbelievers that God loves them so much that He sent His only Son to die for their sins, if they will repent and believe in Christ. At the same time we should warn them that if they do not believe in Christ, they are still under God’s righteous judgment (John 3:18, 36), which will be finalized for all eternity if they die in unbelief. And, since we know that none are able to repent and believe in Christ unless God grants it (John 6:44, 65; Acts 11:18), we should be praying as we proclaim the gospel that He would be merciful in opening their blind eyes and imparting new life to them so that they can repent and believe.

Sunday March 19, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 11– John 3:1-21 Pt 1 “Why Religion Can’t Save”

Sunday – March 19, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – March 19, 2023

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

One of the greatest lies that Satan has foisted on the human race is that religion can save you. By “religion,” I mean adherence to the beliefs and practices of a religion in the hope that your performance will gain you right standing with God. Whether it is Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, or even Christianity, there have always been millions who mistakenly thought that obedience to their religion would earn them eternal life.

The four Gospels make it clear that the most difficult people to reach with the gospel are not the notoriously wicked, but rather the outwardly religious. There are numerous accounts of corrupt tax collectors and immoral people coming to salvation. They knew that they were sinners and that they could not save themselves. But it was the religious crowd that opposed Jesus and eventually crucified Him. They were blind to their own sins of pride and self-righteousness. Their religion served not to save them, but to condemn them.

But Jesus Christ did not come to promote religion. He did not flatter those who were religious by saying that He was glad to see their religious activities and that He, too, was a religious person. When the religious leaders complained that Jesus socialized with sinners, He replied (Luke 5:31-32), “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” The important thing with the Lord is what is in our hearts. He sees and judges “the thoughts and intentions of our hearts” (Heb. 4:12-13).

I must ask you friends, “Are you a Christian, or are you just religious?” If you take the words of our Lord seriously, there is a great difference between those who are religious and those who are reborn from above. Nicodemus was as lost as the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Hell will be populated by many people who are “religious,” who have trusted in their religion to save them, rather than trusting in Christ alone.. He came down from heaven, and He was lifted up on a cross to bear the penalty of your sins and mine. He was raised from the dead and exalted to the right hand of God. He offers to us His righteousness and His life. If you trust in Him, rather than in yourself, you will be reborn from above, and this way you can be assured that you will see the kingdom of God.

Sunday March 12, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 10– John 2:23 to 25 “Second Class Faith”

Sunday – March 12, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – March 12, 2023

John 2:23-24
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men…

In our text we read about a situation where many believed in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t believe in them. The word translated “entrusting” is the same Greek verb as “believed” (2:23). We could rightly translate it, “Many believed in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t believe in them.”  We have to remember John’s purpose for writing his gospel was (20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” So, why would Jesus refuse to entrust Himself to those who believed in Him?

The disciples may have been initially enthused over the response of the people and then puzzled by Jesus’ seemingly aloof response to them: “If He’s the Messiah, why doesn’t He welcome all of these people who are believing in His name?” The reason was that He could see their hearts. He knew that their faith was based on seeing the miracles that He performed, but they weren’t repenting of their sins and trusting in Him as their Savior from sin.

They really didn’t understand the truth about who Jesus is and what He came to do. Like Nicodemus, they probably thought, “We’re good Jews. We’re God’s chosen people.” They didn’t understand that they were sinners who needed a Savior. These people were impressed with Jesus. They had seen Him cleanse the temple and thought, “He must be a great prophet!” They had seen Him do miracles and thought, “He must be a great man of God!” But they didn’t understand that Jesus came to impart the new birth or that they even needed the new birth.

Because Jesus fully knows the hearts of all men, He does not entrust Himself to those whose faith is second class. There is a tension here, which we cannot overlook or deny. On the one hand, we have nothing to commend us to God. He does not choose to save us because of what we are, what we have done, or for what we can do for His kingdom. He chooses the weak and the foolish things to confound the wise. On the other hand, God does look on the heart. He rejected Saul and He chose David, not because of his stature or his good looks, but because of his heart. The issue here is not God’s choice of men for salvation, but His choice of men for intimate fellowship and ministry with Him. May He find us faithful, so that we find Him entrusting Himself to us, intimately communing with us, teaching and guiding us, so that we may proclaim His mercy and grace to a lost and dying world.

Sunday March 5, 2023 The Gospel of John Week 9– John 2:12-22 “Jesus Cleans House”

Sunday – March 5, 2023

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Word On Worship – Sunday – March 5, 2023

John 2:15-16
And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”

All of us have owned something we consider very special, something we would not wish to be “defiled” by misuse. Whatever this precious object may be, it could not be as precious to us as the “temple” was to our Lord. John considered this incident one of the more significant actions of our Lord at the outset of His public ministry. Our task is to learn why this is true, and what the temple cleansing has to do with men and women living centuries later.

John does not focus on the way in which these merchandisers go about their business, but rather on where they are conducting their business—in the temple courts. The Gospel of Mark’s Gospel takes up this theme as well, pointing out that “where” these businessmen are doing business interferes with an essential purpose of the temple. The temple was to be a “house of prayer for all nations” (Mark 11:17). The outer courts of the temple are the only places where Gentiles could worship, they were not allowed to pass beyond a certain point (Acts 21:27-30). Can you imagine trying to pray in the midst of a virtual stockyard, with all the noises of the animals and the bickering businessmen? Think of what it would be like to have to watch where you walked, lest you step in something undesirable?

What Jesus sees going on in the temple courts troubles Him a great deal! The place of prayer has become a place of profit-taking.  It appears that Gentile worship is functionally prohibited, and I doubt this troubled many of the Jews, who were not excited about including the Gentiles in their worship in the first place. It sounds more like the trading floor of a stock exchange than the outer courts of the temple of God. It smells more like a barnyard than the place where one would seek God’s presence. Jesus enters the outer court of the temple, fashioning a whip from materials at hand and proceeds to drive the vendors all out of the temple area.

Many like to think of Jesus as a “God of love,” who never criticizes, never judges, never condemns, whose calling is to affirm everyone and to make them happy. I must remind you the way our Lord chose to publicly reveal Himself to the world was not by the turning of water into wine, or by raising the dead or healing the sick; Jesus revealed Himself to Israel as her Messiah by His cleansing of the temple. I would remind you that while John the Baptist foretold the coming of one who was the “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world,” he likewise urged men and women to repent, because the Messiah was coming to judge the world. The Jesus of the Bible, the “real Jesus,” is the One who is merciful and gracious to those who trust and obey and the One who will judge those who resist and reject Him.