Author Archives: thebeachfellowship

Belief through the Word; John 4:27-54 

There are many degrees of faith.  Often, Jesus rebuked people for not having enough faith, or because they only had a little faith.  So as believers, it is important for us to consider our faith and examine it in light of what the word of God says. 

There are a lot of ecclesiastical statements out there which attempt to clarify what constitutes faith, but the best definition of faith is found in the scriptures themselves.  Several places in the scriptures speak of faith, but Hebrews 11:1 defines it very succinctly; “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  Faith then is believing in what is unseen, but hoped for.

Many professing Christians however, if questioned, base their faith not necessarily on the unseen, but on a tangible or physical experience that they had sometime in the past.  Perhaps they were going through some sort of crisis and they prayed to God for help, and He seemed to bring about deliverance in some miraculous way.  And so they believed in God and now consider themselves to be people of faith.  They believe in the existence of God because of something tangible that happened which established their belief.

That may be well and good up to a point, but I would suggest that the sort of faith which is founded on experience is what Jesus would speak of as “Oh, you of little faith.”  I believe God does sometimes work in visible ways in order to bring about the beginnings of faith.  So that may serve as a starting point in our faith, but I think that is not the kind of faith that satisfies God.  I think that God desires us to grow in faith so that we believe what God says without having to rely on substantiating evidence. 

A good verse which speaks of that kind of faith is found in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  This is the standard for faith in the scriptures.   The word of God speaks, and we believe it, and trust it, and then act in obedience to it.  So then our actions reveal our faith, and not waiting for God to prove it  before we act in faith.  That is the example we see throughout the scriptures, from Abraham through Moses, and on into the New Testament. God spoke, they believed and then acted in faith.  So faith that pleases God is that which trusts in God’s word and acts upon it.

Today in our exposition of this text we are going to see four examples of faith.  Two that were pleasing to the Lord and two that were not.  The Samaritan woman exemplifies the sort of faith that was pleasing to God.  You will remember she had a conversation with Jesus by the well, and though they started off by talking about Jesus being thirsty and wanting a drink of water, He skillfully turned the conversation around to spiritual things.  And in the process, He brought her under conviction of her sin.  She responded by trying to talk about religion and the difference between the way the Samaritans and the Jews worship God.  But Jesus continued to press her towards the goal of believing in Him.  And then Jesus made one of the most forthright claims to His divinity to ever come from HIs own mouth, He said in response to her statement about the Messiah, “I who speak to you am He.”

Now at that point is where she believed in the word of Christ and she was saved. She doesn’t have some out of body experience, she doesn’t walk down the aisle or repeat the sinner’s prayer, she isn’t baptized.  But the fact that she is saved by faith in Christ is evidenced by the fact that she leaves her water pot and goes back into town, telling everyone to come see the Christ.

There are a number of things that can be learned from this text.  But the main point which is brought out in this passage is that saving faith is believing in the word of God and then acting upon it. The Samaritan woman believes in the word of Christ, His declaration that He was the Messiah promised in scripture.  And she obviously believes Him and so begins to share her new found faith. 

Now much has been made by commentators about the way she phrases the question found in vs.29 as if she expected a negative response.  But I don’t think that’s really borne out by her actions.  I’ve looked at all the major translations of this phrase, and I think it is best understood as follows, “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; is this not the Christ?” Now that question still lends itself to some ambiguity.  But I don’t think she is really being ambivalent at all.  I think it’s evident she believes that Jesus is the Christ.  And obviously that is not all that she said, as evidenced by the men of the cities answer to her in vs.42: “and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’” Obviously she told them much more about Christ than that simple statement because what she had said was enough to make them believe in Him.  At least enough to be a starting point in their faith.

And there is another important aspect to her testimony.  She says “Come and see…”  Not go, but come.  She is inviting them to come with her to see Jesus.  I think she left her water pot by the well with Jesus because she was coming back. She was in a hurry to tell them, and didn’t want to be burdened by the water pot. She was bringing back something better – living water.  So she was coming back with her townspeople.  She was rejoicing in the news about the Messiah.  And she knew that her people would rejoice as well.  In spite of any flaws in the Samaritan’s theology they knew that the Messiah was the promised seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed.  He was the Savior of the world, and so it was only reasonable that she would share it and rejoice in it.

What a contrast to most Christians view of sharing their faith.  I don’t know if it is a product of the PC culture, or just a reticence on our part to give testimony to our faith, but how many of us fall far short of the example given by this Samaritan woman.  She boldly goes back into town and begins to broadcast the fact that Jesus was just outside of town at the well.  And she invites them to come with her and listen to Him. 

Our lack of willingness to be a witness makes me wonder if we really believe what we claim to believe.  Do we really believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life?  Do we really believe that our friends and loved ones who are without the Lord will end up being cast into outer darkness for eternity?  Do we really believe that there is coming a day when everyone will be judged by what they did concerning Jesus?  I’m afraid we must not really believe what the Bible teaches. 

You know, back to the Samaritan woman’s statement, I don’t think there’s a hint of unbelief in it at all, but she is issuing a challenge.   She is suggesting that they need to believe for themselves if Jesus is the Christ.  I know that some of you may feel intimidated about sharing your faith.  The culture is not very tolerant towards true Christianity it seems.  And maybe you feel intimidated because you don’t think you know enough to be able to answer people’s objections or questions.  But I would encourage you to consider this woman’s example as evidence that you don’t have to have all the answers to point people to Jesus Christ.  If you don’t feel adequate to explain everything, then simply invite them to “come and see.”  To come to church and hear the word of God for themselves. 

I will also suggest to you what else made her testimony effective.  And that is the transformation that she obviously exhibited.  There is no more effective testimony to the saving grace of God than a transformed life.  We don’t have a description here in the passage that describes her transformation.  But we do see the evidence of it.  When she began spreading the word about Christ through the town, all the townspeople started coming out to see Jesus.  Something about this woman was different than before she went to the well.  The transformation in her must have been very obvious.  And so people wanted to see this Jesus, since He had made such a change in this woman.  It’s evident from the text that she was a woman with a sordid past.  She would have been well known to everyone in a small town. But after being with Jesus, there must have been a noticeable change in this woman’s demeanor.  I believe she was rejoicing, for one thing.  And people took notice of that and wanted to examine it further. 

I remember when I got right with the Lord when I was living in California after years of being in sin and rebellion against God.  And the next night I stopped by the restaurant where I worked after the shift was over and all my coworkers were sitting in the lounge.  And when they saw me they thought I was drunk.  I wasn’t staggering around or acting boisterous or anything.  But I must have had a different demeanor than what I normally had. I guess I seemed happy.  And so they noticed it, and it gave me a chance to share with them about my faith.  It wasn’t too long after that my best friend who worked with me gave his life to the Lord as well, and he credited the change that he saw in me as a reason for him coming to the Lord.

So the first example of someone believing the word of God then is that of the Samaritan woman.  She believed, and was saved and she was converted/changed.  Consequently, she immediately began to confess Jesus as Lord in her community.  And people believed in Christ due to her testimony.  Vs. 39 says,  “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’”  God wants to use your testimony to bring people to Christ.  That is our mission; to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel, starting in our homes, then our neighborhoods, then our communities, and then to the ends of the world.  This woman may not have been the best role model before she was saved, but she is a great example of the transforming power of faith after she is saved.

There is a second example of faith that is given in this text as well.  It’s sort of understated, and so we need to read between the lines so to speak.  But this one is not an exemplary example of faith.  It’s what we might call a lower tier faith.  And that is the faith of the disciples of all people. They have faith, but at this point it’s a superficial faith that can’t see the spiritual and instead focuses on the physical.  Even to the point of neglecting their commission.

The Samaritans were considered outcasts, half breeds who the Jews would not even speak to.  And yet their response to the news of the Christ from the Samaritan woman is to come out from the city in droves to hear Him.  In fact, some commentators have suggested that when Jesus told the disciples that the fields were white unto harvest, He was referencing the white robed Samaritan’s coming out of the village and walking across the fields the half mile or so to the well. 

Jesus uses that illustration as an encouragement to the disciples to be about the business of the kingdom.  It’s ironic that all of the disciples had just been in the very same village of the Samaritans buying food. And yet in spite of the fact that a dozen disciples of Christ descended on this little village in Samaria, when normally Jews would go miles out of their way to avoid Samaria, yet not one Samaritan was presented with the news that the Messiah was sitting just outside the town by the well.  The disciples were just too focused on buying food. They were hungry.  They were in a hurry.  They didn’t like those people anyway.  So they missed an opportunity.  And in reality, they missed the purpose of their discipleship. They missed the purpose of their faith.

The disciples came back from their mission with the food and saw Him talking to the woman.  They were surprised by that, but were afraid to ask Him why He was talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan.  So they just kind of ignored it, and when she left they offered Him the food that they brought.  But Jesus isn’t thinking about food at that point.  He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”  And their answer is to ask did someone bring Him food while we were gone? 

You know, the disciple’s cluelessness would almost be funny if it were not so indicative of the way we are oblivious to the opportunities that God puts in our path to be about the kingdom of God. I’m afraid too many times that we can only see the physical, rather than the spiritual.  Our focus is on our appetites, our work, our little routines or duties that we do each day.  Instead of seeing opportunities to speak to someone about Christ. 

Jesus said to the disciples in vs.35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

Now there is a whole sermon in that which I don’t have time to delve into today, but suffice it to say that Jesus is saying that half of the work has already been done, all you have to do is reap the benefits of what other’s have done. Now that’s pretty amazing isn’t it?  That should encourage you to witness to people that God puts in your path.  He is saying, I have already begun a work in those people’s hearts, they have already had the sowing of the word into their hearts.  Now if you will just be willing to act in faith and speak to them, you will reap what other’s have sown. 

But as I said, many Samaritans believed in Him simply by the word which He was preaching.  He did not do any signs or wonders or miracles in Samaria.  But then it says that He went into Galilee, which was His own country.  And the people were coming out to Him, but not because they had believed in Him before when He was among them, but because they heard of the miraculous works that He did when He was in Jerusalem.  So Jesus quotes to them what was probably a well known proverb; “that a prophet has no honor in his own country.” 

I can attest to the truth of that.  I’ve lived in this area 24 years, but not all of that time I was a pastor.  And the result of that proves another true proverb which is; “familiarity breeds contempt”.  In other words, it is much easier to go someplace where you are not known and be received with a certain respect than it is to live around people who think they know you.  I think that’s part of the reason why our summer services on the beach are well received by out of town people, but the locals rarely come. 

So Jesus had grown up in Galilee,  and now the Galileans are coming out to see Jesus, but they are not  believing in Him the way the Samaritans did.  They don’t believe Him for His word, but want to see His miracles.  So Jesus rebukes them when He responds to the nobleman’s request by saying, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” I don’t think Jesus was necessarily rebuking the nobleman, but He was rebuking the Galileans who obviously were gathering together hoping to see a miracle.  Perhaps they would believe in Him if they saw some astonishing miracle, but not because of His word.

So the third group, the Galileans, receive a rebuke because they did not have the faith in HIs word, even though the Samaritans who were considered outcasts by the Jews believed in Him simply from His word. So the Samaritans were more noble than the Galileans.  And I’m afraid that most Christians today fall into that category of the Galileans.  We go from church to church, from concert to movies, to revivals, to conferences, all in the hopes of finding some new experience which is going to galvanize our infantile faith into something substantial.  But in fact faith comes by hearing the word of God, not by signs and wonders or music or concerts or movies or conferences.

And that leads us to the fourth group which is illustrated by the nobleman. He is from Capernaum, which is about 25 miles from Cana, where Jesus was at that point.  Cana, you will remember, was the site of the first miracle Jesus did in His ministry, in which He had turned the water into wine at the marriage feast.  Now Jesus has returned to Cana, and this nobleman, probably a member of Herod’s court, has heard that Jesus has returned from Judea.  So he made a 25 mile trip from Capernaum in order to come to Jesus and beg Him to come home with Him and heal His son who was at the point of death.

You know, when calamity strikes your child, there is nothing you wouldn’t consider doing to save them.  I would suggest that this example is given to us here for a number of reasons, but not the least of which is to provide a contrast between the apathy of the disciples who felt no pity on the Samaritans, and the anguish of this father for his dying son.  Would to God we felt the anguish over our brothers and sisters and loved ones impending death the way that this man felt over his son.  Perhaps it’s because we cannot see the cancer of sin which has condemned our loved ones to a certain spiritual death. 

So this man travels 25 miles in hopes of seeing Christ and convincing Jesus to come home with Him to heal his son.  And certainly, the Galileans who have gathered there are watching to see what Jesus will do.  Perhaps many of them would have followed Him to Capernaum if it meant they could see a miracle.  I’m not surprised that so many Christians will pay all sorts of money and travel great distances to see some supposed faith healer perform a miracle.  It was common then, it’s common today.  I had a business partner once who stole money from our business to fly to Charlotte NC to have a private meeting with Benny Hinn. It only cost him $10,000 to get a private audience and his blessing.  Didn’t do us any favors though.  Our business went bust 3 months later because of that kind of foolishness.

But Jesus is not going to go to Capernaum.  Not because He doesn’t commiserate with the nobleman, or because He isn’t compassionate. It’s noteworthy that no one ever comes to Jesus for help and leaves without Jesus helping them.   Jesus said in John 6:37  “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”

But Jesus doesn’t go to Capernaum with the nobleman because He wants to teach an important lesson.  And that is the lesson that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  He wants this nobleman to believe in His word.  Jesus is going to heal his son.  But for 24 hours this man is not going to know that for sure.  He is going to have to take Jesus at His word. So Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.”

Now the rest of that verse is amazingly understated. It says, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.”  Let me tell you why it is understated. It’s understated not just because it took a lot of faith to believe Jesus could heal just by speaking a word from 25 miles away. But it is also understated because it doesn’t just mean that the boy was healed, but it also means that the nobleman was saved.  Jesus didn’t go with him because He wasn’t compassionate, but He didn’t go because He was compassionate.  Jesus wanted to give more than just the physical healing, He wanted to give spiritual healing as well. 

I have told you many times before that every miracle in the gospel is a spiritual parable which illustrates a spiritual principle.  And this one even more so.  Because as a result of this man’s faith, he was saved, his son was saved and healed, and his entire household was saved.

Vs.51-53 “As he was now going down, his slaves met him, saying that his son was living.  So he inquired of them the hour when he began to get better. Then they said to him, ‘Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.’ So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household.”

There are so many applications that we could take from this illustration.  But let me just try to leave you with a couple.  One, our faith is not founded on experience, but on the promises of God.  That is what we are talking about when we talk about the word of God.  We are talking about God’s revelation of Himself, what He has to say about Himself, and His plan and purpose for the world.  And He gives that to us in the form of promises.  He gives us His word, His promises, by which we may believe.  And when we believe in Him as He has revealed Himself through His word, He credits that to us as righteousness. 

Three times in the New Testament, in Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6, and James 2:23, it says “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  This is how we are saved, by grace through faith in the word of God, which is written down for us.  Notice it doesn’t say Abraham believed in God.  But Abraham believed God.  The Bible says the devils believe and tremble. So believing in God doesn’t save you.  But believing God, believing His word saves you.

Another application we can take from these verses is that when we are saved by faith, God can use our faith to save our families.  We saw that with the Samaritan woman.  I believe she started witnessing to all her former husbands.  That was probably half the town.  But the whole village responded as a result of this woman’s faith.  And of course this nobleman’s faith resulted in his whole household coming to the Lord.  And we see other examples of that in scripture.  I think of the centurion who called Peter to come and preach the gospel, and the whole house was saved.  I think of the jailer who was saved when Paul and Silas presented themselves after the earthquake, and his whole house was saved.  

The point being that you can have a confidence that when you believe in the word of God resulting in your salvation and you share that with your family, then they can be saved through your testimony.  I’m not going to say it is guaranteed.  That is not taught in this text.  But I do think it’s a principle that we can use to reach our families and that God will bless when we act upon it.

Well, let me close by encouraging you today to make sure that your faith is grounded in the word of God.  If God said it, then trust Him and obey.  God may give you an experience, He may give you a miracle, but more importantly He has given you His word.  And that is the greater miracle, which produces a greater faith, and a greater work in you.  Because God’s word is sufficient for every circumstance, for every day.  We don’t need to wait for a sign, when we have the word made more sure, the written word of God, tested and proven for thousands of years.  And that is what John calls this miracle – a sign.  It points to something greater, and that is Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh. That was the purpose of the miracles Jesus did. They point to Him.

And then finally, don’t keep your faith to yourself.  God didn’t give your salvation to you so that you can say, “us four, no more, shut the door.”  God gave you your salvation so that you might be an ambassador of the gospel.  He has given you the good news to share with those with whom He has already started a work in their hearts.  There is no greater miracle on earth than leading someone to Christ.  As Jesus said in vs.36, there is reward in heaven for those that reap souls; “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal, that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.”  We were saved that we might bear fruit for eternal life.  I hope that you will focus on the kingdom of God and accomplish His work in the time we have left here on earth. 

Worship in spirit and truth, John 4:19-26 

Today in 21st century Christianity, one of the most misunderstood words or principles in the church is the word worship.  If I were to ask you this morning to write down a succinct sentence describing worship, I would not be surprised if there were as many definitions as there are attendees.  Today when we think of worship, we think of a church service, or what’s called worship music, or perhaps even a performance by a worship pastor or band.  Usually the connotation is  a church’s music service.  

But as I indicated, I believe that’s a misunderstanding of what worship is supposed to be.  In the passage we are looking at this morning, Jesus talks about worship with a Samaritan woman by the well.  And in the process of having this conversation, He teaches us the Biblical meaning of worship and how we are to engage in it.  In fact, in just 5 verses, the word worship or a derivative of it is used 10 times. I believe this scripture teaches that God wants us to worship Him, and that He has a plan for worship.  So I want to look at this passage this morning and break down the principle of worship so that we might be sure we are accurate and authentic in our worship.  Because as Jesus said in vs.24, God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  That’s an imperative statement.  That we are to worship God, and we must worship Him as He wants us to. 

So in order to understand this, I am going to apply all the standard questions to this principle of worship, like what, where, why, how and when.  Rather than asking you to define worship according to your perception or experience, or rather than consulting any self appointed experts out there for their two cents worth, I want to go to the source, which is the word of God. Because I believe that what Jesus is saying is that we must get it right.  God is not obligated to accept false worship, or improper worship, which does not meet His requirements.

So let’s start with what is worship?  We could look it up in the dictionary and get a human definition.  But let’s look it up in scripture. Worship simply means honor paid to a superior being.  The common word in the New Testament Greek used for worship is prosekuneo, which means to kiss toward, and it came from that ancient custom of kissing the hand or foot of a superior.  A person bowed down on the ground, bowed his head and kissed the hand in a sign of submission and honor.

But I think we can go a little deeper into all that scripture teaches us concerning worship by employing a principle of hermeneutics called the principle of first mention.  The principle of first mention says that the first time a word or principle is mentioned in scripture provides a basis for how we are to perceive it or understand it going forward.  

Now if you go to your concordance and look up worship, the first use of the word “worship” will be in Genesis 22, when Abraham takes Isaac to the mountain that God showed him to offer Isaac as a sacrifice.  And I am not going to take the time to review all of that story this morning as I’m sure most of you are very familiar with it and as a church we recently studied Genesis.  But perhaps you never noticed the word worship there.  Abraham says in vs.5, ““Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”  

Now think about that for a moment.  God asked Abraham to take his son and offer him as a sacrifice on an altar on Mt. Moriah.  By the way, this is an interesting side note.  When the Samaritan woman tries to wiggle out of the convicting questions of Jesus, she says something interesting.  She says, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”  Now the mountain she and Jesus was on was called Gerizim, which was the place the Samaritans built their temple in opposition to the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.  But the thing was, both the Jews and the Samaritans believed that their temple was seated on Mt. Moriah, the spot where Abraham offered Isaac.  

Now knowing that helps us to understand why she brings up worship, and then Jesus says to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”  Jesus is saying the time is at hand when neither mountain is going to be the place of worship.  There is going to be a new place, a new way to worship, which will not be defined geographically nor by the temple.  So that’s the historical significance of Abraham taking Isaac to the mountain to offer him as a sacrifice.  Both Samaritans and Jews claimed to have their temple on the correct mountain.  And what Jesus indicates, by saying salvation is of the Jews, is that the Jews were on the correct mountain.  But soon the temple location is not going to matter anymore. What had served as the source of an argument between them would be completely done away with when Jesus was sacrificed on Mt. Zion.  The temple veil was rent from top to bottom, signifying that the way into the presence of God was open to all, through the blood of Jesus Christ.

But let’s think back to Abraham and Isaac for a moment.  Abraham has been commanded to kill his son, and he speaks of this offering of his son on the altar as worship.  Now that’s a heavy thought. Can you imagine comparing sacrificing your child as worship to God?  Well, what can we learn from that first incident concerning worship? Number one, it shows us that worship involves an offering.  Secondly, worship involves sacrifice.  Thirdly, worship involves obedience.  Fourthly, worship involves submission, humbling yourself. Abraham’s pride and joy was his son.  And yet he was willing to humble himself in order to worship God.

Now that is the first mention of worship.  But there are a couple of other early examples that come to mind which are not described as worship, but which obviously incorporate worship.  The first one is that of Cain and Abel, in Genesis 4, when they come to bring an offering before God. “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.”  

What does this example tell us about worship?  Once again, that there was an offering, a sacrifice.  We saw that already in the example of Abraham and Isaac.  But what new thing do we learn about worship? That God accepts some worship but not others.  God isn’t obligated to accept just any form of worship. To worship God in an unacceptable manner is to reduce God to an image, to reduce God to a material representation, to reduce God to an idol, or to reduce God to anything that is the result and product of your own thinking.  I often hear people say, “Well, everyone is free to worship God as they believe Him to be.”  But just because you sincerely believe something doesn’t make it true. If your definition of God doesn’t square with the Word of God, then your worship is unacceptable even though you may identify it with the true God.

And that correlates with what Jesus said in vs 24, that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  It has to be a worship based on the truth that God has given us, if it is going to be acceptable to Him.  So then we might define worship as a sacrificial offering, as obedience, as humbling yourself before God, and according to His truth. That answers the question of what is worship.  

We could say from those examples what worship is not but we won’t take the time to produce a definitive list since that could go on forever.  But let me give you just three: worship is not music, worship is not ceremony, worship is not a building.  And you can do the rest of the list on your own.  

So the scriptures have defined what worship is.  Next, Where.  Where should we worship.  Well, we have already answered that to some degree.  Worship is not restricted to a building, or an auditorium, or a mountain or even a temple.  Jesus said in vs. 21, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” And then vs.24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.”  The first reference to Spirit is capitalized because that refers to the nature of God; He is Spirit.  That means He isn’t corporeal.  But the second use of the word spirit in vs.24 is not capitalized, because it is speaking of our spirit.  He is saying, we must worship God in our spirit.  It’s not physical, it’s spiritual.  It’s not a location but a state of the heart.   

True worship must come from the heart. Worship is not dependent upon where you are, but who you are.1 Cor. 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Spirit.  If you have been born again, then you are the temple of God because the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you. You don’t just come to church, you are the church.  

Unfortunately, though a lot of people may have heard that truth, they don’t live in light of that truth.  We get all cleaned up for Sunday morning, we dress a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way because we know we are in church.  And yet on Monday we act completely different.  We talk differently.  We behave differently, seemingly unaware that the Lord of our temple is still in the building.  

Worship then should be a way of life.  Not just on Sunday. But in all our ways, in everything we do, we do it for the glory of God.  We are obedient to what He asks us to do because our body is HIs temple.  Our time is His time.  Our possessions are His possessions.  You can’t expect to have an intimate relationship with the God who dwells in us when we act like He isn’t there 6 days out of the week and then suddenly act all friendly to Him on Sunday.  God isn’t blind.  He was there all week.  We just ignored His presence.

When we have a full time, 24/7 intimate relationship with God, then we are worshipping all the time in private.  And what’s on the inside will reveal itself on the outside.  In other words, what was private produces corporate. What is spiritual will produce physical.  We are the church so we come together with the rest of the body as the church to serve the body. Not for ceremony and ritual, but to serve Him. 

And that brings up another definition of worship.  To serve God.  Romans 12:1 gives us a great illustration of that.  Paul says,  “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  Present your bodies as a sacrifice to serve God which he says is your spiritual service of worship. So serving God is worship. Once we are born again spiritually, we become holy, which results in being obedient, which in turn produces righteous living, in the fear or honor or reverence of God knowing that God is in you, and then God can use the body that you submit to Him in humility to serve Him.  And that comprises worship. The where of worship then is wherever we are, we are the temple of God, and therefore all that we do is for the glory of God.

The next question is Who.  Who do we worship?  Well the answer of course is God.  But Jesus narrows that title down further in vs. 21 and 23.  Three times Jesus calls God the Father.  That is specific.  God is the Father of who?  Well, first He is the Father of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the Son of God.  The only begotten of the Father.  And we know who God is by who Jesus is.  Jesus told Philip, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  He told the Jews in John 10:30, “I and the Father are One.”  

Now that narrows God down.  God is three persons in One; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Those that worship Allah cannot be worshipping God because Allah is not the father of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, because He is the only Son of God.  And if you do not believe that Jesus is God’s Son, then you cannot worship the Father.  

Secondly, God is the Father of the saints.  The believers.  Those that have been made holy by the blood of Jesus, that have been born again by the Holy Spirit.  So that we are children of God. John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”  So God then as our Father speaks of our relationship with Him. We are born again not of the flesh, but of the Spirit into the family of God. 

And thirdly, God is Spirit. Vs.24, Jesus said, “God is Spirit.”  That means that God is not corporeal.  He is an invisible being.  He does not have a body like we have, but He is eternal, divine, unknowable, unsearchable, holy and righteous.  He is a being, but not a body. His essential nature is that He is Spirit.  And so we must be made spiritual to have communion with God who is Spirit.  

1Tim. 1:17 says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”  Those qualities, eternal, immortal, invisible, are spiritual qualities. God is Spirit speaks to His immortal, eternal and invisible nature.

The next question is who can worship?  Who can worship God? In vs. 23 Jesus said,  “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.”  First, note that God seeks worshippers.  God wants to have a relationship with men, and so He has made it possible through Jesus Christ.  But in order to have this relationship, Jesus said in John 3:16 that we must be born again. We must be born of the Spirit, and this is accomplished by faith in Christ.  

So in order to worship Him, God must become our Father.  We must be born again.  The Holy Spirit must dwell in our hearts by faith.  Just as the Old Testament saints had to bring a sacrifice to offer to God in order to worship, so Hebrews 10:14 tells us that “by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” The sacrifice of Jesus Christ has purchased for all who believe in Him the sanctification by which we may be reconciled to God.

The Old Testament priests had to always offer a sacrifice first for their sins and then the sins of the people before approaching the Holy of Holies into the presence of God.  Heb 9:11-14, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation;  and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.  For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh,  how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” Notice the phrase, “serve the living God.”  So then, those that can worship God are those who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

The next question, is how do we worship? And Jesus makes that clear in vs.24, we worship God in spirit and in truth.  First we are made spiritual by new birth through faith in Jesus Christ.  I think we have made that point.  But also we must worship God in truth.  According to His truth.  Not according to our understanding of God, according to our concept of fairness or righteousness, or any standard other than God’s standard.

There are lots of people in our society who think they worship God, and they have self-invented some way to do that.  I read about a lady in New Mexico who baked tortillas, named Mrs. Rubio.  The Chicago Tribune recorded the story some years back, and one day she was frying a tortilla, and as she took the tortilla out of the pan and she said with a great amount of shock, “It is the face of Jesus.”  Burned on that tortilla were marks from the skillet that she said looked like Jesus.  And so, she was so thrilled she showed it to her husband who agreed that it must be Jesus.  And she showed it to her family and they agreed, and to a neighbor and she agreed.  And so she went to her priest to have the tortilla blessed.  And the priest, who had not really been accustomed to blessing tortillas, was somewhat reluctant to do so, but nevertheless he did it.  And she took the tortilla home and she built an altar in her house.  She put the tortilla in glass and put piles of cotton around it so it looked like Jesus floating on a cloud.  And within a matter of months, Mrs.  Rubio had over 8,000 people come to the shrine of the Jesus of the Tortilla.  And almost everyone unanimously agreed that it looked like Jesus except one reporter who said it looked to him like Leon Spinks.  And so, people came and worshipped the tortilla and Mrs. Rubio gave her testimony which was recorded in the Chicago Tribune, and she said the tortilla had changed her life.  And her husband agreed she’d been a more peaceful, happy, submissive wife ever since the tortilla had arrived.

Listen, we must worship God as He is, and for who He is, and not as we imagine Him to be.  Anything less is idolatry.  And the only way we can worship God as He is with any certainty is if we rely upon the truth of God’s word. In John 1 Jesus is presented as being with God in the beginning, and that He was God, and the Living Word was became flesh. In Hebrews 1:1 Jesus is the exact representation of the nature and character of God. And then in John 17 Jesus says that the word of God is truth. God has presented Himself in His word. When we combine the Living Word with the written word, then we are worshipping God in truth.

To worship God in spirit and in truth then signifies that of the heart and the head. Worship must be authentic and accurate. Worship in spirit speaks of our position.  Our heart must be aligned with God by faith. When that happens the Holy Spirit dwells in us, linking the inner man with God. And truth speaks of information. God has revealed Himself most completely and accurately in the scriptures. 

You know, just like in a physical relationship, knowledge produces intimacy.  The more you know and learn about your spouse, the more you love them.  We tend to worship God but a little, because we only know a little about God. But the more you know about God the more it produces true worship. 

Spirit and the truth signifies worship from the heart and the head.  But unfortunately, a lot of us worship God the way men observe Valentine’s Day. We know that it is Valentine’s Day because the calendar tells us.  So we know that we have to respond by buying a card, maybe some chocolates or flowers. The expectations of what we know about Valentine’s Day produces a response on our part which is predetermined by our culture.  But if that is all that it is, then it’s a form of legalism, a ceremony or ritual that your wife is going to know is not from the heart.  But she wants much more than just fulfilling an obligation or a ritual.  She wants romance, passion, love, intimacy, fellowship.  She wants you, she wants your heart.

And so does God.  He wants all of us. Yes, He wants us to follow His word.  He has written down His expectations and requirements for worship.  But when we just show up for church and drop a little offering in the box and sing a few songs and go through the rituals  then we are missing the heart of worship.  God wants your heart.  He wants a heart that is surrendered to Him, a heart that wants to know Him, a heart that desires fellowship with Him.  That comes from a right relationship with Him. 

Finally, one last point.  The result of worship. In vs 25 the Samaritan woman said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”  This is the most clear statement that Jesus ever makes concerning the fact that He is the Messiah with the possible exception of His response to Pilate before His crucifixion.  But what did the Messiah accomplish?  Jesus declared His purpose in John 14:6.  Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”  

Through Jesus, and only through Jesus, has the way to God been made available.  He is the peace between God and man.  He has made it possible for us to be reconciled to God.  So when we come to Him and worship Him, we have fellowship with God, we have the benefits of being the children of God, and we have the inheritance of ruling and reigning with Christ for eternity.  Worshipping God in spirit and in truth is  begun in justification, and it continues as our sanctification, and will be consummated in our glorification.  We who worship God now as He has revealed Himself and according to His requirements, will worship Him forever and ever in glory.  I don’t think that’s going to look like what popular imagery indicates though.  I don’t think we will be sitting around on clouds playing harps, or even just having a praise service for eternity.  But I think that we will be serving God for eternity, and all that we do will result in praise to His glory.  Worship here on earth is just practice for what will go on for ever in  eternity.  

Therefore, in light of this revelation concerning worship which the Lord Jesus has given us, “I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

The living water; John 4:1-19

I cannot read the story of the Samaritan woman at the well without thinking of something I used to hear people say when I was growing up.  They would sometimes say that a certain person would rather cross the street than have to speak to them.  Obviously, they believed that a certain person disliked them so much that they would go out of their way to avoid them.

There is a phrase in the Greek text in vs.9 that basically is saying the same thing.  It’s a word that conveys the idea that the Jews so despised the Samaritans that they would go out of their way to avoid dealings with the Samaritans, even to the extent of walking miles out of their way to keep from having to cross into the land of the Samaritans.  The Jews hated the  Samaritans and avoided anything that they had even touched.  But as we look at this story today, we see Jesus deliberately, purposefully, traveling not only to meet and speak with a Samaritan woman in the land of Samaria, but also to drink water from her cup. 

In Jesus’ day, of course, there was no running water.  Things we might consider a hardship today were typical things you had to routinely deal with in the course of the day at that time.  Generally, the women of the village or town were the ones who were responsible for drawing water.  You remember Rebecca drawing water for the camels when Abraham’s servant went to a well.  But they would usually do so in the evening when it was cooler, or perhaps first thing in the morning. 

But this woman in Samaria is going to the well in the middle of the day.  Around the sixth hour would be the Jewish way of saying around noon. So this wasn’t a typical time for her to be drawing water.  And Jesus has arrived at this well, which is identified as Jacob’s well, and is sitting there by the well.  There were probably steps that led down to the well. 

The text says Jesus was sitting there because He was weary from his journey.  Jesus and His disciples had been walking all morning having left Judea probably very early while it was cooler.  Most commentators believe that He had walked at least 20 miles that morning.  That’s quite a walk.  And it’s not a flat plain he walked either, but hilly terrain and rocky paths.  That’s the equivalent of walking from my house in Millville to the Cape May/Lewes Ferry.  I don’t think I could even ride a bike that far, much less hike that distance in five or six hours.

So Jesus was tired from His journey.  So much so that he sent the disciples ahead of Him into the village to buy food while He waited at the well.  Now I want to suggest that this is not happenstance.  I think that this is a case of divine appointment.  The normal way to go from Jerusalem to Galilee for most Jews would have been to go along the coast route or across the Jordan and then go around Samaria.  Orthodox Jews would have avoided going through Samaria.  They hated the Samaritans so much that they would go miles out of their way to avoid even walking through Samaria.

And part of the reason they hated them seems almost justified from a certain perspective. The Samaritans were considered half breeds – half Jew, half pagans – that had come about when the 10 northern tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians about 700 years before.  The educated, wealthy people were taken into captivity, but the Assyrians left some of the poorest Jews in the land to care for the land so that it did not revert to wilderness and to care for the cattle and so forth. But over time, these poor Jews left there intermarried with the pagan people that moved in to that area, and they adopted many pagan customs along with worshipping pagan gods while maintaining a degree of worship of the God of the Jews.

When the Jews came back into the land during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, these people tried to hinder the returning Jews from rebuilding the temple.  The Jews ended up shunning them, and so the Samaritans went off in a huff and built their own temple in opposition.  So though the Samaritans claimed to be Jews, they had desecrated their heritage by intermarrying with pagans.  They claimed to worship the true God of Israel, but yet they also worshipped foreign gods.  They claimed to believe the Jewish scriptures, but they only recognized the first five books of the Old Testament, called the Pentateuch.  So it would seem that the Jews were almost justified in their hatred of the Samaritans. 

Yet Jesus has traveled by foot 20 miles across hot dry wilderness to get to this village in Samaria in time to meet this woman, who is coming out to draw water from a well outside of town, at a time when it was unlikely that she would meet anyone, which was obviously her intention.  The obvious question, is why?  Why would Jesus leave an area where everyone was coming out to see Him, where He was drawing bigger crowds than John the Baptist, why leave that success and head off to a place where no one even knew who He was? 

Well, I think the answer is hinted at in the previous chapter when Jesus tells Nicodemus that God so loved the world, that He sent His Son into the world, so that the world might be saved through Him.  Jesus Himself would say later, “The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”(Luke 19:10)  This woman was from the lost tribes of Israel.  She was truly lost.  Her people were worshipping God in ignorance.  And they needed to know the truth so that they might escape the judgment which was upon the whole world.

Furthermore, I think Jesus comes to visit this woman as a counterpoint to the coming of Nicodemus to Jesus at night which we studied in chapter 3.  Nicodemus was a religious leader, he was the religious teacher of the Jews.  He was a moral, upright citizen.  He represented everything the Samaritan woman was not.  As I said before, if Nicodemus was the representative man, the best that man had to offer, then this woman was the representative sinner, even the worst of sinners.  A woman who was considered extremely immoral.  She had been married 5 times, and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband.  She was lost.  But the good thing was, she knew she was lost.  Nicodemus thought he was a good man, and consequently Jesus had to show him that he wasn’t ever going to be good enough on his own merits to be able to enter into the kingdom of heaven.  But this woman knew she was a sinner, and though she tried to hide it, what she needed was for Christ to tell her about the grace of God.  Jesus came to save sinners.  He traveled 6 hours through the wilderness by foot to take the gospel to one woman who knew she was a sinner and was looking for redemption.

See, what we think of as good moral people, pillars in the community will usually come to church, they will seek for religion.  But unfortunately, they seek religion in order to bolster their sense of self righteousness and entitlement, as we saw with Nicodemus.  But people who are trapped in sin and are suffering the consequences of their sin rarely think of the church as a refuge.  Maybe they feel too guilty to come to church.  And yet these are the very people that we are called to seek out and tell the good news.  People that are spiritually sick, the outcasts, the downtrodden, the world weary.  They are the ideal candidates for the gospel.  As Jesus said in Mark 2:17,  “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

So Jesus travels 20 miles by foot to meet this woman.  And He is tired.  That shows us His humanity.  He was fully man.  But it also shows His omniscience.  He knows the woman is going to be there at noon.  He sends the disciples away so that He can talk to her privately so as not to unnecessarily embarrass her.  He knows her past, which she tries to hide.  His omniscience reveals His divinity.  He is fully God, and yet fully man.  This is the mystery of Christ, born of a woman, and yet fathered by the Holy Spirit.  Fully God and fully man. He is the Messiah, or the Christ.

And let me stress something on this point; He was fully human and fully God, that He might be our substitute, that He might be our Savior, but also, so that He might be our example.  That we might do as He did.  This text is one of the best passages in the Bible that illustrates how we are to go about being evangelists of the gospel.  How we are to witness to the lost.  There are many important principles to be learned from this passage, but not the least of them is how we are to evangelize the lost.

Notice then that Christ’s mission was calculated.  He was purposeful, He was strategic. He planned it, executed it, timed it perfectly so that He might set up this divine appointment with this woman. And note secondly that He was confrontational without being condemning.  When I say confrontational, that sounds menacing, doesn’t it?  But it doesn’t have to be.  It can simply be engaging.  In Jesus’ case, it was confrontational because it was unexpected.  It wasn’t considered appropriate for a Jew to speak to a Samaritan.  It was even more inappropriate for a man, a rabbi, to speak to a woman.  Yet Jesus says to her, “Give me a drink.”

If Jesus is omniscient, which I believe this text and many other scriptures clearly demonstrates that He is, then He certainly knew that she was an immoral woman.  She came to the well in this location, at this time, probably to escape scrutiny and scorn from the other women of the village who would usually all come at the same time to draw water and perhaps exchange gossip.  But Christ comes to a sinner, and yet as chapter 3 vs. 17 says, He did not come to condemn her, but to offer her salvation.  He shows her compassion.

But please notice though that Christ does not condone her sin.  The gospel message  has two pillars on which it depends; repentance and faith.  Jesus confronts her about her sin, and then tells her that He is the Messiah.  To receive the gift of salvation requires that both principles are enacted on our part.  We have to acknowledge our sin, confess our sin, and that He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  At the same time, we have to believe that Jesus is the Savior from sin which He accomplished by being the righteous substitute who paid the penalty for our sins.

There is a church not far from here that has a sign out front which I saw the other day which says, “God loves you just the way you are.”  I have to tell you something.  God doesn’t love your sin. God hates sin. But there is embedded in that church’s statement the implication  that you can live in your sin and God will accept you just the way you are. No need to change.  But that’s not the truth, and it’s not the gospel.  You must be converted, you must be changed.  Recognize you’re a sinner, seek forgiveness through Jesus Christ atonement on your behalf, and you will be converted, changed into a new creation. 

Peter, preaching in Jerusalem said in Acts 3:19  “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” To tell someone that they are fine just the way they are and that God will accept them when they are unrepentant and living in sin, is to tell them a lie and condemn them to eternal judgement.

Now notice how Jesus skillfully weaves the conversation around, starting  from a normal everyday occurrence such as a drink of water, and using it to teach a spiritual principle.  He asks for a drink, and she responds with a sarcastic response; “why are you asking me for a drink, knowing I am a Samaritan?”

But Jesus isn’t going to let Himself get sucked into a debate with this woman over race, over the cultural divide between Jews and Samaritans. Instead, He turns the tables on her.  And says, “If you knew the gift of God, and who says to you, “Give Me a drink” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Rather than focusing on the insufficiencies of heritage or race or culture or even morality, Jesus changes the conversation from one where she is automatically defensive, and instead He is the benefactor, rather than the beneficiary.  He doesn’t need her water, but He has the living water that she needs. 

Notice the difference between His approach with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman.  With Nicodemus who thought he was righteous, who was rich, who seemed to have everything going for him, including morality, Jesus told him what he was lacking.  He said he actually had nothing.  He had to be born all over again.  Nothing about him was good enough.  But with this woman, who had no standing in the community, who was culturally an outsider, and was a known immoral person, Jesus offers her the gift of God.  Grace that covers all her sin.  Eternal life which will spring up in her like living water. 

Though some principles in the gospel can not be deviated from, such as faith and repentance, we need to seek the discernment from God to know how to approach different people in different circumstances and from different environments.  God will give you the wisdom if you ask for it.  But notice that there isn’t a one size fits all approach to Christ’s evangelism.  Granted, He has divine discernment which we don’t have.  But we do have the wisdom that God gives to those that ask for it, so that we might do His will.   Recognizing the difference between those that are ready to receive the truth and those that are arrogant and think they know all the answers is possible through the discernment of the Holy Spirit as we witness in obedience to Him.

So first Jesus sidesteps her natural tendency for defensiveness, her attempt at being argumentative by turning the tables from her giving Him something, to Him giving her something.  But she still wants to argue.  Some people are like that.  No matter what you say, they want to argue.  The Bible says we are to be wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove.  The devil is a serpent, isn’t he?  So we are to be wise to his schemes, and yet harmless as a dove.  As much as it depends on you, Paul said, be at peace with all men.  You aren’t going to win disciples to Christ by being argumentative, or by debating someone.  And neither are we going to win souls by insisting that they need to become moral to be saved.  But we become moral by being saved.  First there must be a change of heart, a conversion, and then out of the new heart comes a new morality. 

I’ve found when I deal with people who are hostile to me, who are defensive about their actions, that instead of focusing on the negatives or the repercussions of their decisions, if I focus on how much God has done for them and what God wants to do for them, how much God loves them, then many times that will have a softening effect on their heart and we can break through their defenses.  For instance, if you are dealing with a person who is caught up in alcohol abuse, rather than focusing on the physical ramifications of their drinking, focus on their spiritual vacuum that is making them enslaved to it. Focus on what Christ has done to give us a new life, a more fulfilling life.

That’s what Jesus is doing with this woman.  He knows her life is unfulfilling.  Imagine how many times must she have had her heart broken.  How hopeless she must have felt to have seen five marriages crumble and now even seeming to give up on marriage and resign herself to live in the shame of open adultery.  So Christ offers her new life;  the gift of living water if she will just ask for it.  But instead she is still defensive. She is not ready to trust Him yet.  She hasn’t gotten over this whole race thing, this whole us versus them mentality between the Jews and Samaritans.  So she says, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”

Basically, she appeals to a sense of national self righteousness.  The Samaritans claimed Abraham as their father just as the Jews.  So she says Jacob, who was also called Israel, is her father as well and he gave them this well.  Again there is little jab on her part as she says “You aren’t greater than Jacob, are you?”  Well, of course Jesus was greater than Jacob.  He was the promised seed of Abraham from whom the whole world would be blessed.  He was the promised seed of Adam who would crush the serpent’s head.  He was no less than the promised Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of God. 

And yet Jesus doesn’t argue with her.  He doesn’t defend His honor.  He simply goes back to the metaphor of the water and the gift that God has of eternal life.  And in a very understated way He says that the water that Jacob gave has only the power to slake thirst temporarily, but the water that He gives will be a well springing up to eternal life. Vs.13, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

He is saying I am greater than Jacob, and yet He doesn’t say it outright. He doesn’t say I am greater as an arrogant, boastful claim, but He says as His water is greater water, and so by extension He is greater than Jacob.  He is making the point that the tangible blessings of being a child of Abraham might be evidenced by their land, by this well of Jacob, but the blessings of being a child of God far exceed temporal blessings.  They are spiritual blessings that spring up from Him supplying an endless supply of blessings throughout eternity.

Well, finally she starts to show a crack in her armor at this point.  She is obviously tired and weary and ready to have this blessing that Jesus is talking about.  But like a lot of people, they are primarily interested in the physical blessing and not the spiritual.  She says, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” 

Now what do you do with that?  On the one hand, she is saying I want this water that you are offering.  You offered it, then give it to me.  But on the other hand, she reveals her motivation; she wants physical relief.  She wants the spiritual water but only to make her life easier. 

Well, it’s interesting to see Jesus’ response.  At first glance, it would almost seem like there must be something missing between vs.15 and 16.  Jesus says in response, “Go, call your husband and come here.”  What’s that about?  Does she need her husband to get the water?  What relation has the husband to do with her desire for the gift of water? 

What I believe Jesus is doing is He is accepting her request for water, even though it is founded on physical desires, but He is going to treat it spiritually.  So even though she asks with imperfect intentions, Jesus is going to treat it spiritually and apply spiritual principles in order to bring her to salvation.  And to do that, He says, “ok, if you want the  living water, go bring here your husband.”  Jesus already knows that she doesn’t have a husband.  So He is saying this in order to get her to confront her sin.

Her response is still defensive. Jesus is touching a nerve but she doesn’t want to address it yet.  So she says, “I have no husband.”  And then Jesus reveals His divinity.  Vs. 17, Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” Now that’s pretty specific revelation.  That’s not general information and He had no way of knowing that kind of personal information.  And so it must have floored her which is evident from her response. She said “Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.”  Now she realizes that someone greater than Jacob is here.

But before I get into her response, notice that Jesus says to her “you are speaking the truth.”  He actually says that twice.  You have said correctly, and you have said truly.  Twice Jesus emphasizes that she has spoken the truth, even though she doesn’t speak the whole truth.  The whole point of what Jesus is doing here is to get her to recognize and accept the truth.  And before she can do that, she must first start telling the truth to God.  That’s what repentance is.  That’s where it starts; with telling God the truth.  You can lie to men, you can lie to yourself, and you can lie to God.  Even though God knows the truth, yet men still lie to Him.  But repentance starts with telling the truth about yourself.  And then accepting the truth about God. 

It’s amazing how people can lie to God, and yet we do it all the time.  We somehow don’t think that God sees.  David said in Psalm 66:18, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.”  He says again in Psalm 51:6 “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”  The gospel is the truth, and we need to tell people the truth, and help them to tell God the truth, so that the truth would set them free. When someone finally comes to the point of recognizing the truth and confessing to God the truth that they are a sinner in need of salvation, then as Jesus said in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Well, we are not going to finish this study today.  We are going to have to continue it next week.  But what I want to impress on you today is that Jesus is our model for personal evangelism, that we might walk in His footsteps.  By His example we should be better equipped to fulfill the great commission in our neighborhoods, with our relatives, even with strangers who may be defensive or argumentative, as was this Samaritan woman.

But I hope to leave you with a commitment to be like Christ in your personal evangelism.  We obviously are not going to possess divine discernment as Christ had, we are not omniscient like Christ is.  We are not great teachers as Christ was.  But we do have the Spirit of Christ living in us.  And we do have the power of the Spirit to help us and give us wisdom if we will ask for it. 

However, I don’t think you nor I need to be omniscient to think of someone today that we know needs to hear the gospel.  Someone who is not saved.  I bet you could probably write down on a note card at least 5 people in your personal circle that you are certain do not know the Lord as their Savior.  I pray that you will write down those names, and then make a strategic plan to go see those people, to talk to them specifically about their need for salvation, about the gift of God which He has for those that will ask for it.  I challenge you to start to do this with at least one person on that list this week.  Come up with a plan, be purposeful about it, strategic.  Get rid of all possible distractions.  Then confront them with the gospel.  Expect them to get defensive.  Expect them to be argumentative.  But be wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove; in other words, don’t argue with them.  Stay focused on the gift of living water which satisfies every thirsty soul,  which God has prepared for those that will receive Jesus as their Savior. 

Or perhaps you are here today and you recognize that you have never been converted. You may be religious, but lacking new birth.  You may recognize that you’re a sinner, in need of being changed, given new life by the Spirit of God. I pray that today you will accept the invitation to drink of the water of life offered by Jesus Christ.  As Jesus said in John 7:37-38 “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”  “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” 

The Light of Truth, John 3:17-36 

The other night as I was walking my dog after dinner, I was able to witness a particularly beautiful sunset.  There were these clouds that had reflections of all these colors in them and the sun’s rays shining through.  It was really amazing.  It’s almost sad though because it changes right before your eyes and soon it’s gone.  I can’t help but think that sunsets are kind of like life.  They are so beautiful, and yet so fleeting.  By the time you think it’s really going great it’s basically starting to dim.

But as tragic as that thought is, imagine what life would be like if you were only able to see in black and white. I couldn’t help but notice that my dog seemed oblivious to that spectacular sunset. From what I understand dogs are mostly color blind. But even so, they just don’t seem to appreciate things like the beauty of a sunset.  I would like to suggest that life without Christ is kind of like looking at the world in black and white and not realizing that there is so much more to it.  To live life without Christ is tragic because you are blind to the full life that God has designed for us. 2Cor. 4:4 says, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”Jesus said in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” 

Last week my wife and I were in Pacific Beach in San Diego, visiting our daughter. We didn’t realize when we made our reservations that it is a big party town.  Being there on July 4th was kind of crazy. There were thousands of young people there for the holiday, most of whom seemed to be high or under the influence.  But seeing these masses of young people we couldn’t help but feel a sadness that most of them were unable to even comprehend the things of God. They were completely absorbed in trying to fulfill the desires of the flesh, and just as completely unaware of real life in the Spirit.  It’s like the Bible says in Galatians 6:8 “For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

The fact is, Christianity is not just a religion.  It’s life as God meant it to be lived. Prior to coming to Christ we are dead to all that God has designed us to be.  We think we are really living, but we don’t recognize that we are living in black and white, instead of living color.

Last time we looked almost exclusively at the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, showing the universal predicament that all men are without hope, the universal love of God in reaching down to save sinners, the universal invitation that whosoever will may come, and the individual application of whosoever believes may have everlasting life.  But it’s a little bit limiting to focus on just one verse of scripture though and not consider the context in which it is found.  Today I would like us to consider the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey used to like to say.  But in doing so, I suggest that we will not find new truth, but we will find expanded truth.  In other words, verses 17-21 are just expansions on the principles found in the verses prior, especially vs.16.

But before I get started, let me say why this doctrine is so important.  On the one hand we need to know the doctrine of salvation so that we might have assurance of our salvation. Secondly, we need to know more completely the doctrine of salvation so that we might know God more intimately.  And third, we need to know the doctrine of salvation so that we might be able to share the good news with others. 

I am afraid that though most of us know the doctrines of salvation well enough, we do not put it to practice nearly enough in personal evangelism.  For instance, I think there is a tendency to kind of push away the idea that our unsaved loved ones might die without Christ and suffer the consequences of eternal judgment. I think that we have a tendency to push such thoughts to the back recesses of our minds.  We just try not to think of it.  We are glad we are saved, but somehow perhaps we either don’t really believe that God will judge the unrighteous, or we just don’t let ourselves think about it.  Otherwise, I don’t think that compassionate, loving people like most of you are could really sleep at night knowing that your loved ones stand on the precipice of eternity without Christ.  That at any moment they might pass away by some tragic circumstance and consequently spend eternity in torment, separated from you and from God forever.  I can’t help but wonder if we really don’t believe that.  Somehow we have deluded ourselves into thinking that one way or another, our unsaved loved ones and friends will escape the judgment. 

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but there are no exceptions offered in scripture. Hebrews 9:27 says, “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.”  There is no consolation offered in scripture for those that reject the offer of salvation.  Today this passage of scripture is going to underline that truth.  And I would hope that it would compel you to witness more to those that are lost.  That it would move this reality of judgment from the back burner  to the forefront of your focus.

Let’s go back to the illustration that Jesus gave in vs. 14 for a minute.  Everyone in the camp of Israel had been bitten by the poisonous vipers.  They were dying. Unless they looked upon the serpent on the standard they would die.   There was no other remedy for their predicament.  There was no other prescription for their sickness. And that is the illustration Jesus uses to set the stage for Him being offered up on the cross.  All men have been bitten by the serpent’s sting of sin, and as such all are doomed to die. The wages of sin is death.  And all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  There is none righteous, no not one.  There is no other consolation, no other salvation, than to know Jesus as your personal Savior.  Otherwise you remain in your sins, and as such will stand before God a sinner, condemned to judgment.

So for those of us that know the Lord as our Savior, I hope that you will not push the thought of unsaved loved ones to the back of your mind.  But I hope this message inspires you to speak again to your loved ones about the urgency of their salvation.  Satan always tells us that there will be plenty of time.  But the devil is a liar and the father of lies.  Time is not your friend, but your enemy.

Now let’s look at the remainder of the passage, starting in vs.17.  Verse 17 is basically an explanation of the love of God.  It is expanding on the concept of God’s love.  And to do that, he says God did not send the Son, or give the Son to the world to judge the world but to save it.  Here is the situation;  the world was already judged.  God made His judgment concerning sin way back in the beginning of Genesis when He said whoever eats of the tree will surely die.  The sentence of death was already given before Adam and Eve ate of the tree.  But they rejected the truth and chose to believe the devil’s lie and as such they entered into judgment.  And that same judgment passed on to all men, all descendants of Adam are under the penalty of death, because all have inherited the same sin nature resulting in their sinful acts.  

And I’ll say more on the judgment in a moment. But John is saying that God loved the world so much that He sent Jesus to save us from our sins.  Jesus didn’t come to bring us what we deserved, which was death.  He came to bring us what we didn’t deserve, which is grace, because of His love for us.  He came to provide salvation from death.

We were all spiritually dead.  We had the penalty of death upon ourselves.  It’s like the man on death row.  Though he may be alive today, yet he is under the sentence of death.  But God sent His Son not to be our executioner, but to save us from death by taking our place as our substitute.  So verse 17 basically extrapolates on the love of God.  The motive of God sending Jesus to the world is love, not judgment. Jesus said, “greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.”

Then verse 18 expands on the second half of verse 16, where it says, “that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”  So verse 18 expanding on that says, ““He who believes in Him is not judged.”  Believing in Him delivers us from the judgment of death which we had already received.  Therefore, if you don’t believe in Him, you remain in the same condition which you were in previously.  You remain under judgment of death.  18b, “he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Going back to Jesus’ illustration, whoever looked upon the serpent on the standard would live, be delivered from death, but whoever did not look remained in the throes of death.  They did not believe or want to accept the fact that looking at the standard would save them.  It’s hard to believe that people would choose to remain under the curse of sin, but they obviously do.  And they do so because they don’t want to accept who Jesus is and what He came to do.  They would rather die than have to submit to Christ as Lord.

Why would anyone in their right mind reject salvation?  Well, to explain that, John changes his analogy.  He moves from the analogy of the serpent on a standard to another analogy –  a light in the darkness.  Remember back in chapter 1, Jesus was called the Light. Vs. 4-5  “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

So in vs.19 of chapter 3 John goes back to that analogy of Christ is the Light in order to explain more completely the judgment due to those who reject salvation, and says,  “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”  Jesus is the Light, the Father sent Him into the world to save sinners, and yet when men saw the Light, they rejected it because they loved evil. 

I’ve said it before, people don’t really reject God because there isn’t enough evidence of God, or even because they can’t understand Him.  People reject God because they want to do what they want to do.  They don’t want God to rule over them.  Given the choice between good and evil we choose evil.  That is the nature of man.  That’s why Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” 

This is the judgment; that all men like sheep have gone astray.  They have turned away from God’s rule and turned to self rule.  Every man is like those in the days of the judges when there was no king in Israel, when everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  Men are like those who lived in the days of Noah, when every intent of the thought of their heart was only evil continually.  This is our nature.  This is the nature of man to love the darkness, because their deeds are evil.

You could make the argument that man is duped into thinking that such deeds do not really produce death.  You could argue that men think that what they are doing is enhancing life, embracing life, but that is even more reason for the compassion of God to shine the light of truth that leads to real life.

The key to life is seeing the truth, accepting the truth, and then practicing the truth. The truth is the light that shows us how to live, that distinguishes good from evil.  That is why it’s so important that the church proclaims the truth.  And truth is only found in one place – that is God’s word.  Only God’s word is the standard for truth.  And only the truth can set you free from death.  Jesus said in John 8:32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Jesus goes on to say in chapter 8 that the devil is the father of lies and there is no truth in him.  Remember back in the beginning when Eve was tempted by the devil, he said to her, “you shall not surely die?”  He appealed to her fleshly desires, her appetite and her pride, and offered an alternative suggestion which changed the truth of God into a lie.  In spite of what God had told them, Eve chose to believe a lie, and then acted on her desires.  And what resulted was the penalty of death.  Adam then chose to follow Eve instead of God, acting on his desires.  And what happened after that?  They tried to hide from the presence of God. Why?  Because their deeds were evil, and their conscience was awakened. They hid from the Light.

Coming back to our text we see that same scenario expressed in vs.20,21. “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Here is what he means.  Those that reject Christ love their evil deeds and so they rightly bring judgment upon themselves.  They hate Christ because He is the Light that enlightens every man.  In other words, His Light exposes the truth about themselves.  For the unsaved, their evil deeds are exposed when the light of God’s truth is shone upon them.  And so to protect their evil deeds and to keep on doing them, they reject Christ.  They hate the Light.  They love the darkness.

But those that practice the truth love the Light, come into the Light, which proves that their good deeds are the works of God wrought through them.  See, the Spirit of God in them has changed their hearts to desire the things of God, to desire good, to desire the truth.  I like how it says, he who practices the truth.  It’s not our nature to do good.  By nature we aren’t righteous.  As we already declared, our nature is to go our own way, do our own thing, and love the works of darkness.  But knowing the truth, we now practice the truth, following in the example of Jesus Christ we walk in His footsteps.  And as we do this, it illustrates to the watching world that we know the Lord, that He has indeed made us into His children, as we do the works of our Father in heaven.

Now the rest of the passage is really just using the discourse of John the Baptist to his disciples to illustrate the principle we just looked at.  That God sent Jesus to be the light of truth, which is given to every man that they may know the truth of God and be saved.  There are a number of sub points in there which could be stand alone truths in and of themselves, but the main thrust of the text is to show that Jesus is the source of truth, and therefore is the source of life.

Verse 25 provides a key to understanding how this text relates.  Notice they have a question about purification.  Now many commentators go off on tangents at this point trying to show that baptism is somehow the point of all of this.  But purification taken at it’s simplest meaning speaks of how a man might be made righteous before God.  How can man overturn the natural fallen state of sinfulness and become pure in God’s sight. 

Baptism never was given as a means to achieve righteousness.  But baptism is a public portrayal of an inward, spiritual transformation. Baptism symbolizes death to the old man and new birth of the new man.  That’s what baptism symbolizes, admitting you are dead in your sins, and that they only way to be made right with God is by being born again in the spirit.  Now that is exactly what Jesus was teaching Nicodemus.

So John the author picks up on that idea by going back to John the Baptist who introduced the baptism of repentance as a precursor to the gospel.  John the Baptist preached a gospel of repentance which was symbolized by being baptized.  But now his disciples hear that Jesus and his disciples are baptizing, and they are unsure what this signifies.

John the Baptist’s answer is to give preeminence to Christ.  There is no spirit of jealousy there.  He knows first of all that Christ’s ministry is from heaven.  That is what is under discussion here.  John’s disciples were comparing their ministry with Christ’s ministry.  So first of all John the Baptist says that Christ’s ministry is from heaven.  You know, only God can ordain a minister or a ministry.  There are a lot of so called ministers running around, and a lot of ministries on every other street corner, but not all are of God, and we know that because they do not practice the truth.  The truth is the plumb line; to teach and practice the truth of God’s word is the measure of a ministry as whether or not it’s of God.  Jesus manifested the truth of God. Jesus said in John 14:10  “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”  So He speaks the words of the Father and does the works of the Father.  And so John says he knows that Jesus is from heaven.

Then John says, you are my witnesses that I told you I am not the Christ but merely His forerunner. (vs.28) He says,  I’m just the friend of the bridegroom.  I’m not the bridegroom, Christ is the bridegroom.  And so because I am His friend, I rejoice to see Him come for His bride. The church is the bride of Christ – those that have been saved are the church.  So according to what has been ordained from heaven, Christ’s ministry must increase, but my ministry must decrease.  My ministry was to announce His coming.  Once the bridegroom comes, there is no longer a need for an announcer.

Now that’s my paraphrase of what John said.  And what he alludes to is the very well known analogy of a middle eastern wedding in which the bridegroom makes every thing ready, and when he comes to take his bride, his best man runs into the village before him announcing to everyone that the bridegroom is coming.  That was their custom and everyone would have recognized that.  So John is saying now that the bridegroom has come, his bride is coming out to Him, everyone has been told the news, and so his job is coming to an end.

But in vs.31 John the Baptist changes gears a bit, and returns to our primary subject, and that is the origin of the truth which Christ manifested.  He says He, that is Christ, is above all.  That is Christ is one with God and from God and is God.  That’s what was declared in the opening words of chapter one.  Now John the Baptist is validating it again.  His testimony and other men’s former testimony is earthly because they come from the earth,  but Christ is heavenly, because He came from heaven.

Vs. 32, Since Christ is from heaven, He speaks the truth of God.  He testifies the things of God, and yet no one receives His testimony.  Generally speaking, though the Jews came to Jesus to see the signs that He was doing, they did not accept Him as the Son of God.  Jesus’s testimony was that He was the Son of God.  He called God His Father. John 8:18-19, 28 “I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”  So they were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” … 28 So Jesus 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.”

Now notice vs.33 in our text: John the Baptist says, “He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.”  So he says that whoever receives Christ’s testimony is agreeing that God is truth, therefore Jesus is the manifestation of the truth. In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” 

This is the distinguishing principle of Christianity.  You can make all kinds of arguments concerning the similarity of religions.  You can make the claim that all roads lead to God.  Calling God “Allah” or Krishna or the Great Spirit, or any other name used for God may seem from a human standpoint to be so similar as to become indistinguishable.  But the truth of Christianity that sets it apart is that we confess and believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, and that no one can come to know God except through Him.  That is the claim of Christ Himself.  So Christianity is incompatible with any other religion in the world.  God manifested Himself in One person, that is Jesus Christ, and only by faith in Him and His redeeming work on the cross are we able to be saved and receive eternal life.

Vs.34, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.”  What John is saying is that Christ is from God, He speaks the words of God, and God has given Him the full measure of His Spirit.  In times past, prophets were given a measure of the Holy Spirit.  Elisha, if you will remember, asked for a double portion of the Spirit that was given to his mentor Elijah.  But in Christ’s case, He is filled with the Spirit of God to the fullest, so that as Hebrews 1:3 says, “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”

Vs. 35, “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.”  That the Father God loves the Son of God being both God and yet separate and equal is a mystery that we must believe even if we cannot understand it.  But what we can know is that all rule and authority on earth and in heaven have been given to Christ.  He is the author and finisher of our faith.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  He is the Sovereign King of Glory, He is the Bridegroom coming for His bride.  He is the Creator of all life, and the source of eternal life.  All things are from Him and to Him and by Him all things exist and have their being.

So then, knowing these things, knowing who Christ is and His authority, John says in the closing verse of this chapter; “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” How can you resist Him?  To resist the source of life is to stay in the darkness and under the penalty of death.  To accept Him and receive Him is to be united with the source of life, even to receive eternal life. 

Now that’s the summation of a lot of theology and doctrine.  And hopefully, the truth of the gospel has produced salvation resulting in abundant life in all of you here today.  But now what?  What is the purpose of knowing all of this if we don’t share it with whoever we meet?  You know, I have an old high school friend who went on to be a state senator for Georgia.  And though he recently retired he is still actively involved in politics.  He recently posted on social media that he is committing to personally knocking on 15000 doors in his area to get the word out about his favorite presidential candidate.  He adamantly believes that the next presidential election is critical for the future of this country. 

And when I read that, I could not help but think of this passage.  If we truly believe that the truth of Christ is essential to being saved from the wrath of God and receiving everlasting life, wouldn’t we be as adamant in proclaiming it as my friend is in campaigning for his candidate?  I can assure you that the question of what will you do with Christ is of much greater importance than which candidate you are going to vote for.  Christ is the only hope for blind and lost people living in a colorless, dying world.  Our hope is not in a political system, but only in the One who is over all things, above all powers, above all dominions, in Him who is the glory of God and the Light of the world.  I pray that as His church we might start campaigning in earnest for the kingdom of God.

A universal solution to a universal predicament, John 3:16       

In His conversation with Nicodemus, which we began to look at last week, Jesus has presented a universal predicament.  A universal problem.  And that is, that no man can ascend to God.  That no man can be right with God through his own merits.  The very best of mankind, the most religious, the most zealous person is still light years away from God.  There is nothing we can do to leap across this great chasm that exists between God and man. 

So last week we were introduced to Nicodemus, the teacher of the Jews, a leader of the ruling religious body of the Jews called the Sanhedrin.  He was also a Pharisee, a person who prided himself on keeping the law to the nth degree, who knew the scriptures backwards and forwards, who worshipped in the temple every day and kept all the religious holy days.  He was an exceptional man.  He was the quintessential religious man.  If anyone could have appealed to God on the basis of their goodness, Nicodemus was the guy. 

And yet Jesus basically said that Nicodemus wasn’t even of the right species to get into the kingdom of God.  The Jews thought that of all the people on the earth they were the chosen people of God, they had the temple, the scriptures, the holy of holies, the prophets and the law.   They believed God dwelled in their temple in Jerusalem.  And this guy was the supreme teacher of the Jews and he was the leader of the temple priests.  If anybody should have been a shoe in for the kingdom of God it should have been Nicodemus.  But Jesus said, no that’s not enough.  You actually have to be born all over again to enter the kingdom of God.  Nothing he had done would count.  He needed to be reborn as an entirely new person.

Now that was bad news for Nicodemus.  Earth shattering news.  But it’s bad news for us as well.  Because Nicodemus was representative of the best of men.  Jesus said later in Matt. 5:20,  “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  So that is a universal predicament.  No one is going to be able to ascend into heaven.

Jesus went on to say that unless you are born again of the Spirit you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  God is a Spirit, and His kingdom is spiritual. 1Cor. 15:50 says “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”  That’s what Jesus meant when He said that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Man must be born again of the Spirit if he is to be spiritual.  And if not, if he is but flesh, then he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.  That’s a pretty simple diagnosis, but it’s a tragedy for mankind.  It’s a hopeless condition, because man cannot make himself born of the Spirit of God – that has to be an act of God.  So that is the universal predicament.  All men are lost.  All men are condemned to death.  All men are descendants of Adam, and as such all have inherited the sin nature of Adam. Rom. 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

God is holy.  We fail to fathom the breadth of the holiness of God.  For God to be holy He must be just.  He must exact justice.  And God’s judgment of sin is the penalty of death carried out upon all men, for all have sinned.  But God if God is holy, then He is not only just, but good.  And the goodness of God is expressed in His mercy.  James 2:13 says mercy triumphs over judgment.  So though the justice of God required punishment for sin which is death, the goodness of God provided mercy.

So the penalty of death is a universal predicament, but the Lord is God of the universe.  And so He provided a universal solution.  His universal solution begins with a universal love.  John 3:16, “For God so loved the world….” Let’s stop there.  We could spend an entire message on just that phrase.  For God so loved the world.  The word world is translated from the Greek kosmos. That should sound familiar, it’s the word we get the English word cosmos from.  But though the English  cosmos speaks to us of the celestial  universe,  kosmos in the Greek speaks of the universal human race.   So poor old Nicodemus is probably blinking his eyes right about now.  God loves everybody?  Not just Jews, not just Pharisees, not just Americans, not just Republicans?  Nicodemus was undoubtedly stunned that a Jew would say that God loved anyone but Jews.  But here is Jesus saying God loved the world.  The entire spectrum of the human race.

And Jesus is going to make that even more specific later on. Luke 5:32  “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  And Paul would later make that even more clear in Romans 5:8 saying, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  So let’s put this in a modern translation;  “For God so loved sinners….”  That is what is meant by the world.  Not all the good people in the world, that’s not who God loved.  But all the bad people in the world, all the sinners, even His enemies, even those who rebelled against Him, even those who spit upon Him, even those who nailed Him to the cross.   God loves sinners.  He loves humans of every race, every creed, every nation, every gender, every size and every color.  God so loved the world. God created man, and He so loved men that He created, even though they were sinners.

Now much has been made of that little word “so.” So loved.  Why is there a “so” there?  Well, this little word indicates the magnitude of God’s love.  It makes us ask how much?  And the size of God’s love is universal.  This time let’s use universal to indicate size, as in the size of the universe.  It’s infinite.  It has no beginning and no end.  It keeps on going from galaxy to galaxy.  That’s the so in God’s love.  He so loved the world that He gave a universal sized gift.  It’s really a universal sized remedy.  He gave His only begotten Son. 

Remember in chapter one, when John said the Word was with God and the Word was God?  That Word is the Son of God.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God gave the infinite, eternal, second person of the triune God, the One of whom in chapter one it said “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” And “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him.”  So the magnanimous expression of God’s universal love is giving the Creator of the universe Himself.

The famous Charles Spurgeon said it like this: : “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son. It was his only-begotten Son—his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. None of us had ever such a son to give. Ours are the sons of men; his was the Son of God. The Father gave his other self, one with himself. When the great God gave his Son he gave God himself, for Jesus is not in his eternal nature less than God. When God gave God for us he gave himself. What more could he give? God gave his all: he gave himself. Who can measure this love?”

That is what defines the love of God.  It is a sacrificial love.  The Greek word for love that is used there is agape, the highest, most noble expression of love that can be made.  Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  So then by extension, God gave the greatest gift of love that ever could be given, in that He laid down His life for His enemies.  The Creator laid down His life for His creation. Christ died in the place of sinners. What kind of love is this?

And then let’s look at the universal invitation of God’s love.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him…” Let’s stop there.  The universal invitation is to whoever.  Whoever includes everyone. No matter your nationality.  No matter how sinful you are.  No matter how religious you might be.  No matter what horrible crimes against God or humanity you might have committed, whoever includes you.

If you are familiar with the doctrines of Calvinism then you might know that irresistible grace and limited atonement are two Calvinistic doctrines that are often given in regards to salvation.  That says the call of God only comes to those who God has chosen, and that Christ only died for those people, so that those who are chosen will be saved, but salvation is limited by the election of God.  I would like to say that while I believe that the Bible teaches predestination and election, such a doctrine is beyond our pay grade to comprehend.  It is the purview of God to know how He knows what He knows and how He accomplishes His will.  But how do our finite minds reconcile the fact that He must call a person to salvation and yet at the same time a person is completely responsible for their reception or rejection of Christ?   So let me tell you what I do know.  And what I do know is what Jesus has to say about who may come to salvation.  He says “whoever”. In fact, just in case you missed it the first time, He says it twice.  Whoever in vs. 15  and whoever in vs.16.  Who does whoever refer to? Every one who believes in Him.  There is no other way to define it.

But just in case you are the type to explain away the obvious, Jesus gives us an illustration of whoever might be saved.  And that is found in vs.14 and 15.  The Israelites have sinned against God in the wilderness.  They have rebelled against the plan of God and are pining away for the delicacies they enjoyed in Egypt when they were in slavery.  They are complaining and murmuring against God and Moses.  And so God sends poisonous vipers into the camp.  You can read about it in Numbers 21.  And when they bit the people they began to be sick and die.  And the people came to Moses and repented of their sin against God.  So God told Moses what to do to provide an antidote for the viper’s sting. God said, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.” And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. 

Now that is the illustration that Jesus gives as an example of salvation.  And listen how Jesus presents it in vs.14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  The analogy is clear.  We have all been bitten by the sting of death brought about by the great serpent who deceived Adam and Eve, that is the devil. God said whoever shall eat of the tree shall surely die.  And in Adam, all have died spiritually because we have all inherited the same sinful nature as Adam. Rom 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”

So all of the world lies under the penalty of death.  We have all been stung by the viper of sin.  But when Moses lifted up the serpent on the standard, everyone who turned and looked upon it were saved from death and lived.  So it is with Christ, everyone who turns and looks to Him as remedy for death shall not die but live.  Salvation is available for all.  It is not limited to just some people, or to just good people, but it is limited only to those who are dying.  And we already have established that all of the world is dying.  The scriptures say that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.

So just as death is universal in it’s predicament, so is salvation universal in it’s invitation. Because all have sinned, salvation is offered to all without reservation.  This is the scope of God’s grace.  The grace of God is not limited.  2Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So then, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Let’s look finally then at the individual application of God’s love. It’s a universal predicament, a universal solution, a universal invitation, but an individual application.  Whoever believes brings it down to that individual who believes the gospel and applies it to themselves.  It is not a universal salvation, as if it says that everyone is automatically saved. It’s not a national salvation, as in every Jewish person is saved, or every American is saved.  But it’s an individual application as each individual must believe and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

But what does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? It does not simply mean that we believe that He lived and died 2000 years ago.  But we must believe His gospel:  that He is God made manifest, God in the flesh.  Believe that He is the Savior of the world. Believe that we are dead in our trespasses and sin and without hope. Believe that His sacrifice was sufficient to pay our penalty, and that His righteousness has been transferred to our account.  We must believe that He is Lord, that He is worthy to be our Sovereign.  We must believe that we owe Him our allegiance and love and reverence.  We must believe that He rose from the dead, and lives forever, and that He is coming again to live forever with HIs bride, the church. 

As Paul said in Romans 10:9-10  “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

So then what does this great gift of God’s love produce? Individual salvation. Salvation from the penalty of death.  And  in explaining it Jesus says it both negatively and positively.  It has a negative application and a positive application.  But the gospel is such good news that even the negative is positive.  So first the negative.  Whosoever believes on Him, that is Jesus, the Son of God, the propitiation for the sins of the world, whoever believes on Him shall not perish.  That’s the negative.  Which is actually a positive.  You will not die.

Jesus said to Martha in John 11:25, ““I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

How is that possible?  How can Jesus say that by believing in Him we will never die, and yet all of his disciples died, all of our forefathers in the faith have died and passed from this life.  Well the answer is of course is that which is flesh is of sin, and Romans 6:23 says that the wages of sin is death.  Romans 5:12 said that death is passed upon all men.  So that which is of the flesh  shall pass away, but that which is of the Spirit shall live. So though we are dead in the flesh, we are made alive in the spirit, and as such we shall not die but live in the spirit.

Jesus gave additional assurance in John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  And again in John 10:28 “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” 

Then the positive side of that equation is as Jesus said, “eternal life”, or “everlasting life.”  It’s the same thing.  But it’s not just the length of life that Jesus is referring to.  Eternal life certainly incorporates the infinite, no doubt about that.  But there is also more to eternal life than simply an infinite life span.  It also refers to the quality of life.  It is the life of God.  Christ as the source of light and life as it said in chapter one.  In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 

Jesus said it like this in John 10:10, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”   Abundant life starts now.  Eternal life starts at the new birth, being born again.  Abundant life is spiritual life. It’s being made a new creation.  It’s found in fellowship and communion with the God of the universe, the Creator of all life.  Abundant life is doing the works of righteousness.  It’s found in having the righteousness of Christ, it’s found in having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within us to lead us and guide us and comfort us and help us. It’s found in intimacy and relationship and peace with God.  Yes, eternal life is everlasting, infinite life.  But it’s also spiritual life, the zest of true life, a changed life, a life lived for it’s true purpose.

I’m going to give you one other verse, which is really like a teaser for the next message.  But it’s hard to look at these verses without considering the context around them.  Because verse 17 reminds us really of the grand design of John 3:16 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” 

The world was already lying under the judgment of sin and death.  Humanity was hopeless, helpless to bridge the chasm between mankind and God.  So since man could not ascend to God, God descended to man, sending the exact representation of the nature and character of God in human flesh to dwell among us, to be rejected by man, to be sacrificed in our place on the cross as an offering for the sins of the world, so that the world might be saved through Him and receive eternal life. 

You know, it would be easy to think of the holy God as viewing humanity in the condition of it’s sin, rebellion, disobedience,  and hatred towards God and that He would justifiably exact vengeance on the world. It would be easy to imagine if Scripture said, “God looked at the world and He said, ‘I’ll destroy them, I’ll punish them. I’ll put the pressure on them of divine judgment until they come to Me.’” But it wasn’t God’s anger that sent Christ. Christ didn’t come into the world to judge the world. He came into the world to save the world because what motivated the Father was not His anger, but His love.  So we notice in verse 17, “God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Saved through Jesus. God loved the world so God sent Jesus to save the world. Jesus came to save sinners. That is sinners from all over the world. He sent His Son because of His infinite love of sinners. He sent His Son to display His grace and mercy, to save them from judgment.

Some time ago I read a story about a young man who had rebelled against his father which resulted in an argument, and consequently he ended up running away from home. He continued to keep in touch with his mother over the coming months, and by Christmas time he wanted very much to come home, but he was afraid his father would not allow him. His mother wrote to him and urged him to come home, but he did not feel he could until he knew his father had forgiven him. Finally, there was no time for any more letters. His mother wrote and said she would talk with the father, and if he had forgiven him, she would tie a white rag on the tree which grew right alongside the railroad tracks near their home, which he could see before the train reached the station. If there was no rag, it would be better if he went on.

So the young man caught a train and started the journey home. As the train drew near his home he was so nervous he said to his friend who was traveling with him, “I can’t bear to look. Sit in my place and look out the window. I’ll tell you what the tree looks like and you tell me whether there is a rag on it or not.” So his friend changed places with him and looked out the window. After a bit the friend said, “Oh yes, I see the tree.” The son asked, “Is there a white rag tied to it?” For a moment the friend did not say anything. Then he turned, and in a kind of awed voice said, “There is a white rag tied to every limb of that tree!” That, in a sense, is what God is saving in John 3:16 and 17. God has taken away the condemnation of death and made it possible to be forgiven and come home to Him.

This is the greatest love, that God gave Jesus  to save sinners, even His enemies by offering Himself as a substitute for our death, so that we might be accepted by God.  I hope that if you are here today and have not trusted in Christ as your personal Savior, that today will be the appointed day of your salvation.  Whoever believes on Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. 

You must be born again, John 3:1-15  

The phrase “born again” is one that is not unfamiliar to most people today.  However, I’m afraid it is not understood by the majority of people.  Unfortunately, in a lot of circles it has taken on a denigrating characterization  which is attached to someone that is considered to be sort of a religious right wing fanatic.  However, in this passage, we find it’s origin in the words of Jesus Christ Himself, which He uses to describe those that will enter the kingdom of God.  In fact, He said it is a requirement of the kingdom of God that you must be born again.  So it behooves us to investigate this phrase thoroughly this morning, that we might know that we belong to the kingdom of God.

John said in chapter 20:31 that he wrote this gospel so that “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”  Now up to this point, John has clearly declared who Jesus is; that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, God made flesh, and he has presented multiple witnesses to those facts.

Then in our study last week, you will remember, John presented Jesus cleansing the temple.  That taught the essential theological principle that Jesus is Lord.  And if we are the temple of God, then Jesus is the Lord of our temple, and thus has all rights to it’s use, and the right to cleanse it for His use.  Now today we will see another essential principle of who Jesus is, and that is Savior.  Not only Lord but Savior.  In fact, as I said last week, these two characteristics are inseparable.  One cannot exist without the other.  You cannot be saved, and yet not allow Jesus to reign in your life as Lord.  I think there is even something to be learned from the order found here in John, who presents Jesus as first Lord, then Savior.

So in this passage, John is going to use the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself to explain the need of a Savior.  And of all the teaching of Jesus, this passage sets out the distinctions of our salvation in the most vivid, clear terms.  Most times when Jesus taught, He illustrated a certain distinctive of faith, or a certain characteristic of the Christian life, but rarely do we find a teaching more comprehensive on the subject of salvation than this one. In fact, it’s so packed with important doctrines that we do not want to rush through this passage, so we will likely continue it next week.

But let’s start as John does, with the man Nicodemus.  In some ways, NIcodemus is the representative man.  He is the best of men.  He is extremely religious, zealous for the law and a religious leader of the Jews.  This cannot be over emphasized.  Church teaching has demonized the Pharisees to the point that we fail to realize the good things about them.  This man was a leader of the Sanhedrin, the body of 70 elders which came about as a result of Moses finding 70 men of good repute to act as judges for the people.  So he was an esteemed civic leader as well as religious leader in a public office. And as a leading member of the party of the Pharisees he would have been extremely well versed in the scriptures, much of which he had subjected to memory, as well as an expert in the Mishnah and the Talmud which were commentaries written about the law.  Furthermore, he would have been someone that was considered to be above reproach and who kept the law down to the smallest details. This guy exceeded  by far even the most rigorous demands put upon priests or bishops or pastors today, whether it be in education, in conduct, or in piety.  And to top it all off, according to historians, he was very rich.  Extremely wealthy.  In all respects, if we were to choose a man to represent mankind before God this would be the guy that we would probably elect for the job.

Verse two tells us that Nicodemus came to Jesus at night.  John doesn’t tell us why.  It could have been that he had to work days and nights were the only time he had free.  But I rather doubt that.  The most likely reason is that due to his position in the Sanhedrin and the party of the Pharisees, he came at night to have a private meeting with Jesus so he would not have to fear  being noticed by the public or even perhaps by his peers.  It would have been considered unseemly for such an exalted person, himself an esteemed teacher, to come before a humble Galilean who had no formal training or official recognition.  But I would also point out that when Nicodemus comes, he seems to indicate that he is coming on behalf of others, not simply for his own personal benefit.  Note the use of the pronoun “we” when he addresses Jesus.  It’s quite possible in my opinion that he was sent privately by the Pharisees to try to figure out who Jesus was.  They had already asked him when he cleansed the temple a few days previously by what authority did He do these things.  So they were watching Jesus, hearing about His miracles, and wanted to delve further into who He was, but without attracting attention.

And then notice that Nicodemus not only comes under the cover of night, but under the pretense of solidarity.  He starts out by affecting a kinship with Jesus, a solidarity that they are somehow of the same ilk, or after the  same things. Basically, he is using a form of flattery to gain an advantage in the conversation.  And this is a common ploy of people who come to church today.  They rarely come on their knees in humility, in repentance and seeking forgiveness.  But they come under false pretenses, professing knowledge of  the things of God and claiming pure motives in their worship of God.  But at the core of that attitude is a sense of self righteousness, of entitlement.  After all, they aren’t the really bad people.  Really sinful people don’t often come to church; they perhaps are too ashamed.  But religion attracts the self righteous, the ones who feel that they are basically good, moral people.  And that attitude is illustrated by Nicodemus.

He says to Jesus, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  Notice the flattery, the fawning use of the title “Rabbi”, or Teacher, and the acknowledgment that God is with Jesus. So Nicodemus says that they knew Jesus was of God because He did signs or miracles. 

By the way, we know that the ability to perform miraculous signs do not necessarily mean that someone is of God.  You might remember the magicians of Pharaoh who were able to duplicate the miracles of Moses. And so we know that not all miracles are necessarily from God.  That is part of the deceitfulness of false prophets who will arise in the last days.  They will be given power by the devil to do signs which will lead people astray.  Jesus warned about that in Matt. 24:24, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” 

And please don’t be deceived by the fact that signs and wonders done in a church building or performed on television supposedly in the name of Jesus automatically sanctifies such things.  No, the devil is in church as well.  Again Jesus warned in Matt. 7:21, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” 

So Nicodemus was wrong on that account.  Signs and wonders do not necessarily confirm that a person is of God neither does it necessarily produce saving faith in God.  At the end of chapter 2 it says many people were believing on Jesus because of the signs that He was doing, but it concludes that Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew their hearts. And that is the indictment against the Pharisees, and particularly against Nicodemus.  They practiced what was for the most part correct doctrine, but their religion was external.  But God looks at the heart.  And salvation is a change of heart as we will soon see.

But back to our text,  I love Jesus’ response.  He isn’t fooled by Nicodemus’ flattery for one minute.  He knows the heart of man, the motives of man.  So instead of falling for the trap of flattery, of feeling special that such an important man sought to have a private interview with Him, Jesus interrupts him and cuts to the chase.  He exposes first of all that there is no solidarity between them.  He says you are not even in the kingdom of God, how can you judge the kingdom of God then? You come in the dark because you are in the dark.  So Jesus rebukes him and at the same time offers an answer to the question that the man should have been asking. What Nicodemus should have asked Jesus is what must I do to be saved?  But instead, he offers up some form of flattery in hopes of getting an advantage, and tries to establish solidarity with God, equanimity with God because, after all, he is a great leader of the Jewish religion.  And as such he is a representative of all men who presumptuously come to God based on their own merits and their own understanding of who God is, and who offer to God a so called worship which is little more than unadulterated flattery for the sake of gaining a “blessing.” They attempt to manipulate God for their advantage through lip service but their hearts are far from it.

So Jesus’ response is found in vs. 3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Basically, Jesus just cuts him off at the knees.  He says you can’t even see the kingdom of God.  You are so far away from the kingdom of God you can’t even see it.  All of your heritage is worthless.  All of your law keeping is worthless.  All of your worship is worthless.  Your nationality is worthless.  Anything you might try to do in your own strength is worthless before God.  In fact, you actually have to be born all over again in order to see the kingdom of God.  Now that’s kind of rough, wouldn’t you say?  Someone has a desire to become a better person, to turn over a new leaf, to start going to church, to do right, and instead of welcoming them to come as they are and say God loves you just the way you are, Jesus tells them no, nothing about you is acceptable, you have to be born all over again.  Nothing you do is going to work.  You’re hopeless, helpless, and lost.  You’re a sinner, condemned, unclean.  Wow, that’s a tough thing to say to people. It could even be thought of as offensive. That’s not exactly seeker friendly, is it?

But that’s what Jesus does.  He doesn’t mince words.  He doesn’t play church.  He doesn’t play the game called religion with anyone.  And ultimately, that’s what is in their best interest.  Because only the truth will set you free.  Now the key to truly understanding what Jesus means is found in the word “unless” or it may say “except” in some versions.  In other words, man in his natural state is spiritually dead.  He has a sinful nature, and in fact, he is exceedingly sinful.  And God is holy and can not tolerate, or even look upon sin.  The first key to salvation is understanding your need of salvation.  That you are sinful and lost and separated from God to such an extent that you can never bridge the gap to the righteousness that God requires for fellowship.  Except you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God because in your present condition you are dead spiritually.  

That deadness is the result of the fall – God said if you eat of the tree you will surely die.  And we are all Adam’s children, and as such we have inherited Adam’s fallen nature, the same nature that got Adam kicked out of the Garden, separated from fellowship with God.  So you must be born once again.  Born anew.  To be born again does not mean reformation, as in education, nor does it mean renovation, as in making new year’s resolutions or turning over a new leaf, but it means regeneration.  It means something that was dead grows back again.  It requires a supernatural event, a divine intercession from God to make what is dead come to life again. To bring the spirit of man back to life through the gift of righteousness so that he can have fellowship with God once more.  Eph. 2:1, 4-5 says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, … 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,  even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

Now Nicodemus doesn’t understand what Jesus is talking about.  I guess this is the first time he has ever heard the phrase born again.  That’s a phrase that has fallen out of fashion today in religious circles.  I have found that Roman Catholics in particular are put off by that word.  People in general make fun of it.  It’s used as a put down, as in “you must be one of those born again religious fanatics.”  Nicodemus probably was sincere though when he asked how it was possible to be born again.  Vs. 4, Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”  He was obviously thinking only of the physical realm. 

Jesus’ answer is to distinguish physical birth from spiritual birth.  He says in vs.6 “that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  So there are two births then.  One is of the flesh, that is the result of coming from the seed of your father and the womb of your mother.  The second birth is that which is of the Spirit.  And we know that God is Spirit.  So the Spirit of God gives new birth to our spirit, so that we might be the children of God.  That is what John declared in his opening treatise, remember? John 1:12-13 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

So Jesus says that both births are necessary.  Vs. 5-6 “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”  

There are a lot of debates about  the way to interpret that statement in vs. 5.  What does born of water signify?  Well, I would suggest that it means two things at the minimum, and on these two things  most Bible scholars would camp out on either one or the other.  I happen to think that both interpretations are true.  The most obvious interpretation is that born of water is speaking of natural birth, when the water breaks a woman gives birth.  And that thought is correlated in vs.6 because Jesus uses a parallel statement; “that which is born of flesh is flesh.” Vs. 6 is obviously expanding on vs. 5, so that you would have to say that 6 is just an explanation of 5.  

But some people think that water  speaks of baptism.  And while I do not find that as likely, yet it is possible that He speaks of water as in a baptism of repentance.  That was the baptism that John the Baptist had just finished doing all over Judea, baptizing with a baptism of repentance in preparation for the kingdom of God to be manifested in Jesus Christ.  So if you take that view, then you might say that one cannot be born of the Spirit without first repentance and then faith in Jesus Christ.  And that would be true doctrinally.  

But I believe that the most obvious explanation is that it refers to physical birth, that which is born of the flesh is flesh.  Baptism as we know in and of itself cannot save you, but repentance is necessary as a precursor to saving faith because of the reason I previously made, that is man’s inherent sinful condition estranges him from God.  But baptism does refer to a cleansing by repentance which precedes the infilling of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by Ezekiel 36:25-28 which says “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” 

But the point is that you must be born again, you must be born of the Spirit.  And so Jesus reiterates that by saying, “Do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again.”  By the way, that word again in the Greek can also be translated as “from above.”  So there was implicit in that phrase born again the need to be born from above, that is born of the Spirit of God.  That is what it means to be born again. And so Jesus says, don’t be amazed by that. We don’t understand how it happens, but we believe it does happen upon repentance and faith in Christ.  Upon recognizing your sinfulness and need of a Savior, confessing and repenting of your sins, and believing and receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, you are born again by the Spirit of God to new life in Christ. Your spirit is made alive.

Now to explain that further He says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  And what I think Jesus is referring to here is the sovereign call of the Holy Spirit upon the soul of man which brings about the spirit of repentance and the gift of faith resulting in salvation.  We don’t understand how that works, but we should not be dismayed by it.  But the fact is that the effectual call of God is active is undeniable in salvation, just as the effect of wind is undeniable, even though we may not see it or know how it comes about. And we know this by many verses in the Bible, but perhaps my favorite is Rom. 8:28-30 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

The fact that God is the author and finisher of our salvation is irrefutable.  How He does that I cannot understand.  But I believe it.  However, I also believe the Bible teaches the responsibility of man.  Not just the sovereignty of God, but the responsibility of man.  And I approach those two seemingly opposing arguments this way:  when I pray, I pray according to the sovereign will of God to interpose His will in the events of life through supernatural means.  But when I preach, I urge men to respond according to their responsibility to act in accordance to the truth.  I do not know how to reconcile both opposing positions in my mind, but I know that the Bible teaches both, that God predestines and calls men to Him, but at the same time He tells man to receive Jesus Christ, to believe on Him, and repent and turn from his sins.  So both are not only  possible but necessary and are not exclusive of one another but somehow interdependent upon one another.  It is a mystery,  as is the mystery of the wind blowing where it wills and coming from places unknown, yet working effects that can be seen and felt here on earth.

Are you  confused by this?  Well, so was Nicodemus.  He said, “How can these things be?”  I think it’s a cry of desperation, not necessarily frustration.  I think it’s a desire to know the unknowable.  And that’s why I think Jesus gives him a further illustration.  To help him understand by a more simple example. But first Jesus gives him another rebuke.  I don’t think Jesus was being vindictive here by the way. Nor was Jesus being mean by rubbing his nose in his ignorance.  But what I think Jesus is impressing on Nicodemus  his need of being reborn.  He wanted him to realize that his ignorance concerning spiritual truths was part of his fallen nature, and  that he wasn’t righteous, he wasn’t sufficient because of his position or title or pedigree or even by his works, but he was a man in need of a Savior, just as everyman is in need of a Savior.  So Jesus gives him a mild rebuke: “Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”  In other words, if you can’t understand fleshly things, how can you understand spiritual things?

So Jesus gives him another illustration in order to help him understand.  And to do that He draws from the Old Testament story of the exodus, when the Israelites had sinned against God yet again in the wilderness, and God sent poisonous snakes into the midst of the camp to bite the Israelites which caused them to get sick and die. And God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and hang it on a pole that whoever might turn and look upon it would be saved from death.  So Jesus uses that illustration to explain the process by which man is saved from death and given new life. 

And so Jesus says in vs. 13 “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”  Now remember He is explaining the process of salvation, the process of new birth which is as unknowable to us as the wind.  And so Jesus starts by affirming that mortal man cannot achieve heaven.  He cannot ascend to God, and so God had to descend to man. Even the Son of Man who came down from God to man, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And notice Jesus says that He descended from heaven. He is affirming that He is God, who dwells in heaven, and that He has come to earth.

And even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness upon a pole, so must the Son of Man take on sin, symbolized as the serpent, and die upon a cross, so that whoever believes on Him, whoever looks to Him might be saved.   Now this illustration is taken from Numbers 21.  And in that account, when the people were bitten and started to die, they came to Moses and repented of their sins. They said we have sinned against God. Num. 21:7-8 “So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the LORD and you; intercede with the LORD, that He may remove the serpents from us.” And Moses interceded for the people. Then the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”  

So in that illustration we see that repentance and faith are the twin pillars of salvation.  By repentance and faith our sins are forgiven, and we are made children of God.  We are made children of God because we are born again of the Spirit of God.  As I said last week we are the temple of God because the Spirit of God dwells in us. 1Cor. 6:19 says  that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.  So having been made righteous through faith in Jesus’ righteousness and propitiation for us, the Holy Spirit then lives in us, producing new birth and eternal life, so that we are a new creation. 

So what Nicodemus needed to understand was that Jesus was the Savior from his sinful, deadly condition.  He needed to look up at Jesus taking his sin upon Himself on the cross, dying in His place to satisfy the justice of God, and in so doing Jesus would be his Savior. And John tells us in chapter 19 that at the crucifixion of Jesus Nicodemus came to anoint His body for burial.  I believe Nicodemus witnessing Jesus on the cross remembered that Jesus had said that “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;  so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” And believing in Jesus as HIs Savior was the only way Nicodemus could enter the kingdom of God.  That is the only means by which all men can enter into eternal life.  Not just everlasting life, but the life of an eternal quality, spiritual quality that enables us to live as God designed us to live.  To have life and have it more abundantly.  That we might have fellowship with God again.  To be restored again to communion with God.  That is what it means to be born again.  And it is only possible through faith in what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. 

Today I will close with just asking you the simple question, have you been born again?  Have you turned and received what Jesus did for you on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins?  I urge you to look to Jesus and live. “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” 

Lord of the temple, John 2:12-25  

In chapter 2 John begins to show certain signs that Jesus did which illustrate or prove that He was the Messiah, the Son of God.  The first sign that Jesus performed was at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, which was primarily only known to his immediate family and disciples who were there and the servants of the house.  Today, we are going to examine the second sign that Jesus does, and this one is not miraculous necessarily, at least not in the way we would think of a miracle, but it nevertheless illustrates the divinity of Jesus in a very dramatic, powerful way. Jesus establishes through His actions that He is the Son of God, and Lord of the temple and as such has authority over  the temple.

We pick up the story in vs. 12 which says that after the wedding in Galilee, Jesus, His brothers, His mother and His disciples went to Capernaum and stayed a few days, and then they travel on from there to Jerusalem.  And then, it would seem the whole entourage headed to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast.  This annual pilgrimage was obviously a tradition for the family of Jesus.  I’m sure most of you are familiar with the movie “Home Alone.”  My kids used to watch that every Christmas.  Well that was a remake.  In the original “Home Alone” Jesus was 12 years old and left alone.  You will remember that in Luke 2:41 it is recorded that His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year to the Passover.  And when He was 12 years old, He somehow was left behind, and His parents realized Jesus wasn’t with the caravan, and so they came back to Jerusalem and frantically looked everywhere for Him.  After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting down and talking to the teachers who were amazed by His knowledge.  And when His parents asked Him what He was doing, He said, “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”  And they did not understand what He meant by that statement. But we will understand it more fully today after we study this passage.

Now just a word about the Passover Feast before we go into the story.  What we call communion or the Lord’s Supper is the ceremony that is the new covenant celebration of the Passover Feast.   Under Jewish law, the Passover was to be celebrated once a year in Jerusalem, and every family was to slay a lamb to commemorate the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.  As you recall, the Lord had said that the angel of death would pass over every house in Egypt, and those that did not have the blood of the lamb on their doorposts would suffer the death of their first born son.  So all of Israel ate the Passover meal, which was unleavened bread, bitter herbs and lamb, along with wine, and they put the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their house in order to be saved from the judgment of death. 

But when Jesus celebrated the Passover on the night before His crucifixion, He ordained that from that time on we should celebrate that feast in remembrance of Him.  The symbolism being that He is the Passover Lamb who provided the means to escape death for all that believed in Him. 

And I find it significant that the first public sign that Jesus does is at the temple during the Passover Feast.  John the Baptist had just previously introduced Him as the Son of God, and then as the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world.  And so here comes the Lamb of God, to the feast which foretold His purpose, and yet He does not come at this time to be the sacrificial lamb, but He comes as the Son of God, coming into His house, His Father’s house, and He comes in judgment and condemnation and wrath.  Not meek and riding on a donkey, but in judgement and wrath.

As a church I want to make sure that when we worship the Lord we worship Him as Jesus said we must, in spirit and in truth.  And knowing the truth about God is fundamental to be able to worship Him in truth.  We must recognize God as He reveals Himself in scripture.  And whether or not the modern church wants to accept it, God is revealed first of all in judgment, in holiness and righteousness.  God cannot be put into a little box labeled love and everything we don’t think is love we discard.  But God is the great I AM.  He is all He has declared Himself to be.  And we must worship Him as Lord God Almighty.  Exodus 34:14 says the Lord’s name is Jealous “–for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God—”

Now the most common way to look at this passage is to interpret it as a condemnation against church leadership, false teachers or apostate religious leaders.  And there is certainly a lot of that in modern Christianity today.  There are plenty of fake healers, and televangelists and apostate churches that are fleecing the people and taking advantage of naïve parishioners.  And I may even have preached this text from that perspective myself at some time in the past.  But as I studied this text once again, I believe that the proper application that should be made is to the church body, or to the individual members of the church. 

The Bible makes it very clear that we are individually members of Christ’s body, and as such we are the temple of God, and that He dwells in us.  In the Jewish temple, it was believed that the Spirit of God dwelled in the Holy of Holies behind the veil of the temple.  But upon Christ’s crucifixion, God tore the  temple veil from the top to the bottom, signifying that a new way had been opened up to God through Jesus Christ.  So then in the new covenant, upon faith in Jesus Christ we are made holy and righteous by the transference of our sins to Christ and His righteousness to us, that being made holy we might become the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, the temple of God on the earth.

Eph 2:19-22 makes that relationship clear;  “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household,  having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,  in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.”

And also Peter says that we are now God’s temple in 1Peter 2:5 “you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

And then one more; 1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  So without question, we that are Christians are the temple of God.  In fact, I would suggest that this is the purpose of our salvation.  Not just to be forgiven of our sins and escape hell, but to be made holy so that God may dwell in us, that the Spirit of Christ might live in us and through us.  So then the temple is not just symbolic of corporate worship, but how to live as individual members of His body.

So Jesus comes into the temple during the Passover, and He looks around at what is going on.  And by the way, this is the first time that Jesus cleanses the temple with a whip – the second time will be before the Passover just before His crucifixion.  So He does this once at the beginning of His ministry and once at the end. 

And as He comes into the temple, into what would have been called the court of the Gentiles, He sees the money changers and sellers of sheep and oxen and doves.  Now there was nothing wrong with that in and of itself as not everyone would have an appropriate animal for sacrifice and would need to purchase one.  But what was happening was that as people came to present their offering of a lamb or whatever was prescribed by the law, there would be an inspection to make sure that it was a lamb without blemish as the law required.  But the temple priests had a racket going on with the vendors of the bazaar in the courtyard.  They would tell the people that their lamb they had brought had a defect and so it could not be offered, but right over there you can buy a pre-approved lamb.  And of course there was a stiff markup on the price of the animal.  Additionally they would be told that the temple could not accept any pagan currency, so there were money changers sitting at tables who would exchange their money for the acceptable Jewish currency but again with a heavy percentage added to it.

Jesus of course, knows what is going on.  He sees the corruption in the temple and the way they are taking advantage of naïve people in order to make a profit.  They are turning the temple of God into a house of merchandise and a den of thieves.  And so as Jesus watches what is going on He calmly begins to braid a bunch of cords together into a whip.  I kind of liken that to the typical action movie scene where the hero is in a room with a bunch of bad guys who are threatening him, and he turns and heads for the door, presumably to try to leave quietly, but instead he locks the door and turns around and beats up all the bad guys.  So I guess Jesus braiding the leather cords into a whip is the equivalent of locking the door.  But what it reveals is that this is not Jesus losing His temper, but the premeditated wrath of God designed to bring about compliance with His will.

So verse 15 says, “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. His disciples remembered that it was written, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.”

Now as I said, we are going to focus primarily on the principles in this story as they relate to us as individuals, rather than the church as an institution.  Because we are the temple of God.  I think even Jesus in vs.19 when He says, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” indicates that this text should be interpreted as referring to individual temples rather than institutional Christianity.

So how then are we to understand this as it applies to us? Well, first of all, note that it applies to believers, not to the unsaved.  We are the temple of Christ if we have the Spirit of Christ in us.  But what we see in this story is that the purpose of the temple was being prostituted.  The people of Israel who were God’s chosen people, had become greedy and self serving.  They had taken the things which were essentially good things in and of themselves and turned it into an opportunity to serve themselves, to make a profit, and even to take advantage of others for their own gain.  Rather than worshipping and serving God they were worshipping themselves and serving themselves.  And in Jesus’ eyes, the temple was in ruins. It was like an old castle which has become overgrown with briars and brambles, whose ramparts were falling down and in ruins, so He saw the temple as being in need of divine restoration so that it might once again serve and bring glory to the King.

It brings to mind when the Jews had been in exile and the temple in Jerusalem had been abandoned and the walls had been torn down and was in ruins.  And God raised up a prophet, a man of God to stir up the people to go back and restore the temple of God. And you might remember that there was opposition to the restoration of the temple, from all quarters and in a multitude of ways.  So much so that as they worked some also stood guard and every worker carried his sword.  And so the book of Nehemiah records how they were called back to rebuild the physical walls of the temple but also to restore the ancient practices according to the law and call the people back to holy living and away from foreign gods and from idolatry and immorality with pagan tribes which had all caused it’s downfall originally. 

And in the last chapter of Nehemiah, chapter 13 vs. 25, it says that Nehemiah was angry with the Jews because they did not take seriously the sanctity and sacredness of God’s law and were corrupting the temple with their flagrant sins.  And so it says in vs. 25, that Nehemiah “contended with them and cursed them, and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God” to stop their immorality and idolatry.  The wrath of Nehemiah was a preview of what the Messiah would do when He came into the temple, but rather than pulling hair and striking them He made a whip of cords and kicked over tables and drove them out.

I think it would be fair to say about Nehemiah that the zeal for the house of God had consumed him. And I would to God that zeal for the house of God would consume Christians today.  You are the temple of the holy righteous God and yet we continually serve the profane things of the world, we desire the idols of the world and lust after immoral things.  Perhaps what’s needed is more prophets of God need to get riled up and make a scourge of cords or start yanking people’s hair and get them to swear their allegiance to God or drive them out of the church. 

We need to examine ourselves in the light of this text.  We cannot point to the iniquity of the unsaved, but we need to recognize that we are the temple of God and everything in our temple should be consecrated to His service.  We have abused the good things that God has given us and used them to serve our lusts, to make a profit, to take advantage of others, to be selfish and we do not serve God with our whole hearts.  We need to examine our pocketbooks and see if we are robbing God.  We need to examine our motives and see if we are serving ourselves.  We need to examine our doctrine and see if we are worshipping the true God or a god of our own design.  To serve God is to worship God.  To obey is better than sacrifice.

Listen, are we making merchandise of the grace of God?  Do we say to ourselves that we can sin and God will forgive us because Jesus has paid our punishment?  Do we crucify afresh Jesus Christ so we can continue to serve our selfish ends?  Do we make a profit on the grace of God?  Do we misuse the gifts that God has given us so  that we can serve ourselves?  Is the church of God and it’s ministry suffering because you have not given God every thing that is due to Him?  God demands first place in your life, not just an hour a week of lip service so that you can live like the devil the rest of the week.

It’s appropriate that this story is set in the context of the Passover, what we call the Lord’s Supper.  When Paul wrote to the carnal Corinthian church about the Lord’s Supper he said “Let every man examine himself” before eating of the supper. 1Cor. 11:27-32 says, “Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.” 

We need to examine ourselves.  Christ blood was not shed so that we might use it for our profit or to our advantage so that we might continue to serve ourselves while the world around us is dying in their sins.  Christ’s blood was shed that we might be reconciled to God, that we might be made holy and righteous and be filled with the indwelling Spirit of God so that we might do the works of God.  God said, “You shall be holy as I am holy.”  And there are some principles that this story teaches which should help us to do that.  That should cause us to examine ourselves and judge ourselves rightly that we may not be judged. 

The first principle we need to learn is that of Christ’s Lordship.  Jesus comes into the temple as the Lord of the temple.  He takes charge as One with authority to drive out the merchandisers.  He says this is My Father’s house.  He had the right to do whatever He pleased and so He had the right to cleanse the temple of profiteers and thieves. 

Listen, is Jesus the Lord of your temple?  Does He not have the right to do whatever He pleases, to make whatever demands He chooses upon your time and your resources?  I would suggest to you that if you lay claim to Jesus as Savior, you must also accept Him as Jesus the Lord.  You cannot separate the two. You cannot believe on Jesus and be saved and not submit to Him as Lord.  Rom 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” The Lord comes to make us holy temples of God.  We are no longer our own or  to live for ourselves. 1Cor. 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”   As Paul was fond of saying, we become bondslaves of Christ the Lord.  We are slaves, either of sin or the Son of God.  We cannot serve God and mammon.  We are His now, all of us, all of our resources are His.

The 2nd principle we see illustrated in this story;  He knows everything. Jesus looked around the temple and He knew what was happening in secret.  He knew the plans that the priests had to defraud people.  He knew the back room agreements between the vendors and the priests and the temple officials.  Nothing was hidden from Him. 

And we cannot hide our sins from God either.  God knows our hearts.  He sees everything we do in secret.  A good illustration of this principle is David, who hid his sin with Bathsheba and thought he could get away with it.  He thought that no one knew what he had done.  But you remember that God sent his prophet Nathan to reveal David’s sin, and rebuke him for his sin.  And in Psalm 51, when David confessed his sin and repented of it, he writes that  God requires truth in the inward parts.  James says when you pray and do not receive what you ask it’s because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend it on your sinful pleasures.  Listen, there is nothing hidden from Gods’ sight.  And if you are secretly and willfully withholding what is the Lord’s then He knows it and He will demand it. 

Let’s imagine for a moment that I had complete insight into your private, most secret world, and came to you right now as you sit here in your seat, and overturned your chair, and called your motives into question, and exposed your corruptness.  Imagine if I publicly exposed all the private things that you think no one knows about, all the ways in which you have held back from God the things which are rightfully His, all the ways in which you have committed immorality  with the world, using the grace of God as a covering for sin.  All of the time, money, resources and the very life that God has given you and yet you have used it for only your own profit, and I laid it all out for everyone here to see.  That would be painful and embarrassing wouldn’t it?  Yet one day the Lord of our temple promises to lay bare all that we do in secret and proclaim it from the rooftop.  We need to examine ourselves and judge ourselves rightly  so that we might not be judged.

Because our secrets will be judged according to His word. Heb. 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” God is looking around the temple of your soul and nothing is hidden. You may fool your pastor, you may fool your Christian friends.  But God will not be mocked.  God knows your secrets, your deceptions.  And He wants a holy temple consecrated to serving Him and Him alone.

God desires truth in the inward parts.  He doesn’t care for our ceremonies and rituals, our fake worship, while we hide iniquity in our hearts. Isaiah 1:11-18 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the LORD.”I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats. When you come to appear before Me, Who requires of you this trampling of My courts? Bring your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies–I cannot endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I hate your new moon festivals and your appointed feasts, They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. So when you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; Yes, even though you multiply prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are covered with blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Remove the evil of your deeds from My sight. Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, Reprove the ruthless, Defend the orphan, Plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD, Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.”

3rd principle;  God will not tolerate corruptness in His temple.  Even as Jesus cleansed the temple with scourging, so He will cleanse His people so that they will not profane His temple.  Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon.  No man can serve two masters.  He demands our full commitment in our relationship with Him.

2 Cor.6:14 is commonly interpreted as speaking of marriage, but remember that His church is to be the spotless, virgin bride of Christ. So it’s actually referencing our relationship with our bridegroom.  2 Cor. 6:14-18 “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM;AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. “Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord.” AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

Now in closing let’s note His actions and our response.  Jesus said “Take these things away and stop making my Father’s house a house of merchandise.”  If Jesus is Lord of your life He is going to take what is His and make rightful use of it.  If you are the temple of God then the Lord of the temple will make His temple holy and useful to Him.  And sometimes He does that by scourging.  He makes us clean by means of discipline.

Heb. 12:5-14 “MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD,NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM; FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES.” It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no one will see the Lord.” So the discipline of God our father is to scourge His children and expose in us that which is harmful. 

And our response is to cleanse ourselves from all defilement of soul and spirit and body.  You know, even though God brought the children of Israel into the Promised Land, they still had to finish driving out the idolaters that were left in there.  God gave them the responsibility to drive them out and not to leave any remnant of the evil nations that dwelled there.  God planted them, gave them the resources and then commanded them to drive out the ungodly nations lest they fall into sin with them and ruin their nation.  And God tells us to do the same thing in  2 Cor. 7:1,  “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

Let me close by asking you a question, as you are the body of Christ and Christ is the head of the body, then it shouldn’t it mean that we should have the same desires as our head who is Christ?  Can we say with Jesus that zeal for the house of God has consumed you?  Has the refining fire of God burned away all the impurities so that you might be a vessel sanctified and set apart for good works?  Have you like Paul said that you consider all the things that were formerly gain to you, to be as loss for the sake of knowing Christ as Lord?  Is Christ Lord of your life?  Have you given Him all? 

I encourage all of us to examine ourselves in light of this word that we might be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ in all that we do.  That our life would be lived for our own glory, but for the glory of Christ.  And for some here today I would ask, is the Spirit of God living in you?  Or is the flesh striving against the Spirit?  Are you committing adultery with the world yet claiming to be the bride of Christ? I would to God that you will pray with David in Psalm 51, “create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me.” If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, that you may present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.

The first sign, John 2:1-11   

 In our study of the first chapter of John, we saw the apostle John under the inspiration of God in his opening statement present the theology of Jesus Christ; that Jesus is God in the flesh, He was with God from the beginning, He is Light and the light of the world, and that He is the Life of men, the Creator, the giver and sustainer of life.  That was John’s opening argument in his gospel, which is given as an apologetic as well as an evangelistic message. That opening passage fulfilled the purpose of his gospel which is stated in chapter 20:31, “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Then we saw in the remainder of chapter one that John brought forth witnesses to corroborate his claim that Jesus Christ is God.  The first witness was John the Baptist who declared Jesus is the Son of God and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  And then  John brought another group of men forward as witnesses, that being the Andrew, Simon Peter, Philip and Nathanael.  Andrew testified that Jesus was the Messiah, Philip said of Him that He was the One of whom Moses and the Prophets wrote, and Nathanael called Him the Son of God, the King of Israel.

Now as we look at chapter 2, John provides illustrations from the works of Christ which attest to His divinity and His purpose; that He is the Son of God, and the Messiah, that is the Savior of the world.  And to do this, John begins with what he calls a sign, or what we would call a miracle.  John says in vs.11, that this was the beginning of signs that Jesus did, and they manifested His glory, and because of this sign, His disciples believed in Him.

Now I would point out that His disciples already believed in Him as attested to in chapter one.  But this sign increased and strengthened their faith.  And that fulfills a spiritual principle found in Luke 19:26, “I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” What that means is, God will build your faith as you follow Him in faith. God will give you more revelation as you believe the revelation that you have been given.

Now before we get into the event in detail, I just want to make sure you understand the purpose of signs or miracles in the gospels.  Many people mistakenly look at the miracles recorded in scripture and think they are examples of what we can expect to see accomplished in our lives.  But as we look at the gospels, we see that the miracles are not simply exhibitions of our Lord’s power but they are designed to teach us certain spiritual truth.  I have stated before on numerous occasions that the miracles in the gospels are given as a parable to teach a spiritual principle.  And we would do well to remember that as we study the scriptures.  No where is it taught that Jesus healed everyone, or performed miracles in order to make His life easier or just to remove some difficulty. But miracles serve to illustrate a spiritual principle by means of an earthly parable.

And I like the word John uses rather than using the word miracle.  He uses the word sign.  We all know what signs are, don’t we?  You are driving down the road at night and you see a yellow diamond shaped sign with an image of a leaping deer, you know what that means don’t you?  I know what some of you think.  “Target practice.”  But seriously, we all know it warns us that deer might be on the road ahead.  And in the same way a sign as used in this passage points to a person, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  It points ahead to a time when Christ will be manifested to the world, but for now we see a sign signifying that He is Lord.

So we know then that the following miracle is not merely presented as just a happy circumstance that happened 2000 years ago, but that it points to something that will be revealed fully later, it points to a truth about Christ.  So as we unpack this account, let’s focus on the principles that God is teaching us through this sign.  And there are a number of them here.  But first let’s fill in a little background information in order to be able to understand it fully.

The third day establishes the chronology of John as he gives this historical account, after the day mentioned at the end of chapter one when he saw Philip and Philip called Nathanael.  There have been two days intervening, when Jesus and the disciples traveled to Cana of Galilee, which was the hometown of Nathanael.  So not only  Nathanael would have known the groom who was being married in this tiny village, but obviously Jesus did as well, as it says in vs.2 that He and His disciples were invited to the wedding.  And it’s likely that since Cana is only about 6 miles from Nazareth, and Jesus’ mother was in attendance and she seems to have direction over the wine and servants, that there is a good possibility that this is the marriage of one of Jesus’ brothers.  That is speculation of course, but it accounts for the fact that His mother is in a supervisory role in the marriage over the wine and the servants.

But I would point out that John has deliberately left out such details.  They are not really germane to the story or the principle of the story.  Some people have read way too much in between the lines of this account and as a result have come up with all sorts of false doctrines, such as the worship of Mary and the intercession of Mary, so that they teach the need to pray to Mary to intercede on their behalf.  And nothing could be further from the truth.  In fact, this event proves that Mary is in need of a Savior just as everyone else is. The Bible doesn’t teach that Mary was sinless. She needed to be saved by faith just like everyone else. And it’s obvious that she is not in a preferred status as evidenced by Jesus addressing her as “woman” rather than mother.

Now let me say just a word about weddings in general in those times.  Weddings would have been considered the social events of the year in that culture. When people came to a marriage celebration, they came because there had been a betrothal, an engagement period. About a year earlier, the couple had become engaged. That was a legal, binding, contract that could only be broken by divorce. But the marriage had not been consummated at this point.  It was consummated at the end of the wedding celebration which sometimes lasted for up to a week.

Ancient Jewish weddings were very different from our modern ones. In western weddings the bride is the prominent figure. When the bride enters, clothed in all her glory, the whole congregation stands and the organ plays, “Here comes the bride! ” and every eye is focused on her. But in ancient Jewish weddings it was the groom that was prominent. He was the one whose coming was anticipated.

So for a year the husband had been preparing a place for his bride. He would have purchased or built a house for his bride and prepared it for them to live in.  And during this time he would have been working to pay for the cost of the wedding feast.  The bridegroom had full responsibility for all the cost of the wedding which lasted for up to a week and involved the whole village.  His job was to get everything ready, and then when everything was ready and the house was built and furnished and all preparations were made and he had demonstrated that he was able to care for his bride and to provide for her, he would come take his bride to his house and the celebrations began.

Now I cannot help but see a correlation here in this account of the marriage in Cana to the marriage of Christ and the church as His bride.  In Ephesians 5 Paul talks about the church being the bride of Christ and compares His relationship to the human institution of marriage between a man and a woman.  Listen to this; Eph. 5:23-32, “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”  Notice that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.  Isn’t that an echo of what we read at the beginning of chapter one, that the Word was with God, but the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  He became one of us, that He might be joined to us, so that we might become one with God.

So in the marriage of Christ and the church Jesus is the bridegroom and we are the bride of Christ.  Jesus calls Himself the bridegroom in Matt. 9:15 “And Jesus said to them, “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” 

So as we understand the symbolism of marriage, Christ became flesh to seek a bride which is His church.  He betrothed Himself to her.  He has made promises to come again and take us to His home which He said He is preparing for us.  And when He comes again, we will join Him at the celebration of the  marriage supper of the Lamb and then we will be like Him and join Him on the throne in His glory to rule and reign and live with Him forever. 

Now as we understand that, it helps us to comprehend what Jesus is saying when He responds to His mother’s complaint that they had run out of wine.  This was a major faux paus on the part of the bridegroom.  He somehow either did not have the means to buy enough wine, or they had more people show up than they had planned for or the party ran a few days longer.  And the fact was they couldn’t just run down to the store and pick up a few more bottles.  So if one of Jesus’ brothers was getting married, and Mary was the matron of honor so to speak, then the family of Jesus was responsible for getting more wine.  Jesus as the eldest son would have had the headship of the family.  It is generally agreed upon by most scholars that His father Joseph was dead by this time and so Jesus would have taken on the responsibility as head of the family. 

So Mary says to Jesus, “They have no wine.”  And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour is not yet come.”  Now there is a lot of discussion about that phrase, “what do I have to do with you,” as well as the fact that He called His mother Woman.  First of all, Woman was not a term of disrespect, but a word which signaled a change in relationship between Jesus and Mary.  As Jesus began His earthly ministry, He would no longer be bound by familial restraints as head of the household, and as a consequence she would have no more hold over Him in the usual way a mother might have over her son. But even more to the point, as I said earlier, it indicates that  she does not have any special privilege as His mother.  Jesus calls God the Father His Father.  But He does’t call Mary His mother because contrary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, she is not the mother of God. She is woman.  She would have to come to Christ the same way every other person must come; as a sinner, saved by grace.  Even on the cross, as He is obviously full of concern for His mother, He calls her Woman, even as He passes on responsibility for her well being to the Apostle John.  So it’s not a disparaging title, but a term designating a change of relationship, from Son to Savior.

And then to the question of what He said.  A better reading might be; “What is that to you and to Me?” In other words, the fact that they don’t have wine, what is that to us?  My hour is not yet come.”

Now keep in mind the picture presented here is Christ coming for His church, His bride.  He is saying I am not ready to provide the wine at this point of my ministry, because my hour is not yet come.  So what is does the wine symbolize? Well, most of you are familiar with the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper.  And as you know there are two elements in communion, the wine and the bread.  And Jesus quoted by Paul in 1Cor. 11:25 says,  “In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”  Now when Jesus said that, obviously the wine could not be His actual blood as the Catholics would have us believe, because He had not yet shed His blood.  So what was it?  It was wine.  The wine symbolizes the blood of Christ which washes away our sins, through which we have forgiveness of our sins.  This is the token of the new covenant which Hebrews 9:15 speaks of, which is better than the old covenant which featured the blood of bulls and goats which could never take away sins.  But the new covenant ratified by His blood takes away sins and purchases the right to an eternal inheritance.

So Jesus is saying, My hour to die on the cross and shed My blood for the remission of sins is not yet come.  He will say the same thing in John 7:30 “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.”  He speaks of His hour in another half a dozen places in John’s gospel. And finally in His priestly prayer before His crucifixion in chapter 17 He prays, “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son.”  Amazing isn’t it?  That He equates crucifixion with glory.  And why would He say that?  Because at that time He purchases the redemption and sanctification of His bride.  In that act God destroys the power of sin and death and crushes the head of the serpent, Satan.  His death achieves the glory of God.  It manifests the glory of Christ and it makes possible the glory of the church, His bride. So then His hour He speaks of is the time when He offers up His life as a sacrifice on the cross for sin, purchasing with His blood the remission of sins for all who believe on Him.

So Jesus says, “I am not ready to be glorified at this point.  I am not ready to shed my blood which will be the wine of the new covenant at this hour.  That hour is coming, but it is not now.”

But somehow Mary understands that He isn’t speaking a rebuke to her, He is speaking metaphorically of His glorification which had been promised her by the angels before His birth.  And so she turns to the servants and says “Whatever He says to you, do it.”  Mary doesn’t speak much on record in the scriptures, and so we should find what she says very instructive.  Our emphasis is not on the words of Mary, or the actions of Mary as an intercessor, but on Jesus, the Word made flesh.  As Mary indicates, our obedience and obeisance should be to the words of Christ.  Preference is not given to Mary but to Jesus and her instructions indicate that.

So Jesus knowing the need, supplies the abundance.  He said He came to give life and that more abundantly.  And that is a principle that we see here in this sign as well in other places, particularly at the feeding of the multitudes.  Jesus does not just supply barely enough, or not quite enough, but supplies grace upon grace.  John 1:16 “for of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  This is speaking of the grace of His righteousness to cover all our sins.  We cannot spend all the grace of Christ.  Not that we should desire to presume upon the grace of God through licentiousness in continuing to sin, but that irregardless of the greatness of our sin, or the greatness of our separation from God, He has provided more grace than enough to reconcile us to God. 

So Jesus orders the servants to take the six empty water pots and fill them with water.  And the servants fill them to the brim.  This would have been about 120 to 150 gallons of water. That would have provided well over 3000 servings of wine.  The significance of that is a measure of His grace; of His fullness, of the abundant supply of righteousness. And then when the servant drew out the water and presented it to the head waiter he was astonished that the bridegroom had saved the best wine for last.

I used to train wine stewards when I was in the hotel restaurant business.  And I can assure you that if the wine steward knew it was wine, then it was indeed wine.  Now it is well known that they watered wine down in those days three parts water to one part wine, so that it was very difficult to get drunk from normal table wine.  But it was wine, and furthermore, it was very good wine.

Now a note about the water pots.  John says that they were used for ceremonial washings; for the Jewish custom of purification.  The Levitical law required certain ceremonial washings in regard to sacrifices and various modes of daily life.  But over time the Jews had added customs to the law that far exceeded the intent of the law to imply that physical cleanliness was a means of spiritual cleanness.  As you will remember, the Pharisees condemned the disciples at one point to Jesus because they had not ceremoniously washed their hands before eating.  And later on Jesus condemns that sort of external ceremony that does not cleanse the heart of sin.  Matt. 23:25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.”  So Jesus condemns the ceremonial washings which could never take away spiritual uncleanness.

And as we already alluded to, the old covenant could not take away sins by the blood of bulls and goats, nor could the customs and traditions imposed by the religious leaders take away sins.  And in the same way, the ceremony of baptism cannot wash away sins.  All of those things are just signs as well, pointing to the blood of Christ which is the only thing that can take away sin. 

So what are the principles that we learn from this parable illustrated by a sign?  One is that when Christ bestows a blessing it is usually preceded by a command.  Secondly, Christ’s commands are not to be questioned, but obeyed.  Thirdly, that Christ is the bridegroom that has purchased the redemption of His bride with His blood, for the forgiveness of their sins and to give them an inheritance prepared in heaven. Fourth, that as the wine was more than enough to meet the needs of the party, His grace is more than sufficient for all our sins, that we have received His fullness and grace upon grace.  Fifth, that only His blood is sufficient to cleanse us from sin, but that no ceremony has the power to do more than point to Christ.  Sixth, that the new covenant is a better covenant, enacted on better promises.  And seventh, that He has saved the best for last. 

As Heb. 11:39-40 says concerning the patriarchs and heroes of the faith of old, “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”  We are living in what the Bible calls the last days.  And God has saved the best for last.  We have the complete, perfect revelation of Christ.  We have the death, burial, resurrection of Christ and He now stands at the Father’s right hand to make intercession for us. We have all the promises of God made more sure by the written scripture.  We have the immeasurable benefit of the Holy Spirit living in us, even as wine in stone water pots. Even as 2Cor. 4:7 says, that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” So that by the power of the Spirit within us we might live to the glory of Christ.  Our redeemed, transformed lives are able to bring about glory to Christ through  His death which is symbolized in the wine of His blood which was shed for us. 

Our Lord is able to take the person who recognizes that they fall short of the righteousness required and with His touch make them full of abundant life; to turn their mourning into joy. He will do this with any who will call upon Him, follow Him, and believe in Him. That is why John highlights for us in vs.11, that seeing this sign,  “the disciples believed in Him.” I pray that your faith in Christ has been strengthened as well as we understand the significance of this sign; what Christ has done for us and what His purpose is for us as we follow Him.

The testimony of John the Baptist, John 1:19-34   

The world is a very different place in the 21st century than it was in the days of our parents.  But I am not talking about the obvious advancements in technology and science and so forth.  The difference in our day from our father’s day is that at least in western civilization,  man has become more egocentric rather than theocentric.

A good illustration of that is that in our father’s day, young men cheerfully signed up  to fight the Nazis, risking and even losing their lives for the sake of God and country.  Not that everyone was a Christian in those days of course, but there was instilled in people the sense that there were higher ideals worth living for than simply self gratification.  Consequently, we look back in history with a sense of awe at what previous generations suffered through, and hopefully we realize that their sacrifices provided the security and prosperity that our nation now enjoys but too often take for granted.

On the other hand,  when the pendulum started swinging in the opposite direction after WW2, during a time of  prosperity, we see that society lost that sense of chivalry and became increasingly narcissistic and egocentric.  That attitude has fostered a philosophy of secular humanism which is now the pervasive view of society. 

As a result, politicians pander to such self-aggrandizing attitudes, producing a society that increasingly depends upon government entitlements and consequently is contributing to what I think marks the beginning of the end of this great nation.  John F. Kennedy’s quote made 50 years ago that we should “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” no longer gets traction in today’s “Me First” culture that demands special rights for every possible special interest group at the expense of the greater good. 

But what is more disconcerting than that trend in the political arena is that the church is pandering to the egocentric trends of the culture as well.  The whole focus of the relevant church movement is to find out what appeals to the congregation, and then format the church to meet the desires of the people.  So we end up with messages geared to such topics as fixing your marriage, or straightening out your finances.  There is even a popular sermon series out there based on dieting.  It’s called the Daniel Plan.  Not that there is anything wrong with dieting.  Some of us could probably benefit from it, but it is not the ministry of the church to provide a health club or social club or self help classes. 

The Apostle John said in vs. 6 that “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” So what was the testimony of John the Baptist who was sent by God to give a message to the Jews? Did he come to preach feel good messages about how to live your best life now? Did he come to preach messages on how to resolve family issues? Did he come to preach messages about psychotherapy? I’m sure all of that would have been as popular in his day as they are in ours.  But John the Baptist saw that the need of his people was much more fundamental than that. Israel had left her first love. Israel had become apostate. Israel was a nation who needed to repent and  receive forgiveness from God.  So John the Baptist preached repentance.  He didn’t think that repentance was impractical, old fashioned, or irrelevant. He didn’t tickle their ears and give them what they wanted to hear, but he preached to them sound doctrine.

The great thing about the ministry of John the Baptist was that he didn’t pander to the culture.  He didn’t worry about being seeker friendly.  He spoke about what God told him to speak about.  His message was simply repentance, to prepare the people to receive the Messiah, the Son of God.

Sound doctrine is the wisdom that leads to salvation.  Paul told Timothy in 2Tim.3:15 that the scriptures gave him the wisdom which leads to salvation through faith. And once a person is saved sound doctrine produces stability, maturity and spiritual fruit.

Now I would remind you that Jesus said about John the Baptist that among men born of women, there was none greater than John the Baptist.  So if we are going to pattern our ministry after someone, then I suggest patterning our ministry after John the Baptist.  I for one can identify with a voice crying out in the wilderness. And like John, I believe that the primary message of the gospel is repentance and pointing people to Jesus Christ.  I guess I also identify with the idea of a no frills, open air ministry.  Of not really having a permanent location, especially when we meet out here on the beach. 

So I want to look at the testimony of John the Baptist that is presented here, and take some points from his ministry which we should apply to our own.  And we are going to divide this passage by looking at three points; first what John says he is not, and second, what John says he is, and third, who he says Jesus is.  What he is not, what he is, and who Jesus is.

Now to introduce this section let me remind you that the Apostle John in this first chapter has presented a masterful theological treatise, much like the opening statement in a court of law, presenting the facts concerning Christ.  Now John brings forth his first witness to corroborate those facts, and to illustrate that theology.  And the star witness the apostle brings forth is John the Baptist.

So vs.19 says that “This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’”   Now for most of us, there is no more favorite subject matter that we prefer to talk about than ourselves.  Isn’t that so?  If the average pastor was asked that question today, he would probably launch into a biographical essay in which he ends up giving a glowing testimony of his achievements.  But not John the Baptist.  This was a humble man.  And let me tell you something; humility is the hallmark of a true servant of God.  Not where you went to seminary, or how many degrees you have, or how big your church might be.  But even as Jesus humbled himself, taking the form of a servant.  And if we are truly servants, then we should remember that no servant is greater than his master.  We need to be humble, to practice humility if we are going to minister as Christ’s representatives.

And we see that humility illustrated in the answers that John gives to the questions of the religious leaders.  As my outline illustrates, he starts out by saying what he is not.  What he is not.  That is the mark of humility.  Peter admonished the men of the church in 1Peter 5:5-6 “You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE. Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time.”  All of you, that is all of the church, clothe yourselves with humility.

You know there was another famous prophet who was singled out as being one of the greatest, and that was none other than Moses.  And notice what it says about Moses in Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.”  Humility is the hallmark of a man or woman of God.  Not how charismatic or talented or knowledgeable they may be, but how humble they are.  That is what God cares about. And that is the person that God will use. He will not share His glory with man.

So what John was not.  He answers their question of “Who are you?” with “I am not the Christ.”  I believe it was Luke that tells us in his gospel that the religious leaders had been asking, along with many of the multitudes that were coming out to hear him, if John the Baptist could be the Messiah, or in the Greek, the Christ.  And so he answers that question; “I am not the Christ.”

Then they ask him, ““What then? Are you Elijah?” And he *said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” And he answered, “No.”  The last verses of the OT prophesied that Elijah would come before the Messiah.  And so they wondered if he was Elijah. John said he wasn’t Elijah, but an angel had prophesied that John would come in the spirit and power of Elijah. They asked if he was the Prophet. It’s likely that Prophet they spoke of was the Messiah that Moses had said would come after him. And John disavows being that prophet as well.

So John says he is not the Messiah, he is not Elijah, he is not the Prophet, and back in verse 8 we see that he was not the Light.  Furthermore, in vs.27, John says “He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”  He is saying that he doesn’t even consider himself worthy of being the lowest household servant in the kingdom of God, so that he is not worthy of even untying the sandals of Christ.  So not only is he not the Christ, he is not even worthy to untie Christ’s sandals.  Now that is humility.  And yet Jesus says about him that John the Baptist is the greatest among men. That’s an illustration of the verse I quoted from Peter a minute ago; “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you at the proper time.” 

Jesus said in Matt. 20:26-28 “It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant,  and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave;  just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Now then let’s look at what John testifies about himself.  Who John says he is and what he is doing. Vs.22 Then they said to him, “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am A VOICE OF ONE CRYING IN THE WILDERNESS, ‘MAKE STRAIGHT THE WAY OF THE LORD,’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”

First of all, note the contrast John the Baptist makes between himself and Christ.  He is not the Word, but he is a voice. The Word exists before him.  The word exists in the mind before the voice articulates it.  The Word remains once the voice is silent. He just speaks the words of God as God gives him utterance.  John would later say “He must increase, but I must decrease.”  He understood that it was not his voice that had any power to save.  But John knew that the Word of God who was God was the only power unto salvation. 

I wish we could get hold of that principle today in our churches.  We exist merely to give voice to the Word of God.  To bear witness of Him.  All of the programs and videos and dancing and singing in the church, if not giving voice to the word of God are just entertainment.  Those things may attract a crowd, but the only power to save is found in giving voice to the Word. 1 Cor. 1:21 says, “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”

John the Baptist says that his mission was to prepare or make ready, the way of the Lord. He quotes from Isaiah 40:3.  He is saying that his ministry is to prepare people’s hearts to receive the Lord, the King. To call people to repentance.

Then notice that the next question they are concerned about is his practice, his baptism.  People are concerned about the externals, aren’t they?  What rituals or ceremonies we practice.  Or what kind of programs do you have. Well, John did indeed practice baptism.  But the priority was not John the Baptist’s baptism, but on the fact that he was a witness. He was pointing people to Christ.  Baptism simply prepares people’s hearts to receive Christ through repentance. Four times other gospel writers spoke of John the Baptist as preaching a baptism of repentance. So John’s emphasis is not on the ceremony of baptism as a means of receiving  salvation, but as a sign of repentance. The focus is not on the outward sign, but on the heart of man.

So they ask him, “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”  See the problem wasn’t that he was baptizing.  Baptism was already practiced among the Jews as a means of purification.  But it  was actually for Gentiles, not Jews.  It was part of the method by which non Jews could become proselytes.  They could become accepted into the Jewish faith by becoming immersed in water and then going through certain ceremonies and offerings.  But John the Baptist is in effect preaching that Jews had no inherent national right to gain the kingdom of God because of their race, and they needed repentance and cleansing just like the Gentiles. 

But again, John deflects attention from his ministry and points to Jesus. Vs. 26 John answered them saying, “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know.  It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”  What John was saying was that his baptism was a sign.  He did not have power to cleanse or forgive sins.  All he could do was use earthly means to point to a heavenly purpose that would be fulfilled in Christ.  It was a sign in the flesh, much the same as the sign in the flesh of circumcision which was given through Moses.  So John the Baptist comes with the sign of baptism, and this sign points to Jesus Christ.  First by showing their need for a Savior, and then when John baptizes Jesus it points to Him as being the Son of God.  So in all  aspects, John’s ministry points to Jesus and Jesus alone.  Never does it magnify John the Baptist.

Now then the last point, who John testifies that Jesus is. Who John says Jesus is.  Vs. 28 These things took place in Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.  The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  John says Jesus is the Lamb of God. Now that goes back to what I just said about John’s baptism.  The first purpose of baptism is to show us our need for repentance, for forgiveness of sin.  And as he is baptizing, which has no power to forgive sin in and of itself, he sees Jesus coming to him and says “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  Baptism then has no power to take away sin, but the Lamb of God does take away sin.

Now any Jew would understand the imagery that John is referring to when he says the Lamb of God.  First of all, hearing that a Jew would naturally be reminded of their father Abraham when he offered up Isaac on the altar, and was about to slay him as a sacrifice, and God stopped him and provided a ram that was caught in a thorn bush behind him.  God provided a substitute.  God provided a lamb. That is the first lesson of the Lamb of God.  He is our substitute.  God placed our sins, our punishment upon Him, so that He died for us, so that we might be made righteous by His righteousness and live. 

And that brings up a second point of the Lamb of God that every Jew would think of.  And that would have been the Passover Lamb that was slain on the night when God caused all the first born male children in Egypt to die because of the hardness of the Egyptian’s hearts and their refusal to let Israel worship the Lord.  So God told His people to take a lamb for every household and slay it and put the blood on the doorposts of their houses so that the angel of death would not strike them.  And as they obeyed God’s command and sacrificed the lamb and put the blood on the doorpost of their house, the angel of the Lord passed by and they were saved from death.  Now that illustrates the second principle of the Lamb of God, He saves us from death, eternal death. 

So first who John says Jesus is – He is the Lamb of God that takes away sin. Secondly, John says Christ is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. As opposed to his baptism with water, Christ will baptize in the Holy Spirit. So John says in Vs. 30 “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’  I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water. John testified saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him. I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’”

Now there is a lot in those verses and we don’t have time to unpack everything there.  But one thing I want to emphasize is that John says it was necessary for him to baptize in order that the Christ might be made known. Now certainly John knew of Jesus before this time. He was Jesus’ cousin.  And though they may not have lived near one another as they were growing up we must imagine that John knew of Him, and perhaps even had met Him or known Him all his life.  That is certainly possible but I don’t think that is what John is saying here.  What he is saying is that I did not know Him as the Christ, as the Messiah, as the Son of God until it was divinely revealed to me in the baptism.  God had spoken to John previously and said He who the Spirit descends upon is the Christ. 

So John knew who Jesus was not by sight, not by human intellect or knowledge, but by divine revelation from the Holy Spirit.  And this illustrates an important principle of salvation.  God has to open men’s eyes to see that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  Remember the famous situation with Peter when Jesus asks, “who do men say that I am?”  And Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” And what did Jesus say to that?  “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you Peter, but my Father who is in heaven.  (Matt. 16)  It takes  divine intervention to open a blind man’s eyes, and we that are in our sins are blind.  Jesus said in John 6:44  “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

But it also reveals the two fold nature of salvation; on the one hand there must be a removal of sin, but also a filling of the Holy Spirit. Both are necessary for salvation.  One sanctifies you, the other makes you a temple of the Holy Spirit and empowers you to live as a witness to the world in obedience to God.  You must be born again by the Spirit of God if you will have the life of God in you.

Then the last statement that John the Baptist testifies as to who Jesus is, is found in vs. 34 “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.”  This is the ultimate witness of John the Baptist.  That Jesus is the Christ, that is the Messiah, and He is also the Son of God.  He is God in the flesh, the Word made flesh.  And John saw the Spirit of God descend and remain on Him just as God said, and he heard the proclamation of God as recorded by Luke in Luke 3:22  when the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” This was the witness of John, and this is his testimony, that Jesus is the Son of God.

And of course that testimony correlates perfectly with the Apostle John’s stated purpose for writing this book in John 20:31,  “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Now there are two quick applications that I would point out that makes the believing in Christ efficacious for you. One is to recognize the One whom you do not know. Notice vs.26, John says, “among you stands One whom you do not know.” Some have decided that they do not want to know Him.  They have rejected the idea of God and Lord, and so they have rejected the Savior of the world.  To know God is to believe in God, which is a decision that everyone must make for themselves.  To believe the truth about God. That He was manifested in the flesh as Jesus Christ, and that He is Lord of all. 

And then the second point of application is that you must receive Him as your Lord and Savior. It is not enough to just believe in God, or even believe that Jesus lived on earth 2000 years ago.  It’s necessary to receive Him as your Lord and Savior.  You must accept Jesus’ substitutionary sacrifice on your behalf, for forgiveness of your sins, that you may be born again by the Holy Spirit.  If Jesus is truly the Son of God, then there is no alternative but to bow down before Him and plead for His mercy.  And Jesus said that to them that call upon Him He will surely save them.  In vs. 12 of our text, John says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.”

Today we have heard the testimony of the Apostle John here in this passage before us, who lived with and followed Jesus for 3 years of his life.  We have heard the testimony of John the Baptist who heard the voice from heaven declaring that Jesus is the Son of God and saw the Spirit descend in the form of a dove upon Him as was prophesied.  We have heard the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures which present the Christ as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  We see around us the testimony of creation which reveals His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, so that we are without excuse.  But most importantly, we have the witness of the Holy Spirit inside us, convicting us, drawing us to Christ, opening our eyes that we might see Him and believe in Him and be saved.  I hope if you are here today, and you do not know Him, that you will not reject these faithful witnesses.  Jesus came to earth to save those that are lost.  All that is necessary is for you to believe in Him and receive Him as your Lord and Savior, and you will be given the right to become children of God and have everlasting life.  I urge you to repent of your sins and receive Him as your Savior and Lord, that you might be saved.

The Word became flesh, John 1:14-18    

I for one am happy that the Apostle John does not dwell on sentimentalism, as he writes of the coming of Christ, but he focuses on theology.  Although most people may think theology and doctrine are dull and uninteresting, I believe that a proper understanding and belief of the truth is the path to true salvation.

I passed a Universalist Church in Rehoboth the other day, and they had a sign out front on which was written, “We believe that there is not just one way.” While I knew that they believed that, I was amazed that they would come out and say it so matter of factly, even advertise it.  They obviously don’t believe in the Bible at all.  If you don’t believe the Bible is true, then you will believe anything that appeals to your sensibilities. But simply believing in something, even believing fervently in something, does not make it true. We believe that God’s word is true, that it is authoritative, that it is  God breathed.  And thus what we believe about the Lord Jesus Christ who John calls the Word is efficacious in our salvation.

But in John’s sparse literary style he is giving an account of the coming of Christ and it’s possible due to his approach to miss the fact that this is the greatest love story ever told.  In preparing this message, I thought of trying to find an example of a great love story in order to illustrate this passage, but I ended up discarding every possibility because they could not come close to the magnificence of the story of Jesus coming to earth in human form.  One of the most famous love stories in literature is Romeo and Juliet.  But even though that story is often called the greatest love story of all time, it pales in comparison to the story we have in front of us.

In addition to being a great love story though, vs. 14 represents one of the greatest theological statements in the Bible. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This entire prologue of John’s gospel is one magnificent presentation  of the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ.  So far in this first chapter, we have seen that the Word was God, the Word was Light, and now today the Word became Flesh. 

Now I want to try to explain why this passage can be called the greatest love story of all time.  But to do that we must go back once again to Genesis, to the creation account.  In chapter 1, God said “let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness.”  So God made man in the image and likeness of God.  He made man spirit, soul and body, a triune being like God Himself.  And then in John chapter 1, we see God making Himself in the image of man.  “The Word, who was God, became flesh and dwelt among us.” 

That in and of itself is a stunning thought.  That the eternal God who existed in the form of the Word, who was life, and was Light, who made all that was made in the universe, became a man. He didn’t just appear in the form of a man, but He became man. I believe that God appeared in pre-incarnate form in the appearance of a man at various times in the Old Testament period. But those pre-incarnate appearances were different than being born as a man. But the immediate question is why would the eternal, creator God stoop to become one of His creation?

Well, the answer I would suggest is illustrated in chapter 2 of Genesis. After God had made man, He declared that it was not good for man to be alone.  But after God made that statement, He did something interesting. He didn’t immediately create woman. But God caused all the animals of the creation to parade before Adam so that Adam could name them. And in the process, something was discovered by Adam.  Gen.2:20 says, “but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.”  Once Adam realized that fact, then God put him to sleep and took a rib from his side and made woman for man. 

And I think that scene illustrates a great truth.  I think that it illustrates why God made man to begin with.  God existed from eternity past before creating the heavens and the earth.  And we don’t know what He created in eternity past, other than that He created the angels. But it’s certain that He created other galaxies. I was watching a renowned physicist by the name of Brian Cox on YouTube recently, and he was speaking about the wonders of the cosmos. He said that there are 2 trillion galaxies in the piece of space that we can see. I guess there is space that we can’t see. Not 2 trillion stars, but 2 trillion galaxies.  And that each galaxy has an average of 400 billion stars in it. He also said that light takes 100,000 years to travel across a galaxy. He also said it seemed that the universe was infinite. And yet that our solar system was special. The way it had formed, and the way that Earth was positioned in relation to the sun and other planets set it apart from other similar solar systems.  He seemed to think that the science suggests that we are the only civilization in the milky way. Now I don’t know how much of that to believe. I am skeptical of modern science. But it would seem that it appears that there are trillions of galaxies beyond our own. And I don’t know what to make of that. But I believe that there is one God, who made everything that is made.  John said in vs 3, All things came into being through Him, that is through the Word, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

As Christian Creationists, we believe that the Bible indicates that life on this planet is just over six thousand years old. That doesn’t square with science. The geological matter may of this planet may have existed for millions of years, even billions of years, but it was without form and void. But day one of creation was about six thousand years ago.  Genesis says that God created light on the first day of creation.  We can’t square that with modern science either. And we know that God created man on the sixth day.  We can’t square that with evolutionary science either.  But we also know that the angels were already in existence when God made man. How much longer before man they were made we do not know.

And by the way, the Bible doesn’t teach that all angels look alike. We do see that different types of angels were created for many different purposes.  So we could speculate on what God might have created beyond what the Bible tells us, but I’m not sure that it would be profitable.  However, suffice it to say that when God made trees He did not make just one type of tree, but thousands of types.  When God made birds, He made thousands of different types of birds.  And the same with all types of His creation; there is great variety in each thing that God made.  Even with people, there is great variety within the species.  So we can assume that though we call them “angels” there is great variety in that type of being.  But contrary to popular images of angels, it’s not likely that they all look identical.  However, the Bible does indicate that the number of angels correlates with the number of stars.  Possibly billions or even trillions of different types of angelic beings. But beyond that we do not know what else God might have created in eternity past. 

But what I think God is illustrating with Adam naming the animals is that God viewed everything that He had created in eternity past, and there was not found any creature suitable to be a help mate for Him.  And in a manner of speaking, God had decided that it was not good for Him to be alone. So God created man in His image, in His likeness.  Another indication of this desire of God for a help mate is that in all of the rest of creation, He merely spoke and that thing came into being.  But with man God bent down and formed man out of the ground with His hands.  And then God put His mouth on man’s lips and breathed into him, and man became a living soul. 

So creation itself was no less than a great act of love.  Now the Bible has much to say about the church being the bride of Christ, and Christ being the bridegroom.  In chapter 3 of John, John the Baptist refers to Jesus as the bridegroom and the church as His bride.  Jesus Himself talks about the kingdom of God as culminating with the marriage supper of the Lamb.  In Revelation 21 the angel shows John what is called the bride of Christ, which is the church, spotless, having no spot or wrinkle, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.  

But probably the best passage that illustrates this principle is Ephesians 5, which talks about the way a husband must love his wife, and says in vs. 25-32, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her,  so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,  that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.  So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself;  for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church,  because we are members of His body.  FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.  This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” So Paul is saying that human marriage is a picture of Christ’s marriage to the church, the bride of Christ.  We are made from His body to be united with Him as one body, joined together with Him for eternity.

But looking back at Genesis again, we see that Adam and Eve enjoyed walking with the Lord and communing with God, having fellowship with God.  But not long afterwards, they sinned by eating of the forbidden tree.  And as God had promised, their spirit died.  That part of their being that was in communion with God, that divine spark that they were created with was extinguished and the now sinful bride of God was removed from His holy presence.  They were banned from the garden and they no longer were able to be in the light of His glory.  Consequently, as their spirit died, their flesh soon followed after. And every offspring of Adam thereafter not only inherited his sinful nature, but he also inherited his mortality. But thank God for 1Cor. 15:22, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.”

Now that brings us back to our text.  Because God did still love the world. Specifically, He loved the human race.  And He loved the human race so much that though His holiness and justice requires that man suffers the penalty of his sin by separation from the Life of God, yet His love found a way to satisfy that requirement.  And God satisfies His judgment  by the most incredible means possible.  He became one of us.  Man could not come to God, he could not bridge the chasm between God and man.  He could not ascend to God, so God came down to man. Phl. 2:6-8 “[Jesus] who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

So because God so loved the world, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  As we were first made in the image of God, so God must be made in man’s image in order to be the representative man who would be able to become man’s substitute, Savior and high priest, dying in our place. Now that is love.  We cannot imagine a love story to equal that story.  If we were to imagine a king relinquishing his throne to become a peasant so he could marry a peasant girl that would not come close to Christ’s love for the church. If we were to imagine a man blinding himself in order to be married to a blind bride that still would not rival this story.  There is no greater story of love than to consider that the eternal God created man to be like Him, to be His mate, His companion, and then that mate rebelled and sinned against Him, and was expelled from His presence, only to have the same Holy God humble himself to take on human flesh so that He might die for His bride in her place as her substitute. It’s beyond our comprehension.

So the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Even so He remains fully man and fully God. The deity of Christ is not diminished by His humanity, nor is His humanity overpowered by His deity. It is what is known in theological terms as the hypostatic union. The combination of the divine and human nature in the person of Christ.  Fully man, and yet fully God.  Because as John says, even though we beheld Him in human form, He retained His glory as God, and He was seen in His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

We need to explain that word glory.  What is glory? When I was a kid growing up in an old country church, I used to hear sometimes one of the old timers yell out “glory!” when the preacher would really get them riled up or some singer would sing a rousing song.  Never knew what it meant, but  it usually managed to snap me awake. Well, I’ll tell you what it means.  There is a hint right there in the verse; it’s the word “dwelt”, or skenoo in the Greek.  And it means tabernacled.  You will remember that the tabernacle was the tent that God designed to house His glory when the children of Israel set out for the Promised Land.  God dwelled in the tabernacle, and His shekinah glory indwelled the tent so that it lit up in the nighttime with the light of His presence.

So what John is saying here is that the Word was Light, the Light of the world, and He came into the world, becoming human, one of us, and His shekinah glory tabernacled among us in the human form of Jesus.  Now John says we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  And one explanation for that statement would be that he was speaking about the transfiguration, when Jesus’ glory began to shine out of Him and the Father God rebuked Peter by saying “this is My beloved Son, listen to Him.”

But for even more insight into His glory we need to go back to Exodus 33 and 34, when Moses asked to see God’s glory.  And God told Moses in Exo. 33:19-22 “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”  But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”  Then the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by Me, and you shall stand there on the rock; and it will come about, while My glory is passing by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.”

So in the next chapter we see the Lord put Moses in the cleft of the rock as His glory passed by, but listen how God describes that glory.  Not by describing the passing of God as a blinding light, but with words describing His attributes. Exo. 34:6-7 Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;  who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

Now that’s incredible isn’t it?  We know that there was also a great light because Moses came down from the mountain with a veil over his face because it shone so much the reflected glory of God that the people could not look at him.  But when God describes passing His glory by Moses, He doesn’t describe the light, but with words describing His attributes.  And what two attributes do we see on parade above all others?  Grace and truth.  The very same attributes John ascribes here in John 1:14, “and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

So how did John and the disciples primarily see the glory of God revealed in Jesus?  By His attributes.  He was holy and righteous, full of grace and truth. Though He was fully man, yet He was fully God and manifested the character of God in all that He did. Hebrews 1:3 says of Christ, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  So Christ’s attributes attested to His divinity as clearly as a  blazing light from heaven.

Then in vs.15, the apostle also includes the testimony of John the Baptist as to Christ’s divinity.  Listen to vs.15: John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”  You will remember the in the story of Jesus’ birth, Mary His mother visited Elizabeth who was already pregnant with John.  So John was about 6 months older than Jesus.  He was born before Jesus, and yet John is saying that Jesus existed before Him. That means that He was preexistent.  Eternal.  And immortality is another attribute of divinity.  And John the Baptist adds that Christ had a higher rank than him.  Jesus then was more than a great prophet, He is the Son of God.  John was the herald going before the king, but Jesus was the King.

John continues this great love story in vs16. The eternal God became human flesh and we beheld His glory.  So that His bride might receive that same glory. Vs.16, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”  Now what does this mean?  Well let’s start with the word “fullness.” It is really referring back once again to His attributes, all the attributes of God, epitomized by grace and truth.  John is saying Christ was fully God. 

Paul says the same thing in Col. 2:9, “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.”  So Christ is fully God in human form.  But then John says we received that fullness.  We received God’s fullness?  How does that work? It works because Christ died in our place to satisfy the justice of God, effectively purchasing us to become His bride, the church.  That divine spark that was extinguished in the fall of the first Adam, was rekindled in the Light of the second Adam, when we believed on Him and received Him as our Savior, and we were given the fullness of His righteousness, so that now the Spirit of God tabernacles within us.  His Light in us gives us the Light of life so that our divine spark in reignited.  The Word became flesh so that the glory of God might tabernacle in us.  So that we might be like Him.

Eph. 1:22-23 says about the exalted Christ “And He (God) put all things in subjection under His (Christ’s) feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”  We don’t receive a piece of the Holy Spirit, or a part of the Holy Spirit.  But we receive the fullness of deity in the Spirit of Christ who dwells in us.  Christ fills us with the fullness of the Spirit of God that we might exhibit the attributes of God to the world and so that we might be conformed to His image, made once more in the likeness of God.  That we might become suitable unto Him as a help mate. That we might become His spotless bride.

So John says not only did we receive His fullness, but we received grace upon grace.  Never ending grace is certainly one interpretation of that.  Grace that never runs out. Grace that is greater than all our sins. But even more to the point, I think it means we not only receive the gift of our salvation, but the gifts of the Spirit, and then we receive the gift of our inheritance; that we shall rule and reign with Christ – as the bride of Christ we will sit on the throne next to Him and share in His glory.  That shekinah glory of God that man could not look on and live, one day we shall share with Him. We will receive glory, glory like the glory that He has. 1John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”  That is the essence of the beatific vision, is it not? When we shall live forever in the light of His glory, so that His glory becomes our glory.  That is the fullness of joy.  And that is our inheritance. That is our future.

John says in vs 17, “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Someone greater than Moses has come.  The law given through Moses was a tutor to show us our need for Christ.  But when Christ came, He fulfilled the law, and we received grace and truth.

Up until that time, John says, “No one has seen God at any time.”  God cannot be seen by any man while he is in sinful flesh. But we have seen Jesus, and if we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father. Jesus said to Philip in John 14:9, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”  Vs.18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”  The Greek word is exēgeomai, which means to unfold, or explain.  It’s the word we get exegete from, which is the term we use to explain the style of preaching that I use.  I attempt to unfold the word of God, explain it, expand it, unpack it.  And that is what John says Jesus has done by coming in the flesh.  First in vs.17 John says Jesus manifested the attributes of God. Then in vs.18, Jesus explains God. The Word made flesh and dwelt among us, and then we beheld the glory of God in Him and through Him as He exhibited the attributes of God. And all of that is so that we might become like Him, to be united with Him as the church, the bride of Christ.

Well, that is enough for today.  But let me leave you with this thought. I want to leave you this morning looking forward to the coming of Christ for His church, for His bride.  That was the purpose of Christ coming to earth the first time, to prepare a bride for HIs return.  To become tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin and then to die for our sins so that we might become the children of God, the body of Christ, even His church.  Jesus is coming again for His bride.  This time He comes not as a baby in a manger but in the fullness of His glory as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. This time He is coming not in secret, but at the sound of trumpets.  In the fullness of His glory. He is coming for His bride.  I hope that He finds you ready to meet Him.